BYO Death Ray: Smoking bushfires are bad for your health

Bushfire smoke covers Melbourne.

Victoria has been hit by large bushfires, resulting in dangerous smog over Melbourne. Dylan is here to explain.

The recent mix of wind and heat over Victoria led to an emergency situation, with bushfires burning around the state. The after-effects of bushfires include smog or haze. This smog/haze has been blown over Melbourne and with many fires still burning, the smog is likely to continue. Haze is defined as “an atmospheric phenomenon where dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky”.

The smoke presents a serious health risk, and health authorities and organisations continue to urge residents to be vigilant and take action to protect their health and the health of others. EPA Victoria issued an alert to residents about this issue. Their advice is as follows:

• People with respiratory or cardiac disorders should take their medication and minimise strenuous outdoor activity on smog alert days.
• Avoid driving where possible. Consider public transport, cycling or walking.
• Do not burn off outdoors or light incinerators (most local councils have restrictions on burning off).

Victorian Chief Health Officer Dr Rosemary Lester released a statement saying that children and the elderly should decrease outdoor activity when smoke levels are high to prevent medical issues. “Where possible, this sector of the community should also limit the time spent outdoors,” Dr Lester said. “Anyone with a heart or lung condition should take their medication as prescribed by their doctor... People with asthma should [also] follow their asthma management plan.”

Hazey links

• In Victoria, www.emergency.vic.gov.au has up-to-date information on bushfires and other emergency situations.
• The Country Fire Authority (CFA) has an awesome website for kids, where you can explore a bushfire, play games and more.

BYO Death Ray: Carbon nanohairs

Dylan is back with some nanonews.

Carbon nanotubes may help robots to better sense their environment and more!

Carbon nanotubes, is there anything they can't do?
Source Wikimedia Commons

Hairlike fibre sensors made out of tiny carbon tubes and silver particles may just be the new way to sense pressure. Whether for robots or micro-controllers, these new sensors open a world of possibility!

These sensors can detect tiny changes in pressure. A film of carbon nanotubes on the fibres carry tiny electrical signals that change when the nanotubes feel pressure, such as from wind or touch. The film of nanotubes also enables the fibre to flex over and over again while always returning to its original shape.

BYO Death Ray: NASA News

Dylan is back with some recent news from NASA.

A 'creature' with large tentacles has appeared 600 km off the Australian coast. It was spotted in the south-eastern Indian Ocean by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) module on a NASA satellite. The 'creature' is more than 100 km wide and is quite bright in the ocean, sparking questions about whether there are large life-forms under the earth, like in the 2013 movie Pacific Rim.

A giant monster from the deep? Source: NASA

Silly Science: Chemistry Cat Compilation

That Crazy Chemistry Cat is always joking around. Dylan has sent in his favourites.

You can make your own here (if you do, share it with the Death Ray Science News community in the comments or send it to me at deathrayscience@gmail.com).

BYO Death Ray: Space station spotting

Dylan headed out into the field (just outside his house) to see the International Space Station. Here is his report.

On January 3, 2014 at 9:36pm, I was able to see the International Space Station for around six minutes, passing from the NNW (north-north-west) towards the ESE (east-south-east) at 50 degrees. As I was seeing it for the first time, I did not know what to expect. The skies were very clear and at around 9:38, I saw a fast moving straight white dot/line travelling in the correct direction. Using a compass and my notepad I took down some observations about the sighting.

• It travelled in the correct direction at 50 degrees from the horizon.
• It travelled faster and straighter than any other object in the sky.
• It is one of the brightest objects in the sky.
• It is far away from the stars and easy to see when you find it.

The ISS is the brighter dot in the centre of the screen as I took the photo.

Silly Science: Wet jokes

Fresh from scouring the web for the top science images of the year, regular BYO contributor Dylan has sent in a couple of funny images.

BYO Death Ray: Top 10 science images of 2013

Hello everyone, Dylan here!

2013 has been out of this world... literally! Most of the top science images of 2013 were not taken on Earth. These have been hand-picked by me for Death Ray Science News. In no particular order, here are my top science images of 2013:

#1: The first image was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004. It shows the view of the Earth and Saturn on July 19 (the Earth is a little white dot to the bottom-right of Saturn - you can see it better by clicking on the image and making it bigger). Cassini was around 1.44 billion km away from Earth at this time.

Click on the image to see a much bigger version
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

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BYO Death Ray: Get ready for the 'big slurp'

Our first BYO Dylan is back with a new story - the prospect of the universe collapsing on itself - possibly today!

Scientists from the University of Southern Denmark think that universe is about to implode, in what some are calling a 'Big Slurp'.

They say that something called a 'phase transition' may occur very soon. It has been "proven" (not really, but the Denmark scientists say they have proven it), that a "shift in the forces of the universe will cause every particle in it to become extremely heavy... essentially squeezing everything into an extremely hot, heavy, tiny ball", reports the Daily Mail.

A basic diagram of a 'phase transition'. Image from the University Of Denmark.

BYO Death Ray: Mount Burnett Observatory Young Observer's Night

Our newest correspondent, Magnus Bock, aged 12, has this special report from the historic Mount Burnett Observatory just outside of Melbourne, Australia.

Hello, I’m Magnus Bock, Senior Labrat and Mount Burnett Observatory Member and I’m here to tell you about what I do at Mount Burnett.

Observing sun spots reflected onto paper from a telescope

Magnus and the Mount Burnett dome

Mount Burnett is an Observatory in the Dandenong Ranges, near Cockatoo. It used to be run by Monash University, but they decommissioned it and it started to fall apart. In 2010 a group of locals and astronomically-minded people got together to restore it and make it work again. There is a big telescope in the dome and several portable Dobsonian telescopes for members to use.

Last night I went to Mount Burnett Observatory’s Young Observer’s night. It was really fun but sadly it was the last one of the year. Here are some of the things we did:

• Had a picnic.
• Looked at the sun and moon.
• Normally we would also have a speaker, but not this week.

The aims of the Young Observers Group are:

BYO Death Ray: NASA predicts ozone hole recovery in 2070

Congratulations to our first ever BYO (Build Your Own) Death Ray contributor. 13-year-old Dylan from Balwyn High School in Melbourne has sent us some good news in science - the recovery of the ozone layer. He also wins an iTunes voucher.

New research from NASA claims that the ozone layer may fully recover in around 2070. This was announced at a presentation on Wednesday during the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

The ozone layer over Antarctica.
The blue area is the 'hole'.
Image from NASA/Ozone Hole Watch.

It has been 26 years since the Montreal Protocol, which in 1997 led to 197 countries banning the chemicals that harm the ozone layer. Susan Strahan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said that the harmful chemicals in the atmosphere are dropping because of the protocol but have not yet dropped to the point where the ozone layer will start sealing itself back up again. Right now, major events such as global warming and variations of temperature and wind are causing disruptions in the healing process of the ozone layer.