Amazing properties of Water.

Some interesting facts about Water

  • There is the same amount of water on Earth as there was when the Earth was formed. The water from your faucet could contain molecules that dinosaurs drank.
  •  Nearly 97% of the world’s water is salty or otherwise undrinkable. Another 2% is locked in ice caps and glaciers. That leaves just 1% for all of humanity’s needs — all its agricultural, residential, manufacturing, community, and personal needs.
  •  The average cost for water supplied to a home in the U.S. is about $2.00 for 1,000 gallons, which equals about 5 gallons for a penny.
  •  Pure water has a neutral pH of 7, which is neither acidic (<7 basic="" nor="">7).
  •  Water has a very high surface tension. In other words, water is sticky and elastic, and tends to clump together in drops rather than spread out in a thin film, like rubbing alcohol. Surface tension is responsible for capillary action, which allows water (and its dissolved substances) to move through the roots of plants and through the tiny blood vessels in our bodies.
  •  Air pressure affects the boiling point of water, which is why it takes longer to boil and egg at hills than at the beach. The higher the altitude, the lower the air pressure, the lower the boiling point of water, and thus, the longer time to hard-boil an egg. At sea level water boils at 212°F (100°C), while at 5,000 feet, water boils at 202.9°F (94.9 °C).
  •  Water freezes at 32° Fahrenheit (F) and boils at 212°F (at sea level, but 186.4° at 14,000 feet). Water is unusual in that the solid form, ice, is less dense than the liquid form, which is why ice floats.



 Credit:
1. U.S. Geological Survey
  Department of the Interior/USGS
2.United States
   Environmental Protection Agency

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eye color and Tyndall Effect

Image
According to wiki:"Eye color is a polygenic phenotypic character determined by two distinct factors: the pigmentation of the eye iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering light by the turbid medium in the stroma of the iris." Eye color often is the genetic trait that fascinates parents the most as a child develops. Will the child's eyes be black, brown, blue, gray, green, hazel or some combination of colors?  Human eye color originates with three genes, two of which are well understood. These genes account for the most common colors — green, brown, and blue. Other colors, such as gray, hazel and multiple combinations are not fully understood or explainable at this time. The pigmentation of the iris depends on the concentration of melanin in the iris pigment epithelium(located on the back of the iris), the melanin content within the iris stroma (located at the front of the iris), and the cellular density of the stroma.The appearance of blue and green, a...
Read more

Sheep-human hybrid : Birth of a new chimera organism.

Image
Researchers from University of California have been successful in producing  a chimera organism from DNA of sheep and human.The main purpose of this experiment was xenogenic generation of new organs. It is meant to change the future of organ donation- body parts synthesized from genetically modified sheep to save millions of lives waiting for organ donation. The process used here is by the infusion of  human DNA in host (here sheep) embryo.It is based on the interspecies blastocyst complementation. The chimera DNA molecule is prepared using the CRISPR- Cas9 mediated genome editing of the zygote to disable the genes that are responsible for the production of the particular organ and then infusing with the complementary genes(from human pluripotent stem cells(hPSCs)) responsible for formation of the organs in humans.It results in a hybrid creature that's more than 99 percent sheep – but also a tiny, little bit like you and me. The human portion of the embryos created in th...
Read more

Icy materials in space could behave like liquids at low temperatures and under ultraviolet light, suggests new research

Image
" Interstellar ice is believed to be a cradle of complex organic compounds, commonly found within icy comets and interstellar clouds, in association with ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and subsequent warming. We found that UV-irradiated amorphous ices composed of H 2 O, CH 3 OH, and NH 3 and of pure H 2 O behave like liquids over the temperature ranges of 65 to 150 kelvin and 50 to 140 kelvin, respectively. This low-viscosity liquid-like ice may enhance the formation of organic compounds including prebiotic molecules and the accretion of icy dust to form icy planetesimals under certain interstellar conditions. " According to the researchers from Hokkaido University in Japan, when the deep space conditions are right, this particular type of ice can attract and hold dust and debris, starting off a chain reaction that ends up with something like Jupiter . "The liquid-like ice may help dust accrete to planets because liquid may act as a glue," says lea...
Read more