What was the last element discovered on the periodic table?

My friends and I love anything and everything to do with trivia.

Naturally, we have a team, which competes at a weekly trivia night, and I’m not at all embarrassed to say competition within our group for the right answer can almost be as fierce as that with our actual rivals.

Plus, there’s our love of the Sunday quiz, which can be a battleground all on its own.

Now normally I am pretty good at this, with specialities including the collected episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ancient Sumerian coinage and pottery.

But the last one I tackled stumped me on one particular question – the chemical name for silver. And I had no better luck remembering it than I did at high school.

The answer, of course was Au, but the footnote of the quiz explained the periodic table was, well, periodically updated.

So I decided to find out what the last element added was. And the ever-reliable National Geographic had the answer. Here’s an excerpt..

The new element doesn’t have an official name yet, so scientists are calling it ununpentium, based on the Latin and Greek words for its atomic number, 115.

In case you forgot your high school chemistry, here’s a quick refresher: An element’s atomic number is the number of protons it contains in its nucleus.

The heaviest element in nature is uranium, which has 92 protons. But heavier elements – which have more protons in their nucleus – can be created through nuclear fusion.

The man-made 115 was first created by Russian scientists in Dubna about 10 years ago. This year, chemists at Lund University in Sweden announced they had replicated the Russian study at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Germany.

Now, element 115 will join its neighbors 114 and 116 – flerovium and livermorium respectively – on the periodic table just as soon as a committee from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemisty decides on an official name (which, by the way, seems like a pretty political process).

Anyway, the full article has some pretty cool stuff on how scientists make an element and whether you can try it at home. The answer, to give you a hint, is no.

And yes we did look for any sign/mention of adamantium, but sadly came up empty handed.Wolverine would not be impressed.

Why isn’t Pluto a planet any more?

When I was growing up, we learnt a catchy phrase to help us remember the order of planets in the solar system. And it went a little something like this: “My very easy method just speeds up naming planets”. Or to give them their full names, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

Of course these days, you’d have to lose the word ‘planet’, since Pluto no longer qualifies as one. And why I knew this fact, I didn’t know why. So of course I turned to the arbiter of all things space – NASA.

And here’s what they had to say on the topic..

Why is Pluto not classified as a planet anymore?

In 2003, an astronomer saw a new object beyond Pluto. The astronomer thought he had found a new planet. The object he saw was larger than Pluto. He named the object Eris (EER-is).

Finding Eris caused other astronomers to talk about what makes a planet a “planet.” There is a group of astronomers that names objects in space. This group decided that Pluto was not really a planet because of its size and location in space. So Pluto and objects like it are now called dwarf planets.

Pluto is also called a plutoid. A plutoid is a dwarf planet that is farther out in space than the planet Neptune. The three known plutoids are Pluto, Eris and Makemake (MAH-kee-MAH-kee). Astronomers use telescopes to discover new objects like plutoids.

Scientists are learning more about the universe and Earth’s place in it. What they learn may cause them to think about how objects like planets are grouped. Scientists group objects that are like each other to better understand them. Learning more about faraway objects in the solar system is helping astronomers learn more about what it means to be a planet.

So there you have it. Size does matter. Wonder if Earth will ever come in for a category change?

Could a Sharknado really happen?

I don’t drop the word ‘glorious’ into conversation all that often.

In fact, I’m pretty sparing with its usage, saving it purely for such moments of awesomeness as the shirtless scene in Thor and Thor 2.

But every so often a piece of entertainment comes along that is so exquisite, so unique and so innovative that no other word will suffice. And so it is with Sharknado.

Now first, I should offer a disclaimer, which is that I am naturally pre-disposed to like this film.

I am obsessed with/terrified of sharks, am noted for my love of B-grade animal monster movies and am slightly famous for loving things other people consider crap. Plus, it has the ultimate in B-grade acting pedigree by way of Iain Ziering and Tara Reid. What’s not to love?

Anyway, while the nuances of the plot are non-existent would take far too long to explain, the official synopsis goes something like this: “When a freak hurricane swamps Los Angeles, nature’s deadliest killer rules sea, land, and air as thousands of sharks terrorise the waterlogged populace.”

And when they say terrorise they mean terrorise, with sharks appearing everywhere from helicopters, highways and manholes to living rooms as they bite people clean in half. At least until Iain – playing Fin Shepard – starts fighting back with a chainsaw.

In short, it is gory, blood-spattered, mind-blowing, ridiculous and glorious. With a subtle plot that points out a punchline from about 1km away and then smacks it right in the face. Like when the man says “My mum always told me Hollywood would kill me” literally a split second before he is crushed by the Hollywood sign. See what they did there?

Like I said, solid gold.

Anyway, I had to know who was responsible for writing this work of art. And as it turns out, his name is the equally glorious Thunder Levin, who did a great interview with iO9.

You can read the full Q&A transcript here – including the inspiration for the movie and whether alcohol was involved – but first, the burning questions that came to my mind as the DVD ran its course…

Is there any scientific basis, however tenuous, for Sharknado?

Yes. There are numerous confirmed reports of fish falling from the sky, sometimes even on a clear sunny day. We just took it to the “logical” extreme.

How are the sharks cognisant enough to keep biting people while they’re flying through the air?

If you were a shark and you found yourself flying through the air, wouldn’t you keep biting? I think you’d be pretty pissed about being plucked out of your nice familiar ocean where you’re king of the predators, and you’d probably take it out on whoever got in your way. Honestly, I don’t understand why people are so perplexed by this concept. The logic is undeniable.

Well sure, if you say so. Now check out the best scene from the movie…

What is a Supermoon?

Apparently it’s going to be open season for werewolves tonight. Not because I’ve cracked open the Twilight DVD again, but because there’s something called a Supermoon on the way.

Now, I assumed this was one of those titles that had been drummed up just to add sizzle to the spectacle, but it seems to be a pretty common term in the scientific community as well.

But what exactly is it? I turned to NASA from the answer. Here’s what Dr James Garvin had to say….

Question: What is the definition of a supermoon and why is it called that?

Answer: ‘Supermoon’ is a situation when the moon is slightly closer to Earth in its orbit than on average, and this effect is most noticeable when it occurs at the same time as a full moon. So, the moon may seem bigger although the difference in its distance from Earth is only a few percent at such times.

In other words size does matter.

For the record when the moon is closest to Earth – at its perigee – it seems 14 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter than when it’s furthest away, at its apogee.

Read more at the Christian Science Monitor which also reveals, among other things, that full moons come in different sizes because of its elliptical orbit.

Who invented Post-Its?

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion was on TV the other day. And while I didn’t see the whole movie, I did tune in just in time to catch my favourite bit.

It’s where Romy tries to take credit for inventing Post-Its, only to have her lie brutally undone by an acerbic Heather Mooney (Janeane Garofalo), who reveals they were really created by a guy called Art Fry from 3M.

It’s a cringe inducing catch-out, and the recriminations from the popular girls Romy is trying to impress are brutal. But it did inspire me to find out his story. The answers lay in MIT’s Inventor of the Week archives.

Turns out it all began with a colleague called Spencer Silver, a senior chemist in the company’s research labs, who had created a high-quality, low-tack adhesive that was strong enough to hold papers together but weak enough to let them pull apart without tearing. He freely shared his invention with colleagues but none could come up with a marketable way to sell the product. Until it came to Art’s attention. MIT takes up the story…

“Fry sang in his church choir and was frustrated by the fact that, when he stood and opened his hymnal to sing, the paper bookmarks he used to mark the songs on the program would slip out of sight or even on to the floor. In a moment of insight that has become legendary in the realm of contemporary invention, Fry, musing during a rather boring sermon, realised Silver’s reusable adhesive would provide his bookmarks with precisely the temporary anchoring he required.”

And thus the seed was sewn, resulting five years later in the official release of Post-its.

And for the record, the reason they were first created in yellow is because the original testing/playing around was done on some scrap paper, which just happened to be yellow, and the colour struck a chord.

And now, let’s watch the magic moment …

Did Isaac Newton really discover gravity when an apple fell on his head?

Every so often – usually when I’m recounting the alleged thievery of biscuits belonging to an understanding high school Physics teacher – my brain reluctantly turns its attention towards science.

So today I decided to put the focus to good use and look at the truth behind a popular scientific legend – that Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. And, like all the best myths from history, it seems to have at least a little grounding in reality.

I found one intriguing backgrounder on the topic at the Culture Lab blog at New Scientist, which profiled a historical manuscript that went on to become a biography of the scientist by William Stukeley, who was apparently told the following anecdote firsthand by Newton. He remembers the telling as such..

“After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank tea, under the shade of some apple trees…he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself…”

You can read the full manuscript here at the Newton Project, which is a non-profit group dedicated to making his unpublished and published works freely available online. If you have time, I do recommend it, as it offers some pretty interesting insights into the development of his theory on gravity and more.

Certainly he did more good with his apples than a certain snake ever did in the garden of Eden…

James Cameron dived into the Challenger Deep. What is it?

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had this fantasy about the ocean.

It involves draining all the water away – naturally while freezing time so the animals don’t die – and then wandering around to see what’s really down there.

I suspect the result would be equally terrifying and fascinating. I mean we already know about Jaws, Godzilla, Orca and the creature from Cloverfield, but I bet there’s a beast or two that would make them look like fluffy kittens.

Yet I imagine there would also be pretty some pretty cool stuff. And in the same way people say our jungles are full of scientific and medical breakthroughs we’ve yet to discover, I bet the same goes for the deepest part of our planet.

Someone who shares my fascination is uber-director James Cameron, who this week became the first solo person to reach the 11km Challenger Deep, an undersea valley in the Mariana Trench that is Earth’s deepest realm.

It was only the second manned dive into the Deep, the first being in 1960 when Lt Don Walsh and late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard made their journey in the bathyscaphe Trieste. Cameron completed his journey, which took just over two hours, in a one-man vessel that collected videos, photos and samples.

You can read more about his trip – and watch a video – at National Geographic, which is a partner in the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project. But I was inspired to learn more about his destination. So I set myself a challenge to learn a few facts about the trench. Here they are…

* The trench was created by ocean-to-ocean subduction, which basically means the Pacific Plate was forced underneath the Mariana plate.
* Measuring 11,033m deep, it lies in the Pacific Ocean.
* The trench stretches 2542km long and 69km wide.
* The pressure at its deepest part is more than 8 tonnes per square inch.
* Mt Everest – the highest point on Earth – would fit into the trench and still have almost 2200m of water above it.
* The deepest point, called Challenger Deep, is named after the British Royal Navy ship HMS Challenger II, whose crew made the first recordings of its depth in an expedition from 1872-1876.
* Four descents have been made to the bottom. As well as the two that were manned, the Kaiko reached the bottom in 1996 and Nereus in 2009.

 

Are strawberry lovers really duds in the sack?

Yet again dodgy internet providers put paid to my quest for knowledge tonight, forcing me to turn elsewhere to learn something new.

Fortunately I was well prepared for such an eventuality given I own more than 1000 books. And while a good 70% of those fall under the tiresome definition of chick lit I just knew there would be a gem to help me out. And there was.

It was a very old title called Fortune Telling With Food by Noriko Kuriyama, which promised, among other things, to unlock the secrets of your psyche depending on your breakfast/snack/lunch/dinner of choice.

Here’s a few of her findings:

* No one is more passionate than lovers of raw cabbage (or more flatulent, but that’s another story)
* Eggplant lovers love themselves too much
* Green onion lovers are jealous mates
* Potato lovers get along especially well with their spouses
* Turnip lovers do well in the stock market
* Fig lovers often become wealthy
* Grapefruit lovers marry for looks only
* Herring fans make mountains out of molehills

And finally, comes my, ahem, favourite – strawberry lovers don’t have good sex techniques but they can keep going a long time.

Anyone recognise themself?

Why is it considered unlucky to walk under a ladder?

Joan Rivers is sharp of tongue and mind. So it goes without saying I adore her.

Over the years – and along many red carpets – she has skewered fashion victims mercilessly and publicly, showing, dare I say it, a touch of the pot kettle blacks given her own obvious love of plastic surgery.

Her saving grace, in my eyes, is that she can always be counted on for a great one liner, many of them unrepeatable without the use of excessive asterisks. But here’s one of my g-rated favourites…

“I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.”

Now, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment already. But today it held even more relevance as I managed to fall off a ladder in the pursuit of domestic goddesstry and then step on a length of staples. Yes there was cursing!

To explain, I was already in a bad mood as I was into day two of Project Spring Clean and I hate cleaning almost as much as I hate vegetables.

But since I am in a de-cluttering mind-set I decided to aim high and check out what might be hiding alongside my pet dust bunnies in the highest and furthest reaches of my bedroom cupboard. So I carefully erected the ladder and started climbing, only to have it collapse out from underneath me, gouging out a chunk of the cupboard as it did so. Did I mention there was swearing?

Anyway, after I used chocolate meditative breathing techniques to calm down, the thought did occur to me that ladders aren’t only bad luck when you walk underneath them. And suddenly today’s inspiration struck – to find out where this superstition began. I found some theories at America’s Today show. Here’s what they had to say …

Walking under a ladder

Why would walking under a ladder be considered such a bad thing? Author and psychology professor Stuart Vyse said the ladder superstition is one that may have perfectly understandable and logical origins.

“Obviously, people may have had bad experiences; maybe something had dropped on their heads,” Vyse said. “So that’s not totally irrational.”

In his book The Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Richard Webster notes additional reasons for the belief:

“Walking under a ladder is believed to cause bad luck. No one really knows why, but at least three theories have been proposed. The most likely theory is that a ladder forms a triangle when placed against a wall. The triangle symbolises the Holy Trinity. Consequently, when you walk through it, you effectively insult the Trinity and attract the devil. The second theory concerns the use of the ladder in hangings. The ladder would be propped against a beam to allow the person about to be hanged to climb high enough to reach the rope. A third theory dates back to ancient Egyptian times, when people believed you might see a god walking up or down the ladder while you walked under it.”

So there you have it. Three theories from which to take your pick. Personally I think I was the victim of the God of Sloth, who wanted to remind me there were far better things to do with my time than clean.

Here’s the link to the superstition and the origin of others including why it’s bad luck to open an umbrella indoors and why the number 13 gives people the willies.

Is yawning really contagious?

Yesterday was election day in Queensland. And as I predicted, the ruling Labour Party was shellacked to the point where it may no longer even qualify as a party.

The avalanche of seats falling to the Liberal party was so all-encompassing it soon became boring. So the guests at a friend’s election party took to trying to get Channel 9 to show off their tweets.

Most of us failed but one friend, Rob, made the cut with this gem: “Please tweet this so Lisa has to pay me $5”. Which I did.  Although it made things a bit expensive when they persisted in showing it time after time after time.

Anyway, I ended up bailing early because I was so exhausted I couldn’t stop yawning and didn’t want  it to spread to everyone else. But as I shared my admittedly weak explanation, I suddenly wondered if this urban myth was actually true. There was only team I trusted to tell me the answer. The MythBusters of course.

And here’s the experiment they conducted on the topic.

MYTH: IS YAWNING CONTAGIOUS?

Explanation: A 2006 study found monkeys yawn in response to seeing other monkeys yawn. Could it be then that yawning is similarly contagious in humans, monkeys’ fellow primates?

MythBusters Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Scottie Chapman corralled unwitting volunteers to find out whether people unconsciously pick up this jaw-dropping behavior from each other. To that end, the MythBuster team converted a large van into a psychological chamber designed to relax participants and prompt them to unknowingly catch a yawn from Kari.

Many hours and many participants later, the MythBusters’ data showed that when people inside the van weren’t exposed to Kari’s yawning, they still yawned 25 percent of the time. But when Kari caught flies in front of them, they yawned 4 percent more often. Though that’s not an enormous increase, since they tested 50 people in the field, the gap was still wide enough for the MythBusters to confirm that yawning is indeed contagious.

STATUS: CONFIRMED

Yet that wasn’t the end of my discoveries for the day. On a whim I jumped into Adam’s biography only to discover he has quite the Hollywood background beyond the show. Which isn’t surprising when you discover his father was a puppeteer on The Muppets.

Here’s some interesting things he’s done  …

* Appeared in the video for Billy Joel’s Only Human (Second Wind).

* Worked as a model maker on everything from the Matrix trilogy and Galaxy Quest to Attack of the Clones and Home Alone 3.

* Played himself on The Simpsons.

* Worked on commercials for everyone from Burger King to Coca-Cola.

Pretty cool stuff, hey? And Jamie’s background is just as varied and interesting. But let’s save him for another time…