Nasa TV

Through a window of the International Space Station (ISS), I can see the dark nocturnal earth underneath slowly rotating towards a new day. On the bent horizon, the atmosphere can be distinguished as a thin blue streak. Just above that streak, the first rays of harsh white sunlight begin to peak over the horizon, slowly blinding the sight. I watch this spectacle for a couple of minutes, when suddenly the station's creaking intercom radio jumps on : My, my ! At Waterloooo Napoleon did surrender... The familiar song continues for about a minute, and is then interrupted by a very American voice : Good morning ISS! This is Houston, I hope you liked our little wake-up song, time to get to work, folks!

No, this is not a movie scene from a science fiction film.
It's NASA TV, a streaming internet TV channel where you can follow NASA missions in real time. Just check out the mission dates, and tune in via www.nasa.gov. I watched the space shuttle Discovery mission STS-116 last month and it was great. You can actually hear all the communications between the shuttle and mission control. It's really exciting, especially when you know how little it takes to turn the mission into an infernal disaster (Challenger, Columbia) For example : when Challenger re-entered the atmosphere (an incredibly dangerous procedure) after completing its last mission ever, a loose heatshield tile made the spacecraft desintegrate completely when soaring very high over Texas. Now, when Discovery re-entered last month, I was following every step of it on Nasa TV, and along with the flight controllers in Houston, I held my breath when the re-entry process commenced, and let out a big sigh of relief when the orbiter finally became visible in the skies above Florida. It really is fantastic when you can watch such a spacecraft touch down safely when you've followed almost every step of its mission in real time from behind your TV screen.

Fan Sniffing

I just noticed something funny. If I move my pc from my place to another, for example to a LAN party, or to my parents house, or to the repair shop, and let it run for some time while at this other place, the spinning fans inside the computer make the local air run through its interior. Then, when I take the computer back to my place again, and start it up and the fans start spinning, for a couple of seconds, I can smell the air from the place it has last been running in, and if I close my eyes it's almost like I was back there. I find this a good illustration of the (recently proven) fact that olfactory stimuli can trigger memories in a much more realistic and complete way then auditory or visual stimuli can. It is thought that it has something to do with the olfactory system being neuroanatomically profoundly connected with the limbic system (emotion centre).

Kelly watch the stars

I was just outside, humming the Air song 'Kelly watch the stars' while testing my parents new bird spotter (yes, in the middle of the night...). It is mounted on a stand, which brought me to the idea of using it to watch some stars. It's a clear, windy, starry night right now. I was able to locate Jupiter quite easily, targeted the scope and when I looked into the objective, I really could see the giant orange disc of Jupiter, along with three of its four moons orbiting around it in the same plane! I rushed inside to get my mom's digital camera, but by the time I figured out how to connect it to the scope, Jupiter was slowly disappearing behind the treetops. I think I was about 20 seconds too late... Bummer! I will certainly try and make some nice pictures again, and I'll make sure I'll post them here if I succeed. But for now... good night!

Crime Scene Investigation

Next wednesday, I will have to do an exam on Forensic Medicine. So I will be studying this kind of 'weird' subject for the next 3 days. The course syllabus is full of interesting facts and figures that I think would appeal to a very broad group of people, not just (future) doctors. And that's why I'm planning to post such 'little facts' everytime I stumble upon them from now on. I will add them in this post by editing it, so if you're interested, be sure to check it out once in a while.
Let's roll.

D A Y...O N E
09:10 PM : Our first 'interesting fact' was found in the 'early corpse phenomena'- section of the syllabus. Probably, most people know that when a person dies, discharge of faeces and urine may occur immediately after death. However, what I think most of you don't know, is that a seminal discharge is also possible. This is sometimes mistaken for a sign of sexual activity just before death, thus leading to the wrong conclusions about the cause of death.

00:05 AM : Time for a little information on 'late corpse phenomena'. During lifetime, our bodies are colonized by millions of bacteria, mostly located in the oral and nasal cavities and in the large bowel. The body needs those bacteria, for example to assist in the digestion process. Those bacteria are harmless because they are closely guarded and under control by our immune system. But when you die, these defensive mechanisms exist no more, and the bacteria that you once so kindly hosted, are now able to multiply incontrollably. They just go berserk on your body. They are even the main actor in the decaying process! So when a person took a lot of antibiotics just before he died, killing most of the bacteria, the decay process goes slower. On the contrary, when one dies of a serious infection (e.g. burst appendix), putrefaction occurs blazingly fast! Cheesy huh.

01:12 AM : The deadly poison that rotting corpses were thought to discharge, sometimes referred to as 'dissection poison' or 'ptomain' is just a fable. It doesn't really exist. The putrid liquids discharging from a corpse are just made up of molecules resulting from protein degradation. It should however still be handled with caution due to the fact that it might be contaminated with bacteria or viruses.

02:55 AM : Sarggeburt (German, literally 'coffin birth') : Forensic term to describe the phenomenon of a female corpse giving birth to a child that it was carrying. This grotesque event can occur even a few days after the moment of death, hence the grim term 'coffin birth'... It can be explained by the rotting gases that build up pressure inside the corpse, thereby pressing organs and other internal structures - in casu an unborn child - towards natural openings in the body.


D A Y...T W O
07:30 PM : The most dangerous room in your house is ... the bathroom. You can die in all kinds of stupid accidents but more important, you can kill yourself in the largest amount of ways. Let's just make a quick inventory of all the dangerous elements present in your bathroom and you'll agree : large amounts of water (drowning), boilers (CO intoxication), electricity - especially in combination with all the water (electrocution), hard edges and a slippery floor (blunt traumata), drugs (self-poisoning), sharp objects (razorblades, scissors to cut your wrists) ... You see?

01:24 AM : Analyzing the data of several autopsy studies, forensic experts assume that for every discovered murder, another one stays unnoticed. This is largely due to the fact that, according to these experts of course, way too little autopsies are performed.


D A Y...T H R E E
08:30 PM : When somebody drowns to death, he doesn't get killed just by the water in his lungs preventing O2 - CO2 exchange. Drowning in fresh water is totally different from drowning in salt water. In the first case, the fresh water arriving in the lungs is quickly sucked into the bloodstream (via pulmonary capillaries) due to its low salt concentration compared to the blood (this is a law of nature called osmosis). This sudden extra load of volume entering the blood stream, causes the heart to fail. Also, the important dilution of the blood makes the red blood cells suck up more blood (osmosis again) then they can take, resulting in bursting of the red blood cells. The potassium they contained enters the bloodstream and can cause dangerous heart arrhytmias. These two conditions (heart failure and potassium induced arrhytmias) cause death in about 5 minutes.
Now let's take a closer look at the mechanisms involved in salt water drowning. When the salt water enters the lungs, the opposite happens : osmosis causes the blood from the pulmonary capillaries to be sucked into the lungs, due to the higher salt concentration in the lungs. As a result, the lungs get filled with a mixture of blood and water. This condition causes death in approximately 10 minutes. Gulp!

11:24 PM : When you hang yourself or get strangled to death, you don't get killed by compression of your airways, but because the blood supply to your head is cut off. I think a lot of people don't know that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

00:54 PM : Not a single scientist or forensic expert knows exactly how long it takes to strangle a person to death. Of course not! However, estimations have been made based on killer testemonials. For instance, the testemonial of serial killer Richard Speck, bragging : "Strangle a person? It ain't like you see on TV. You have to go at it for about 3 1/2 minutes!"


D A Y...F O U R..:..E X A M
It went very well. First I had to describe CO intoxication, and then I had to 'solve' a rather clear cut case of an old lady, found in a deep coma at the bottom of the stairs (cerebral haemorrhage). So you see there's also a (much bigger) lot of boring stuff in the syllabus...