Quake devastation...and tracking what went wrong with Japan's nuclear reactors

At my house the TV is tuned to the Japanese channel for NHK’s coverage of the damage and devastation from Friday’s earthquake. It’s relentless coverage of the dead and missing, shots of people who have evacuated to shelters, bell chimes sounding new earthquake warnings, and the latest from the Fukushima power plant. 

Everyone is comparing the situation at Fukushima to past events: it’s worse than Three Mile Island but not as bad as Chernobyl. But will it become worse than Chernobyl? That’s unclear, but here are some sources to understand what is going on:

NPR has a visual guide to what went wrong inside the nuclear reactor. So far there have been explosions at 4 reactors. NPR is also tracking the latest news on the reactor.

A more detailed explanation of the fundamentals here.

Although people are concerned about the health effects of radiation exposure, this article from the Washington Post brings up the psychological damage that may have just as much significance.

And my summary from what I've gathered so far:

After the earthquake and tsunami the plant lost the necessary power to cool the fuel rods. The fuel rods contain fuel that generates heat through nuclear fission. The temperature of the fuel rods must remain stable to prevent a “nuclear meltdown” that could result in radiation leaks. With the cooling system failing, too much water boiled into steam and increased the pressure within the reactor. The power plant workers vented steam outside of the reactor to reduce the pressure, but they also added cooling water and caused hydrogen to build up inside the reactor. The steam and hydrogen gas were vented into the air and a hydrogen explosion occurred.

Also, I am following the updates on the situation at Fukushima because it's interesting and because there are health risks, but there is so much going on in Japan beyond what I can fathom. Ganbare Nippon!

Ars Technica science video contest winners

Last week Ars Technica chose the winners for their science video contest in December:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/02/ars-announces-the-science-video-contest-winners.ars

These videos were fun to watch, and they ALL succeed in teaching you something about science while entertaining you.

Two videos explain the concept of a fourth dimension. One of them has an excellent soundtrack and the other one has a really good narration.

There was also a video about the Doppler effect!! That's one of the physics concepts that is the most fun to explain to others...and in that video it looks really good when you animate the Doppler effect.

To explain how antibiotics work, one video animates M&Ms and Twizzlers to great effect.

Last but not least the Large Hadron Collider is explained without any talking. That one was exciting to watch. When they show the "99.9991%"-ish number, are they talking about the speed at which the protons are accelerated?

Man, it would be so fun to pull off a video on this level...

Just for fun

My friend and I just submitted a video to the Ars Technica science video contest! Anyone can submit a video with a science topic related to biology, physics, or math.

This friend from work is into photography and we have fooled around with the video on her camera for some "internal marketing videos" at the office. So...we decided, why not, let's make a science video.

Here it is: How Making Music Works

It's nothing fancy so don't expect anything. But I like the drums, piano, and glasses of water that we demo.


And now I really respect anyone that makes videos! It's hard to plan out every shot and takes teamwork. But it's also fun and this contest makes me want to try some more!

More pirate puzzles

Finally I posted the next puzzle in the pirate's adventures on an exotic island. What will the pirate do when he meets the island natives? Find out and see if you can help the pirate avoid certain death with some logic skills!
Pirate Adventures with Math (Look for puzzle no.2)

Some simple math/logic puzzles

I've been doing a couple math puzzles here and there and thought I'd add a story to these puzzles because...why not? Everything is more fun with a story!

These are some simple logic puzzles encountered by a pirate when he visits a strange and exotic island...

So far I've posted puzzle number 1! You can read it on the 'Pirate Adventures with Math' page that links to this blog.

Is coffee good for your health?

“I’m going to cut down on the coffee,” resolves a coffee drinker who may have an addiction problem. Caffeine sometimes lends coffee a negative spin. The withdrawal effects of a caffeine addiction can be pretty bad: headaches, anxiety, mood swings, and nausea. On the other hand, too much coffee at once can make you jittery and on-edge and increase your heart rate. People talk about the “post-caffeine crash". For the first couple hours you’re speeding through your work, and then the energy is gone and you want to keel over. From personal experience, drinking coffee before you sail out on a small boat will make you spew it back out again (apparently it’s from the acids in the coffee).

But many recent studies report the health benefits of coffee. According to these studies coffee may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, liver cirrhosis and liver cancer, Parkinson’s, and coronary heart disease to some extent or another. Other studies show that coffee can boost athletic performance and may possibly increase your lifespan. There always seems to be a new study popping up to report some health factoid like:

• Coffee drinkers with a modest intake, two to four cups per day, had a 20 percent lower risk of heart disease compared to those drinking less than two cups or more than four cups.

Okay?! So tomorrow I can wake up, drink three cups of joe, and tell myself, “This daily ritual is making me less susceptible to heart disease!”

Or can I?


A scientific study can only do so much to influence your health habits. There are reports out there saying that it takes more than 6 cups of coffee daily to get any significant health benefits. That’s good news for a heavy coffee guzzler, but 6 cups for me? No thank you. I’d be bug-eyed, anxiety-ridden, and sitting on the toilet for the better part of the day.

Sometimes those health articles have links to the original study, so I clicked on a couple links and found:

Study #1: from the Journal of the American Heart Association about “Tea and Coffee Consumption and Cardiovascular Morbidity and Mortality”

Study #2: from Hepatology about coffee consumption and the risk of liver cancer.

The strengths and limitations of a study have to be considered for it to be scientifically valid. Both studies I looked at follow a large number of participants (about 37,000 participants in one of them) for a long time (13-19 years). The studies tracked how many people got coronary heart disease (CHD) and liver cancer, respectively. The actual number of people diagnosed with CHD (1950 people) and with liver cancer (128 people) was relatively low. The number of participants and the long follow-up are good, but is 128 people big enough for a good statistic? Working with a small number of diagnosed participants could be a limitation.

Other limitations include self-reported data - people may lie about their health habits. Also, the studies attempt to adjust for other health factors like the history for a particular disease (e.g. diabetes), age, educational level, smoking and alcohol habits, weight, etc. These adjustments are made to establish that coffee consumption is the cause, not a correlation.

Interestingly, in the first study, tea and coffee drinkers were found to have opposite health habits. Tea drinkers tended to have healthier habits, whereas coffee drinkers tended to smoke and drink more, weigh more, and even had a lower educational level.

It’s also interesting to compare the health trends for the population samples of different regions. The liver cancer study focused on a Finnish population with high coffee consumption and a low risk of liver cancer. The Finnish population sample is advantageous because the variables in question are much better isolated. Previous studies with Italian and Japanese populations were obscured by higher rates of liver cancer that could be attributed to multiple factors.

These studies also lend some insight into the chemicals at work in tea and coffee. Caffeine and diterpene alcohols in coffee “could increase cardiovascular risk by increasing serum cholesterol and decreasing insulin sensitivity.” But coffee also contains chlorogenic acid with antioxidant properties that could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. “More research necessary”, of course.

These studies offer fun facts and health bytes, but how much influence do they actually have?

When you get down to it, health advice is simple and straightforward. “Everything in moderation” is a good dose of common sense. Most articles on coffee conclude that coffee has been around for a while, and you don’t need to feel guilty about drinking it in moderation. Too much may get you wired. Too little? Well, you probably don’t need to care. Considering your own personal health background and making your own lifestyle choices speaks to common sense more than following a couple numbers and statistics.

Horse racing made easy, brought to you by your local physicist...

What is it about physicists? The other day I came across an xkcd comic that sums it all up.

Have you heard that one horse racing joke? It pretty much goes the same way. There's a breeder with a stable of race horses and he's looking for a plan to make them winners. So he asks a biologist, a chemist, and a physicist if they can come up with a solution.

The biologist says, "Yes, I can develop a breeding technique to give you the fastest and most powerful horses! In a couple of horse generations you'll have a stable full of winners."

The chemist cuts in and says, "My solution is much faster than that. I can concoct a drug for you to give to your horses. It will increase the speed of your horses by 10%, with the side effect that the lifespan of your horses will decrease by 10%."

The physicist looks up from her notebook and says, "I've got the solution! Okay, guys, let's first assume that each horse is a perfectly round sphere..."

I love those scientist/engineer/mathematician stereotype jokes. If you have a good one, send it along! :)