The Problem with New Earth

Last Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which brought mankind to the Moon and one step closer to other planets. Now, 50 years later, we are planning to use the Moon as a stepping stone for our next leap into space--Mars. The dream, of course, is that we will one day be able to live on a new planet.

The idea that we may settle on a "New Earth" is an appealing one. Just ask Hollywood. With movies like Intersteller, The Martian, Mission to Mars, etc., Hollywood would have us believe that this is the future for the human race. And considering the various catastrophic problems scientists predict that Earth faces in the next 100 years (flooding, food shortages, increased temperatures, pollution), it may seem like a good idea for us to have an escape plan. 

But what would it actually entail? Hollywood seems to think we simply need to pick up our potatoes and move to Mars. But man cannot survive on potatoes alone, as dietitians (or anyone on a low carb diet) will tell you. Survival of the species depends on a varied diet, and 75% of our crops are produced by pollinators (including blueberries, almonds, chocolate, and coffee). Presumably, then, we will need to bring pollinators like bees with us too. 

But not all bees are created equal. Honey is produced by honeybees, but chocolate is produced by stingless bees. In order to produce foods like tomatoes, we’ll need bumble bees, while squashes are predominantly produced by gourd bees. Other pollinator bees include leaf cutter, mason, mining, and solitary bees.

Also, depending on a single type of organisms for all of your foodstuffs is the road to disaster. After all, Buzz survived his jaunt to the moon but how will bees fair under other gravitational conditions? Space colony collapse could spell the end of the human race. Luckily, bees aren’t the only pollinators. In fact, some foods are produced exclusively by animals other than bees. Enjoy agave and tequila? We’ll need bats. Like bananas? We’ll need bats and birds. Love coconuts? We’ll need insects and bats. Like figs? We’ll need fig wasps. 

What will keep all these insects in check so that we aren’t overrun but ensure that the healthiest pollinators survive? Typically, this has been the job of predators like birds, frogs, and newts. It is therefore probably a good idea to bring some of those with us too, to prevent a single sick bee from destroying entire colonies, and, in turn, our food supplies. What stops the predators’ populations from growing out of control and eating all of our bees? Other predators, like cats, foxes, and bigger birds. 

Presuming we end up on a planet that isn’t identical to Earth, we’ll probably be spending most of our time indoors where we can control things like gravity, atmosphere, and weather. This will cause us to be vitamin D deficient, since we receive most of our vitamin D from sunlight. To counteract this, we’ll need supplies of fish like salmon, tuna, and Atlantic cod. We’ll need huge vats of salt water for these animals, plus the various smaller fish and crustaceans that they eat. 

Lastly, it’s hard to imagine a world where the likes of Chris Evans, Paris Hilton, or Queen Elizabeth leave their dogs behind. Of course, dogs are not vegetarians. To bring man’s best friends along, we’ll need to have sources of meat like cows and chickens. 

In addition to food, we’ll probably need some oxygen, so planting bigger, non-food producing trees will be a good idea. Forests have typically been created by animals that eat trees’ acorns etc., so we’ll want to bring some squirrels and mice with us. Good thing we’re bringing all those foxes and cats along to keep their numbers at bay. 

We’ll also need a variety of organisms to create soil. After all, having saplings but no soil will not help us much. So we’ll need some decomposers to break down fallen trees and dead vegetation, such as slugs, mushrooms, and worms. 

Once we’ve packed our space ark with insects, bats, frogs, birds, mice, squirrels, foxes, cats, dogs, cows, chickens, and slugs, we’re essentially saying to all other animals that they’re on their own. This will likely lead to the extinction of animals like polar bears, pandas, seals, rabbits, sea turtles, horses, giraffes, goldfish, elephants, whales, and any other creature we have deemed “unnecessary” to our newly created food web. Assuming that we’ve left to avoid the unstoppable catastrophe on Earth, humans will be the cause of the greatest extinction event on the planet. 

Sorry about Earth, lil guys--you're on your own.

Not to mention the people. It will be up to those with space crafts and New Earth domes to determine who gets to move and who has to stay behind. It is unlikely, after all, that there will be enough resources to house all 7 or 8 billion humans. Money will be worthless at that point, so people won't be able to buy passage. Plus, travelling to New Earth will involve space travel, which any NASA astronaut would tell us not everyone is physically cut out for.

People will therefore be selected just like the animal species were--survival on a fledgling New Earth will require all people living there to have specific, specialized skills too. This means only people who live in a country with the capabilities to reach New Earth have a chance of being chosen, and of them, only those who are healthy, young, and have whatever specific skills current New Earth residents lack (doctors, engineers, biologists, laborers, etc.) will be selected. Everyone else will be doomed to the same fate as all the hedgehogs and sea horses.

Sorry about Earth, lil guy....

Now, consider yourself. Are you healthy enough to be considered for emigration to New Earth? Are you also a doctor, or a phycist? And are you young enough to be considered, and will you still be young enough once New Earth has been discovered and it is ready for human populations? What about your family? Your friends?

New Earth is a nice idea, and it could be the future for mankind. But it only ensures the survival of the species, not the survival of everyone. This is why rather than hope that we can find a new place to destroy over time (becuase let's face it--if we can't take care of the Earth we have, what makes us think we'd do better next time?), it is important for us to strive to save the Earth we have.

How "One Small Step For Man" Was Made Possible By One Working Woman

Fifty years ago next weekend, mankind did what seemed as impossible now as it did then—they sent a astronauts to the Moon. Ok, so maybe it doesn't seem that impossible (considering that we are now trying to send astronauts to Mars), but considering the technology available at the time it's no wonder there are so many skeptics. In 1969, there were no smartphones, no cell phones, no Wikidepia or Google to look something up real quick. All of this poses an obvious problem if you're planning to do something no one has ever done before, and you might therefore encounter unknown problems.

Mission Control's computer controlled much of the trip from Earth, which is a good thing considering it was the size of a small room. But the final descent was made by a "micro" computer onboard the space craft, and was a mere 70 lbs. This computer was the smallest and most sofisticated computer in existence at the time. Being advanced, of course, does not prevent a computer from crashing, which is exactly what happened as Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were mid-way to landing their pod on the Moon.

Imagine you’re in a self driving car, traveling 70 miles an hour toward a solid cement wall. Now imagine that your navigation computer crashes and reboots 5 times in 4 minutes as you hurtle toward the wall at full speed. This was, in effect, what happened to Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong as their 70 pound “mini” computer which controlled their lunar landing crashed repeatedly during their 4 minute decent. 

The onboard computer looks more like a simple calculator than anything we’d recognize as a computer today; made of a numerical keypad and a few additional buttons, the display provided the astronauts information in three lines of coded numbers, which Armstrong had to decode from memory before punching in his numeric responses. Unfortunately, “1202” was not a code he recognized, so every time it displayed on the screen he had to call Houston to ask what he should do. He would wait while the NASA scientists conferred with each other, then they would come back on the line and give him their decision. The answer was always the same—keep going. 

A replica of the onboard computer's display and keypad

It turns out that 1202 was the code the computer displayed when it crashed. Luckily for Aldrin and Armstrong, the computer scientists who designed the computer had made provisions for the computer to save the most important data before crashing, such as their trajectory and location in space. This allowed the decent to be successful, even if it meant the men landed several miles from the intended final location. The number 1202 meant thiis process was working.

The error processing code was created by Margaret Hamilton, a computer scientist at MIT. Her team was in charge of creating the software which landed Apollo 11 on the moon—the coding for this software, when printed, stood as tall as she did. But it was worth every page. Without it, Apollo 11 likely would have crashed as the computer would have been unable to pick up where it had last left off. 

Hamilton with her code

But why did Hamilton do this? In part, because she was a working mother. She had brought her 4 year old daughter Lauren to work with her one day, and the child had been playing in the lunar lander simulator MIT had. Lauren, being 4 years old, did not know the protocols for the astronauts, and pressed a button mid-simulation that crashed the entire computer, losing all of the simulated flight’s navigation data. Hamilton saw this as a potential flaw, and notified her superiors that a backup system should be programmed into the computer to prevent errors from erasing the data from the lander’s navigation system. 

Naturally, her superiors declined, saying an actual astronaut would not make this catastrophic mistake. Several weeks later, when an astronaut pushed the exact same button mid-simulation to the same disasterous results, Hamilton received a call letting her know her team would need to create a work around after all. 

Hamilton with her daughter

Hamilton's team made the necessary updates to the software, and the rest is history.

This is just one example of why having women in the workforce is important. Different people bring different viewpoints when approaching problem-solving. Without this working mom, this story may have ended very differently, and if Apollo 11 had crashed, it could have set back computers and software by decades, and our laptops and smartphones might still be distant dreams.

6 Simple Ways To Reduce Your Plastics Footprint

As you may or may not know, June 8th is World Oceans Day, and one of the greatest threats to the oceans these days are plastics. Humans produce a ton of plastics (literally and figuratively), which take forever to break down, leech chemicals into water supplies, and entangle our aquatic friends. What's more, even citizens who try their best to recycle plastics are only making a small dent in the problem, as many cities around the U.S. are cancelling their recycling programs due to high costs.

What can you do? Here are a few baby-steps you can take to help reduce your plastics footprint:

1. Buy drinks in cans instead of plastic bottles.

Did you know that only about 23% of plastic bottles in the U.S. are recycled? Did you know that studies have shown that plastic particles are found in over 90% of bottled water? You can avoid both of these issues by switching to cans. The EPA says 55% of aluminum drink cans are recycled, plus they are far less likely to be contaminated with bits of plastic. Just make sure to cut up the six-pack rings that often come with cans, which animals can get caught in.

2. Swap your plastic toothbrush for a bamboo one.

Dentists recommend using a new toothbrush every 3 months. This means in a decade, the 7.7 billion people living on Earth should have disposed of a whopping 231 billion toothbrushes. And since plastics can take up to a millenia to break down, this means archaeologists could be looking at 23,100 billion of our old, mucky toothbrushes a thousand years from now. Bamboo toothbrushes are relatively inexpensive, work the exact same way, can be composted, and are easily ordered on Amazon.

3. Use plastic shopping bags as trash bags.

If you can't easily recycle something, you should reduce or reuse when possible. If you've already brought the plastic bags home, reusing them as trash bags gives their existance slightly more meaning. Plus, using them for garbage reduces the number of plastic trash bags you use, reducing the amount of plastic you leave behind. Reducing and reusing: it's a two-fer!

4. Use bars soaps instead of liquids.

Liquid soaps come in plastic bottles, while bar soaps have far less plastic packaging--some come in cardboard boxes only, resulting in no plastics at all. Anyways, liquid soap is basically just watered down bar soap--that's why it's a liquid and not a solid after all. 

5. Buy a reusable straw.

Metal, glass, silicon, bamboo--the choices for non-plastic straws are endless and affordable.


6. Ban balloons at your next birthday.

Sure they're pretty--but did you know that the world's largest balloon release is responsible for the deaths of two people? Your birthday balloons probably won't cause that much damage, but animals do eat them and get tangled in their ribbons, which isn't good for them. Plus, balloons truly are destined for the dustbin, and as far as useless objects go can anyone really say they need them? You know what is way more fun and chic now, anyways? Foam balloons.

Survival 101: How to Collect Water From Dry Plant Leaves

Last month we watched pond weed produce oxygen from just water and sunlight. But we also know that land plants (a.k.a. vascular plants) produce oxygen too. This can be observed by simply placing a living leaf (i.e. not dried out) under water. After a while, small gas bubbles will be seen on the surface of the leaf. This is the oxygen that the leaf is producing. But that's not all that vascular plants produce from their pores. Vascular plants also produce water through a process known as transpiration. 

Transpiration is the process by which vascular plants take in and release water as needed. Water moves from the roots of the plant up through the plants tissues. This is why a white flower, such as a carnation, changes color when its cut stem is placed in a container of water with food coloring added. As the flower draws the water up into its tissues, the food coloring is drawn into the tissues as well.

When the pores on the leaves of a vascular plants open to let carbon dioxide in, they also release excess water. And this plant-purified water can be easily collected. All you need to do is find a living plant (preferably a tree with leaves) and without damaging the plant, place several leaves in a water-tight bag. Be sure to include some air in the bag. Seal the bag around the branch using twine, rubber bands, or twist-tie.

Over time, you will notice that the bag now seems to contain liquid. This liquid is the water that the plant's leaves have produced during transpiration.

Is this the best way to purify water? No, probably not. You would need a lot of time, a lot of bags, and you would probably never be able to collect enough to sustain yourself for a long period of time (health authorities recommend the average human drink 2 liters of water per day). Plus, it would depend on how clean the leaves were to begin with, and whether the plant itself was toxic. Still, it does prove that plants are an important part of Earth's water cycle.

Congratulations super-scientist! You can now collect water using the power of plants!

To Breathe, Or Not To Breathe: Observing Photosynthesis

We all know that plants take in water and sunlight -- after all, anyone who has ever worked in a windowless office knows how difficult it is to keep a plant alive without sunlight, and we've all seen how plants that aren't watered shrivel up and die.

But we also all know that plants produce oxygen, even though most of us have never actually seen it for ourselves. With this simple experiment, a plant's formation of oxygen from water and sunlight (a.k.a. photosynthesis) can been seen.

Place a small amount of pond weed in the center of the bottom of a beaker. Place an upside down funnel over the pond weed. Carefully fill the beaker with water so that the pond weed is fully immersed. Next, fill a test tube with water, and carefully invert it and place it over the stem of the funnel. Place the set up in natural light. 

Over time, the water in the test tube will be displaced by oxygen.

This is because the plant has the water and the sunlight that it needs to create its food, and is therefore producing waste from this process. In the case of plants, this waste biproduct is oxygen.

Why pond weed? Why not a regular plant leaf? The reason this experiment calls for pond weed is because pond weed is an underwater plant. Land plants (such as most office plants like Ivy and spider plants) not only produce oxygen, but require carbon dioxide to live as well. These plants "breath" in carbon dioxide through pores on their leaves. While there is some carbon dioxide available in the water for these plants, it is easier and faster to produce oxygen underwater using plants that are naturally found there.

Congratulations super-scientist! You can now prove that plants produce gases from just water and sunlight!

The Truth About Dihydrogen Monoxide

In 1997, a high school freshman distributed a paper to his chemistry classmates on the dangers of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide, and asked them if this chemical should be banned. The paper correctly stated that dihydrogen monoxide can cause burns, corrosion of metals, and is found in acid rain, cancerous tumors, and every river in the United States. The result of his survey was unsurprising, but certainly unfortunate: 86% of his classmates said that this chemical should be banned.

As you may recall from the blog post "What's in a Name? How Chemicals Get Their Names," the name dihydrogen monoxide means that in a molecule of this chemical there are two hydrogens for every one oxygen. This should have indicated to these students that dihydrogen monoxide is H2O, or a chemical name for water (which most certainly should not be banned). One can only imagine that it was with great horror that his classmates watched the student win the state science fair that year with his project "How Gullible Are We?" (the answer to which is apparently 86%).

All of this is to say that you're probably willing to take a scientist's word for it that water is in fact two parts hydrogen to every one part oxygen. But why should you when a simple experiment can help you measure the amounts of each gas produced when the two elements are separated into their respective ions?

To separate the elements into hydrogen ions and oxygen ions, take a beaker (a plastic cup will do) of water, and add a pinch of Epsom salt. Next, place a 9 volt battery into the bottom of the beaker, with the prongs pointing upwards. Fill two clear test tubes with the same water-Epsom salt solution, and carefully invert them in the cup so that they remain filled. Place each one over one prong of the battery. 

As time passes, the liquid will be displaced in each test tube with a gas, but not in equal amounts. The test tube over the negative side will have twice as much gas in it as the test tube over the positive side. 

This is because hydrogen ions are positive and so are formed on the negative prong, while oxygen ions are negative and so are formed on the positive prong. Since there are twice as many hydrogens as oxygens in each water molecule, there is twice as much hydrogen gas formed as oxygen gas.

Congratulations super-scientist! You've just performed electrolysis on the dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide!

The Trouble with Children's Prints

In 2nd millennia BCE, people in Babylon who wished to enter legal contracts together would leave plastic fingerprints (physical impressions of their fingertips) in clay tablets. 

In the first millennium CE, people in China used patent thumbprints (where an ink was purposefully transferred onto a document by a thumb) to sign documents such as loans and divorce papers.

In the 1300s, a Persian physician wrote in a text that fingerprints were probably unique to everyone.

In the early 1800s, scientists began acknowledging the uniqueness of fingerprints. Francis Galton calculated that the odds of two people having the same prints are 1 in 64 billion, while Paul-Jean Coulier discovered in 1863 that iodine fumes can make latent prints (the invisible prints of skin-oil known as sebum, which are left behind on objects that people have touched) on paper visible to the naked eye.

Yet it wasn't until the 1800s that modern police started acknowledging the usefulness of fingerprints for identifying criminals. Indian and Argentinian police began collecting exemplar prints (the ink fingerprints purposefully taken for identification purposes) of criminals in the late 1800s. 

Finally, in France in 1902 Alphonse Bertillon (inventor of the mug shot) first used fingerprints to catch and convict a criminal of murder, after he was able to compare the prints found at the crime scene with the exemplar prints police had taken from the criminal weeks earlier after being arrested for another crime.

Plastic fingerprints in clay, patent fingerprint of grease, and latent fingerprints on a cell phone screen

By the early 1900s, fingerprinting became the norm for police performing routine crime scene investigations.

But in 1995, a strange discovery was made. Children's latent prints seem to disappear over time. In fact, while adult latent prints remain unchanged for months or even years, children's prints begin to disappear within hours of touching an object. This, of course, poses a number of problems, the first being that proving that a missing child had been in a particular location would be all the more difficult, and could hamper police investigations of missing children.

Scientists began testing to determine why this occurs, in the hopes that if it was understood they would be able to discover a way to prevent valuable clues from being lost. 

A child's patent handprint in paint

Studies have shown that while all latent prints consisted of sebum, the components of the sebum differs between children and adults. Children's latent prints have lower concentrations of lipids, waxes, and glycerides, and higher concentrations of cholesterol and cholesteryl acids than adults' prints. Because cholesterol and fatty acids are unstable, they begin to break down more rapidly making the latent fingerprints disappear. It was therefore hypothesized that targeting the carboxylate acid salts might result in the recovery of children's prints.

How Soaps Work

Soaps work because of the difference between the two ends of the same soap molecule. The long carbon chain is hydrophobic meaning it is repelled by water molecules, and the head is hydrophilic meaning it is attracted to water molecules. So, in that case of oil in water, the hydrophobic tails point towards the oil in the middle forming a circle around it, with the hydrophilic heads pointing out towards the water. 

These circles are called micelles, and it is because of these micelles that oils (which normally repel water) can be dissolved and washed away by soapy water.

Oven cleaners take advantage of this, plus the process of saponification, whereby fats and oils are turned into soap by a strong base.

You may recall that fats, or triglycerides, are three fatty acid carbon chains connected by a glycerol.

Glycerol, a fatty acid's carbon chain, and a triglyceride.

When a strong base is added to a triglyceride it breaks into glycerol and three fatty acid salts (i.e. soap molecules). Because each of these salts has a hydrophilic side, they can form micelles and be easily washed away with water.

So, while oven cleaners are not themselves soaps, they are strong bases, which when added to a greasy oven creates soaps that are then easily wiped away with a wet cloth. 

The Facts About Fats

We all know we're not supposed to eat trans-fats, but the distinction between saturated fats, unsaturated fats, and trans-fats seem to be less understood.

Fats, or triglycerides, are three fatty acid carbon chains connected by a glycerol.

Glycerol, a fatty acid's carbon chain, and a triglyceride.

Saturated fats have a carbon chain with all single bond between the carbons. They're called "saturated" because they have the maximum number of hydrogens attached to the carbon chain. These chains look like zig-zags, and are easily packed close together. It is this property that makes saturated fats (for example butter and lard) solids at room temperature. The closer the chains are to each other, the more stable they are, and the more solid the fat is.

Three closely stacked stacked saturated fatty acid carbon chains.

If two neighboring hydrogens are taken away from the carbon chain, the fat is said to be unsaturated because it is missing hydrogens. The loss of hydrogens makes the molecule very slightly lower in calories. More importantly, the neighboring carbon atoms that are missing the hydrogens are now sharing a double bond. If this happens once in a carbon chain it is monounsaturated (meaning one, as in Monopoly or monotheistic), and if it happens multiple times in a chain it is said to be polyunsaturated (meaning multiple, as in polygon or polygamy).

Monounsaturated vs polyunsaturated.

Because these fatty acid chains have a double bond in them, they can be either cis (meaning on the same side) or trans (meaning across, as in transportation or transatlantic). Trans-fats maintain the zig-zag shape as seen above, but cis-fats appear to change direction, resulting in a kink in the carbon chain. This kink makes cis-fats harder to closely pack.

Three stacked fat carbon chains: saturated, trans-fats, & cis-fats.

The cis-monounsaturated fatty acid carbon chains are much further apart than either the saturated or trans-monounsaturated fatty acid carbon chains. Because of this, cis-fats are liquids at room temperature, while trans-fats (for example margarine) are solids or semi-solids. Trans-fats rarely occur in nature, and are instead produced by partially hydrogenating (or adding hydrogen atoms to) cis-fats in order to make the liquid fats solid. Partial hydrogenation removes some, but not all, of the cis double bonds, resulting in trans double bonds and a more solid product.

Cis-fatty acid carbon chains are partially hydrogenated into a mixture of
saturated & trans- fatty acid carbon chains.

Trans-fats were originally made because of shortages of naturally occurring solid fats such as butter, but due to lower costs, longer shelf lives, and use in baking, trans-fats have been made readily available since despite health concerns. Trans-fats have been linked to many health issues, such as obesity and coronary heart disease.

It is not completely understood why trans-fats are negatively effecting human health. Some researchers have suggested humans lack the necessary chemicals to break down trans-fats, while others have indicated they believe that while the chemicals are breaking down trans-fats they are then too busy to be breaking down other essential fats (such as Omega 3s), which changes the fats present in the heart, leading to heart disease. It has also been suggested that since trans-fat molecules can pack closely and form solids, trans-fats can form plaques in the heart.

A cross section of an artery (pink), with a plaque build-up (yellow). 
(photo from bbc.co.uk)

It is important to remember that all fats are a mixture of saturated and unsaturated, and that listing a product as a "saturated" or "unsaturated" fat indicates which type is in higher percentage. It is also important to note that a variety of types of fats are necessary for life, and that ideally a diet would consist of a mixture of types of fat. However, limiting the intake of trans-fats where possible is best, since they are already naturally present in small amounts in some products containing saturated fats (such as cow milk).

"I'm Melting! I'm Melting!" or Why Some Things Are Water Soluble

At the end of Wizard of Oz, Dorothy chucks a bucket of water on the wicked Witch of the West, who proclaims that she is "melting" before disappearing into a puddle on the floor. But "melting" is a heating process, so unless the witch's natural body temperature is below room temperature, it is much more likely that she is, in fact, dissolving--which let's face it is a far less dramatic thing to yell at a group of strangers who have just defeated you with water. 

"I'm dissolving! I'm dissolving!"

But why would she dissolve? Why are some things water soluble, and others aren't? Simply put, "like dissolves like," and in this case the "likeness" has to do with the polarity of the solids (solutes) and liquids (solvents) at play. Polarity, in turn, is partially determined by the electronegativity of the elements in the molecules.

If something is highly "electronegative" it means it has extra non-bound electrons. If something is less electronegative it means it doesn't have these electrons. Each element is rated on a scale of 0 to 4, with 4 being very electronegative and zero being not electronegative. 

As you move from the bottom left towards the top right of the periodic table, electronegativity increases. This means that chlorine, for instance, has a higher electronegativity than iodine or sodium; iodine is closer to the bottom of the periodic table than chlorine, while sodium is farther to the left.

Carbon (2.55) and hydrogen (2.20) are in the middle of this range, and are considered neither electro- positive or negative, while oxygen (3.44) is said to be electronegative.

Polarity is determined by looking at a molecule's shape, electronegative parts, and distribution of electronegativity. For starters, let's take a look at water. The molecule is not a straight line, but is instead slightly bent. This is because the oxygen in the center has four un-bonded electrons on top of it which take up space. This causes the two bonded hydrogens to be pushed downwards, creating a shallow V shape. 

If we were to draw two parallel lines, and label one positive and one negative, we could then draw our water molecule in the center, and align it such that the negatives (oxygen) were pointing toward the negative "pole," and the positives (hydrogens) were pointing toward the positive "pole." Because the molecule can be aligned thus between our two "poles" water is called a polar molecule.

However, unlike water's bent V shape, carbon dioxide, which contains two electronegative oxygens and one neutral carbon, is drawn in a straight line. 

Even though the molecule has electronegative parts, it cannot be drawn to align with the poles because the electronegative parts are on opposite sides of the molecule. It is therefore called a non-polar molecule.

Polar solvents (like acetone) can dissolve polar solutes (like nail polish). 

Non-polar solvents (like pentane) can dissolve non-polar solutes (like oils). 

But generally speaking, polar solvents can't dissolve non-polar solutes, and non-polar solvents can't dissolve polar solutes. This is why you cannot easily wash oils off of your hands using only water--the oils are non-polar while the water is polar. 

Based on polarity alone, we'd have to assume that if the Wicked Witch of the West easily dissolves in water she was probably made of a polar substance, like table sugar...or maybe salt. She was anything but sweet.

What's in a Name? How Chemicals Get Their Names

If you look at the label on your ice cream or shampoo, you're bound to find some words that seem like unpronounceable gibberish. Hexadecanoic acid? 5-Methyl-2-(propan-2-yl)cyclohexan-1-ol? What does it mean?!

In actuality, scientists use these names in order to precisely identify a molecule. Each part of the name refers to a different part of the molecule's structure, so even if a scientist has never heard of or seen the molecule before, they can easily draw it based solely on its name. Every organic compound has one of these International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) names, even if they have common household names like "palm oil" (a.k.a. hexadecanoic acid) or "mint extract" (a.k.a. 5-Methyl-2-(propan-2-yl)cyclohexan-1-ol) as well. With a little practice, anyone can read an organic compound's IUPAC name and know exactly what the compound is made up of.

The prefix of the name determines how long the carbon chain is. These prefixes are often easy to determine because they come up in English fairly frequently. For example "oct-" means 8 carbons long (think octopus).

1 carbon = meth-

2 carbons = eth- 

3 carbons = prop- 

4 carbons = but-

5 carbons = pent- (like pentagon)

6 carbons = hex- (like hexagon)

7 carbons = hept- *

8 carbons = oct- (like octagon, octopus)*

9 carbons = non- *

10 carbons = dec- (like decimal)*

*Historical note: before January and February were added to the Roman calendar there were only ten months, starting with March. This made September (sept-, hept-) the seventh month, October (oct-) the eighth month, November (no-, non-) the ninth month, and December (dec-) the tenth month. 

The suffix of the name determine what types of bonds are between the carbon atoms. These are "-ane" meaning single bonds, "-ene" meaning double bonds, and "-yne" meaning triple bonds. The placement of the double and single bonds is indicated with the number of the first carbon it's attached to (e.g. 3-octene means a double bond between the third and fourth carbons).

So a molecule that is ten carbons long ("dec-" ...think decimal) with only single bonds (-ane) would be decane. If instead of all single bonds that molecule had a double bond between the second and third carbons it would be 2-decene.

But not all molecules are straight lines of carbons. Sometimes they have pieces (a.k.a. substituents) branching off of them. These branches are similarly named (if they are composed of a carbon chain) by combining the prefixes above with the suffix "-yl" (indicating it's a branch from the main chain). If the branch is not a carbon, then the beginning of the name of the atom is used (for example a chlorine atom would add the prefix "chloro-") .The branch name is then followed by the main chain's name. 

So, if at the fourth carbon (4-) there is a branch with a single carbon (meth-) attached (-yl) to the main chain (2-decene) it would be 4-methyl-2-decene, while having a bromine instead in the same location would be called 4-bromo-2-decene.

Some non-linear carbon chains are actually rings. This adds the prefix cyclo- (think bicycle, meaning two wheels) in front of the number of carbons in the ring. Cyclopentane, then, is a ring of singly-bound carbons. 4-methyl-2-cyclodecene is a ring of ten carbons, with a double bond between the second and third carbon in the ring, and the substituent of a single carbon attached at the fourth carbon in the ring.

There are a number of additional prefixes and suffixes indicating other structural features, such as -ol (indicating alcohol) and -anoic acid (indicating the last carbon in the chain has a double bond to an oxygen and a single bond to another oxygen). 

Hopefully now that you know how chemicals are named, while you may be more comfortable with names like "nail polish remover" than "propanone" you will no longer be surprised to find out that they are exactly the same thing!