Have you ever wondered how a blind person see? Do they live in a different kind of universe? What do they “actually” see? Well, we have an answer now. It is not an “actual” answer, but it is an explanatory answer which it could explain how a blind person sees. We read two different articles that explain about blind people and the optical illusions of colors. Right down below are the two questions I answered in physics class of my comprehension from the article
What do blind people actually see?
Blind people actually do see the thing that is indescribable. It is this nothingness that they see. A “normal” human cannot explain this nothingness because nothingness that could be explained is “how it “looks” behind your head.” Nowadays, blind people can live their normal lives like us; it is just that fact that they do not have that one sense of vision. Mr. Wächter is the subject of the experiment of the article. He is a blind man who has put on a belt whose ability can release out the vibration, which it can tell Mr. Wächter any direction. But when the experiment was over, without the belt, Mr. Wächter can still feel some vibration known as, but he was lost. “He was experiencing the same thing you do when you try to look at what’s behind your head.”
Why colors can trick us?
Colors can trick us when our brain tries to perceive or figure out what is the object’s color. According to Wired’s explanation, when you are concentrating on the figuration of the object’s color, our brain will neglect the background colors and light around it. Colors are also tricky when it comes to your eyes need to subtract the lighting or background colors because it is not happening rapidly. As a well-known example, some people might see the dress in white and gold while others see it as blue and black. For the people who perceive the color in white and gold, you cannot just tell your eyes or brain to neglect the right background colors and lighting. Consequently, all of these theories or ideas have become an inspiration for many artists to create the art of optical illusions. Humans know what is the optical illusion, but it takes to make us realize that it is a trick from colors.
You must be the exotic one if you have not heard, seen, or read the “Marvel comics” or the “Marvel movies.” It was created in the United States of America since 1939 with its first release of a comic book called, “Timley’s Publication.” Throughout the time, Marvel entertainment published abundance of new and adventurous comic books including many distinguished characters especially the superheroes. Those superheroes were illustrated and put into the stories whose astonishing superpowers possibly could be explained by our modern physics whether it is practicable or impractical.
As mentioned, in the entire Marvel history, there are a lot of established fictional characters who significantly play her or his roles in the comics or movies of their mind-blowing superpowers. Moreover, you must be wondering who is the man above. Generally and as written above, his name is James Howlett and also known as “Wolverine.” He is actually one of the top Marvel superheroes: Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Black Widow, Daredevil, and Captain America. His first appearance in Marvel comics was in the “Incredible Hulk” since 1974.
Who is Wolverine?
Wolverine is a mutant (meaning his DNA is changed) with many incredible powers who has the “ability to regenerate ability to regenerate damaged or destroyed areas of his cellular structure at a rate far greater than that of an ordinary human.” People have deemed him as a “subspecies of humans (Homo sapiens superior). Furthermore, he has the powers of withstanding all types of poisons, resisting aging, and having an acute sense of seeing far distance. So you can say that he is immortal; in fact, he is mortal. He could be dead if there are potential accidents that he got injuries at the “vital organs” and loss of physical form.
Despite his superpowers, he does have abilities like other humans. He did train at many tasks as a C.I.A operative, a soldier, a Samurai, a spy, a member of X-men, and hand to hand fighter known as the “combatant.” In addition, Wolverine is also an expert in many types weapons, vehicles, computer system, explosive, and assassination techniques. If you are a truly a supporter of Wolverine, you might notice that he could speak in multiple languages such as Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Spanish.
Regeneration
As a matter of fact, you may experience regeneration at some points while playing your video games. The best example is Minecraft. There is a portion that you can drink to regenerate the player at a fast speed and limited duration. But for Wolverine, his ability to regenerate is overwhelmingly impressive. Regeneration is a permanent ability he has; it is inherently working when he got cuts or even in an intense situation of someone poking him with a sword.
When a normal human received a wound or cuts, it takes times to heal or regenerate which depends on the wound condition. And by means of regeneration, it is the “process by which some organisms replace or restore lost or amputated body parts,” or biologically, it is the “reactivation of development in later life to restore missing tissues.” In reality, there are actually some organisms who can regenerate itself when it lost its limbs or some other parts of their body. For instance, the salamanders, axolotls, starfish, spiders, and other types of lizards have the ability of regeneration.
Wolverine’s regeneration in the fictional comics or movies is actually a complicated one. The first explanation that can crack this enigma is related to Wolverine’s last name, Howlett; it is surprisingly a protein. According to the paper was submitted to the Journal of Superhero Mutational Science by graduate students from the University of British Columbia, stated that “Wolverine’s healing abilities have striking similarities to that seen in axolotl, an amphibian with the capacity to regenerate amputated limbs.” The Howlett protein within Wolverine is characterized similarly to the protein within the axolotls, called “Amblox.”
(scq.ubc.ca)
However, it clearly shows that it definitely takes sometimes for the axolotl to heal when it takes a second for Wolverine to heal.
How does that work? Howlett protein is everywhere in Wolverine’s body and to answer the question, it is all about an activity of Howlett within his cell. “Wolverine has a significantly elevated amount of Howlett per cell than the axolotl by a factor of 100,” but that does not explain the reason why the rate of Wolverine’s regeneration is rapid. Therefore, the students set up a simulation of observing “the rate of product formation by Howlett” compares to the rate of product formation by Amblox. As a result, it expressly demonstrates that Howlett protein has a greater rate of healing Wolverine rather than the axolotl’s protein.
Besides Howlett, there is another key protein that contributes to the regeneration; it is called, “Lin28a.” As an American digital media company, Inverse stated that “In embryonic cells where the protein is fully activated, Lin28a becomes more and more dormant as the organism ages.” This could possibly apply to one of the reasons of how does Wolverine’s regeneration works. It further explained that there is a simulation when the researchers changed a mouse genetically by injecting the substance to keep the mouse produces the Lin28a protein. It turns out that it is working. When the mouse got cut off one of its toes, it grew back with a fast speed back to a normal toe.
Conclusion
As stated, Wolverine is one of the incredible characters in the Marvel history. His phenomenal power, regeneration, clearly surprises all the Marvel supporters; however, there is a lack of explanation of how it is actually working. It is very complex to comprehend expressly about Wolverine’s power since it is all going down to the system of his protein within the cell. The explanation of all the introduced proteins including Amblox and Lin28a are existing in this real world.
Furthermore, it seems realistic that human can be healed close to the speed of Wolverine’s regeneration by following the procedure of injecting the Lin28a protein. However, this is not reasonable since researchers, or us do not know what are the consequences. Not only the Lin28a injection seems to be unrealistic, but also the Howlett protein. After all, Howlett protein is literally a fictional protein which the author characterized it similarly to the Amblox. But for most of the parts from the explanation, it still could be possible and durable with our modernized technology and knowledge that we can have the power of regeneration as Wolverine.
“8 Regenerative Animals Changing the Face of Medicine.” DermeffaceFX7 Info, 18 Feb. 2016, www.dermeffacefx7.com/info/8-regenerative-animals-changing-the-face-of-medicine/.
Cronin, Brian. “What Was the First Marvel Comic Book?” CBR, 3 Apr. 2018, www.cbr.com/marvel-comics-first-comic/.
Dvorsky, George. “A Remarkably Detailed Fake Study of Wolverine’s Regeneration Abilities.” io9, io9.Gizmodo.com, 24 Sept. 2013, io9.gizmodo.com/a-remarkably-detailed-fake-study-of-wolverine-s-regener-1377381586.
Gilbert, Scott F. “Regeneration.” Developmental Biology. 6th Edition., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Jan. 1970, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9971/.
Goss, Richard Johnson. “Regeneration.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Aug. 2016, www.britannica.com/science/regeneration-biology.
Holmes, Adam. “The Truth About Wolverine’s Healing Factor In Logan.” CINEMABLEND, CINEMABLEND, 26 May 2017, www.cinemablend.com/news/1575799/the-truth-about-wolverines-healing-factor-in-logan.’
Sloat, Sarah. “Humans, Too, Possess the Regenerative Abilities of X-23 and Wolverine.” Inverse, www.inverse.com/article/26640-logan-laura-x23-wolverine-regenerative-power-healing.
“Top Marvel Heroes.” Marvel.com: The Official Site, marvel.com/characters/list/994/top_marvel_heroes.
This was a small research we did during our “sound waves” study in physics class. Our facilitator, Samantha, assigned us many different topics to research on with the purpose of dot-connecting our lessons to the world information.
BATS AND ECHOLOCATION
BY: VENGHOUR THAN & SAMNANG HOR
What is Bat?
Bats are found all around the world and there are hundreds of different species of bat. These bats are living in caves and forest, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere. Bats are mammals that have fur or hair covered their bodies and are warm-blooded. Bats are the only mammals that can fly, it’s wing has a very similar bones to our human hand and arm, connect the skin that stretched between long finger bones and the body to form the wing membrane. This mammals hunt at night by using their exceptional sight to pick out their preys. Bats prey such as insects, frogs, and small rodents. Bats have a slight sixth sense known as echolocation to locate prey by the sounds that are reflected back to them.
What is Echolocation?
The use of sound waves combining with echoes is called “echolocation.” It is to determine the location of the objects are in space mostly at night. Bats are the most standout mammals that use echolocation to navigate and find their food since they are blind. Bats’ uses of echolocation are the same as humans’ uses of eyes to see. Its process of using sound waves and echoes to survive every day is very complicating. But do not get it wrong here, there are others animals having the ability to use echolocation for the same reasons of navigation and food searching including dolphins, whales, other birds and even humans.
The Process of Bat’s echolocation
(the sonogram of the bat – ASU)
In order to echolocate, the bat is required to have three essential things: voice, ears, and echoes. Echo is “a sound or sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener.” Down here is the picture of bat’s ear. First of all, the bat will let a chirp (ultrasonic sound); as the sound waves reach the targeted object, it will bounce back as echoes reaching back the bat’s ear. Now, the echoes will pass the ear cartilage into the ear canal. Then, it continues its way to the eardrum where it starts to vibrate, and that vibration will pursue its way to cochlea until the basilar membrane. In brief explanation, the vibration from the ear canal cannot be transported to the basilar members; it had to go through a conversion. It is all happened in the “cochlea.” If you look at the diagram down below, it is explaining how the cochlea works. When the vibration approaches the cochlea, it instantly converts into nerve impulses. Nerve impulses are the smooth flows of vibration. Then, those impulses transport to the brain for interpretation. Since bat does not live in the space with one object, it had its owns technique of knowing multiple of objects at the same time. To do so, the bat had to chirp for several times with distinguished frequencies in a different location. Therefore, when the echoes reach back its ears with different frequencies, it can figure the destination, sizes, and shapes.
Conclusion
Bat is a very special kind of animal among the others with the ability of echolocating. The object’s location, size, and shape can be figured out by its chirp. In addition, by letting a chirp, the bat can produce and hear the sound at the frequencies over 100,000 waves every second. With its complex and amazing life survival skill, it is actually the birth of many modern sonar technologies.
To honor the greatest accomplishments by women in STEM, we, the students in physics class, did research on many talented ladies around the world in STEM field.
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler
Actress, Inventor
BORN: 9th November, 1914
DIED: 19th January, 2000
Citizenship: Austria, United States of America (from 1953)
Stage name: Hedy Lamarr
Co-founder of the invention of Spread Spectrum Technology
Known during her time as the “Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” Hedy Lamarr emerged in the 1940s with her talented skills in film production. Besides her beautiful face, she also made an invention of new technology. The newly discovered invention was called “Spread Spectrum Technology,” also known for the Silver Screen Exploits. In contemporary times, this invention has assumed a major role in developing and manufacturing technology in the field of wireless communication.
Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, on the 9th of November, 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. She was of Jewish descent and immigrated from Austria to the United States of America in 1937 to pursue a career in the filming industries. At the time of her immigration, Lamarr was a young, bright girl who was already showing her interest in and dream of becoming an actress.
Career Life Time
Through hard work and her strong commitment to chase her vivid dream, at age 17, Lamarr became a young, talented actress and first appeared in the film “Geld auf der straße” (Money On The Road). At that time, her career in the film industries gave her a strong, significant presence in the Czechoslovakian and German film industries. In addition, in 1933, she was in the German film “Ecstasy,” which brought her to the attention of Hollywood producers. Later on, Lamarr was offered a contract and became a star of the media company MGM, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Before becoming a shining, talented star, Lamarr experienced a lot of rough life moments. In 1933, she married a man, Friedrich Mandl, a wealthy Austrian. He was a controlling man who prevented her from pursuing her dream and acting career. Lamarr decided to escape from her husband for Paris, France. It was here in Paris that she started to blossom in her career and continued her acting in many entertainment venues until reaching Hollywood.
By the 1940s, she had acted in 18 Hollywood movies. At that time, many people did not appreciate and admire her talented acting skills; they mostly emphasized her beauty. As Lamarr got older, her acting career started to wither, and by the 1950s, her presence in the film industry became extremely limited. In spite of her career’s eventual decline, Lamarr contributed some timeless quotes to inspire women and others, such as the following:
“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”
“A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.”
“Hope and curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. The unknown was always so attractive to me…and still is.”
Spread Spectrum Technology
Besides her career in acting and filming, Hedy Lamarr was also a talented inventor. She was the first female inventor to discover Spread Spectrum Technology. It all started in the early 1940s when Lamarr and her partner, George Antheil, tried to develop the “Secret Communications System.” It is a patented device that manipulates radio frequencies at irregular intervals during reception or transmission. This means that this invention could form an unbreakable code that could effectively stop the transmission of information and messages by enemy spies.
Lamarr and Antheil invented this technology for a couple of reasons. First of all, she had personal reasons against the war, and she tried to work relentlessly to build this new invention for the Allies to win the war against the Nazis during World War II. Second of all, when she first married Mandl, he was actually selling munitions to Hitler. And finally, Lamarr was been severely degraded by her husband, who had insisted she did not have the abilities or capability to succeed in his field. In addition to inspiring her inventions, these were the reasons that had caused Lamarr to leave her husband and pursue her career in the first place.
Subsequently, Lamarr and Antheil came together to create and develop this invention. They were both authorized to develop their invention by the American government in 1941, but it did not attract the attention of greater audiences until ten years later. However, Spread Spectrum Technology was eventually implemented on naval ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis; and in fact, it continued to emerge in numerous military applications thereafter. In particular, this technology improved communication based on radio frequencies by changing at irregular periods that were synchronized (operated at same time and rate) between the transmitter and receiver. This technology could maintain the security of the messages that were being sent and prevented any hackers from transmitting them.
Spread Spectrum Technology becomes the main factor in the development of present and future wireless communication systems, including cellular phones, fax machines, and other wireless operations. Simultaneously, it is currently utilized in wireless “LAN,” Local Area Network, which is used in barcode scanners, palmtop computers, radio modern devices for warehousing, digital dispatch, digital cellular phone communication, computer data, city, state, or country networks for passing taxes, and email or multi-media data. This technology was also the main contributor to the invention of WiFi and the internet, which are really beneficial to today’s world population.
Before/After Death
In 1997, Lamarr and her partner received and were honored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Award. Later on, she became the first female recipient of the BUBBLE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award. Hedy Lamarr died in the year 2000. Besides all of her inventing accomplishments, she was also the face for millions of women. But Lamarr was not just a pretty face – she helped shatter stereotypes of what a woman could be and earned her place among the 20th century’s most important women inventors.
The half of our last year, the physics essential was cancelled out the curriculum. We used to learn with our physic facilitator, Alli, but there’s a new facilitator, and her name is Samantha. She is a great facilitator most of the time. For the first class I took with her, she started with a basic learning concept which was “kinematics.” In kinematic lesson, we set up the different and basic kinematic equations with motion. Additionally, we also learned many others physic concepts such as: graph of motion, vectors, vector components, 2-D motions, graph problems, and static equilibrium.
Currently, we’re studying about force of friction and mainly focusing on static and kinetic. I can say that it’s a really confusing lesson in physics because there are many steps in a problem, complex comprehensions, and extra information. If you look at the picture below, this is how confusing it is to me, but simultaneously fun to learn.
