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Day 45

Post#45 Feb 25, 2020 Tue 00:21 AM

Do you know, sometimes, flights dump fuel in air, known as fuel dumping. But why do they carry extra fuel if they don’t even need this? Isn’t this a pure wastage of money, as well as source of pollution?

Definitely it is. But it has its own reasons. But the reason is more of a necessity of time, than a lack of planning.

All planes are designed with a standard weight limitation. It has a take-off weight limit and landing weight limit. Landing weight limit is around 10,000 Kgs less than the takeoff weight limit.

Plane weight is measured at different stages.

Dry Operating Weight: Without fuel and passengers

Zero Fuel Weight: With passengers and luggage

TakeOff weight: Zero Fuel Weight + fuel weight

Landing weight: Takeoff weight - consumed fuel weight

Landing weight is normally within the limits, but may have exceptions, when plane has to make emergency landings for some reason.

In this case, fuel has to be dumped to make plane landing weight within the limits, called as Fuel Dumping.

#LearningOfTheDay #FuelDump

Day 44

Post#44 Feb 24, 2020 Mon 23:00 PM

Why all airplanes are painted white?

Painting an Airbus airplane needs 1100kgs of paint, and just printing the logo needs around 500kgs of paint. So, if no paint is used, the plane can carry 5 more passenger’s weight with same structure.

So question is why does an airline company paints the airline, when it is increasing the operating cost.

Even the airline company used to think so earlier, and they didn’t use to paint their flights. But because of bad weather, and exposure of direct metal to atmosphere used to degrade the surface, which needed to be polished.

The polishing cost used to come higher than painting cost. So they started painting it white, after putting a green anti-corrosive paint.

White paints helps in detecting any dent or issue in flight, just by a simple pre-flight inspection, and also helps in getting better resale value. Not only this, it helps in identifying plane during rescue operation due to its high reflectivity. It also maintains temperature, because of high reflectivity.

#LearningOfTheDay #FlightWhite

Day 43

Post#43 Feb 23, 2020 Sun 22:58 PM

The problem with rockets is that they are expensive, mostly single use and occasionally have been known to explode. That’s why for over a century scientists and sci-fi writers alike have dreamed of creating a space elevator to ferry astronauts and payloads between the Earth and low orbit. But is this even possible? Can a building be so high that it can take people to space?

So yes, it is. Astrophysicists says it can be true. But what material can be so strong to handle so much of weight and pressure? Answer is: Carbon NanoTubes. Carbon NanoTube is 100 times stronger than Steel, and as flexible as Plastic. The steel tether is too heavy to be used as a full-sized space elevator, which must, of course, extend for tens of thousands of miles

Just like a ball tied to a pole using a rope is kept by giving the ball a perpetual motion around the pole, the same way a counter-weight attached to carbon-nanotube ribbon on Earth, will be kept straight. The centrifugal force at the space end of the ribbon will help in balancing the gravitational force applied on the earth side.

The ribbon will be thin like a paper, and just few centi-meters wide.

The space elevators are planned to be built around equators, where hurricanes and tornadoes are scarce. Also, it needs to be planned to keep it safe from terrorist attack as well.

The elevator would go as high as lower earth orbit, or geo-stationary orbit, where satellites can sync the position for transportation for cargo or men.

A space elevator would create a permanent Earth-to-space connection that would never close. While it wouldn't make the trip to space faster, it would make trips to space more frequent and would open up space to a new era of development. It would significantly lower the cost of putting cargo into space. Although slower than the chemically propelled space shuttle, the lifters reduce launch costs from $10,000 to $20,000 per pound, to approximately $400 per pound.

Japan’s Obayashi Corporation, is already doing lots of research in this, and have designed a prototype for this.

It is assumed, whichever country finishes this first, will rule space.

#LearningOfTheDay #SpaceElevator

Day 42

Post#42 Feb 22, 2020 Sat 16:34 PM

Have you noticed flights have two different coloured lights on its two wings: Red and Green?

Do you know the reason?

These are called Position/Navigation Lights.

Red is always on the left wing tip, green on the right, each beaming two rays at 110 degrees.

These lights are used to reduce the collision, mostly during night time. At night time, the flight is not clearly visible, except the colourful light, which indicates, which direction flight is going, whether it is coming towards, or have crossed you.

Example: if pilot sees green colour on Left, it mean the flight is coming towards, and has crossed if green light is on Right side.

#LearningOfTheDay #FlightPositionLight

Day 41

Post#41 Feb 21, 2020 Fri 22:55 PM

Is space cold or hot? I used to think, its hot when closer to Sun, and closer otherwise. But, there are so many stars in universe. Sun is not the only one. So now you may say, it’s hot.

But, no, It’s neither hot, nor cold. Universe stays in extreme temperature. Sun has 10,000 degrees at surface, but the average temperature of space is -455F.

Heat travels through radiation, as infrared wave. These waves excite molecules, when they come in contact with them, causing them to heat up. The radiations only heat up molecule which comes in the path, everything else stays chilly.

Thatswhy temperature on Mercury at night can br 1000 degrees lower than morning one.

Earth maintains a moderate temperature by its atmosphere, which distributes the heat using convection, conduction and radiation.

Space is a big vaccum, and has very less gas molecules, causing it difficult to do conduction or convection, thus causing extreme temperatures.

#LearningOfTheDay #Space #HotOrCold

Day 40

Post#40 Feb 20, 2020 Thurs 21:34 PM

Why do astronauts wear only orange or white suit? Is it simply just the universal uniform colour defined for them? Why doesn’t anyone experiment with different colours?

Dude, they are astronauts. Every act of their is very precisely calculated, so it their suit design.

The two different suits they use are:

Advanced Crew Escape Suit, a.k.a Orange Suit and

Extra Vehicular Activities(EVA) Suit, i.e, White Suit

Orange suit is worn during lift-off. It is a high pressure suit, and very crucial for going to high altitudes, as pressure is very low there. The suit is also equipped with different stuffs for survival during launch or landing of flight. It has flares(for signalling, I guess), survival gear, medications, radio and a parachute.

But the colour orange is selected, as it is a very visible colour for search and rescue, including sea rescue.

White suit provides protection from outer space conditions, i.e., extreme temperature, vaccum, and flying debris. So it is thicker and heavier than orange one. It contains numerous layers of insulations and protective fabric. It contains breathable air, drinkable water, and temperature controls(for surviving in both hot and cold condition). A tether ties an astronaut, when he goes for a space walk. In case, the tether breaks, the suit can be controlled by a joystick inside the space ship.

Now coming to its colour, white reflects the heat better than any other colour, keeping astronauts cool. Also, a small white spot is easier to spot in dense black space.

#LearningOfTheDay #SpaceSuitColour

Day 39

Post#39 Feb 19, 2020 Wed 20:12 PM

Ever noticed, cat has vertical pupil, but goat and horses have horizontal one. Tigers, like humans have round pupil.

There are many research conducted around which supports the fact, that shape of eyeball evolved from the ecological niche (that is, hunting/searching mode)

"If you have a vertical slit, you're very likely to be an ambush predator." Those are the kind of animal who lies in wait and then leaps out to kill. These predators need to accurately judge the distance to their prey, and the vertical slit has optical features that make it ideal for that.

But that rule only holds if the animal is short, so its eyes aren't too high off the ground. So cats has vertical slits, but tigers do not have.

In general, round pupils seem to be common in taller hunters that actively chase down their prey.

Meanwhile, if you're the kind of animal that gets hunted, you're very likely to have a horizontal pupil and to have your eyes on the side of your head. That makes sense, he says, because it gives prey animals a panoramic view, so they can best scan all directions for danger.

#LearningOfTheDay #PupilStructure

Day 38

Post#38 Feb 18, 2020 Tue 21:50 PM

Do you know, it is almost impossible to outrun an animal in running. But why do animals run faster than us.

The answer lies in our feet structure, and the way we walk.

We walk with the whole sole, but animals just walk on their soles.

Based on their feet structure, terrestrial mammals are of three types:

Digitigrade: who walks on its digits i.e., toes

Plantigrades: who walks on its sole

Unguligrade: such as horses and cattle, who walk only on the distal-most tips of their digits, i.e., hooves, in contrast to Digitigrade, whose more than one segment of digit makes contact with ground.

Digitigrade and unguligrade animals have relatively long carpals(fist bones) and tarsals(feet bones), so the bones which would correspond to the human ankle are thus set much higher in the limb than in a human, making them look taller.

Mostly the part of the feet/hands that we see in animals, is just the fingers/ toe bones of humans.

The primary advantages of a plantigrade foot are stability and weight-bearing ability; plantigrade feet have the largest surface area.

The primary disadvantage of a plantigrade foot is speed. With more bones and joints in the foot, the leg is both shorter and heavier at the far end, which makes it difficult to move rapidly.

But it does enhance their fighting performance.

Digitigrade can actually run at a speed of around 80km/h, whereas humans can go only 30km/hr max. It also depends on individual stamina.

Humans can outrun horses though.

Fun fact: Bears are also plantigrade, but they can run around 40km/h, so never try to get into a fight with a bear.

#LearningOfTheday #HumanVsAnimalWalk

Day 37

Post#37 Feb 17, 2020 Mon 22:30 PM

Tails are like opinions, everyone has that. Then why not humans?

Even our closest relative, monkey has a long tail.

Tails have taken different roles in different species. Birds use it for steering, some use it for storing fat, some for maintaining balance.

Though Gorilla and chimpanzees don’t have. (closer to human species)

Why? It is an evolutionary process, and the answer lies in the way we walk. Our big brain enabled us to think of better ways to walk. We started walking upright, keeping our head on top. Thus we didn’t need any tail on back to balance the head. The tail became vestigial, and disappeared slowly.

But it has not disappeared completely. We do have small tail bones at the end of the spinal cord, so it never did completely go away.

#LearningOfTheDay #HumanTail

Day 36

Post#36 Feb 16, 2020 Sun 23:55 PM

Mosquitos are one of the most irritating insects on earth, and has existed even in the age of dinosaurs.

You know, that only females suck blood, i mean female mosquito, Dude! Males suck nectar.

But if males can survive without blood, why do females need it? They need it to breed eggs. blood is rich in Protein and Iron, which is needed for breeding of eggs.

A mosquito takes 3 minute of continuous sucking to completely fill its stomach. After a full meal, it needs a day off to digest the food, and then it lays eggs in still water, and then the cycle continues.

A mosquito has razor sharp teeth to cut through skin, and the mosquito sting has actually inspired medical researchers to work on less painful needles.

How a mosquito bites?

A mosquito, when it stings, injects its saliva immediately in the blood stream. The mosquito saliva contains many enzymes, which .prevents blood clotting, improve blood flow. It also injects a local anesthasia, which is why you don’t feel anything until the mosquito leaves, and the bite mark starts itching. The itching is because of the allergy caused by the enzyme.

How a mosquito finds its prey?

The mosquito can sense its prey using sweat smells, or body odours, CO2 emissions, and probably by body heat. Mosquito can sense even tiniest amont of CO2 for a great distance.

So how does mosquito repellent work?

Mosquito repellants(AllOut) contain mainly pyrethrin extracts which is a nerve poison. It also paralyses wing muscles and so have knock out effect.

Whereas odomus contains DEET (diethyl tolbutamide) which is also a mosquito repellent, and also removes the normal body odour.

DEET interferes with neurons and receptors located on the mosquito’s antennae and mouth-parts that detect chemicals such as lactic acid and carbon dioxide.

Fun fact: Humans are not the favourite prey of mosquitos. And according to a research, more aggressive you are towards them, more are your chances to come in their block list. :-P

#LearningOfTheDay #Mosquito

Day 35

Post#35 Feb 15, 2020 Sat 23:02 PM

Well, I always used to think, pirates wear eye mask to cover the eye, which they have lost in some epic battle. But No, I didn’t know, that my whole life was a lie.

Thats not even a fashion statement for them.

They have intelligent reasons for that. They do it so that they can prepare their eyes to look into dark.

An average eye takes 25 minute to adapt when it goes from bright light to complete dark. A pirate fight may move from over the deck(with bright sunlight) to under the deck(complete darkness), and their eyes need to adapt pretty quick to fight efficiently. In that case, they just need to remove their patch.

Quite interesting, huh? Our eyes has become so adapted to see in light, our dark vision has become almost null. We can use patch to use both eyes optimally, one for night, one for daylight.

Just kidding. :-P

#LearningOfTheDay #pirate #EyePatch

Day 34

Post#34 Feb 14, 2020 Fri 23:41 PM

Valentine’s day. Well many of us might be thinking on this day, if they could move time backwards.

Well, moving time backwards pictures my mind with a clock dial moving anti-clockwise.

But what is this clock-wise and anti-clockwise? Who decided, which is clock direction, and which is anti to it.

This decision was actually influenced by the early sundials. In the northern hemisphere, sundials trace an east-to-west route through south. As most of the civilizations grew around northern hemisphere, when initial clock were developed, the sundial shadow movement direction was considered as clock direction. This got adopted across the world as clock-wise direction.

Fun fact: In southern-hemisphere, a sundial shadow would move in east-to-wast direction through north, i.e., anti-clockwise direction.

#LearningOfTheDay #Clockwise #Anticlockwise

Day 33

Post#33 Feb 13, 2020 Thurs 23:33 PM

Why is blood taken from veins, not arteries.

To understand it fully, i would suggest reading my previous post. If you have already read that, this post should be super-easy and super-interesting to you.

Reasons are:

1. Veins are closer to skin, so you don’t need to suffer excess pain due to deep needle prick.

2. Veins walls are thicker. You know why.

3. Blood pressure in vein is lower than that of arteries. You would definetly not want a stream of blood coming out after an injection.

I guess I won’t we wrong to relate why deeper cuts blood flow doesn’t stop easily. Probably you must have cut an artery.

#LearningOfTheDay #VeinVsArtery

Day 32

Post#32 Feb 12, 2020 Wed 23:13 PM

My curiosity for today, made me read about this post. I’ll discuss that curious question in next post.

In this post, I’ll talk about the blood vessels: Arteries and Veins.

Arteries and vessels are part of two closed systems of tubes that begin and end at the heart.

The two tubes are: Pulmonary and Systematic.

Pulmonary vessels connects lungs and heart.

Systematic vessels connect heart to rest of the body.

Pulmonary arteries takes oxygen-poor blood from heart’s right ventricle to lungs and Pulmonary veins bring back oxygen-rich blood from lungs to left atrium.

Systematic arteries then carries oxygenated blood from left ventricle to rest of the body, and systematic veins brings back deoxygenated blood from body to right atrium.

If we look at the structure of both vessels, both consists of 3 similar layers, but arteries has thicker layer, as it has to withstand the pressure of a pumping heart.

On the other hand, veins has valves, to maintain the flow of blood towards the heart, especially in hands and legs, as they have to fight gravity there.

Blood Capillaries are tissues which connect arteries and veins to body parts, and act as the sites of the transfer of oxygen. RBCs carrying oxygen and other nutrients enter the capillaries, and get absorbed in body. deoxygenated-RBCs, along with CO2, and other waste leave the capillaries and enter into vein, to be carried back to heart.

#LearningOfTheDay #Arteries #Veins #BloodFlow

Day 31

Post#31 Feb 11, 2020 Tue 23:37 PM

After hiccups, it is time to learn about burp. You must be thinking, why am I being so nasty? But it’s a natural thing, bro.

So, what causes these burps. It is nothing but the by-product of what you eat, sometimes this might even be the main product. So, do we eat the air, that comes out with burp?

Answer is yes.

Burps happen when air from your stomach travels back up your food tube – called an esophagus – to your mouth. The air, either comes from direct ingestion, or may be produced by the bacteria which breaks down food in your stomach(the smelly one).

This is also the reason, we get more burping, when we drink something which has air in it, like carbonated drinks.

Burping is important. If you don’t let the air in your stomach up and out, it heads down deeper into your digestive system. It can cause a lot of bloating and discomfort in your intestines.

Now why does burp makes noise?

As the burp travels up the esophagus, it hits up against a closed, valve-like structure called a sphincter. Trapped behind that sphincter muscle, the gas builds up a lot of pressure. The high-pressure air makes the structures in the upper esophagus and back of the throat vibrate – and that’s what causes the sound.

If you gently open up your sphincter, it lowers the pressure in your esophagus and allows for less intense vibrations, thus a fainter sound.

So what happens if you have other gasses in the digestive system that are too far down to come up as a burp? That gas can become a fart. When you fart, gas leaves your body through another closed, valve-like structure – a different sphincter. This one happens to be called the anus. :-P

Fun Fact: In some culture, like South Asia, Burp is acceptable, and considered that the person enjoyed the food.

In most culture, like Japan, it is considered unacceptable.

Bye! No more nasty talk. Goodnight.

#LeraningOfTheDay #Burps

Day 30

Post#30 Feb 10, 2020 Mon 23:44 PM

Hiccups, such a common thing, but a biggest mystery of medical world.

Scientists have not figured it out yet, that why do we get hiccups? But then, why am I wasting your time here with this blog, if I don’t know the reason?

So, I will talk about “HOW” part here. How hiccups happen.

For this, we need to understand a little about human body structure. Diaphragm is an internal respiratory organ, that separates lungs from abdomen. When we breathe in, the diaphragm contracts and pulls in, drawing in air in the lung. Opposite happens while breathing out.

So, now happens some mystery act, which irritates this nerve connecting diaphragm, which makes it contract, thus simulating breathe-in mode. The lung then tries to pull air, which is stopped/opposed by vocal cord in throat, by closing itself suddenly, creating the “hic” sound.

This involuntary, repetitive contraction of diaphragm, thus eventually closing of voice box, is called “HICCUPS”.

Some scientists also compare hiccups as an evolutionary practice, derived from tadpoles. When tadpoles breathe through gills, instead of lungs, their brain sends a signal to close the glottis, in order to prevent water to enter lungs.

Hiccups is something similar of a concept.

Fun Fact: Hiccups are very common behaviour in fetuses, and they hiccup almost once every day. Newborns also hiccup a lot, and the frequency keeps decreasing as they grow. But hiccups are assumed to play a beneficial role in their development, which again is not clear, how?

#LearningOfTheDay #Hiccups

Day 29

Post#29 Feb 9, 2020 Sun 23:44 PM

Ever noticed, that blood sampling, or pricking for the purpose is only done at ring or middle finger. Why is that?

There are small fluid-filled sacks, called bursae, wherever bone crosses muscles. These bursae in thumb, as well as small finger is connected to the whole hand, but in the middle two fingers, it is restricted to those fingers itself.

Thus, the three fingers are safest for needle pricking, as the infection, if any, would be contained.

The index finger, as well as thumb, as used a lot, has thick hardened layer of skin, called callus, making it a little difficult to penetrate.

Thus middle, and ring fingers are the safest and best option.

Also, left hand is preferred over right, as left hand is supposed to be used less.

Fun Fact: 1st drop is always discarded during blood sampling, as the blood closer to outer skin might be contaminated by tissue fluid, or any microorganism.

#LearningOfTheDay #BloodSampling #FingerChoice

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