Assignments for "The Philosophy of Chemistry"

The Philosophy of Chemistry

From my understanding, the philosophy of chemistry tries to answer questions such as why can't we put our hands through walls if 99.9% of an atom is space?

It is necessary to unite theory and application. Or else, what is theory good for?

I think it is important to proceed scientific investigations within a philosophical framework. That would help scientists keep the big picture in mind while looking into all the little details.


Aspartame
Here is an excerpt from the FDA website:
"FDA calls aspartame, sold under trade names such as NutraSweet and Equal, one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved. The agency says the more than 100 toxicological and clinical studies it has reviewed confirm that aspartame is safe for the general population."

It is disgusting that FDA will stand by the likes of aspartame and many other harmful drugs with severe side-effects or known to be have high health risk, while banning herbs like Ephedra (ma huang)--which has been safely used in China for more than 4,000 years--because it was a possible cause for death due to misuse*.

*Ephedra was used for thousands of years in China to treat asthma. Just before it was banned by FDA, it was mainly used in the west for weight loss and energy boost by athletes.


The Healing Power of Chocolate
How can we rationalize about chocolate? Chocolate is a something that if you like it, you would eat it no matter what. If you don't like it (probably only Ashley), then you probably won't eat it just for health reason.

Memory and Magic

It is a topic I think about from time to time and this articles just reinforces my thoughts on the fallicy of perception.

memory and magic...underneath them there is always desire --the wanting of something so badly that even if it is not real, you still want to live it, even if only in your mind.

To live is to know

What does it mean to know something? Most living organism know things by intuition. For example, animals can sense when an earthquake is coming. Baby birds that fell on the ground learned how to fly and how to survive in the wild.

The Tao Teh Ching says,
Learning consists in daily accuulating;
The practice of Tao consists in daily diminishing.

We human beings are the only ones who learns things by the book, and we accumulate a lot of second-hand knowledge that we only know by our intellect instead of our intuition.

Not saying that book knowledge is worthless. But we have to be careful to not let it replace our intuition.

Cell biology and TCM

I remember our earlier discussion of structure and pattern.

Watching how the cell divides definitely reminds me of how our own physical structure is built upon patterns. Look at any structure and you would see an underlying pattern. Cell divisions are patterns. Patterns are in everything--the way cell divides, or how our heart beats, how the pulse feel, how chords progress in a music composition, how the sun rises and set every day, how history repeat itself....

It is not a this vs. that world. The more we understand the body the better. It is not good to get caught up in the mechanistic details and ignore the whole big picture. At the same time, having knowledge of how thing works at a cell level (the foundations our structure) can greatly enhance our appreciation and understanding of our beings.

Mitosis and Meiosis

It is nice to see the processes in juxtaposition. However, my eyes could go to one at a time. Also, it would be nice it moves a little slower. I wonder what is the time frame of a real cell division.

Link review

Virus Structure

The image of virus on the page looks more like a mechanical thing than a living organism. According to the article, unlike bacterias, viruses are actually not living organisms in the strict sense of the word, because they cannot carry out teir life-sustaining functions or reproduce without a host cell.

So these little guys' sole reason for existence is to hijack the cells and functions of their host, without even having a life of their own--born to kill without conception of life.

It is all very bizarre.

Diversity of species in my immediate environment

In my household, the only moving beings are me and my rabbit. When I first moved here in January, there were a lot of ants, which i have trouble getting rid of. Now they just disappeared. Must be because it is warmer now.

I have a few potted plants. It would be nice to have more greens in and around my home too.

I live in apartment building with 20+ units yet I rarely see the other inhabitants.

It is a very disconnected, isolated place...right at the heart of Berkeley.

Ethics of Gene therapy

On "Scientists guilty of 'hyping' benefits of gene research"

I certainly can't agree with how some scientists are exaggerating the progress and usability of stem cells research in order to gain support. Lord Winston said that "it is unlikely that embryonic stem cells are likely to be useful in health care for a long time." Well, if that's true for using 100% human stem cells, then what's the likelihood that using non-100% human stem cells would work?

General, Organic and Biochemistry links review

I especially like the "Electrolyte" animation. It walked us through the whole experiment and illustrated that NaCl is a stronger electrolyte than ethyl alcohol and acetic acid. It was pretty cool to see the light bulb going off.

My other favorites are "Osmosis" and "Leak Detection."

Definition of Biochemistry

I think the Wikipedia page has a more in-depth explanation of what biochemistry is. I ended up reading about alternative biochemistry.

" Since humans are carbon-based beings and have never encountered any life that has evolved outside the earth’s environment, excluding the possibility of all other elements may be considered carbon chauvinism."

It would be really interesting to see if non carbon-based life forms are possible.

Semi-conductor of the Week

A soft, heavy, toxic and malleable poor metal, lead is bluish white when freshly cut but tarnishes to dull gray when exposed to air. Native lead does occur in nature, but it is rare. Currently lead is usually found in ore with zinc, silver and (most abundantly) copper, and is extracted together with these metals.

Lead is used in building construction, lead-acid batteries, bullets and shot, and is part of solder, pewter, and fusible alloys. Like mercury, another heavy metal, lead is a potent neurotoxin which accumulates in soft tissues and bone over time.


Fun Facts:

-Lead's symbol Pb is an abbreviation of its Latin name plumbum. The English word "plumbing" also derives from this Latin root.

-The largest current source of lead is recycling, primarily of automobile batteries.

-Transmutation of lead into gold isn't just theoretically possible - it has been achieved! There are reports that Glenn Seaborg, 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, succeeded in transmuting a minute quantity of lead (possibly en route from bismuth, in 1980) into gold.

-There is an earlier report (1972) in which Soviet physicists at a nuclear research facility near Lake Baikal in Siberia accidentally discovered a reaction for turning lead into gold when they found the lead shielding of an experimental reactor had changed to gold.

Chemistry online games Results

Chembalancer

This site is great. I like the games. I got 9 out of 10 right on the "Review Chembalancer" and 4 out of 5 on the "Brain Boggle Chembalancer."

Wished I had rescources like this when I had high-school science. Not fair!

Science Education Tutorials and Practice Exercises
For some reason, I only see a blank white box where the tutorial should be. Maybe I am missing a plug-in?

Links review

The Color of Minerals

I like the images. It definitely helps to see the photos of minerals and their color instead of visualizing it.

I like the Luminescence page.

I am most intrigued by bioluminescence. So that's what the fireflies glow is!

Alkaline Earth Metal-Magnesium

I started researching about the element but was immediately drawn to what its functions in our bodies.

Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body and is essential to good health. Approximately 50% of total body magnesium is found in bone. The other half is found predominantly inside cells of body tissues and organs. Only 1% of magnesium is found in blood, but the body works very hard to keep blood levels of magnesium constant.

Magnesium is needed for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body. It helps maintain normal muscle and nerve function, keeps heart rhythm steady, supports a healthy immune system, and keeps bones strong. Magnesium also helps regulate blood sugar levels, promotes normal blood pressure, and is known to be involved in energy metabolism and protein synthesis.

Good sources of magnesium:
Green vegetables, some legumes, nuts and seeds, whole grains...

Looks very green and brown to me.

Colors in my Fridge

A lot of beige/brown/white, some orange, red, purple, green, dark green.

Also have a box of mochi (Japanese rice cake) my mom gave me which has FD&C Red #3, Yellow #5, Blue #1

I have to admit that even though I have a lot of greens in the fridge, Fuji eats more of it than I do.

Science Toys

I wish we have a lab to science experiments at AIMC. But I guess we don't even need a lab to do these experiments. They do seem easy and fun to do. I like the idea of using household materials. It's like in art classes where we would transform ordinary, worthless "trash" into something interesting.

Alchemy – science, magic, art – or all three?

At first, when I came across the topic of alchemy, I kept asking in my head, "Why did they want to do that? What's the point?" I would like to believe that you can transform other metals into gold. However, what I believe is not important to the alchemist. It is more important for the alchemist to keep on believing in the possibility, to keep yearning.

What do a scientist, a magician, an alchemist, and an artist share in common? A deep yearning, a sense of wonder, the belief in what they do, and the will to pursue something that other people may think is unreal.

Halogen of the Week--Iodine

Elemental iodine is a dark grey solid with a faint metallic luster. When heated at ordinary air pressures it sublimes to a violet gas. The name iodine is taken from the Greek ioeides which means "violet colored". It was discovered in 1811 by Courtois.
Commercially iodine is recovered from seaweed and brines. It is an important trace element in the human diet, required for proper function of the thyroid gland. Thus iodine is added to table salt ("iodized") to insure against iodine deficiencies. Radioactive isotopes of iodine are used in medical tracer work involving the thyroid and also to treat diseases of that gland.

What is a Mole? Link review

The information was so dense on that page that I just kinda got lost in it. I think that's because of how the page is laid out. It was just a gray mass to me after a while.

Avogadro's Hypothesis

I got the first question wrong.

"When the results of those experiments are as predicted, it lends support to the hypothesis as a good explanation, and its eventual acceptance as a theory."

I guess I confused theory with scientific law.

Inert Gas of the Week--Krypton

Krypton is a far-distant planet which was the home world of Superman until it exploded into fragments as the result of a cataclysmic chain reaction originating at the planet's core.

Okay, now Krypton the inert gas.

Krypton is characterized by its brilliant green and orange spectral lines. Krypton is present in the air to the extent of about 1 ppm. The atmosphere of Mars has been found to contain 0.3 ppm of krypton. It is a rare and expensive gas. Because of this, uses and application is limited. Krypton is used in certain photographic flash lamps for high-speed photography. Some fluorescent light bulbs are filled with a mixture of krypton and argon gases. Krypton gas is also combined with other gases to make luminous signs that glow with a greenish-yellow light.

Atom Economy

I learned that atom economy describes the conversion efficenty of a chemical process in terms of atoms involved. In an ideal chemical process the amount of starting materials or reactants equals the amount of all products generated and no atom is wasted.

Catalyst of the Week

Antimony (Sb)
No. 51 on the Periodic Table.

More than 90% of all polyester worldwide is currently produced using an antimony. Other than antimony, titanium and germanium catalysts are used in some specific fields. Each exhibits its own catalytic activity and has both advantages and disadvantages. Although much research has aimed at modifying these catalysts, a solution that thoroughly satisfies market needs has yet to be found. Antimony catalysts lead to the problematic formation of insoluble particles and the gray discoloration in polyester, encouraging businesses to try non-antimony catalysts, a trend of recent.

Hmm...does that mean that if I buy a purple polyester fleece sweater, it will turn gray eventually?

Living with Chemicals

First of all, I found this site that seems to have green+easy recipes for homebrewed cleaners:
http://www.thegreenguide.org/article/diy/household

********************
I just moved here so I haven't accumulated a collection of chemicals under the sink YET. Hopefully I can keep it that way.

In my old apartment, I used Simple Green a lot. It is biodegradable and non-toxic, and can be used to clean just about anything. Also, vinegar+water for wood floors is great.

But here is a list of what I have under the sink:

Combat Ant Baits--Quick Kill Formula:
Active ingredient: Fipronil..........0.01%
Other ingredients: .......................99.9% (not individually listed)

All I know is this thing doesn't work. The ants just keep coming back. Any one know of a green, possibly humane, way to get rid of ants?

Trader Joe's Next to Godilness Multi-Purpose cleaner:
Water, cedarwood and clary sage essential oils, grain alcohol, natural surfactants, color and water.

Trader Joe's Next to Godliness Liquid Laundry Detergent
Vegetable and Coconut derived/based surfactants, earth salt, soy based fabric softener, cellulose optical brightener, lavender oil, water.

the different forms of carbon

Graphite and Diamond are both polymorphs of carbon (there are other polymorphs). Although there share the same atom, carbon, they have very different structures and very different properties.

Graphite has a sheet like structure where the atoms are strongly bonded (covalent bond) within a 2-D plane and are only weakly bonded to the graphite sheets above and below. Diamond has a framework structure where the carbon atoms are bonded to other carbon atoms in 3-D.

Bonding links

Of all the links posted this week, I found WATER CONCEPTS on the edinformatics.com site and Chemical Bonding on the visionlearning.com site the most helpful.

For a visual learner like me, diagrams and animations really help to drive things home.

The Water Molecules in Motion animation on Edinformatics.com is my favorite. Bonding between these atoms are a little like that of bonding between humans. In the animation, I saw a network of family and friends. There are a few people in my life who I am so close to that I can't picture myself ever separating from, people who I have real connection with and our bond is always in flux, and then there are those who touch my life for a much briefer period of time and after we part our ways, I don't know if I would ever see them again.

On Neptune's Medicine Chest

Yet another untapped resource and potential on Planet Earth. Discovering new natural medicines that cure diseases is great news itself. My main concern is, can we tap into this resource without over-exploiting it and upsetting the ecosystem even more than we have?

Besides Fenical's research, we also see a general trend among natural health food enthusiasts in intaking more sea vegetables. Many people believe that sea vegetables have the richest source of nutrients on Earth, especially given how depleted farm soils are. If this trend continues, it seems like it would be only a matter of time before we ruin the ocean.

So we have ruined the land resources, and the ocean is next? Then, after the ocean, what else do we have left?

Mercury

Mercury is a naturally occurring element that is found in air, water and soil. It exists in several forms: elemental or metallic mercury, inorganic mercury compounds, and organic mercury compounds.

Elemental or metallic mercury is a shiny, silver-white metal and is liquid at room temperature. It is used in thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs and some electrical switches.

Inorganic mercury compounds take the form of mercury salts and are generally white powder or crystals, with the exception of mercuric sulfide (cinnabar) which is red. Inorganic mercury compounds have been included in products such as fungicides, antiseptics or disinfectants. Some skin lightening and freckle creams, as well as some traditional medicines, can contain mercury compounds.

High levels of mercury in the bloodstream of unborn babies and young children may harm the developing nervous system.
Almost all people have at least trace amounts of mercury in their tissues, reflecting mercury’s widespread presence in the environment. People may be exposed to mercury in any of its forms under different situations. The primary way people in the U.S. are exposed to mercury is by eating fish or seafood containing methylmercury.

Ozone Talk (Week 2)

Talked to my friend Marty.

"What do you know about Ozone?"
"Not much."
"Nothing at all?"
"ugh...The ozone layer?"
"Yes! Tell me more!"
"Listen, I know a lot about a lot of things, but when it come to science, sorry, can't help you."

Maybe I will try someone else this week for a better answer.

Link Review (Week 2)

The chemguide.co.uk site is informational, very clear, if not a little dry.

The Purdue site for Elements, Compounds & Mixtures has good animations that explain the difference of the three very well. Too bad they don't have similar pages for other concepts.

Cadmium (Element of Week 2)

Symbol: Cd
Atomic Number: 48
Atomic Weight: 112.411g

Here is a brief description of cadmium from webelements.com:

Standard state: solid at 298 K
Colour: silvery grey metallic
Classification: Metallic
Availability: cadmium is available in many forms including foil, granules, pellets, sheet, powder, rod, shot, sticks, wire and "mossy cadmium".
Cadmium is a soft, bluish-white metal and is easily cut with a knife. It is similar in many respects to zinc. Interestingly, aa characteristic cadmium "scream" is heard on bending a cadmium bar (such as that illustrated above). Cadmium and its compounds are highly toxic. Silver solder, which contains cadmium, should be handled with care.



So that's how Cadmium looks like?

Frankly, metallic compounds and minerals almost always interest me most as an artist. As a painter, I work with paints. Paint is made from pigment and binder (ideally). Pigments are usually mixtures of chemical compounds. Here is what I can tell you about paint: TITANIUM WHITE is the whitest white, very opaque, almost always used with ZINC WHITE. Though some people prefer LEAD WHITE for skin tone because it's an easy mixer and less pasty. MANGANESE BLUE has an ice-blue undertone unmatcehd by any other pigments (but it's not really made from Manganese). COBALT BLUE is good for skies...



And then there are CADMIUM yellows, oranges, reds...

For painters, CADMIUMs are synthetic organic pigments that are brilliant, opaque and the deeper shades had the greatest tinting strength. They are colors that a lot of painters can't live without. Expensive paints, and toxic too. They are strong colors to use and have good permanance ratings, excepted when mixed with COPPER-based pigments. As paint, CADMIUMs are synthetic organic pigments and they weren't produced until 1840. (the metallic cadmium was discovered in 1817) That means painters before that time never used this paint. Chemistry (and science) has always played an important part in the development of art.

This site can tell you way too much about paint:
www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/pigmt1.html#pigmenttypes

Chemistry: Week One (Part 2)

Disappearing flowers, submerged islands, rising temperature, decline of food stock...The health of our planet is certainly in rapid decline. These few years, whenever I think of this subject, a mixed bag of emotions will always come up: on one hand i am frustrated at our government policies and people who leaves heavy environmental footprints without remorse; on the other hand, I feel despair about the state of our planet.

Much of what we discussed centered on the need of reducing the negative effects of chemicals and global warming. But is it too late to save the planet? If we will all be doomed in 50 years, should we still bother trying?

For me, the answer is yes. Because from holistic point of view, a lot of the things we can do to help save the planet is also healthier for our beings and our society.

For example, a society less dependent on automobiles doesn't only mean less dependency on energy supply. But cities built around pedestrians/public transportations often have more vibrate street life, more foot traffic, which means more locally-owned stores; less money that is needed to be spent on roadwork, less obese citizens, more relaxed environment and more public space. People who are car-free or car-lite also tend to get more exercise from walking and bicycling and save money ...The list goes on and on.

I have been trying to find ways to simplify my lifestyle. What I found is that most of the time, I ended up saving money and time, having a greater peace of mind...and reducing my environmental footprint!

As students of Chinese medicine, it is important that we not only look at specific cause/effect, but rather look at patterns of disharmony and treat the whole. We can certainly look at the problems of our current state of our world with the same mind.

Chemistry: Week One (Part 1)

http://chemistry.boisestate.edu/rbanks/inorganic/chemistry/chemistry.htm
Quiz results:

1)
Burning wood: Chemical change
Crushing Rock: Physical change
Dissolving sugar in water: Physical change
Rusting of Iron: chemical change

2)
Milk: Mixture
Table Salt: Mixture
Sugar: Pure substance
Steel: Mixture

3)
d...
(Saw that the answer is b. don't quite get it. How can something be impure but homogenous?

4)
d.