Lourdes University Department of Chemistry and Physical Sciences

08/08/2024

Only a few weeks before the start of fall semester on Lourdes University’s picturesque campus -

08/08/2024

😎In this graphic, we look at the behind sunglasses, what they are made of, and how they protect your eyes from the sun's UV radiation: https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i19/Periodic-graphics-chemistry-sunglasses.html?sc=240807_sc_eng_fb_cen

by Compound Interest

08/05/2024

🔥Fire up the grill, it's barbecue (chemistry) time! https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i28/Periodic-Graphics-Chemistry-Barbecue.html?sc=240805_sc_eng_fb_cen

by Compound Interest

07/31/2024

Start your next educational journey at Lourdes!

07/31/2024

Go Team USA 🇺🇸
Chemistry Olympiad

Team USA won 3 gold medals and 1 silver, with Yufei Chen placing in the top 3 overall

07/03/2024

Make sure you are registered- there’s still time. 🧪🔬🗒️📓📚📖

Lourdes University Gears Up for Fall 2024 Semester Anticipation grows as the Fall 2024 semester draws near. Lourdes University is excited to “set the tone” for a successful Fall 2024 semester with a full Freshman Orientation and Week of Welcome planned. The freshman orientation events are for in...

06/26/2024

" 25 June in 1903, Marie Curie defends her doctoral thesis on radioactive substances – at Université de la Sorbonne in Paris – becoming the first woman in France to receive a doctoral degree.

The examination committee expressed the opinion that Curie's findings, including the determination of Radium’s atomic weight, represented the greatest scientific contribution ever made in a doctoral thesis. Of the committee’s three members, were two future Nobel Laureates Gabriel Lippmann (Physics 1908) and Henri Moissan, (Chemistry 1906).

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska (1867–1934), was awarded the in Physics (1903) for pioneering research on radiation, and the Prize in Chemistry (1911) for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium." -- via the Nobel Prize

To introduce young children to the extraordinary Marie Curie, we highly recommend the board book "Marie: My First Marie Curie" for ages 1 to 3 (https://www.amightygirl.com/my-first-marie-curie) and the picture book "I Am Marie Curie" for ages 4 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/i-am-marie-curie)

For older kids, we recommend "Who Was Marie Curie" for ages 8 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/who-was-marie-curie) and the activity-packed "The Science and Technology of Marie Curie" for ages 9 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/science-technology-marie-curie)

For a stunning visual biography for adult readers, check out "Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout" at https://www.amightygirl.com/radioactive-love-and-fallout

To inspire children and teens with stories of more trailblazing women of science who have made important discoveries, visit our blog post, "Ignite Her Curiosity: Children's Books to Inspire Science-Loving Mighty Girls," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=13914

Marie Curie is also featured on the 'Greatest Women in Science Socks' for teens and adults, ages 13 and up, at https://www.amightygirl.com/greatest-women-in-science-socks

And for a wonderful toy to get kids excited about chemistry from a young age, check out this colorful set of Periodic Table Building Blocks for ages 2 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/periodic-table-building-blocks

Thesis cover: Recherches sur les substances radioactives (Research on Radioactive Substances). 1903.

05/14/2024

Here are a lot of your Aurora questions answered-

**Weather Nerd Alert: Northern Lights Questions Answered**

The image below shows the satellite image that captured the aurora borealis from space. It is just one snapshot in time, but it shows the northern lights right over Toledo.

I am getting caught up on all of my messages from the weekend. Many of you just saw the northern lights for the first time, and have a lot of valid questions. The aurora is one of my favorite topics in the world. As it turns out, my obsession with the aurora started during the last G5 storm around Halloween in 2003. In 2009 I built a website about the northern lights with forecast data and information on how to see it (https://www.rossellet.com/p/aurora-tracker). Somehow that website landed me on a Japanese documentary about “chasing the aurora” a couple of years later. A film crew actually flew to our home (In Arkansas at the time) to interview us and take video of our everyday life for 2 days. That was one of the most bizarre moments of our life. Imagine eating spaghetti for dinner with your two 5 year old boys, and asking them how school was today, and they are just looking at you like, “what we are just going to ignore the guy with a boom mic above our heads?”…

I digress, I will save that story for another day. The point is that I love the northern lights, but I love other people seeing nature’s grand display even more. I am still on cloud 9 that so many of you got to see this rare sight in the night sky.

*How Rare Was It?*
Seeing the northern lights in northern Ohio is rare, but a weak display occurs once or twice a year on average. What happened last Friday night typically happens about once or twice a solar cycle which is 11 years long and those storms normally happen in the years near solar peak. We are currently at solar peak now and solar activity will stay elevated for the next 2 years. Now that is the overall averages, but the last solar cycle was very weak and aurora sightings in Ohio have been well below normal for the past 10-15 years. The solar cycle before it brought 2 events of this magnitude. The peak level of the geomagnetic storm Friday was similar to the 2003 storm and 1989 storm which led to power outages. It was also the first time that the aurora reached Hawaii and Caribbean in 103 years according to reports. So in a nutshell, it happens, but storms of this magnitude are very rare.

*Why Did My Camera See More Colors Than My Eyes?*
The aurora comes in all kinds of shapes, sizes, speeds, colors, and brightness. The brightness level is most important to when it comes to the colors our eyes can see. The cones and rods in our eyes essentially turn our vision into black and white mode when light levels are very low. So when the brightness increases with the aurora, we tend to see more colors. Also when the color is green, that tends to stand out more to our eyes. Light pollution, moonlight, and twilight can decrease the colors we see. The aurora can range from a dull ghostly haze that isn’t impressive at all to bright and colorful show of curtains and pillars. I have seen vibrant bright green bands with an aurora so bright you could read a book by its light in Alaska and Canada. The colors last Friday were tougher to see before 10:40pm as we were still in astronomical twilight. The light pollution had an impact, but the main factor was the aurora brightness level. Camera’s on the other hand don’t have our same human limitations and pick up the colors as they actually are in the sky.

It is the opposite with a total solar eclipse. The difference between what a camera sees and what our eye sees during a total eclipse comes down to a difference in dynamic range. Our eyes have much higher dynamic range than a camera, and as a result, I think the human eye sees something much more beautiful than what a camera can capture.

*Why Were There Different Colors, And More Pinks/Purples Than Greens In The Sky?*
The northern lights shine with a green, sometimes a yellow/green-whitish color most of the time. On rare occasions, such as major storms, the aurora will shine light red/pink to dark red. Also blue and purple shine every once in a rare while near twilight. The different colors have to do with different atoms being excited by the solar wind. The common green color is from oxygen atoms being excited at lower levels (60 to 185 miles above the ground), the rare red aurora is from oxygen atoms being excited at very high altitudes (above 185 miles). Nitrogen can occasionally cause blue or purple to shine high in the atmosphere at the tail end of twilight in the evening and right as twilight begins in the morning. This is a rare color to see especially for middle or low latitudes. Every once in a while a slightly different red color (almost crimson) can show up on the bottom of a green aurora. This happens when nitrogen is excited at 60 miles above the surface.

That is the basics of how the different colors develop. Three things created the very unique array of colors Friday night. 1) The power of the storm. It takes a a tremendous amount of energy to get the red and pink colors to develop and that develops at those very high altitudes. The fact that pink was the dominant color across the globe should tell you how big this storm was. 2) We were near or in astronomical twilight when most of us were observing the aurora. That helped bring out more purples and some blues. 3) We were under the aurora with lots of different colors. We know from kindergarten when you mix colors, you get different shades of colors or different colors altogether. So that had an impact too and it is also why you saw some whites show up in the sky. Even my camera revealed some washed out patches of light which were a blend of several colors. Meanwhile, those in the south that were looking towards us saw a different display. The colors were more separated with lots of red high up and some greens lower on the horizon.

*Did Climate Change Or HAARP Cause This Or Enhance The Display?*
No…There were tons of conspiracy theories that took off over the weekend to try and explain why we saw what we saw. The aurora is separate from the weather and climate. HAARP is the high frequency active auroral research program in Alaska that studies the ionosphere. It has been a conspiracy favorite for years on a variety of things and now it has been blamed for enhancing or creating the geomagnetic storm. The real science of the aurora is fascinating and worth reading about. We have also had bigger solar storms in the past before our modern technologies. What happened Friday night was a natural phenomenon.

05/13/2024

Carl Sagan said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Learn about how everything around us — from apples to fireworks to you (yes, you!) — is made of star stuff in this Tumblr blog: https://tmblr.co/Zz_UqjaPr5GvSq00

05/13/2024

05/13/2024

The Aurora seen in NW Ohio on Friday May 10 was beautiful! The natural world is amazing.

05/08/2024

Fun correlation of dinosaur physics -

05/06/2024

Spring has sprung 🌿🌳🌸
Have a wonderful summer

05/06/2024

Congratulations to our grads and newest alumni. 🎓🎉

05/01/2024

Attention Lourdes Alumni 🗣

If you're a Lourdes alumni who would like to be recognized, please send a brief bio and headshot to [email protected]. We look forward to featuring you! 🧡🐾

Tag someone who should participate in the comments 😉

05/01/2024

Interesting image -

There is no red in this picture.
Your brain is filling the Red colour.
The picture is made entirely of light blue, black and white.
Zoom in and you'll see.

04/26/2024

Happy DNA Day!

Today is DNA day, marking the date on which the structure of DNA was published. This graphic gives an overview of the structure: https://www.compoundchem.com/2015/03/24/dna/

04/23/2024

04/23/2024

Happy Earth Day!🌎

03/15/2024

This was a lovely event to spend time with the Sisters of St. Francis.

03/14/2024

Here's a NASA Pi Day Challenge.
Happy pi day!

Can you use π (pi) to solve these stellar math problems faced by NASA scientists and engineers?

03/01/2024

Classic The Far Side

02/29/2024

Weather predictions and population statistics show the best spots to see the total solar eclipse over North America this April

02/28/2024

Dont miss our next FREE , which focuses on immuno-oncology & how it uses the body’s immune system to recognize, target, & eliminate cells. The webinar is co-produced with CAS. Register now at https://brnw.ch/21wH9gd

02/15/2024

Fun chemistry valentines 💌