Tuna really can't seem to catch a break. Not only is it nigh impossible to convince people this alien-like creature should be saved, but people's voracious appetite for it in sushi and cans alike, make the task all the more unachievable.

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It's one thing tacking up posters of adorable baby pandas and sad-looking harper seals, but doing the same with a tuna just doesn't quite have the same effect. There's something about fish that makes it difficult for people to relate to them, and to be honest, I understand where they are coming from. And yet without them cute smiling dolphins will disappear, eddying sea turtles will vanish, and once its toll is taken out on the oceans it will reach to terrestrial habitats. If we're lucky only part of the ecosystem will collapse.

It is time for people to start viewing the planet as a whole, and not as individual parts. You can't have that precious little panda cub without saving the tuna as well. Everything is connected. As the Lion King so aptly put, "it's a circle of life".

Clearly this realization has yet to hit people- or perhaps more disturbingly, it has, but people simply don't care. Mere days ago the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has implored a re-evaluation of Japan's high tariffs on Vietnamese imported tuna. Currently, the high tariffs are keeping the price of tuna artificially high in Japan, reducing the demand, if they are lowered this will result in a drastic rise in demand. Of course, the high tariffs might also just mean Japanese consumers are demanding more tuna caught on their turf, but nevertheless, it is unlikely a reduction, or complete removal, of the tariff won't result in an increase in demand. An increase in demand that depleted tuna stocks cannot handle.

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Less than a month ago, a North Carolina petition to reduce shrimp trawling in New Bern was denied. The reason? Fishermen claim that they will lose their jobs.

Now this is a fair point, and I'm not arguing that they are saying anything wrong. But when it comes to this, people need to become more flexible. I realise sacrificing your job is asking you to be a bit more than "flexible", but job security can no longer be used as an justification for environmental degradation.

Fishermen are notorious users of this particular excuse, claiming a heritage of fishing, and the lack of ownership of the seas. For some reason we seem to sympathise with this plight. Don't get me wrong, I certainly understand where they are coming from, and the struggles they would endure were they to stop fishing, but what do you think would happen if everyone used this argument?

In China shark finning is justified through tradition (a rather short tradition in the grand space of time, but that's another point), in Japan whaling is done in the name of "scientific research" (another discussion for another time), and seal hunting continues to be practiced in Canada and several Scandinavian countries. All around the world animal cruelty and environmental degradation is somehow validated by excuses. Because that's all they really are.

But the argument coming from shrimp trawlers, and other fishermen, probably gets me the most riled up. What if all the textile workers claimed they would lose their jobs during the Industrial Revolution (in fact they did, but that's not the point). But, let's imagine, we listened to them. What if we shut down the first Spinning Jenny, and the first steam engines so that manual jobs could be preserved? What state would humanity be in today? Would we be content to remain in the dark ages for the sole purpose of keeping the status quo?

Of course, advancement will be a struggle for some, people will lose their jobs, people will be forced to accept change, but are the benefits not far greater than any of these sacrifices? The fishermen protesting in North Carolina, need to embrace this change. For it they insist on living in the past there's is no telling what the world will look like tomorrow.

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Have you ever tried to clean a greasy tupperware with just water? It probably didn't go all too well. This is again down to the polarity of molecules. Grease, and other types of oils are non-polar molecules, which don't have the necessary split in charge required by water molecules (polar) to break them apart, and thus dissolve them.

However, add some soap and the grease comes right off. So the logical conclusion to reach might be that soap is made up of non-polar molecules, but this too isn't strictly true.

Soap, like fats, is a hydrocarbon chain. i.e. a large chain consisting of interlinking carbons and hydrogens. The difference between most fats and soap is that soap molecules have two different ends. One end of the soap molecule is a saturated hydrocarbon end, i.e. it is non-polar. Whilst the other end the polar, i.e. hydrophilic. Thus when you have something that is non-polar the non-polar end of the soap molecule interacts with that allowing it to be dissolved, whilst polar substances interact with the hydrophilic portion of the molecule.

Quite the versatile substance I would have to say.

If you've ever had a chilli before you're probably quite familiar with the not entirely pleasant feeling of having your tongue lit on fire. On more than one occasion, having been a bit too flamboyant with tabasco bottle I almost thought I could breath fire.

Now you're mom, or someone else, will probably have told you to drink milk. Water doesn't help they say, and I have no doubt you've experience it for yourself. There's actually a very logical chemical explanation behind this.

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Now substances can be classified as one of two things. Either polar, or non-polar. This essentially states whether or not there is a greater electron density in one area of the molecule versus another. To determine whether or not a molecule is polar you first look at the bonds. If two substituent atoms are different molecules, they will have a polar bond. The amount of polarization will depend on their respective electronegativities (the pull of a nucleus on a shared pair of electrons), the greater the difference in electronegativtiy the more polar the bond. But just having polar bonds doesn't necessarily mean that a molecule is polar, to determine this you need to look at the symmetry of the molecule. If it is symmetrical, i.e. the shape of it as well as the substituent atoms attached, the molecule is said to be polar. If this isn't the case, it is a non-polar molecule.

Now when such substances are dissolved in solution, there is a helpful phrase that helps characterize their properties: "like dissolves like". In other words, a polar molecule will be dissolved by a polar solvent, and a non-polar molecule will be dissolved in a non-polar solvent.

Capsaicin, the molecule largely responsible for "spicyness" is a non-polar molecule. Water, on the other hand, with highly polarized bonds and two lone pairs (making it non-symmetrical), is highly polar. Thus drinking water doesn't really do much. In contrast, milk contains some amounts of fat, i.e. triglycerides, which are long chains of saturated hydrocarbons. These fat molecules are non-polar, allowing the capsaicin to dissolve into the milk and thus is removed from the mouth. And voila, your mouth no longer feels like a dragon breathed into it.

By the way, ice cream does the same trick.

If you've taken a basic chemistry course you've probably been taught about electrons. In case you haven't, this is the gist of what you need to know.

Now every atom is made up of what is called a nucleus. In the nucleus you have two subatomic particles (not actually the smallest thing, they are made up of more fundamental molecules called quarks, but I won't get into them just yet), namely, protons and neutrons. There is one notable exception in hydrogen, which only has one proton in its nucleus, though its heavier derivatives, deuterium and titrium have one and two neutrons respectively. But I digress, protons are positively charged particles with a relative mass of 1, whilst neutrons and neutral (creative names I know); neutrons are also assigned a relative mass of 1 (atomic mass units). Now orbiting around this nucleus are electrons, which are negatively charged particles, with such as small mass as to be negligible. Now depending on where you are in your chemistry education you will have been taught different things about them.

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It's unlikely in this day and age that you've been taught the "plum pudding" model of the atom, as this was one of the earliest renditions, and other then getting the charges right, is pretty much wrong. What you were probably taught was the Bohr model of the atom. This states the electrons orbit the nucleus in concentric circles, like the planets the sun. There's really no eloquent way of putting this, but this is also wrong.

Just thinking of the behaviour of an electron, this is just a really unlikely circumstance. Electrons quite literally defy the laws of physics, and a new branch of it (quantum physics) had to be developed to explain these oddities (again I'll spare you the detail for now). Thus, knowing this what are the odds that electrons would be content orbiting a nucleus in quaint little circles? Quite unlikely.

Instead they are found in orbits. The shape and type of orbit depends on four different, unique, quantum numbers assigned to each electron, which I also won't get into. The nature of these orbitals can be determined using a very complicated equation derived by Schrodinger. The lowest energy orbital is essentially a sphere, followed by a larger sphere, which are then proceeded by more and more complicated shapes, some of which have yet to be derived. All I want you to know is that the area that the shape covers is said to be the area that particular electron occupies. But this shape is given by a probability density function, i.e. the resulting value is a probability. I can't quit recall the exact number, and it also depends on which orbital is being talked about, but suffice it to say it's less than 1. In other words, the probability of an electron being in that orbital is quite high, however, and here's where the crazy part comes in, if the electron is not in that orbital it can quite literally be anywhere else. It could, for example, be on the Great Wall of China, now the probability of this is very low, but it is not impossible.

Kind of neat to think some of your electrons might be whizzing around Antarctica right now.

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In this day and age the new is dominated by the impending doom of climate change. More recently, the news has focused on Donald Trump's insistence that it doesn't exist- but don't get me started about that (that's a post for another day).

What I want to talk about today, is rising sea levels. Now anyone who knows anything about climate change is aware that rising sea levels is one of the primary concerns- and for good reason. With entire countries under threat from total submersion, it's certain no minor consideration.

Now my question to you, is what do you think will ultimately cause this rise in sea level (it's actually already rising). You're probably thinking I've gone a bit looney over my extended leave from blogging, but I promise you I haven't (at least not in this regard). Now the logical answer is the melting of the polar ice caps. And although this isn't wrong, it also isn't the whole truth. The increased volume in water alone will not cause a significant rise in sea level, au contraire, it's down to the chemistry of water. Well, in truth, the laws of chemistry (as this particular property applies to all substances that I'm aware of). When a substance is heated it expands, this is because as temperature rises, particles within a substance receive more energy, and with this energy they are able to travel faster, collide more, and generally expand in volume (provided they are not confined in a fixed volume--> would eventually lead to an explosion of sorts if too much heat is applied to a closed system). Thus, the melting ice caps, ultimately lead to a rise in sea level as there is a greater volume of water that can expand. Which again, will expand because of global warming.

I myself didn't really think about this factoid until quite recently, and I thought it was pretty interesting. Funny how we just let our brains logic themselves into an explanation, without really thinking about how accurate those conclusions really are.  

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It seems most of the posts I've been writing recently, have been apologies for not writing. So I guess I owe you a double apology.... one for a lack of content, and two for sub-par quality posts on the few you have received.

As usual I do have my excuses, though I doubt you would appreciate me going into them. So I'll refrain myself, at any rate expect more frequent posting in the near future. And a possible remodel. I haven't quite yet decided. Over the next few days I'm looking into some logistical things with the blog, so it might take me a while to get a proper post written, but I promise once I've sorted it out (finally), I'll be back in full swing.

Though I will say, it doesn't help that apple has decided to remove blogger as one of their apps... I quite enjoyed that little feature. If anything who can do anything about that is reading this right now, I'd really appreciate having that app returned to its rightful pedestal on my home screen.

That' is for now folks!