Ever wonder what gives fireworks their colors?

Chemical elements, the fundamental units of all matter on Earth, are the answer.

But which elements make which colors? CLICK BELOW for an interactive graphic. Set off your own fireworks show and learn how these elements are also used in our everyday life.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO JUMP TO INTERACTIVE

Colors result from the burning of chemical elements. Those elements are usually part of molecular compounds.

These compounds can look quite different from the elements that created them. For example, the elements hydrogen and oxygen are gases at room temperature. But add two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen and you get water — H2O — which is liquid at room temperature.

Some compounds, however, still show their elemental traits. Sodium gives off flashes of yellow when it burns, but so does the sodium nitrate, a compound that is easier to work with (pure sodium reacts violently to water and moisture in the air).

So pyrotechnicians — the experts who create fireworks — select compounds they can more safely use and still give off an element’s color.

Blue is the most difficult color to produce, says Ben Schwegler, Chief Scientist of Walt Disney Imagineering Research and Development. Schwegler advises the company on the science and technology behind many of its rides and shows.

Blue light is often tricky for the human eye to perceive, Schwegler said. Because of certain chemical properties, it is also a challenge to create a very bright blue firework effect, without washing out the blue color with white light. “If you see a truly blue firework, that’s the hallmark of a master pyrotechnics artist.”

How Fireworks Work (CLICK for full image)

Click on the graphic on the right to learn about the other components of a pyrotechnic device (“How Fireworks Work”).

Pyrotechnicians mold these chemical compounds into “stars”, which are packed into a cylindrical or spherical fireworks shell (most are spherical nowadays). The way the stars are packed inside determines the pattern and geometry of the fireworks explosion. The time-delay fuse will ignite the stars and the compounds inside them, giving off those brilliant, elemental colors.

For kids who dream of becoming a pyrotechnic wizard someday, Dr. Schwegler’s advice is to do well in school, pay attention to laboratory safety rules, and enjoy those science classes.

“If you love science, pyrotechnics could be a really exciting field to work in. It integrates some of our most important scientific concepts, like the physics of motion, thermodynamics, and chemical reactions,” says Schwegler.

On top of the math, chemistry, and physics, creativity and a zest for fun are necessary, too.

“Remember, fireworks are works of art,” says Schwegler. “Both your imagination and scientific expertise and will be rewarded with the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ of appreciation from the crowd.”

– Story by Ben Young Landis.  Fireworks photo by Joshua Sudock, the Register.

Planning for the holiday weekend? Check out the Register’s full coverage of July Fourth fireworks events.

Also on Sciencedude:

• ‘Right Stuff’ astronaut Scott Carpenter coming to O.C.
• UCI budget cut rises again — to $70 million
• Rainy season ends tonight on another dry note
• View NASA animated flyover of O.C., LA counties
• Popular O.C. game fish provides clues about global warming
• Animation of 3.9 seafloor earthquake hitting O.C.
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• NEW: Astronauts photograph O.C., Southern California from space station
• Watch a squirrel dog paddle across a river in Santa Ana

Post from: Sciencedude

Image courtesy on NASA.

Scott Carpenter, one of the original seven Project Mercury astronauts who was lionized in Tom Wolfe’s book, “The Right Stuff,” will co-host a public panel discussion on space during a July 11 visit to South Coast Plaza.

Carpenter, 84, is scheduled to appear at 3 p.m. with Thomas Stafford, who flew during Project Gemini and looped around the moon during Apollo 10, and with former Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon.

The free public discussion will occur in South Coast Plaza’s Jewel Court.

Carpenter's space capsule Aurora 7

All three astronauts are famous. But Carpenter, the second American to orbit the Earth, became an icon of America’s hopes to explore the final frontier, which was then dominated by the Soviet space program. The astronauts were considered to be courageous men, especially since many of this country’s first unmanned rockets blew up or failed during flight. Carpenter’s own flight, which began on March 24, 1962, was not without its own controversy. The 4 hour 39 minute flight ended with Carpenter overshooting his ocean splash down by about 250 miles. (The controversy.)

Correction notice: In the first version of this story, I incorrectly reported that Carpenter was the second American in space. He was the second to orbit Earth, but the fourth American to go into space.

• View NASA animated flyover of O.C., LA counties
• Popular O.C. game fish provides clues about global warming
• Animation of 3.9 seafloor earthquake hitting O.C.
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• Our lazy hazy — and brown — days of summer (illustration)
• Fiesty, tasty barracuda a mysterious no-show off Orange County
• NEW: Astronauts photograph O.C., Southern California from space station
• Watch a squirrel dog paddle across a river in Santa Ana
• Health risks from freeways worse than scientists once thought

Post from: Sciencedude

Fair, windy weather this week made for wonderful sailing off Seal Beach. Image courtesy of Gary Robbins, The Orange County Register

The 2008-09 rainy season ended today with a dry, slightly warmer than normal June, leading into what should be fair weather for the Fourth of July weekend, says the National Weather Service.

John Wayne Airport received 7.72 inches of rain, or about 5 inches below average. (Regional rainfall story). The county is currently classified in severe drought. And the preliminary average daily June temperature was 67.5 degrees, just under one degree above normal, the weather service says.

Forecasters are hoping that an El Nino now developing in the Pacific will bring a wet winter. (Read full story.) The holiday weekend itself will be rain-free. A light south swell will make for 2 to 5 feet of surf, and while rip currents will be light, swimmers should always be aware of immediate ocean conditions.

The weather tracks California rainfall on a July 1 to June 30 timescale. Meteorologists prefer to analyze annual rain patterns as a whole, and using a January-to-December calendar would break up a December-to-March grouping of rain data. So, to best research and track Southern California climate, the service uses a July-to-June time frame.

While the holiday weekend will light the skies with pyrotechnics, one bit of heavenly eye candy Orange County will not see are the “volcanic sunsets” that much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere has been experiencing.

A recent German "volcanic sunset". Image courtesy of Christoph Rollwagen via spaceweather.com

On June 12, the Sarychev Peak volcano in Russia erupted for the first time in 20 years. Located between Japan and the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka (see map), the volcano ash has produced dazzling sunsets from Germany to Idaho.

“We probably won’t see any of that effect down in Orange County,” says Steve Vanderberg of the National Weather Service. The volcanic ash is likely to get caught in the Jet Stream, which is fairly far north this time of the year.

Story by Ben Young Landis

• View NASA animated flyover of O.C., LA counties
• Popular O.C. game fish provides clues about global warming
• Animation of 3.9 seafloor earthquake hitting O.C.
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• Our lazy hazy — and brown — days of summer (illustration)
• Fiesty, tasty barracuda a mysterious no-show off Orange County
• NEW: Astronauts photograph O.C., Southern California from space station
• Watch a squirrel dog paddle across a river in Santa Ana
• Health risks from freeways worse than scientists once thought

Post from: Sciencedude

Greater Los Angeles basin, bordered on the north by the San Gabriel Mountains.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working with scientists in Japan, has produced the most detailed topographic map ever made of Earth. The map includes an overview of the Greater Los Angeles basin, which includes Orange County. Check the photo above. (Full news release.)

Palos Verdes Peninsula.

And CLICK HERE for a  computer-animated flyover of the basin. This bird’s eye view begins offshore, west of Seal Beach and Long Beach, then angles across the Palos Verdes Peninsula before going inland and taking viewers on a big semi-circle that ends by looking out toward the coast of Orange and Los Angeles counties.

CLICK IMAGE to enlarge.

Finally, NASA and Japan also produced a highly detailed topographic image of Death Valley, which the space agency says “has the lowest point in North America, Badwater, at 282 feet below sea level.  (CLICK IMAGE to enlarge). It is also the driest and hottest location in North America. Located in eastern California and western Nevada, Death Valley forms part of Death Valley National Park. The region is characterized by deep valleys and high mountain ranges, located in the large Basin and Range province of the western United States. This view, looking toward the northwest, was created by draping an Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) simulated natural color image over digital topography from the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) data set.

Did you miss …

• *Astronauts photograph Orange County from space station
• Graphic: El Nino appears to be developing rapidly
• Animation of recent 3.9 earthquake hitting O.C.
• Another O.C. photographer captures rarely seen ‘end’ of rainbow
• Hitchcock moment: Swallows return to UCLA, not just Capistrano

Post from: Sciencedude

White sea bass, like this 42-pounder, are popular Orange County sportfish; now they also help researchers study climate change effects. Image by Dave Strege, the Register

Experiments on the white sea bass, a staple of the Orange County recreational fishing industry, show that long-term climate change might harm the healthy development and behavior of baby fish, says a study published Thursday.

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego have found that when white sea bass eggs are grown under very high carbon dioxide levels, the ear bones of newborn bass are larger than those raised in today’s carbon dioxide levels. Just as in humans, ear bones in fish help them maintain balance and judge speed and movement. Researchers say that abnormal ear bones may affect a fish’s ability to hunt prey and develop normally.

Fish ear bones, called otoliths, sit inside paired, snug beds lined with sensitive hairs.

“In their evolution, fish have acquired otoliths of a certain size and shape to detect motion,” says Professor David Checkley, the lead researcher of the report. “When you change these sensitive conditions, the orientation and acceleration abilities essential to food hunting and survival may also be impacted.”

White sea bass are frequently sought out by Orange County party boat anglers. Newborn white sea bass are only 0.1 inches long, but the adults can reach 5 feet and nearly 90 pounds. Catches off Orange County this year have commonly been between 30 pounds to 45 pounds.

Researchers had to compare newborn sea bass otoliths measuring only 50 microns in diameter, half the width of the average human hair.

Sea bass developing inside eggs (top), and a microscope image of a baby bass otolith (bottom). The otoliths are no wider than the thickness of human hair. Image courtesy of Hubbs SeaWorld Research Institution (eggs) and Scripps Institution (otolith)

Checkley’s team raised the sea bass eggs under carbon dioxide levels predicted for the year 2100, which were computed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assuming that present rates of carbon dioxide pollution remain unchanged.

The researchers do not know what exact effects this abnormal otolith growth will have on sea bass behavior, nor do they know if high carbon dioxide levels have the same effect in other species of fish. Checkley says further experiments are being planned to investigate those questions.

– By Ben Young Landis

Other science stories …

• El Nino developing rapidly
• Fiesty, tasty barracuda a mysterious no-show off Orange County
• UCI budget cuts soar to $70 million; deeper layoffs likely
• PARTICIPATE: Share your memories of Apollo 11 landing for OC Register story
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• Our lazy hazy — and brown — days of summer (illustration)
• NEW: Astronauts photograph O.C., Southern California from space station
• Watch a squirrel dog paddle across a river in Santa Ana
• Health risks from freeways worse than scientists once thought

Post from: Sciencedude

Today's quake occurred before dawn and was not widely felt.

A magnitude 2.6 earthquake occurred at 4:45 a.m., slightly north of Yorba Linda and Chino Hills, in the area where a swarm of small earthquakes has been happening off-and-on for much of this year. The latest quake began 11.5 miles deep, on the northeast edge of Chino Hills, and a bit east of Brea, the U.S. Geological Survey says. It happened along Carbon Canyon Road, the site of most of the small earthquakes. Earlier this year, Sue Hough, a USGS seismologist, said that the quake area was behaving strangely and needed to be watched. A short time later, it stopped producing quakes so regularly. But isolated ones pop up, like the one that occurred today.

Click here for live earthquake posts on Twitter. And go to Earthquake Central for live updates of Southern California earthquakes.

• Airborne radar to monitor fault movement in Orange County
• Animation of recent 3.9 seafloor quake hitting O.C.

Other science stories …

• El Nino developing rapidly
• UCI budget cuts soar to $70 million; deeper layoffs likely
• PARTICIPATE: Share your memories of Apollo 11 landing for OC Register story
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• Our lazy hazy — and brown — days of summer (illustration)
• Fiesty, tasty barracuda a mysterious no-show off Orange County
• NEW: Astronauts photograph O.C., Southern California from space station
• Watch a squirrel dog paddle across a river in Santa Ana
• Health risks from freeways worse than scientists once thought

Post from: Sciencedude

Students walk to class at UCI. Image courtesy of Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register

Over the past month, the amount of money UC Irvine has been told to cut to help balance the state budget  has almost doubled, from $40 million to at least $70 million. The university says it will likely have to slash pay, eliminate jobs, enlarge classes and consolidate academic programs, if not cut them outright. Here are some common questions that have arisen in recent days about Orange County’s largest employer, and biggest research university.

Q: UCI has been planning to enroll just over 4,000 freshmen this fall. Will the campus simply withdraw some acceptance letters to save money?

A: Absolutely not. But the fallout from the state’s budget crisis could last 2-5 years. So UCI could be forced to slow its growth longer than anticipated, making it harder for students to find a spot at the increasingly popular campus.

Q: Will UCI cut courses and enlarge classes this year to save money?

A: That seems inevitable. Some departments, including political science, have already reduced the number of courses they’ll offer. The campus also will enlarge some classes, which would make it harder for professors and lecturers to provide personalized attention to students who need it. That’s a particular problem for freshmen adapting to university life.

Q: Would a reduction in classes mean that it will take some students longer to get the courses they need, thus increasing the amount of time it takes to earn a degree?

A: UCI says it will try to avoid this problem, but it is a definite possibility. It takes the average UCI student 4 years and one quarter to earn an undergraduate degree. If needed classes aren’t available, that figure could rise, which imposes a financial hardship on the student and, in many cases, his or her family. And it is possible (no decisions have been made) that UCI would close or scale back academic programs that have been serving students for years. Campus officials are doing a lot of prioritizing at the moment.

Q: Is it possible that the UC system will further raise student fees?

A: The system raised fees 9.3 percent in May. UC President Mark Yudof recently said, before the financial situation grew even worse, that the UC system might have to further hike fees for the 2009-10 academic year. Although the UC system is a relative bargain compared to some universities, additional fee hikes could force some students to delay or drop plans to attend a UC campus. The matter will likely be discussed when the UC Board of Regent meets next month.

Q: If students are priced out of the UC, where can they go?

A: They could do part of their undergraduate work at a community college or Cal State University campus, then transfer to the UC system later. However, those two academic systems also are cutting classes to save money.

Q: Will the budget cut backs hurt faculty?

A: Yes, and no. President Yudof is talking about reducing the nine-month salary of full-time professors who earn above $46,000 (which is virtually all professors at UCI) by 8 percent. But professors are paid reasonably well. In the physics department, for example, salaries range from $71,000 to $145,000. So a professor might be able to absorb a hit more easily than someone earning less than workers earning $46,000, who face a 4 percent cut.

It’s very difficult to fire a full-time faculty member, so they have a sense of job security that many people do not enjoy. But the professors could be forced to teach more classes, which would reduce the amount of time they can do research. And that could have consequences. UCI does research in such areas as homeland security, preventive medicine, energy efficiency, and new testing and treating for diabetes and breast cancer — areas that directly affect the public. Some research programs also could be affected if UCI limited the number of new students. A lot undergraduates do the grunt work in laboratories.

The state already has suggested cutting funding to a UCI program that evaluates and seeks treatment for people with Alzheimer’s disease, a disorder that’s becoming more common as people live longer lives.

Q: Why not just fire a bunch of highly paid senior faculty and replace them with lower-paid junior faculty?

A: You can’t fire a professor without just cause. And firing a lot of top faculty to save money over the short term would hurt UCI over the long term. When hiring does resume, the campus would have trouble recruiting talented faculty because they’d feel they wouldn’t have job security, regardless of the quality of their work.

Q: Couldn’t UCI save money by stopping construction on new buildings?

A: Work was delayed this year on a couple of buildings. But the delay was caused by concerns that the state couldn’t float public bonds to pay for the buildings. That issue has largely been worked out. And keep in mind, stopping construction on a facility that’s already built can greatly add to its ultimate cost.

Q: Couldn’t UCI save lots of money by kicking out students who are illegal immigrants?

A: It’s a myth that the UC system is heavily populated by illegal immigrants. Also, if you did remove a student because he was an illegal immigrant, he would simply be replaced by an eligible student who is an American citizen.

Q: Does all of this mean that UCI is going to become a significantly weaker university?
A:  Not necessarily. UCI might have to cut some programs, and its growth will be slowed. But the economy will eventually improve, easing conditions at all public colleges and universities.

Follow Sciencedude on Twitter at grobbins and on Facebook at facebook.com/garyrobbins

Other science stories …

UCI’s budget cuts soar to $70 million

2.6 earthquake hits near Yorba Linda

El Nino developing rapidly

Hot weather signals end to another poor rainy season (with graphic)

Photo gallery: Astronauts take images of O.C. from space

:

Post from: Sciencedude

Warm temperatures produced a busy afternoon Friday at Sunset Beach. Image courtesy of Gary Robbins, The Register

The weather over the next several days will follow a familiar early summer pattern, with a patchy marine layer, mostly confined to the coast. The sun is expected to break through, raising temperatures to the upper 60s to low 70s. Late afternoon winds were out of the west-northwest Friday and will likely be again today.

Factoid: On this date in 1926, the minimum temperature in Palm Springs was 97 degrees, says the NWS. That’s the highest minimum on record for the city.

Saturday morning: 2.6 earthquake hits near Yorba Linda

Weather related news, info …

• El Nino developing rapidly
• Pretty altocumulus clouds dot O.C. skies
• Illustration: Our lazy, hazy — and brown — days of summer

Other science news ….

• PARTICIPATE: Share your memories of Apollo 11 landing for OC Register story
• UCI budget cuts soar to $70 million; classes likely to become bigger, layoffs deeper
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• Astronaut’s photograph Orange County from space station. You’re looking at Laguna.
• PHOTO GALLERY:

Post from: Sciencedude

Corinne Shear Wood, pioneering anthropologist at Fullerton. Image courtesy of CSUF.

“Diseases don’t recognize borders or look for citizenship papers,” medical anthropologist Corinne Shear Wood once told students at Cal State Fullerton. Neither did Wood, whose quest to help the disadvantaged took her around the world, on journeys where she did everything from fighting leprosy in Pakistan to exploring traditional Maori medicine in New Zealand.

The trips, and her research, made her a renowned figure in the field of medical anthropology and brought attention to Cal State Fullerton, where she joined the faculty in 1973. Wood became known as the ‘Mother Theresa’ of of Fullerton. Known to students as a gifted teacher, Wood was named the university’s Outstanding Professor for the 1983-84 academic year.

Wood died in Santa Cruz on May 25 of Alzheimer’s disease, a passing announced only this week by the university. She was 84.

In Cal State Fullerton’s tribute to Wood, Thomas P. Klammer, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, says “she brought to her teaching a combination of gritty life experience and superb academic achievement.”

In announcing her death, the university said in a release: “Wood’s colleagues and students regarded her as an inspired and model teacher. She was affectionately known as the ‘Margaret Mead of CSUF’ and the ‘Mother Theresa of CSUF’. ”

Teacher, researcher, advocate

Professor Wood (RIGHT) and a volunteer offer their forearms to hungry mosquitoes. Image courtesy of the Wood Family

Her seminal work was “Human Sickness and Health: A Bicultural View”, a 376-page classic in medical anthropology, the study of how cultures influence health and disease. The book, published in the late 1970s, was one of the first anthropology textbooks to focus on women’s health issues.

The book was influenced by her childhood in Baltimore, where she worked in a shipyard as a teenager. She took night classes at Johns Hopkins University from 1948 to 1956 — a time when women were barred from classes except for evening and weekend extension courses. Despite this, Wood eventually secured a job as a medical research technician at Hopkins.

Wood soon delved deeper into medical science. She earned her bachelor’s in anthropology from UC Irvine in 1968. Five years later, she completed her doctorate in anthropology at UC Riverside, a period in which she also studied at Oxford University in Great Britain. Her work at Oxford, which determined that a species of malaria-carrying mosquito preferred a specific human blood type, resulted in a publication in Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world.

Wood also crossed traditional political borders: Her passion to improve human welfare led her to pursue all possible avenues and ideologies, and she became a regular literary and financial contributor to the People’s Weekly World, a newspaper affiliated with Communist Party USA. (Read one of her articles.) Wood was also active in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and along with her husband, the couple advocated for peace and civil rights. A champion of immigrant working conditions and health, Wood served a member of Orange County’s Task Force on Undocumented Workers in the 1970’s.

Wood was fond of saying, “Whatever you give, you get back ten times.”

By Ben Landis

BREAKING NEWS: UCI’s budget cuts soar to $70 million; some classes might be cut

Did you miss …

• El Nino developing rapidly
• Pretty altocumulus clouds dot O.C. skies
• PARTICIPATE: Share your memories of Apollo 11 landing for OC Register story
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• UCI memory expert wins presitigious Lashley Award
• Pretty altocumulus clouds dot O.C. skies
• Don’t miss stunning Saturn in tonight’ sky
• Animation of 3.9 seafloor earthquake hitting O.C.
• Our lazy hazy — and brown — days of summer (illustration)
• El Nino developing rapidly

Post from: Sciencedude

The energy from a 1.5 microquake would resemble the passing of a heavy truck to a person near the epicenter.

A magnitude 1.5 microquake occurred at 10:07 a.m. today just south of East Nohl Ranch Road in the Villa Park area, says the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake began 5.3 miles deep and appears to have been caused by a segment of the Whittier fault, the USGS says online.

Such small microquakes are common in Orange County and rarely lead to a larger event.

Click here for live earthquake posts on Twitter. And go to Earthquake Central for live updates of Southern California earthquakes.

Airborne radar to monitor fault movement in Orange County

Did you miss …

• El Nino developing rapidly
• PARTICIPATE: Share your memories of Apollo 11 landing for OC Register story
• Animation of 3.9 seafloor earthquake hitting O.C.
• UCI needs volunteers for study on vitamin’s impact on Alzheimer’s
• Our lazy hazy — and brown — days of summer (illustration)
• Fiesty, tasty barracuda a mysterious no-show off Orange County
• NEW: Astronauts photograph O.C., Southern California from space station
• Watch a squirrel dog paddle across a river in Santa Ana
• Health risks from freeways worse than scientists once thought

Post from: Sciencedude