Science is Sexy: Why Do We Get Sick More in the Wintertime?

By Jimmy Rogers (@me)
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Well it’s that time of year….of flu’s and rhinos (Rhinoviruses) and sniffles, OH MY! Yes, everyone seems to be getting sick. With all of these things going on, it might get you thinking…why now? Why do we always get sick more in the winter?  Well to answer that question let’s look at the conventional wisdom.  If you ask just about anybody off the street, they’ll tell you that the cold somehow weakens your body (maybe your immune system) and makes you more susceptible to disease.  How do they know this?  Well their mothers told them, of course!

Why Do We Get Sick More in the Winter?Everyone has heard the phrase “Bundle up or you’ll catch a cold!” But how accurate is that statement really?  Our body depends on an idea known as “homeostasis,” which describes the ability of a system to maintain itself.  While the outer temperature of your body varies widely based on environmental conditions, the core temperature remains constant.  Most people have a core body temperature of 98.6°F (37.0°C).  If you think about it, the only time that your temperature changes is when you have a fever.  Fevers only happen when the body specifically raises its temperature to fight off infections.

So how does this affect our initial question?  Well, if your internal temperature remains fairly constant in any weather, why does sickness increase in the winter?  Almost every microbiology course I’ve taken has posed this question, because it’s a good one to make you think scientifically instead of anecdotally (relying on “conventional wisdom”).

As it turns out, one of the other effects of winter is that people tend to stay indoors more often. When the population stays indoors (in a closed air system) and in the presence of others for an extended period, the rate of infection increases.  This is because at any given time, there are a few individuals infected with one of the many reoccurring (endemic) diseases.  If those people had only limited contact with others, they might spread their colds or they might not.  When they stay inside with everyone else, though, they successfully infect many more people.

While this answer may surprise some of you, I think the more impressive take-away is the regulatory ability of the human body.  Despite cold winds or a scorching sun, we maintain that core body temperature like it’s our job.  In some respects, it IS our body’s job.  All living things must find ways to maintain internal conditions such as temperature, pH, and sources of energy.  Without the existence of homeostasis, life as we know it would be impossible in our constantly changing world!

Have more questions on disease or homeostasis?  Leave a comment or ask me on Twitter and I’ll try to puzzle it out with you!

20 Things That Happen in 1 Minute

Every year, there are millions and millions of random facts and statistics gathered by researchers, scientists, and analysts. These numbers are often times too large to interpret and the shear magnitude of the numbers can be overwhelming. Here are 20 figures scaled down to 60 seconds in order to grasp how wild some of these numbers are.

Continue reading ›


Sherlock Holmes and Other Literary Action Heroes

By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

I saw Sherlock Holmes this weekend and what the New York Times calls “intermittently diverting” I would reclassify as “wildly entertaining,” but then, I realized that perhaps I just have a fondness for literary-characters-turned-action-heroes. No, it’s not for the Holmes purist; we all know that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes wasn’t so much for physical violence, but I can’t help but agree with Guy Ritchie that if he were, that calculating mind might not be a bad asset in a brawl.

The whole idea makes me go back to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (and I should note since I’m mentioning it fondly that I refer to the graphic novel rather than the film) where literary heroes jump off the page into proto-super-heroes. And in Sherlock Holmes we get that same kind of steampunky atmosphere in a greasy picture of Victorian London that makes it pretty visually spectacular for those of you who like that sort of thing.

Whatever geeky button this film pushes for me, I think there may be more to come. After all, Natalie Portman is going to turn Elizabeth Bennet into a zombie-slaying action heroine in the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Some think it’s literary blasphemy, to which I say: we’re not burning books here! You can still read/enjoy/love the original – but with another Holmes beating guys up and getting caught in explosions, it’s like two for the price of one.

So what’s next in the world of literary action heroes? Lockwood as an undercover ghost hunter in Wuthering Heights? Great Expectations‘ Estella trained not just to break men’s hearts but to break their skulls? Gone with the Wind as a space opera with Scarlet as a planet-hopping black widow? The possibilities are endless!

How Traffic Lights Work

For those who’ve always wondered how those old mechanical traffic lights work (there is still quite a few of these around btw!), check the following video out:

Yeah, we know, this one is pretty old and probably dates back from the 90s, but it explains how these things work in such a simple and interesting way that we just had to share it.

[Via Reddit]

New Year’s Eve brings lunar rarity

lunareclipse

In a wonderful quirk of coincidence December 31st, 2009 is not just New Year’s Eve. It’s not just the end of a decade. It’s also a night of a blue moon… in partial eclipse.

A blue moon occurs when there are 13 full moons during a calendar year rather than 12. This is the result of the fact that the lunar cycle is slightly shorter than our calendar months, meaning there is an “extra” full moon every 2.7 years.

Exactly which full moon during a year should be classed as the blue moon is open to debate. It’s generally referred to as the second full moon of a calendar month, though this is though to be a misinterpretation of a definition used by farmers which classed the blue moon as the fourth full moon of a season. (Under this system, the first full moon of a season is the one closest to the relevant solstice or equinox.)

That means that whether next week brings a blue moon depends on your definition. The farmers’ method would have the next blue moon in November next year. And thanks to time zones, the more common calendar method means that anyone from the Indian and eastern time zone (UTC +5 and -5 respectively) will consider the forthcoming full moon to be the first of January, thus making the “blue moon” a few weeks later.

Still, that’s all human construct. What certainly isn’t is the partial lunar eclipse. That’s when the Earth is placed in between the sun and the moon, such that the sun’s rays are blocked and the moon appears to be in a shadow. It usually happens twice a year, and for it to happen with a blue moon is particularly rare: depending on your location and definition, it happened just four times in 20th century.

The peak of the shadow this time round will be at 19:22:39 UTC (that’s also known as Greenwich Mean Time or UK time) and will be visible in most of Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia. So as a very generalized guide:

  • North and South America: Blue moon, but no visible eclipse.
  • Europe, Africa and Middle East: Blue moon, visible eclipse
  • Asia and Australasia: Full moon (not blue), visible eclipse

And as if the decade’s end/blue moon/partial eclipse wasn’t freaky enough, get this: it occurs on the final day of the International Year of Astronomy.