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The Richter Magnitude Scale

Seismic waves are the vibrations from earthquakes that travel through the Earth; they are recorded on instruments called seismographs. Seismographs record a zig-zag trace that shows the varying amplitude of ground oscillations beneath the instrument. Sensitive seismographs, which greatly magnify these ground motions, can detect strong earthquakes ...

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Medicine

How a Horse Can Save Your Life?

Most people who have been vaccinated with the smallpox vaccine never really question what exactly was injected into their body. If they did, they might be surprised, and maybe thank a horse or two. ... Continue reading

HorseLife
Geology

What is Volcanic Ash?

Small jagged pieces of rocks, minerals, and volcanic glass the size of sand and silt (less than 1/12 inch or 2 millimeters in diameter) erupted by a volcano are called volcanic ash. Very small ash ... Continue reading

VolcanicAsh
Biology

Will That Be One Hump or Two?

Camels are highly adaptive to their environments. Often called the ships of the desert, they have been domesticated by humans for thousands of years, as beasts of burden and as transportation. What ... Continue reading

Humps
Physics

Fission and Fusion

In the nuclear fission process, a heavy atomic nucleus spontaneously splits apart, releasing energy and an energetic particle, and forms two smaller atomic nuclei. While this is a normal, natural ... Continue reading

FissionandFusion

The Blood-brain Barrier

BloodBrainIn the human brain, there are approximately 400-425 miles of capillaries. Because the brain is basically a small neurochemistry factory, which makes our behavior a function of its interior chemical balances, the brain must protect its own chemical integrity by carefully controlling the levels of chemical substances in the brain's blood supply. That safeguard comes by way of a blood-brain barrier (BBB), where entry into the brain is restricted to the familiar chemicals for which the brain has initiated or orchestrated production. This barrier is present in all vertebrate brains.

The blood-brain barrier, which is composed of the lumenal and the ablumenal membranes, develops during the first trimester of human fetal life. However, if a foreign chemical has a molecular structure similar to one of the neurotransmitters used by the brain, the intruding chemical will often enter the brain undetected, which can wreak behavioral havoc. This is how hallucinations and other sensory perception distortions occur.