Why Catnip (and Olives) Causes Crazy Kitties

By Ryan | Published: August 22, 2011

Dear LSNED,

Why do cats go crazy over catnip? Also, “a cat I know” acted strange after getting into some olives. Are they related?

-Percival Fluffington

Dear Percy,

First off, not all cats react to catnip. It appears to be genetic. Up until a kitten is three months old, they don’t care for catnip at all. After that, only about half of cats go ga-ga for it. If a cat’s parents are sensitive to the ‘nip, than the kitten likely will be as well. If only one parent delights in catnip, the offspring have a fifty-fifty chance of acquiring the taste.

Sadly, that seems to suggest that catnip as a source for human entertainment will fade out over the generations.

Catnip is a plant closely related to oregano, basil and spearmint. What makes it special is the presence of nepetalactone, a compound found within the oils that burst forth from catnip when it is rubbed or chewed. The scent of the nepetalactone is what drives cats nuts.

There is no conclusive study to say why cats have the reaction they do, but the flopping acrobatics of a cat rolling around the floor seems to be a common occurrence.

Bonus fact: Nepetalactone is also a strong insect repellent, ten times more effective than DEET. It can be found in some natural products to save you from bugs. Unfortunately, the compound degrades quickly and the repellent only lasts a couple hours.

Now, as for olives, which is a well documented cat stimulant,  it is most likely caused by the presence of oleic acid in the olives. This is a main ingredient of the pheremone that cats spread around when they rub their chin on something. For the same reason, cats have been known to go wild over squished ants, which also contain the oleic acid.

Floppingly Yours,

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Your Face Came Together At Your Upper Lip

By Ryan | Published: August 19, 2011

Dear LSNED,

You know those two little bumps between your nose and your lip? What is that called, and why is it there?

-Bumpy Lips

Dear Bumpy,

In the medical textbooks, the focus isn’t so much on the two bumps, but the groove or dip between them. This groove, which extends down from your nose to your lip, is called the philtrum.

The bumps serve no purpose themselves, but are in fact a remnant, a seam if you will, of the way your face developed when you were about 6 months away from being born. In that sense, it is not unlike the bumpiness of a scar where a deep cut has grown back together. Three parts of your face actually grew together, joined, and fused into one solid and lovely you right at that very spot.

Being that we develop no different than most other mammals (gasp!), you’ll find other animals with prominent philtrums. Many dogs and cats have a noticeable gap that runs up the middle of their nose. As written about a while back here on LSNED, camels have a completely split upper lip, with independent control over each side.

About 1 in 700 babies may be born with a cleft lip, or “hare lip”, wherein the upper lip has not completely joined together, leaving a bit of a gap. This is often corrected by surgery when they are about 6 months old.

Getting lippy,

P.S. I came across an interesting video from a BBC documentary that features a computer-generated look at how your facial feature form in the womb. Really neat!

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The Science of a Hot Potato

By Ryan | Published: August 12, 2011

Dear LSNED,

Why do I always burn my mouth when eating potatoes? Why do they stay so hot?

-Hot Tater

Dear Ms. Tater,

It is true that, long after the asparagus has gone cold, your baked potato will be deliciously, or perhaps dangerously warm. The reason behind this is the high heat capacity of a potato.

Technically speaking, heat capacity (or “specific heat”) is how much heat is needed to change the temperature of a substance by one degree. This specific measurement lets you compare the heat capacity of different things on an even scale. Potatoes, above freezing, weigh in at 3.43 kilojoules of energy to raise 1 kilogram of potatoes one degree centigrade.

However, asparagus has a specific heat of 3.94, meaning it holds heat better than a potato. So, what now?

Well that is a measure of the amount of heat held per a specific weight of the vegetable in question. Potatoes trump asparagus in the density department. With more than twice as much density, an equal serving of potatoes and asparagus would have the potatoes staying warm twice as long.

Another important part of your supper’s ability to retain heat is conductivity and surface area. The heat from your food gets transferred to the cooler air around it, and the more it is in contact with the air, the faster this transfer can take place. For this reason long skinny french fries will cool much faster than a solidly round baked potato. (a sphere is the best shape for minimal surface area to maximum volume)

So when your asparagus comes out of the oven at the same time as your potatoes, start with the greens to save yourself from a burning mouth.

Warmly Yours,

 

 

 

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Your Toothpaste Ingredients Are Not Trying To Kill You

By Ryan | Published: August 11, 2011

A quick search on the internet machine reveals that a lot of people are very concerned and suspicious about the ingredients in their toothpaste. Let’s face it, the thought of putting Dicalcium Phosphate Dihydrate in your mouth may sound a bit scary.

For the concerned consumer, there is actually a big market out there for natural and organic toothpastes.

Personally, I tend to be quite practical about these sorts of things. I generally begin with some basic assumptions, that… A) Just because a corporation is large, does not mean it is trying to cause harm to people and B) People buy “natural” alternatives because they feel they ought to be better, without really having any knowledge about it one way or the other.

So let’s go inside the tube to see what’s in your standard Colgate brand toothpaste. Each ingredient is there for a reason. They break down into either active or supporting ingredients. Active ingredients are there to clean your teeth, and the supporting ingredients help the active ingredients do their job.

Abrasive Polishing Agent – The primary job of toothpaste is to scour your teeth the same way you would clean gunk off your stove. In toothpaste the abrasives are relatively gentle so as to not remove the enamel from your teeth. A standard abrasive would be Silica.

Historically, Silica was one of the first “tooth powders” that was used centuries before toothpaste was invented. It can be found naturally in the earth.

Fluoride – To prevent tooth decay. While some people are fear-mongering over fluoride in the water supply, the benefits have been made massively clear over time. Medical evidence against is sparse.

Surfactants – Usually this is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, the same ingredients found in shampoo to cause foaming. The reason for this is that it helps spread the toothpaste around your mouth, and moves away debris.

Moisturizing Agent – As toothpaste sits on your shelf for a couple months, it would dry to a flaky powder without some help. Glycerin and Sorbitol do the job, keeping it a gooey paste.

Binding Agents – As with many chemical compounds, individual ingredients don’t always get along. Hydrated Silica, Cellulose Gum, and Carrageenan make sure that the parts do not separate or settle.

Sweetener – To cover up the bitter flavour of the main ingredients Sodium Saccharin is added. It’s an artificial sweetener, like Aspartame, but has just the right amount of sweetness for most adult tastes.

Flavour – No mysterious ingredients here. If you buy peppermint toothpaste, it will contain some form of peppermint. Baking Soda flavoured toothpaste will contain Sodium Bicarbonate (that is baking soda) which also acts as an abrasive and lends a little assistance to fighting bacteria.

Whitener – For toothpastes that claim to whiten your teeth, the active ingredient might be Hydrogen Peroxide, which effectively is a bleach, and/or Titanium Dioxide, which is the same little white flecks of metal used to make white paint. Health-wise, the peroxide is more harmful than the titanium, but the latter really only “paints” your teeth temporarily.

That’s it. So relax, and smile your beautiful smile. Colgate is not trying to kill you, they are just trying to let you feel good about your teeth.

While some people like to point out that toothpaste shares some ingredients with rat poison, it’s a bit like saying your car uses some of the same metals as a ballistic missile. Does that make you want to drive a car made out of compressed wood chips?

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Why don’t bottle caps get recycled?

By Ryan | Published: July 22, 2011

Recycling is kind of the cool thing to do these days, which will have to do until we get better at the “reduce and reuse” parts. You may dutifully recycle your plastic beverage containers on a weekly basis, and if you’re following the local guidelines, you’re probably dutifully removing all the bottle caps before they go in the bin. But why?

Why are all these bottle caps going in the trash? Why can’t they be recycled, too?

Well, the bottle caps can be recycled. Most any plastic can be recycled, but it gets tricky because of all the different kinds of plastic. In order to melt together, two pieces of plastic must be nearly identical in molecular structure. If they don’t mix together, the resulting plastic will be useless for manifacturing. For that reason, any plastic recyling process must be kept pure.

The different types are clearly marked with a Plastic Identification Code. The PIC number is usually found on the bottom of the bottle, inside the recycling-arrows-triangle-thingy. Soda and water bottles are type 1, which means polyethylene terephthalate. That kind of plastic will not mix with the type 4, low-density polyethylene, bottle caps. The bottle label must also be separated, as it is probably type 7, the catch-all “other” category.

Recycling depots ask that you remove all bottle caps for a multitude of reasons. First, they don’t have to transport all the leftover liquid still sealed in the bottle. Second, the bottle caps can get stuck in processing equipment. Third, a sealed bottle could explode during processing. And finally, they don’t want to remove the cap themselves.

Not that they are lazy. It’s a profit=driven decision. In order to make money recycling, when your cut is pennies per bottle, the system has to move fast. The time it takes to pick up a bottle, remove the cap, and set it aside may not seem like much, but multiply that by a thousand a day and we’re talking a serious efficiency hit.

So, most often, the bottle caps end up in the trash simply because they are a hassle to deal with. However, they are just as recyclable as the bottles. In my neighbourhood you can collect your bottle caps in a separate container and bring them to the depot for recycling. The local processing company donates proceeds from the recycled material to a children’s charity. Ask your local bottle depot if they can do anything with your caps.

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How you can score love in tennis

By Ryan | Published: June 28, 2011

If you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places, try your local tennis game. Event the most inexperienced player will have no trouble finding love on the court.

In tennis scoring, love means zero. This is believed to come from the French word l’oeuf, for egg. The egg shape signifies a round zero, just as they say “goose-egg” in American baseball.

In the English game of cricket, a batsman can be said to be “out for a duck”, which came from the idea of a duck’s egg referring to a zero score.

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Transformers: Electromagnets in disguise

By Ryan | Published: June 16, 2011

It’s easy to shrug off electricity as a mundane part of life, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like magic. Electricity is the passing of electrons, the tiniest part of an individual atom, down the line from one atom to another like a hot potato. This electron flow is what occurs along our power cords.

Positively charged electrons surge towards negative charges like water going downhill. If we put things like lightbulbs in the path, we can put the electron flow to our own use.

What our electrical engineers have accomplished over the centuries is a thing of beauty. Let’s take a closer look at an electrical transformer to see how nature has been reigned in.

The goal of a transformer is to convert the voltage of an electric current to a different voltage. Most commonly seen in the “wall wart” that takes the 120 volt electricity from the wall socket, and converts it to 7 volts to charge your mobile phone without causing it to explode.

The construction of a transformer is essentially simple. Just three parts. One incoming wire, one outgoing wire, and a specially shaped hunk of iron. The wires are wrapped around the opposite sides of the iron core, and there you have a transformer.

The amount of conversion depends on the number of times each wire is wrapped around the core. To convert 100 volts in to 10 volts out, you could wrap the incoming wire around 100 times, and the outgoing wire gets wrapped 10 times around the core.

The two wires do not touch. The incoming wrapped wires turn the iron core into an electromagnet, and through the process of induction, the magnetic flux creates voltage in the second outgoing wire. See, I told you it was like magic.

Your car has a transformer in it, called the ignition coil, that converts the electricity from your 12 volt battery into a charge of 20,000 t0 50,000 volts to send to the spark plugs so they can ignite the gasoline. That takes a lot of turns of the wire!

Of course, in the realities of electrical engineering transformers have a lot of added complexity to increase efficiency and safety, but at their core (literally) it all comes down to wound up wires.

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