Why Is The Sky Blue…Or Red…Or Any Color At All?

New episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart is up! I tackle one of the oldest questions in the book:

Why is the sky blue (or any other color)? It’s a question that you’d think kids have been asking for thousands of years, but it might not be that old at all. The ancient Greek poet Homer never used a word for blue in The Odyssey or The Iliad, because blue is one of the last colors that cultures pick out a word for.

In this episode, I’ll tell you not only why the sky is blue, but why it’s red at sunset. It turns out, those colors are all part of the same sunbeam. And when you’re looking at a blue sky, you could be sharing a special moment with someone thousands of miles away. Next time a kid (or the kid inside you) wants to know why the sky is blue, you’ll have science to back you up!

Subscribe to It’s Okay To Be Smart on YouTube.

The Auroras, Earth’s Art Show!

Hey folks, the next episode of It’s Okay to be Smart is up on YouTube! If you like pretty sky stuff, you’ll like this one.

Space might seem like an empty place, but the area surrounding Earth is constantly being bombarded by waves of charged particles released by the Sun: The solar wind. Luckily, thanks to Earth’s swirling, molten core (and the magnetic field it provides), we are protected from this planet-sterilizing onslaught with an invisible force field.

All that science has a beautiful side effect: It makes the auroras! The Northern and Southern lights are the result of the solar wind and its dance with Earth’s magnetic field and polar atmosphere. It’s like our own cosmic light show!

Head on over to the YouTube channel and subscribe for more great science. Be sure to check out the last episode while you’re there, a cosmic love story featuring Ann and Carl (about our search for alien civilizations). If you’d like to see something on a future episode or tell me wheat you think, send me a message or leave a comment on the video!

Source: youtube.com

New episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart coming up tomorrow!! Can you guess what it’s going to be about? Probably! Because I just put the title up there!  This was a really fun one to shoot. I got to sit inside of an actual, real-life telescope dome (the one in the photo) and pretend that I was looking out into the cosmos instead of at a cloudy sky, which is what really happened. If you like pretty pictures of glowing space stuff, you’ll like tomorrow’s episode. Plus science, of course. It might be a good idea to go ahead and mosey on over to the YouTube page and subscribe … you don’t want to miss anything. Plus, then you can watch my first two episodes, which I know you’ve been meaning to do. Stay curious!
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New episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart coming up tomorrow!! Can you guess what it’s going to be about? Probably! Because I just put the title up there!  This was a really fun one to shoot. I got to sit inside of an actual, real-life telescope dome (the one in the photo) and pretend that I was looking out into the cosmos instead of at a cloudy sky, which is what really happened. If you like pretty pictures of glowing space stuff, you’ll like tomorrow’s episode. Plus science, of course. It might be a good idea to go ahead and mosey on over to the YouTube page and subscribe … you don’t want to miss anything. Plus, then you can watch my first two episodes, which I know you’ve been meaning to do. Stay curious!
Zoom Info

New episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart coming up tomorrow!!

Can you guess what it’s going to be about? Probably! Because I just put the title up there! 

This was a really fun one to shoot. I got to sit inside of an actual, real-life telescope dome (the one in the photo) and pretend that I was looking out into the cosmos instead of at a cloudy sky, which is what really happened. If you like pretty pictures of glowing space stuff, you’ll like tomorrow’s episode. Plus science, of course.

It might be a good idea to go ahead and mosey on over to the YouTube page and subscribe … you don’t want to miss anything. Plus, then you can watch my first two episodes, which I know you’ve been meaning to do.

Stay curious!

comaniddy: For education that entertainsInformation to feed your brainScience is good for your heartSubscribe and enjoy It’s Okay to Be Smart! Awesome! Coma Niddy GIFs my chocolate-covered face and some beautiful words from Carl Sagan, as seen in my latest YouTube episode: The Odds of Finding Life and Love This is the first time someone has made a GIF out of me. I’m flattered :)
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comaniddy: For education that entertainsInformation to feed your brainScience is good for your heartSubscribe and enjoy It’s Okay to Be Smart! Awesome! Coma Niddy GIFs my chocolate-covered face and some beautiful words from Carl Sagan, as seen in my latest YouTube episode: The Odds of Finding Life and Love This is the first time someone has made a GIF out of me. I’m flattered :)
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comaniddy: For education that entertainsInformation to feed your brainScience is good for your heartSubscribe and enjoy It’s Okay to Be Smart! Awesome! Coma Niddy GIFs my chocolate-covered face and some beautiful words from Carl Sagan, as seen in my latest YouTube episode: The Odds of Finding Life and Love This is the first time someone has made a GIF out of me. I’m flattered :)
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comaniddy: For education that entertainsInformation to feed your brainScience is good for your heartSubscribe and enjoy It’s Okay to Be Smart! Awesome! Coma Niddy GIFs my chocolate-covered face and some beautiful words from Carl Sagan, as seen in my latest YouTube episode: The Odds of Finding Life and Love This is the first time someone has made a GIF out of me. I’m flattered :)
Zoom Info
comaniddy: For education that entertainsInformation to feed your brainScience is good for your heartSubscribe and enjoy It’s Okay to Be Smart! Awesome! Coma Niddy GIFs my chocolate-covered face and some beautiful words from Carl Sagan, as seen in my latest YouTube episode: The Odds of Finding Life and Love This is the first time someone has made a GIF out of me. I’m flattered :)
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comaniddy:

For education that entertains
Information to feed your brain
Science is good for your heart
Subscribe and enjoy It’s Okay to Be Smart!

Awesome!

Coma Niddy GIFs my chocolate-covered face and some beautiful words from Carl Sagan, as seen in my latest YouTube episode: The Odds of Finding Life and Love

This is the first time someone has made a GIF out of me. I’m flattered :)

(via comaniddy)

The Odds of Finding Life and Love

You guys ready for the next episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart? This is a fun one, with a little Valentine’s Day theme. 

It’s about what the search for extraterrestrial life in our galaxy can teach us about our odds of finding that special someone. Starting with the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation, we’ll explore the odds of finding a human to love that meets your criteria. There’s a special cosmic love story involving a couple named Carl and Ann that I think you guys will like too :)

If you’d like to learn more about the science behind the numbers that went into calculating the odds of alien life for this video, check this doc: http://dft.ba/-4bBW

Don’t forget to share it with every human being you know, and be sure to subscribe! 

Here’s last week’s video.

Building a Big House

You may recall in my last YouTube episode that ants make up 15% of all land animal biomass on Earth. Think about that. FIFTEEN PERCENT!! 

Well, this video shows why they are so deceptively numerous. It’s amazing what’s lurking underground. With perfectly designed ventilation, engineered networks, and requiring 40 tons of soil excavation … it’s a true feat of nature.

It’s amazing how much nature’s awesomeness grows when you change your perspective a bit.

(via EarthSky)

Check out my other Episode Extras here.

Source: earthsky.org

Thank you so much, guys …

I just want to thank all of you for helping the first episode of my new YouTube show It’s Okay To Be Smart from PBS Digital Studios do so well in its first week!

We are about to crack 160,000 views on the first episode, “Life By The Numbers” and it’s only been up a week. Not Gangnam Style numbers or anything, but pretty awesome all the same. Because it’s a short YouTube video, sometimes it’s hard to cover every detail I want to, so I’ll be putting up “Episode Extras” here to fill your brain with even more science.

If you haven’t subscribed, watched it or shared it with every single one of your friends, then what are you waiting for do it already COME ON!!! WATCH IT!

200,000 has a nice ring to it. That’s all I’m sayin’ :) But seriously, you guys are the reason this even exists, so a million hugs.

What would you like to see in a future episode?

Episode Extra: Life By The Numbers How do we know how many viruses there are in the ocean? (This post helps explain some of the science in the latest episode of my show. It’s impossible to get all the details into a few minutes. Watch the episode here if you haven’t already. Seriously. Watch it, already!) A lot of people seem pretty blown away by one of the numbers I presented in the video, that all the viruses in the ocean, laid end-to-end, would stretch 100 times the diameter of the Milky Way. Here’s where that number comes from: Curtis Suttle is a biologist at the University of British Columbia who studies marine viruses. In a 2005 Nature paper, he explained how quickly our knowledge of viruses in the seas is growing and how much impact they have on the marine biosphere. First, the math: After spending years counting (yes, counting) viruses in different parts of the ocean, Suttle determined that any liter of seawater contains about 3 billion viruses (3x109). There’s more near the surface, and fewer deep down (even viruses 100 meters below the seabed!), but that’s an average. These include viruses from many different families, although distant oceans can house viruses with nearly identical genes. This means that the ocean’s viruses are constantly swapping and trading genetic material. Think about what that means for how they drive evolution in marine environments!  Marine biologists have estimated (ESTIMATED) that the oceans hold about  1.3x1021 liters of seawater. Good luck reconciling that number in your head. It’s kind of impossible. Do the math and you get 4x1030 viruses, also a rather ridiculous number. Viruses vary in size quite a bit, but using an average of 100 nanometers, that means they would span 10 million light years. One light year is almost 6 trillion miles, so you can see where this is going … express train to silly-ville. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across, so that’s where the number comes from. Even more interesting is the weight of viruses in the ocean. Ecologists often measure biomass in carbon, because it’s important how much of these building blocks of organic life a particular piece of life (or dead stuff) contains. When something containing a lot of carbon dies, that carbon has to be recycled somewhere. Things that are made of a lot of carbon have to eat a lot of carbon. See what I mean? The average virus contains about 0.2 femtograms of carbon, which isn’t much by itself. But all of them together contain 200 megatons of carbon, which is the same amount of carbon in 75 million blue whales. Why is that important? I mean, you can’t picture what 75 million blue whales look like, right? But maybe you can imagine the impact 75 million blue whales could have on the ocean ecosystem. It would be significant to say the least. That’s why it’s important to understand how even the smallest units of the biosphere can really throw their weight around when viewed as a whole. Does this mean viruses are a successful species? What do you think?
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Episode Extra: Life By The Numbers

How do we know how many viruses there are in the ocean?

(This post helps explain some of the science in the latest episode of my show. It’s impossible to get all the details into a few minutes. Watch the episode here if you haven’t already. Seriously. Watch it, already!)

A lot of people seem pretty blown away by one of the numbers I presented in the video, that all the viruses in the ocean, laid end-to-end, would stretch 100 times the diameter of the Milky Way. Here’s where that number comes from:

Curtis Suttle is a biologist at the University of British Columbia who studies marine viruses. In a 2005 Nature paper, he explained how quickly our knowledge of viruses in the seas is growing and how much impact they have on the marine biosphere. First, the math:

After spending years counting (yes, counting) viruses in different parts of the ocean, Suttle determined that any liter of seawater contains about 3 billion viruses (3x109). There’s more near the surface, and fewer deep down (even viruses 100 meters below the seabed!), but that’s an average. These include viruses from many different families, although distant oceans can house viruses with nearly identical genes. This means that the ocean’s viruses are constantly swapping and trading genetic material. Think about what that means for how they drive evolution in marine environments! 

Marine biologists have estimated (ESTIMATED) that the oceans hold about  1.3x1021 liters of seawater. Good luck reconciling that number in your head. It’s kind of impossible. Do the math and you get 4x1030 viruses, also a rather ridiculous number. Viruses vary in size quite a bit, but using an average of 100 nanometers, that means they would span 10 million light years. One light year is almost 6 trillion miles, so you can see where this is going … express train to silly-ville. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across, so that’s where the number comes from.

Even more interesting is the weight of viruses in the ocean. Ecologists often measure biomass in carbon, because it’s important how much of these building blocks of organic life a particular piece of life (or dead stuff) contains. When something containing a lot of carbon dies, that carbon has to be recycled somewhere. Things that are made of a lot of carbon have to eat a lot of carbon. See what I mean?

The average virus contains about 0.2 femtograms of carbon, which isn’t much by itself. But all of them together contain 200 megatons of carbon, which is the same amount of carbon in 75 million blue whales.

Why is that important? I mean, you can’t picture what 75 million blue whales look like, right? But maybe you can imagine the impact 75 million blue whales could have on the ocean ecosystem. It would be significant to say the least. That’s why it’s important to understand how even the smallest units of the biosphere can really throw their weight around when viewed as a whole.

Does this mean viruses are a successful species? What do you think?

Seeing the sounds of the sea The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong. Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?
Zoom Info
Seeing the sounds of the sea The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong. Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?
Zoom Info
Seeing the sounds of the sea The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong. Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?
Zoom Info
Seeing the sounds of the sea The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong. Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?
Zoom Info
Seeing the sounds of the sea The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong. Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?
Zoom Info
Seeing the sounds of the sea The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong. Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?
Zoom Info
Seeing the sounds of the sea The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong. Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?
Zoom Info

Seeing the sounds of the sea

The songs of whales and dolphins can be beautiful to the ear. Now acoustics engineer Mark Fischer has created a way to make them visually pleasing too. What’s more, his technique captures more information about the sound than traditional ways of visualising whalesong.

Beyond cool. I am enamored with these sorts of re-interpretations of scientific observations through art. I assume you’re all with me on that. Right?

(via sagansense)

Source: newscientist.com