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The Strange Case Of Phineas Gage

Long before the advent of neuroscience, brain injuries have been used to deduce how the brain is organized into separate regions handling separate tasks. Consider the case of Phineas Gage, a 19th-century railroad construction foreman whose life was dramatically changed when a dynamite charge went off accidentally and blasted a 3 1/2-foot long, 1 ...

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PhineasGage
Biology

Botrytis: The Noble Rot

Gray mold is a common disease of small fruits (e.g. strawberries) and flowers (e.g. petunias) in warm, humid weather. It is caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea, which produces huge numbers of ... Continue reading

BotrytisTheNobleRot
Astronomy

The Big Bang Model

The Big Bang Model is a broadly accepted theory for the origin and evolution of our universe. It postulates that 12 to 14 billion years ago, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few ... Continue reading

TheBigBangModel
Physics

Don't Make Waves

Fast and slow swimming pools? What are they? A given pool's walls and other components may create and reflect waves making it more difficult (slow) for athletes to swim. A fast pool minimizes wave ... Continue reading

SwimmingPools
Physics

What Makes a Frisbee Fly?

If you have ever been to the park or the beach, you've probably seen one of these plastic discs flying through the air. We're not talking about a UFO, we're talking about the Frisbee, more commonly ... Continue reading

Frisbee

Starburst, No, Not The Candy

StarburstAstroA starburst galaxy is a galaxy experiencing a period of intense star forming activity. Although this activity may last for ten million years or more, that is like a month in the life of a ten billion year old galaxy. During a starburst, stars can form at tens, even hundreds of times greater rates than the star formation rate in normal galaxies. Many of these newly formed stars are very massive and very bright, so starburst galaxies are among the most luminous galaxies.

The burst occurs over a region a few thousand light years in diameter. The most popular theory for the cause of a starburst is that it is triggered by a close encounter or collision with another galaxy. This collision sends shock waves rushing through the galaxy. These shock waves push on giant clouds of gas and dust, causing them to collapse and form a few hundred stars. The massive stars use up their fuel quickly and explode as supernovas, which produce more shock waves and more star formation. In this way, a chain reaction of star formation and supernovas can sweep through the central region of a galaxy, where most of the gas is located. When most of the gas is used up or blown away by the explosions, the starburst ends.

The infrared satellite IRAS discovered thousands of starburst galaxies. Many of the new stars remain surrounded by dust and gas for a million years. Their light is absorbed by the dust, which radiates away the heat as infrared radiation. The 'heat radiation' produced by hot sidewalks on a summer day is infrared radiation. Starburst galaxies are rare among nearby galaxies, but they were common many billions of years ago. The universe is expanding, so galaxies were much closer together in the past and collisions or close encounters were more frequent, causing more starbursts.