Life!?

There are probably many blog entries with that titles out there, about many different things, most of which are probably complaining about the awful day someone had, but this blog entry is not about that. No, this entry was inspired by an astronomy lab that I did on Wednesday, where we discussed the characteristics of life and whether or not certain things were alive or not. Here are some of the characteristics the two other members of my lab group and I came up with, with the help of the professor:

• being born and dying
• growing and developing
• evolving
• responding to stimulus
• consuming nutrients, turning it into energy, and excreting waste
• interacting with its environment
• being made of living cells
• having re-production as a goal
• possessing unique DNA

I would like to do the same sort of exercise as it pertains to one of my favourite substances of all time. It has been called by many names: magic mud, oobleck, non-Newtonian fluid (basically corn starch and water).  I prefer the term "goop" as it is the one that I grew up with.The reason it is one of my favorite substances is because it's a paradox and I love paradoxes. It's basically a metaphor for life. We won't get into that right now, but that is why I decided to use it for this question of what is alive and what isn't.
Goop is created and it can decay, so that is kind of like dying. I suppose it doesn't grow and develop, unless you count the mixing and the decaying. It doesn't evolve, really. It definitely responds to stimulus. The cornstarch may soak up the water and then the water may evaporate but the goop does not turn that into energy which is a key step. I want to say it does interact with it's environment because I feel like it would react differently in different environments that include different stimuli. While it is very likely that the water in goop contains some bacteria, I wouldn't say that goop is made of living cells, since if you somehow removed all of those bacteria, then it would still be goop. I doubt that goop has reproduction as a goal; I've never asked it, but I doubt it. And obviously, goop does not possess it's own unique set of DNA.
In conclusion, as most of you probably hypothesized, goop is not a living thing. I thought this was probably the case, however according these characteristics neither would God be, and if there is a God, then I think it would be a Goop God.

*Gasp!* Maybe it is alive!

Maria Face

Disclaimer #1: I apologize for the brevity of this blog entry; this week, it is unrealistic to expect myself to be able to write more. 
Disclaimer #2: The content of this blog entry is a little bit on the gross side. I apologize for that too.

Dreams of Space

When we are little kids, so many people ask us what we want to be when we grow up. These people assume that we have no knowledge of the economy, the education necessary, or the real working conditions of said employment. Their assumptions are usually correct. For us, the possibilities are endless. 
I would put forth that as young adults and...not as young adults, we still have these inclinations at the back of our minds, even if they may be stifled by worries about school and money.
I will tell you that for me, there are two jobs that it would be amazing to occupy. In a world without these obstacles, perhaps I would be chasing these dreams right now. I am not, however, and mostly likely I never will.

The first of these is contemporary dancer. I love watching So You Think You Can Dance, especially the contemporary performances. The way the dancers use their bodies to express emotion, convey ideas and transmit experiences is beautiful and inspiring. Moving across the stage, they look so free. I would love to be that free.
However, I quit ballet class when I was eight or nine and then I moved and the classes in the city were much to expensive. As the years passed I gravitated toward my other interests,as if the mass of those other passions was greater, and the rotation faster than my love of dancing. Sorry, I had too.
Anyway, the second position that I can only occupy in my dreams in astronaut. As you probably already know, becoming an astronaut takes years and years. First you have to study a lot of science, which is just plain not an option for me and my brain. Then you being your rigorous training. For that you need to be super healthy, which I am not really. The third obstacle to my becoming an astronaut is fear of space. That's right, I have a fear of space. 

Then why on earth (haha, get it?), you might be asking, is she taking an astronomy course and writing a blog about it? Why would she ever want to be an astronaut? Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is because that fear is coupled with an intense fascination. It is still there, however. There's something about the shear vastness of the universe, and how little we know about it. I would be afraid of getting lost in it. Also, that episode of The Magic School Bus where Arnold's head freezes didn't help much; even as a kid I knew there was no way they could have just thawed him out like they did on the show and have him be fine and dandy.
So, since I will never actually go into space, I would like to find out a little bit more about what it would be like if I did.

Most people are familiar with the "weightlessness" that astronauts experience, but have you ever really thought hard about all the implications of that weightlessness? First of all, astronauts have to sleep strapped in into their bed, with their beds strapped to walls, so they don't just float around and bump into stuff. It makes eating pretty interesting as well. Those things are kind of amusing but there are also some legitimate health issues that arise without gravity. In space, since the muscles don't need to exert themselves to counteract gravity (by walking, or picking things up, or just moving around), the muscles start to deteriorate. To keep this from being too much of a problem, astronauts have to spend several hours a day exercising. Also, since no weight is being put on the bones, astronauts often suffer from bone loss which can increase risk of breaking or fracturing. Furthermore, lack of gravity means a lot of the blood ends up rising to the head which--as you know if you've ever hung upside down for a while, say watching an episode of Little Bear--can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea. It's not good for you. The rest of your body needs that blood, I'm pretty sure. The up side of all of this though, is that before these effects started to take their toll, one could probably do some pretty amazing contemporary dancing if they weighed nothing.

Those aren't the things that would scare me most about going into space, however. What scares me most is the possibility of there being some kind of accident--something failing to work, something exploding, something detaching. Accidents in space are usually a big deal; the wearing away of insulation around a wire in the Apollo Saturn in 1967 caused the deaths of three astronauts when it sparked and set the craft on fire; in 1971 a valve accidentally opened on the Soyuz 11 mission and the whole crew was asphyxiated; in The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986, all seven crew members were killed when the spacecraft broke apart over the Atlantic ocean, seconds after taking off.
So, do I think it's worth it to go into space with all of these dangers? Yes, absolutely. I'm just not going to do it.
So, in closing, the moral of this blog post is...follow your dreams, if you've got the guts.

SOURCES

http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEM6TIWJD1E_LifeinSpace_0.html

http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMOD6XDE2E_LifeinSpace_0.html
http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMSC6XDE2E_LifeinSpace_0.html
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/space/lectures/lec12.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11#Death_of_crew
http://www.lifeaftercubes.com/2010/08/10/finding-a-hobby-in-korea/cdldancers_018c2l-775510/
http://egotvonline.com/2011/06/03/astronaut-spacewalk-pictures/
http://www.iafastro.net/index.php?id=911
http://www.wreckedexotics.com/articles/011.shtml