Week 11

Thoughts on Gene Therapy

I really have mixed feelings about this.  A part of me is a little scared at what we are able to do these days.  I guess I've always looked at our genes as the basic building blocks that make us who we are as individuals.  I find it a little strange that we have the ability to change that.  I guess if I or someone I care about had one of the diseases that they are trying to cure such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia or muscular dystrophy, I would welcome the chance to cure it.  I guess the question is how far do we take this?

Chemistry of Life

I checked out the link that was given and I like the definition for biochemistry that states that "Biochemistry is the chemistry of life, a bridge between biology and chemistry that studies how complex chemical reactions give rise to life."  I feel like this is a simple way of explaining what biochemistry is.

Animations

I watched a few of the animations and I thought they were a little strange because I wasn't totally sure what I was looking at with a few of them.  I did like the chain reaction animation because I felt like it was pretty self explanatory.  

Week 10

Semiconductor of the week

My semiconductor is silicon.  Silicon's chemical symbol is Si.  Its atomic number is 14.  Apparently, it was first identified by Antione Lavoisier in 1787.  According to Wikipedia, the applications for Silicon are mainly in alloys, electronics and in silicones.  It is most widely used as a semiconductor because it remains a solid at higher temperatures than germanium.

Welcome to Chembalancer!

I really liked this link.  I tried the quiz and got almost all of them correct on the first try.  What I really like about the quiz is that it showed a little graphic of how many of each element there was.  I got a little frustrated because sometimes the graphic wouldn't work and I would have to actually do it in my head.  Lazy, I know.

Week 7

Alkali Earth Metal of the Week

My alkali earth metal is Radium.  Radium's chemical symbol is Ra and its atomic number is 88.  According to some information I found on Wikipedia, Radium is highly radioactive.  It is white, but oxidizes quickly after being exposed to air.  It has a half life of 1602 years.  It was discovered in 1898 by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre.

Avogadro's Hypothesis

I got each of the questions on the quiz section correct.  I thought it was an interesting article!  It was interesting to see how these people came up with their hypotheses.

What is a mole?

The mole is a unit of measurement.  According to the article, the mole is the amount of substance of a system which contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilograms of carbon 12.