Chilean Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days!

Chile earthquake

Earth's axis from outer space

This heading shocked me when I read this in the science daily on March 2.

Most of us know the chile earthquake that happened on the 27th of Feb 2010. It was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake. After reading this article, I found it quite interesting and so I decided to write a reflection again about this article as I did before in the post below.

Just to give you some information about the article: It talked about a research scientist Richard Gross. He computed how Earth's rotation should have changed as a result of the Chile Earthquake. After he used a complex model, he and his fellow scientists calculated that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 microseconds, which is a millionth of a second. Then, this article gave us another detail. It said that the quake should have shifted the Earth's axis by 8cm, which was more than the 2004 massive earthquake that shifted the Earth's axis by 7cm only.

After these details, the article told us the reasons why the Chile Earthquake shifted the Earth's axis more than the 2004 earthquake which was stronger. This is the url for the article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100302084522.htm

After reading this article, I realised that earthquakes are very strong things. Before I even read this article, I did not even know that an earthquake could shift the earth's axis or shorten the length of each earth day. When they gave the explantion of why the 2004 earthquake did not shift the earth's axis as much as the chile earthquake even though it was weaker, I felt that science can also be a complicated thing. At the 2nd last line of the article, it said that Gross the scientist predicted that the chile's prediction of how much it shifted the earth's axis will change as data and the quake are further refined. Once I read this, I agreed because there is no real or confirmed answer in science. Just to give you an example: You cannot say that all living things need air. How would you know ? There could be a specie of an animal that has not been found yet and it may not need air the survive.

Written by: Ethan Teo

Warning: Those street sex drugs can kill

sildenafil
glibenclamide

I read this article a few days ago in the Straits Times and I decided to post some of my reflections about this article.

To give you a bit of background, I will tell you what the article talked about. It asked us to be beware of a kind of sex drugs that can be bought in the back lanes of red-light areas in Singapore. These sex drugs are already linked to ten men who died. According the the Health Sciences Authority, if these SEX DRUGS dont kill, they could still maim or leave a man with an erection so long that gangrene kicks in. It is very scary.

After reading this article, I felt that science is really an interesting and deadly thing. In those sex drugs, there are high levels of active ingredient in Viagra, glibenclamide ( a drug used to lower blood sugar levels in diabetics). Just because of these "ingredients" that made up the drugs, it lead to the deaths and injuries of people. Also because of these "ingredients", many people also fell into comas. This is why I feel science is deadly. Then, why do I feel that science is interesting? That is because there are many chemicals and drugs that can be quite interesting in terms of their uses. Some drugs may lead to problems with muscles and so on. Science is also part of our everyday life as I can see in this article.

These are some informations about the two ingredients that I researched on. The drug glibenclamide is an anti diabetic drug which was developed in 1966. This drug is used in the treatment of type ll diabetes. According to the straits times article, this drug is not even known to boast or help sex performance. The next ingredient is an active ingredient in viagra called sildenafil. The website I found said that it prevents the action of a chemical in the body called phosphodiesterase type 5.

Down here are some websites I used to find the information:

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/medicines/100002749.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glibenclamide

Written by: Ethan Teo