Vincent Summers, Author at Quirky Science

19Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 2 Comments

What Makes Ice Slippery Compared to Other Solids? A Combination of Factors?

[caption id="attachment_17673" align="alignleft" width="380"] Image: Tvb hof - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0[/caption] “Be careful if you will be driving this evening,” the weather forecaster declares. “The road will be a sheet of ice.” Whether tar and gravel, asphalt, or concrete, roads most of the year are not slippery. Yet come winter, those roads can be dangerously slippery. What makes ice and icy roads so slippery? What Makes Ice Slippery One line of thinking is that ice is slippery because water (H₂O) expands as it freezes. When a heavy object rests upon a sheet of ice, the pressure imparts energy to the molecules immediately beneath the weight, pressing them down, melting it. The water acts much like a lubricant, making the ice slippery. In truth, if the ice is reasonably…

17Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 2 Comments

Differences between Spider Silk and Cocoon Silk

Chemistry, Technology

[caption id="attachment_17656" align="alignright" width="440"] The Madagascar golden orb spider silk cape. Image CCA-SA 3.0 Unported by Cmglee[/caption] Spider silk and cocoon silk... What, if any, are the differences between these two materials? Spider Silk: An Overview Spider silk is a derivative of the structural protein fibroin, which consists largely of alanine (ALA) and glycine (GLY) amino acid sub-units. These two acids constitute about 67% of the total. Serine and other amino acids make up the remainder. There is a variety of forms of spider silk. Different specific glands are responsible for the different forms of silk. Most notable among silk varieties are dragline silk and capture silk. How do these two varieties compare? Dragline Silk Dragline silk is strong, but possesses a measurable degree of flexibility and extensibility. This variety…

13Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 2 Comments

A Chance Encounter Leads to a Rendezvous with History

Genealogy, History

[caption id="attachment_17629" align="alignright" width="440"] The Breakers Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ.[/caption] A rendezvous with history? One day, a car group of about four of us were traveling through Arrington in Nelson County, Virginia. We turned on to a road called Cold Storage Lane. It soon formed a V-intersection with Copperhead Road. The wedge of land was thin, like a slim slice of cheesecake, and it was easy to see into the woods. Then one of us noticed a stone or two—grave stones. Likely it was a small family graveyard. I asked the driver to stop, as I would sometimes transcribe a small graveyard—write down the inscriptions appearing on the stones—and put them online for others to view. The stones read as follows: Presented by the Employees Of the Breakers Hotel…

10Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 3 Comments

Where Do Trees Come From? From Heaven or Earth?

Chemistry, Plants

Where do trees come from, from heaven or earth? This is not the philosophical discussion it might at first seem to be. Even in the Bible, heaven sometimes refers, not to the residence of the Almighty, but to that region of the atmosphere in which birds fly.¹ Do trees come from the soil or from the air? Most would probably say, “from the soil.” But is that the case? What are trees primarily made of? Largely they consist of cellulose and sugar, although there are smaller quantities of other substances. Cellulose is simply sugar molecules linked together with the loss of a single molecule of water between each sugar molecule. The molecules that build up a tree are carbon-based. There are traces of other substances, but only traces. For instance,…

10Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 1 Comment

Cedar Apple Rust Gall – A Troublesome Look-Alike

Biology, Plants

[caption id="attachment_17604" align="alignright" width="440"] Eastern red cedar rust gall. Image Ohio Department of Natural Resources[/caption] I live in Nelson County, Virginia. I frequently travel the county and as I do, I always look around for whatever I can discover. I’m sort of a naturalist, I suppose. Well the other day I saw a “horse chestnut” on the ground—or, rather, several horse chestnuts. But there were no nearby horse chestnut trees. When I picked one up, I realized a horse chestnut was not what I had found. I’d found something new. It looked like a small chunk of horse manure with short protrusions covering it. Searching online, I discovered I’d found a late winter cedar apple rust gall. Quick Sketch of a Cedar Apple Rust Gall [caption id="attachment_17606" align="alignleft" width="320"] Horsechestnut,…

09Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 5 Comments

Jewelweed and Its Special Ingredient Lawsone – Poison Ivy Begone?

Chemistry, Plants

[caption id="attachment_17591" align="alignright" width="480"] Jewelweed - Image by Fritz Geller-Grimm CC by SA 2.5[/caption] Orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)1 commonly grows in ditches along roadsides at the edges of moist forests. Lore has it that the sap of this plant rubbed onto poison ivy rash quickly alleviates the itching. Could there be a scientific basis for this popular notion? Perhaps. Let’s begin our consideration by discussing the active principle in both poison ivy and jewelweed. Poison Ivy and Urushiol Urushiol is not a single compound, but a mixture of similar compounds that have the generic chemical structure show in the image associated with this article. R represents an alkyl chain that typically contains 15 to 17 carbon atoms that contain varying numbers of double bonds. The greater the number of double…

08Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 5 Comments

Hydrogen Sulfide or Hydrogen Cyanide: Which is More Dangerous?

Chemistry, Health

School kids laugh when malodorous body noises break the silence. “Jimmy just gassed,” little Susie giggles. Such odors are associated with the sulfur that comes from eating eggs, although that is by no means the only source. In fact, the odor that comes from eating eggs is thought by high school students to be due to hydrogen sulfide, H₂S. It is generally thought of as a nuisance, and not as a poison. Another familiar odor is associated with the pit or seed of a peach—bitter almonds. The source of the odor in this case is hydrogen cyanide, HCN. Hydrogen cyanide and its sodium and potassium salts, NaCN and KCN, are often the victim’s cause of death in a television mystery. But… in “real life”… what is the story? Just how…

06Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers No Comments

Does Pineapple Weed or Wild Chamomile Grow in Your Lawn?

Chemistry, Plants

[caption id="attachment_17548" align="alignright" width="440"] Mystery plant. Image S. Korte.[/caption] I take a measure of pride in being able to identify various tiny weeds in the spring of the year. Pointing them out to a car-group of friends, one of them adventured out on their own and brought back a tiny plant I felt sure I could make quick work of. But the little plant, with its almost lacy leaves and tiny egg-shaped yellow ‘flower’ mystified me completely. I sniffed it and detected a most unusual odor that nevertheless was not unpleasant. It resembled a cross between a tiny evergreen tree and an egg or pineapple. It was not a pineapple, but it was wild chamomile or the pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea). Research cited below, by Daise Lopes & Paul P.…

01Apr 2017 by Vincent Summers 1 Comment

Dutchman’s Breeches – Flowering Jewels of Early Spring

Chemistry, Plants

[caption id="attachment_17508" align="alignright" width="440"] Dicentra cucullaria - Image own work Fritzflohrreynolds CCA-SA3.0 Unported[/caption] With a name reminiscent of trousers or undergarments, we wouldn’t expect Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) to be particularly beautiful. A cluster of these jewels caught my attention during a search for the elusive morel mushroom. Even though I’d never seen Dutchman’s Breeches before, I instantly recognized the treasure I’d found. It was a bit of a lucky guess, as Squirrel Corn (Dicentra canadensis) is very similar. Why So Beautiful What makes Dutchman's Breeches so beautiful? Quite often, a plant possesses beauty a single component, whether the flower or the leaf, or even overall form. But for D. cucullaria, every component part of the plant is beautiful, even its rootstock as can be seen from this Missouri Department…

27Mar 2017 by Vincent Summers 2 Comments

Message Encoding from Ancient Rome to WW2 Germany

History, Language

Message Encoding from Rome to WW2 Germany, by Ellen Hetland Fenwick "What matter all these mysteries to me Whose life is full of indices and surds?" [caption id="attachment_14580" align="alignright" width="380"] 1946 Captain Midnight Mirro-Flash Code-O-Graph[/caption] X²+ 7X + 53 = 11/3 - Lewis Carroll It started with my reading a wonderful book, “From Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography” by Simon Singh, 1999. It became clear to me that much of the process used by the Nazis in the workings of the Enigma, the encryption machine that encoded and decoded messages for the Nazis during World War II, originated in ancient Rome. Evolution of Enigma involved only two major advances in cryptography over the course of almost 2000 years. These steps will be described in the remainder of this…