I actually don't know how many people are interested in the subject of science, probably enough, and yet many probably won't be in this field. In this post I would like to write about why science fascinates me.
See the little glowing dot in the post image? The small glowing dot is a bubble in the water, controlled by a standing ultrasonic field. The cavitation collapses the bubble and creates an extremely high temperature and a flash of light for a few pico to nano seconds. What exactly happens there? Science does not know, not yet at least, at least it is not high on the priority list.
I find this fascinating, something so small, insignificant to humans, creates a bubble by the pressure, water and ultrasound with cavitation, which emits light when it collapses. And we have no idea why 😀
At least there is a name for it and a Wikipedia article: Sonoluminescence and it only known that the Pistol Crab has this ability. The discovery is at least not that old, 2001 has Spiegel.de reported about it.
The answer is almost right in front of us, and yet it will probably take some time before science finds an answer to this.
My interest in science
Already at a young age I was enthusiastic about INT subjects, actually MINT, for mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology. But I was never able to get excited about mathematics at school, and today I would like to put the formulas into practice. Because while mathematics is a universal language, it is usually treated so dryly in school that it is difficult to develop enthusiasm for it.
I can still remember my school days, where we had biology and also how my thirst for knowledge drove the teachers to despair.
One question that stuck in my mind in biology was asking my then 8th grade high school biology teacher why the heart pumps in one direction and why not the other. Her dry answer, "Because it doesn't go the other way," can be done, but is not really a satisfactory answer.
In a lecture about organs I gave at that time, at the point about organ transplantation, I earned many laughs from the class that in a distant future one will have the medical technological possibility to transplant also the brain.
Today such a Transplantation possible, but is probably not ethically feasible so quickly. I skillfully ignored the laughs, because you can see it in the people who lack imagination and dismiss their view of things that you yourself can not understand as ridiculous.
Presumably, for the prolongation of human life, research is more likely to be done on chromosomes and telomeres to stop or at least slow down the steady shortening of these, which is tantamount to slowing down aging. Or you become a rich vampire and buy the Young bloodThere are also experiments in the USA for those who have the necessary small change. Whether a mice experiment is transferable to humans?
Plants and first steps in the laboratory
Through my fascination with biology and genetics, I signed up more than 15 years ago for some sessions at the Green Laboratory in Gatersleben where children could immerse themselves in biology and do guided experiments in the lab with parents. Here are 2 pictures of experiments that I myself participated in the Green Lab in 2008.
-
- Experiment bean: it should show how a plant climbs towards the light
-
- I can't remember the plant, but the point was to show that plants can breathe. The attempt to make the transpiration visible
Although I have long outgrown these little experiments, the fascination remains, also I just look too good in the lab coat 😅. One experiment that stuck in my memory was biodegradable film made from potato starch, it wasn't particularly complicated and even then I wondered why we couldn't switch plastics entirely to biodegradable raw materials. The results were quickly seen in the lab. Here is a tutorial on how to make this Make your own foil on the basis of potato starch can.
Of course, science is not for everyone, and some people do not want to deal with it at all, partly because they are not interested and partly, simply put, because they do not want to change their view of the world.
And that's what makes science so special, you can't claim something and have people believe it, no, with peer reviews and studies, scientists' findings are validated and tested, and that's how the discourse moves forward, closer to the truth.
Or as you can read on the homepage of the Green Laboratory in Gatersleben:
If you're not curious, you won't learn anything.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, (1749 - 1832), German classical poet, natural scientist and statesman
Federico.lembo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
English 
German 
French 
Czech