by on February 24, 2012 1 Comment

you feel pretty good after you get sick

We know that the body will respond in some way to everything that is put into it, no matter whether the substance is ingested, injected, or inhaled. Physiological responses can cause symptoms. Yet the physiological responses themselves are always perfect for the stimulus. We need to consider how the body responds to stimuli such as ingested, injected, or inhaled elements, not what the stimuli or elements are capable of achieving. This differentiation is a fine but vital line of distinction.

Consider a response you may have had to a situation in your childhood: While attending a large Fourth of July picnic, you revel in the vast array of “wonderful” food available: hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, corn on the cob, soft-drinks, chips, homemade ice cream, and roasted marshmallows. In your enthusiasm, you “chow down” on at least a little of everything—you eat your way through the day. At the end of the day, the childhood culinary delights are topped off with a watermelon feast, and you start home more than amply satisfied—you’re “full.”

Soon, your stomach begins to feel queasy. Then you begin to feel sick. Then you vomit. Your concerned family can’t understand why you are sick and fret that some of the food may have been “bad.” Actually, after you “get sick,” you feel pretty good. Your body has relieved itself of the stimulus that resulted in vomiting. The stimulus that caused the vomiting was really a response to another stimulus. Your body responded to the stimuli of too many different types of food in your stomach: some protein, some carbohydrates, and lots of sugar. Your digestive system was being called on to process too many different types of substances at once. It responded to the internal mayhem by eliminating some of the stimuli, which were creating conflicting demands.

There was nothing wrong with the picnic foods. Your body could have handled each of them individually. Ordinarily, the effect of individual foods on your body would be outwardly uneventful. However, the response of your body to the combined concoction was volcanic. Laboratory analysis of any of the individual picnic foods would have shown that none contained elements that would cause physiological distress. Yet the response the body was required to
make in order to maintain homeostatic balance was unpleasant for the moment.

What does all of this stimulus/response discussion have to do with sodium and salt? Just as your body had to respond to the cataclysmal concoction of the picnic food, it must respond to salt. Since salt can’t be used, your body must “defend” against it. The first defense against salt is dilution, and dilution contributes to high blood pressure. The researchers found that the men’s blood pressure rose when they consumed additional sodium chloride, but it didn’t rise when they consumed sodium citrate.

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by on February 24, 2012 3 Comments

sodium and chloride in our body

In the body, the mutual attraction and attachment between the sodium and chloride is too great for one to be lured away from the other. The two elements are bonded so strongly that they can’t be separated. Although we need both sodium and chloride, the body can’t use either when they are combined to form table salt. When sodium chloride is in the body, the connection between the two elements is firmly fixed.

In the laboratory, a few elements can replace sodium attached to chloride. Under particular circumstances, lithium, calcium, and potassium can have an even stronger attraction to chloride than sodium. When inorganic elements are used, these minerals can easily oust the sodium and leave it available for other uses. However, the body is not a laboratory. The body uses organic elements. In the body, if there is a shortage of usable sodium, there is also a deficiency of lithium, calcium, and potassium.

You may have read or heard that we are in no danger of running out of alkaline reserve because we have a vast supply of bicarbonate ions. Bicarbonates are plentiful in bile, pancreatic fluids, and the kidneys. The adequacy of the alkaline reserve is usually gauged by laboratory tests to determine the amount of bicarbonate in the blood. Yet bicarbonate alone does not buffer acids; it is only a part of the alkaline reserve. Bicarbonate must have a mineral partner. Sodium is the partner of choice that is called upon first.

Sodium chloride can be dissolved in water into positive and negative ions. Sodium ions are positive. Chloride ions are negative. Although they can be separated, the separation is not necessarily permanent and the strong attraction they have for each other continues. Bicarbonate ions are also negative. Bicarbonate and chloride ions are the two most important negative ions in extracellular fluid. In the material world, positives and negatives attract one another. The attraction is so strong that negative ions (bicarbonate and chloride) can be “pulled through” the epithelium by the positive charge of the sodium.

When the positive sodium is joined by the negative chloride, the bicarbonate ion goes begging for a partner to help buffer the extra-cellular fluid. This is not the case, however with organic sodium we get from vegetables and fruits. Organic sodium from vegetables and fruits, like sodium maltase in apples and sodium citrate in oranges, becomes readily accessible to team up with bicarbonate. The citrate of sodium citrate can be metabolized. Citrate is processed through Kreb’s cycle in the mitochondria of the cells and the resulting carbonic acid is eliminated through the lungs. With the citrate taken care of, the sodium is left free, not strongly bonded to anything, and it can be used wherever needed. Or it can be stored as a part of the alkaline reserve.

With sodium chloride, it’s different. The body must “defend” itself against the tightly bonded substance. We have noted that the number one defense mechanism of the body against unusable sub- stances is dilution. Fluid is retained to dilute salt that accompanies our food. As excess fluid builds up, the volume of blood increases, and if the person has a tendency toward hypertension, blood pressure rises.

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by on February 24, 2012 1 Comment

Prospects of Renewable Energy Sources

The one new source of energy that promises to replace oil and gas, and ultimately coal is a different kind of fusion reactor—the sun. The total amount of incoming solar energy absorbed by the earth and its atmosphere in one year—3.8 x 1024 J—is equivalent to 15-20 times the amount of energy stored in all of the world’s reserves of recoverable hydrocarbons. Indeed, if just 0.005% of this solar energy could be captured using fuel crops specially designed buildings, wind and water turbines, solar collectors, wave energy converters and the like; this would supply more useful energy over the year than is currently obtained by burning fossil fuels. Unlike capital energy resources, renewable cannot be exhausted. The only limitation is the rate at which they are used—it is not possible to deplete any particular reservoir of energy (such as a column of moving air or falling water) faster than it is replenished.

Renewable already supply a major part of the world’s energy needs. Biomass, for example, accounts for about one seventh of all fuel consumed, and supplies over 90% of that used in some third world countries: hydro generates one quarter of the World’s electricity, and more than two thirds of that used in over 35 countries; and the sun contributes directly to space heating in virtually all buildings, through the walls and windows, although precise estimates of the size of this contribution are not available. However, over the last two decades there has been burgeoning interest in renewable from the more industrialized nations and this has led to growing capital investment.
Renewable energy technologies are in many ways more attractive than most conventional energy technologies.
(i) They can be matched in scale to the need, and can deliver energy of the quality that is required for a specific task, thus reducing the need to use premium fuels or electricity to provide low grade forms of energy such as hot water (which can be supplied in many other ways).
(ii) They can often be built on, or close to the site where the energy is required this minimizes transmission costs.
(iii) They can be produced in large numbers and introduced quickly, unlike large power stations which have long lead times, often 10 years or more. Rapid planning and construction lowers unit cost and allows planners to respond quickly to changing patterns of demand.
(iv) The diversity of systems available also increases flexibility and security of supply. In contrast, over dependence on imported fuels makes a country more, vulnerable to political pressures from producer nations and multinationals. Generic faults in power plants, serious breakdowns, industrial action or simply bad weather can jeopardize the supply of electricity.
(v) While there are physical and environmental risks associated with the construction and operation of renewable energy technologies— as there are with all energy conversion systems—they tend to be relatively modest by comparison with those associated with fossil fuels or nuclear power. The failure of a solar panel or a remotely sited wind- turbine or wave energy converter might involve temporary inconvenience, but it will not, as a rule, endanger life or limb, nor cause lasting damages. The most serious consequences could be those associated with such events as the catastrophic failure of a large hydro-electric dam, fire in a biomass plantation.

Filed Under: Science and Technology Tagged With: ,
by on February 24, 2012 1 Comment

Advantages of renewable energy

Even though renewable options are not likely to supply a substantial amount of energy to developing countries over the short term, they do have these advantages:
(1) Renewable energy is an indigenous resource available in considerable quantities to all developing nations and capable, in principle, of having a significant local, regional or national economic impact. The use of renewable energy could help to conserve foreign exchange and generate local employment if conservation technologies are designed, manufactured, assembled and installed locally.
(2) Several renewable options are financially and economically competitive for certain applications, such as in remote locations, where the costs of transmitting electrical power or transporting conventional fuels are high, or in those well endowed with biomass, hydro or geothermal resources.
(3) Because conversion technology tends to be flexible and modular, it can usually be rapid deployed. Other advantages of modular over very large individual units include easy in adding new capacity, less risk in comparison with ‘lumpy’ investments, lower interest on borrowed capital because of shorter lead times and reduced transmission and distribution costs for dispersed rural locations.

(4) Rapid scientific and technological advantages are expected to expand the economic range of renewable energy applications over the next 8-10 years, making it imperative for international decision makers and planners to keep abreast of these developments.

Obstacles to the implementation of renewable energy systems
Experience with renewable energy projects in the developing countries indicates that there are a number of barriers to the effective development and widespread diffusion of these systems. Among these are:
(1) Inadequate documentation and evaluation of past experience, a paucity of validated field performance data and a lack of clear priorities for future work.
(2) Weak or non-existent institutions and policies to finance and commercialize renewable energy systems. With regard to energy planning, separate and completely uncoordinated organizations are often responsible for petroleum, electricity, coal, forestry, fuel wood, renewable resources and conservation.
(3) Technical and economic uncertainties in many renewable energy systems, high economic and financial costs for some systems in comparison with conventional supply options and energy efficiency measures.
(4) Skeptical attitudes towards renewable energy systems on the part of the energy planners and a lack of qualified personnel to design, manufacture, market, operate and maintain such systems.
(5) Inadequate donor coordination in renewable energy assistance activities, with little or no information exchange on successful and unsuccessful projects.

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by on February 24, 2012 2 Comments

Renewable Energy Resources

Renewable energy sources include both ‘direct’ solar radiation intercepted by collectors (e.g. solar and flat-plate thermal cells) and indirect solar energy such as wind, hydro power, ocean energy and biomass resources that can be managed in a sustainable manner. Geothermal fields tapped with present drilling technologies have a finite life but are sometimes considered renewable for planning purposes. Traditional methods of using biomass and derivatives such as wood and charcoal are highly inefficient, in contrast with modern techniques emphasizing proper forest management sustained-yield fuel wood plantations and efficient production.

If broadly interpreted, the definition of renewable resources also includes the chemical energy stored in food and non fuel plant products and even the energy in air used to dry materials or to cool, heat and ventilate the interiors of buildings. From an operational viewpoint, the correct way to treat renewable energy is as a means to reduce the demand for conventional energy forms. Thus, in performing economic and financial analyses, there is no real distinction between renewable energy technologies and those designed to improve the efficiency of conventional energy use.

A further point is that cost-effective approaches to energy efficiency-ranging from no-or low-cost measures (e.g. reducing excess air in boilers, shutting down equipment when not needed) to systems requiring moderate capital investment, such as heat recuperators, boiler replacements or co-generation units, can improve the financial and economic feasibility of renewable as well as conventional energy systems. Improvements in the efficiency of energy use can be teamed with a variety of energy supply technologies, and this fact must be recognized when assessing the relative economics of renewable and conventional energy systems.

Three independent primary sources provide energy to the earth: the sun, geothermal forces and planetary motion in the solar system. In particular, direct solar radiation represents an enormous resource for a modern technological civilization. However, human capacity to harness these gigantic natural flows of energy to perform useful work depends largely on the economic feasibility of the required conversion in comparison with fossil fuel options and the extent to which large scale applications affect food production, climate and ecology.

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