Monday, May 25, 2009

The Outer Ear of Catch Wave

It might be the sound you heard was as quiet as your cat licking her paws. Or maybe it was loud, like a siren going by. Sounds are everywhere, and you have two cool parts on your body that let you hear them all: your ears!

The Ear figure your ears are in charge of collecting sounds, processing them, and sending sound signals to your brain. And that's not all — your ears also help you keep your balance. So if you bend over to pick up your cat, you won't fall down — or even worse — fall on your cat. Meow!

The ear is made up of three different sections: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. These parts all work together so you can hear and process sounds.
The Outer Ear: Catch the Wave.

The outer ear is called the penne or auricle. This is the part of the ear that people can see. It's what people pierce to wear earrings and what your friend whispers into when it's time for a secret. The main job of the outer ear is to collect sounds, whether they're your friend's whispers or a barking dog.

The outer ear also includes the ear canal, where wax is produced. Earwax is that stuff that protects the canal. Earwax contains chemicals that fight off infections that could hurt the skin inside the ear canal. It also collects dirt to help keep the ear canal clean. So earwax isn't just gross. It's gross and useful.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Growth Disorder

Genetic Disorder

Bao Xishun

Unequal limbs

Everyone grows and matures differently. You may be taller than your best friend in fourth grade. But then in sixth grade, your best friend may be an inch taller than you. Usually, this is totally normal.

A growth disorder, however, means that a kid has abnormal growth — for example, growing a lot slower or a lot faster than other kids the same age.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Electron Plasma Frequency


In physics and chemistry, plasma is a partially ionized gas, in which a certain proportion of electrons are free rather than being bound to an atom or molecule. The ability of the positive and negative charges to move somewhat independently makes the plasma electrically conductive so that it responds strongly to electromagnetic fields. Plasma therefore has properties quite unlike those of solids, liquids or gases and is considered to be a distinct state of matter. Plasma typically takes the form of neutral gas-like clouds, as seen, for example, in the case of stars. Like gas, plasma does not have a definite shape or a definite volume unless enclosed in a container, but unlike gas, in the influence of a magnetic field, it may form structures such as filaments, beams and double layers (see section 3, below). Plasma was first identified in a Crookes tube, and so described by Sir William Crookes in 1879 (he called it "radiant matter").

The nature of the Crookes tube "cathode ray" matter was subsequently identified by British physicist Sir J.J. Thomson in 1897, and dubbed "plasma" by Irving Langmuir in 1928, reminded him of a blood plasma. wrote:
Except near the electrodes, where there are sheaths containing very few electrons, the ionized gas contains ions and electrons in about equal numbers so that the resultant space charge is very small. We shall use the name plasma to describe this region containing balanced charges of ions and electrons Definition of a plasma Although a plasma is loosely described as an electrically neutral medium of positive and negative particles, a

definition can have three criteria:


1. The plasma approximation: Charged particles must be close enough together that each particle influences many nearby charged particles, rather than just interacting with the closest particle (these collective effects are a distinguishing feature of a plasma).
The plasma approximation is valid when the number of charge carriers within the sphere of influence (called the Debye sphere whose radius is the Debye screening length) of a particular particle are higher than unity to provide collective behaviour of the charged particles. The average number of particles in the Debye sphere is given by the plasma parameter, "Λ" (the Greek letter Lambda).


2. Bulk interactions: The Debye screening length (defined above) is short compared to the physical size of the plasma. This criterion means that interactions in the bulk of the plasma are more important than those at its edges, where boundary effects may take place. When this criterion is satisfied, the plasma is quasineutral.

3. Plasma frequency: The electron plasma frequency (measuring plasma oscillations of the electrons) is large compared to the electron-neutral collision frequency (measuring frequency of collisions between electrons and neutral particles). When this condition is valid, electrostatic interactions dominate over the processes of ordinary gas kinetics.