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Fall 2022 Stargazing: JWST Photos and Jupiter Opposition
Columns Stargazing

Fall 2022 Stargazing: JWST Photos and Jupiter Opposition

Karen Masters

Karen Masters shares her seasonal guide to stargazing, including her favorite JWST photos, Jupiter’s Opposition this September, and a calendar of major stargazing events this Fall.

Karen Masters shares her seasonal guide to stargazing, including her favorite JWST photos, Jupiter's Opposition this September, and a calendar of major stargazing events this Fall. Karen Masters is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Chair of Physics and Astronomy, and KINSC Director at Haverford College. JWST Images JWST, the “Just Wonderful Space Telescope” (here I am deliberately avoiding the official full name due to the ongoing name controversy, and instead amplifying Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s excellent renaming suggestion), has been wowing astronomers all over the world with its images of the cosmos since it achieved first light in February of this...
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Why does coffee make you poop?
Columns Quirky Queries

Why does coffee make you poop?

Sooyeon Jung

Have you ever had some coffee and had to go to the bathroom within the hour? This article explores what exactly happens to our digestive system when we drink coffee.

Different types of coffee. Photo From Shutterstock.  Quirky Queries answers your random science questions. If you have a query, let us know! - Have you ever ordered an iced mocha with almond milk or an iced vanilla latte with oat milk before class and then later had to poop really badly during lecture? Well, according to science, you aren’t the only one! In fact, about 30% of people need to use the bathroom after drinking coffee.  Contrary to popular belief, caffeine isn’t the main culprit. In 2008, the National Library of Medicine published a study that tested the colonic function...
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How Do Fireflies Glow?
Columns Quirky Queries

How Do Fireflies Glow?

Sarah McNamara

The Lampyridae family, more commonly referred to as fireflies and lightning bugs, are neither true bugs nor flies… but within these colloquial names, it sure is apparent where the “lightning” and “fire” came from! But how do fireflies produce light in the first place?

Firefly. Photo by @yb_woodstock on Flickr, cc-by-sa-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Fireflies are winged beetles, and there are over 2000 species distributed across the temperate and tropical areas of the world; in fact, especially when considering that not all species glow, it is likely that there are multiple species within your own backyard alone! An abundance of fireflies in Delaware County (Catskills), NY. Photo by @s58y on Flickr, CC by 2.0, via Flickr.  Fireflies are bioluminescent, meaning they produce and emit light through chemical reactions in their bodies. Light is produced in a firefly’s abdomen — the “light organ” — when oxygen, calcium,...
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Marking the Passage of Time: Spring 2022 Stargazing
Columns Stargazing

Marking the Passage of Time: Spring 2022 Stargazing

Karen Masters

While it may feel like we’re stuck in a repeating loop of Spring 2020, watching the night skies can remind us that the seasons do actually keep passing by. Here is your stargazing guide for Spring 2022.

While it may feel like we’re stuck in a repeating loop of Spring 2020, watching the night skies can remind us that the seasons do actually keep passing by. Indeed many cultures throughout history have used the night skies to mark the passing of time. In my home country of England, ancient peoples built Stonehenge, probably to track the motion of the Sun (the brightest star in the sky!) and mark the year. In New Zealand, the Maori used the first sighting of Matariki (also known as the Pleiades) to set the start of the new year. The hottest part...
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What Actually Happens When You Black Out From Drinking?
Columns Quirky Queries

What Actually Happens When You Black Out From Drinking?

Simon Thill

What exactly happens in your brain if you black out from drinking? Why does this happen, and how dangerous is it?

Quirky Queries answers your random science questions. If you have a query, let us know! — To be honest, this was a very fun, and also very alarming question to research and write about. A lot of what I learned, especially about the human brain, was surprising, but I was shocked to learn just how potent alcohol is — it can completely shut down entire regions of your brain.  There are many different types of memories, including long-term, short-term, and muscle memory. These are all stored in different, interconnected regions of your brain. Interestingly, binge drinking does not prevent you from creating...
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How does wind happen?
Columns Quirky Queries

How does wind happen?

Simon Thill

Have you ever wondered how wind happens? This short article describes the cause of wind and some of its patterns.

Hurricane Katrina. Courtesy of NOAA Quirky Queries answers your random science questions. If you have a query, let us know! — This is an excellent question, and one that I was curious about myself when I was younger. I would often ask my parents scientific questions, and they would do their best to respond, sometimes without actually knowing the correct answer. When I asked this same question, my parents told me something along the lines of “wind is caused by the rotation of the Earth.” While the Earth’s rotation does play a significant role in wind and weather patterns, this is not...
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How do Snakes Move?
Columns Quirky Queries

How do Snakes Move?

Emi Krishnamurthy

How do these legless creatures slither, glide, crawl, and climb? Here we discuss multiple different mechanisms of snake locomotion (including flying!).

Characters Kaa, an Indian python, and Mowgli in Disney’s “The Jungle Book” (1967). From the Disney gallery. Quirky Queries answers your random science questions. If you have a query, let us know! -- How do these legless creatures slither, glide, crawl, and climb? Here we discuss multiple different mechanisms of snake locomotion (including flying!). Serpentine locomotion Snakes are known to slither. They move by pushing off of rocks, branches, and other surfaces in order to propel forward, but how do snakes travel on flat surfaces? Slithering, called serpentine locomotion, is dependent on the muscles that connect a snake’s skin, spine,...
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What Do We Do With E-waste? Flash Joule Heating Presents a Solution
Columns Green Chemistry

What Do We Do With E-waste? Flash Joule Heating Presents a Solution

Isabel Thornberry and Atira Glenn-Keough

With Apple rolling out a new iPhone every year and planned obsolescence encouraging consumers to buy and throw out more and more electronics, electronic waste is piling up in landfills globally. An article published in October this year proposes flash Joule heating as a potential solution to the millions of tons of e-waste produced every year.

With Apple rolling out a new iPhone every year and planned obsolescence encouraging consumers to buy and throw out more and more electronics, electronic waste is piling up in landfills globally. Over 40 million tons of e-waste are produced annually, making it the fastest growing category of solid waste globally. E-waste often includes heavy toxic metals that can leach into the surrounding environment, contaminating soil, water, and food sources. Workers who dispose of e-waste have been found to have higher lead content in their blood because of exposure to dangerous dust and smoke when working with the waste and in...
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Emerging Solutions to Microplastic Pollution
Columns Green Chemistry

Emerging Solutions to Microplastic Pollution

Atira Glenn-Keough and Isabel Thornberry

While the problem of microplastic pollution still looms large, scientists are developing technologies to remove existing microplastics, prevent new plastics from reaching waterways, and even avoid harmful microplastic manufacturing with the development of bio-based plastics. New, innovative technologies involving microorganisms may also be on the horizon.

Microplastics in the Azores, an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic. Photo by Race4Water, via Wikimedia Commons. From heavy metals to hydrocarbons and oil to plastic debris, marine pollution is a world-wide problem. According to a review by H.S. Auta et al. published in 2017 by Environment International, plastic composes 80-85% of marine litter, and on our current trajectory, the amount of plastic litter in water bodies will only increase. Microplastics don’t decompose easily, and with increasing production and few effective clean-up methods currently implemented on a broad scale, we’re likely to see more and more microplastics in our environment. Microplastics are...
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Autumnal Nights: The Full Moon and Evening Star
Columns Stargazing

Autumnal Nights: The Full Moon and Evening Star

Karen Masters

Read Haverford Physics and Astronomy Professor Karen Masters’ seasonal guide to stargazing. What’s in store this fall: full moons, eclipses, and Venus, bright in the night sky.

A photo of the moon and Venus in the sky. Photo by Sean Rozekrans via Wikimedia Commons. As the evenings draw in, the Full Moon is a beautiful and accessible stargazing object. As is the case in the Spring, many cultures have festivals during the Fall that are set by the Lunar Calendar, and so they are explicitly or implicitly tied to the Autumnal Moons. For example, the date of Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur is set by the “lunisolar” Hebrew calendar, which means it (usually) starts on the date of the closest New Moon to the Autumnal Equinox (the date when...
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Summer Stargazing: Black Holes and Shooting Stars
Columns Stargazing

Summer Stargazing: Black Holes and Shooting Stars

Karen Masters

Summer nights are short but warm, and many people spend time camping — an ideal activity to mix with stargazing. Try looking for Sagittarius, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, meteor showers, and even a partial eclipse of the sun this summer.

Scroll to the bottom of this article for a stargazing and astronomy calendar for Summer 2021. The summer is one of my favorite times for stargazing. The nights are short but warm, and many people spend time camping — an ideal activity to mix with stargazing. Try looking for Sagittarius, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, meteor showers, and even a partial eclipse of the sun this summer. You can see almost everything I suggest below without any equipment. Sagittarius is one of my favorite summer constellations to look for. Greek astronomers saw a centaur firing an arrow, but I always look for...
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New Anti-Biofouling Technology “SLIPS” into Action
Columns Green Chemistry

New Anti-Biofouling Technology “SLIPS” into Action

Atira Glenn-Keough and Isabel Thornberry

Biofilm buildup on marine infrastructure forces ships to use more fuel and pay for more maintenance, and most solutions are harsh and dangerous for the environment. As a more environmentally-friendly solution, chemists are currently looking into SLIPSs.

Dried algae and rusty metal on a boat ramp. Photo by W.carter, via Wikimedia Commons. Biofouling is a process that occurs when microorganisms, such as bacteria, form communities and adhere to surfaces. These communities are called biofilms, and once established, they often spread rapidly and expand onto other surfaces. Biofouling can create many problems for the environment and man-made structures as it interferes with and accelerates the degradation of infrastructure, such as plumbing and shipping. For example, marine biofouling occurs when biofilm on a ship accumulates, followed by other surface marine organisms, like algae and barnacles, causing ships to use...
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Spring Skies: Martian Fever
Columns Stargazing

Spring Skies: Martian Fever

Karen Masters

Let Karen Masters, Associate Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Haverford, lead you on a stargazing journey through Spring 2021.

Photo by Sky Xe, via Wikimedia Commons. If you plan to go stargazing just once this spring, you should find the planet Mars. You cannot have missed how missions to Mars have been in the news recently, with three missions arriving at the planet in mid-February. The orbits of Mars and Earth line up every two years, creating a window of favorable conditions to send spacecrafts. During the last window which opened in July 2020, three separate spacecraft were launched: the “Hope” spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft, and a mission from NASA which includes both...
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