STEM and Politics

Hello (not so many) readers! We will be starting a new post (which won't be like our last ones, which for some reason have been discontinued), called the weird questions. This is kind of a spin - off of what if? the book, and if you want us to answer any of your questions, post them in the comments below. Now, without further ado, question number 1 is: What would happen if there were firemen bungee jumping off of the side of a burning building? Short answer: They would all die a horrific death. Most ways you imagine this scene, the firemen are obliterated in flames, or through a collision with the ground, or simultaneously! Now this happy thought brings us to the long answer. Long Answer: Because the firemen would jump once off the side of a flaming building, and gradually swing back towards it, and would get annihilated in a burning mess. If the building was particularly unstable, it might collapse and send the jumpers to the ground, with the smoldering wreckage crashing do...

School. A tower looming over us, the place we have to spend seven hours a day. Well, at least, if you're still in school. During English class, have you ever wondered, when am I ever going to need to find theme or symbolism or use literary devices in the "real world"? Math class: When am I ever going to integrate expressions in the "real world"? Science: When am I ever going to need to recite the periodic table or memorize the chemical composition of different substances in the "real world"?  Well, here's the truth: The earlier years of school, namely Kindergarten through 5th Grade, are less heavy and focused on the academic learnings you achieve, but more so on the social and emotional learnings. You learn how to make friends, what people aren't worthy friends, how to interact with people, how to get teachers to like you, and these skills follow you into middle school. They prepare you a lot.  The next couple years of school (de...

I'm sorry we haven't had posts in a while. We're working on a separate project. Thanks for understanding. We do not wish to rush our posts as we strive to maximize their accuracy and quality. See you soon though!

We will be doing some stock market reports from now on per one or two months. Here are the most popular stocks now and how they grew or shrank. STOCKS AS OF 3-5 PM on 12/23/17: Apple 175.03 +0.01% Citigroup 75.49 0.00% General Electric 17.50 +0.03% Google 1068.86 -0.19% Microsoft 85.51 +0.01% These are just the most popular stocks according to CNN. We'll mainly focus on the big companies, Google and Microsoft. (Apple, you'll get your turn.) So first of all, even though the gain is pretty small, all three of these companies' stocks have/are growing. Let's take a look at Google first:      Here's Google's Stock History: The gray area line in the last graph is pretty much Google's prediction of the stock. By the time you read this, it won't be a prediction anymore, but who cares. Google's stock, by the looks of it, is pretty stable and it's most recent 5-year change (from Dec. 2012 to Now) is ...

I was just doing math one day (yup, I'm a huge nerd, I do math in my free time), when I received an email from one of my friends (And yes. I do have friends.). He was talking about how bad 12 hour clocks are and how we should change to 24 hour clocks. His point was pretty interesting. He said, "Humans are on the verge of going to Mars. Imagine we travel to Mars. What clocks would we use?" I didn't know anything about what he was talking about, so I researched a bit about Mars, and found out it has about 25 hours. I thought about it. If we moved to Mars, we could have 12 hour clocks and everything would be confusing, or we could have 25 hour clocks and nothing would be confusing. There are 24 hours in an earth day, so why don't we use a 24 hour clock? I thought about why we used a 12 hour clock. The evidence points out that we use 12 hour clocks partly because of the Sumerians. The Sumerians used a base 60 number system. 24 isn't divisible b...

Starting this week, we will post updates on global news with a science and politics edge. Credit goes to CNN, Google news, and other sources. Science:  One of Antarctica's largest glaciers, Totten Glacier, may be melting due to wind, as opposed to climate change (Though climate change is still a major player). If it melted away into the sea, it would cause the global sea level to rise by about 3.5 meters. After years of observation, Chad Greene and his team at the University of Texas at Austin conclude using satellite imagery and special observations that the main culprit in the ice shelf of the Totten Glacier is wind. Technology:  Cyber criminals have broken into art galleries using email scams that have fooled some galleries in the US and London. These emails send buyers duplicated invoices with the details of the account changed. In essence, this means that the robbers get paid for a fake copy of the painting. Art dealer groups urge galleries to remain vigilant. Engin...