What is Coronavirus?

The Coronavirus is a type of virus. The word ' Corona ' means crown or pointy. This type of virus has spikey outer surface. Their outer cell membrane is made up of proteins or lipid layers. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause Common cold ( Rhinovirus) to more severe diseases like Middle east respiratory syndrome ( MERS) and Severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS ) and to the latest COVID-19. COVID-19 is similar to that of the SARS outbreak in China. 

Since the death toll of SARS and MERS weren't accounted for as a lot, and also that the virus become dormant and stopped affecting people, The work on its vaccine was stopped. 

To talk of viruses in general, There is limited amount of vaccines for different viruses, For measles, polio, mumps, rubella and chickenpox. 

And yet, we constantly need to get vaccines for the viruses. Because they constantly mutate themselves to trick the immune system and go unseen. Mutations can cause severe complications, that could lead to the vaccines and antibiotics ineffective. 

Therefore, more pressure to constantly produce new vaccines. The now COVID 19 has mutated from SARS, commonly called as SARS COV 2. This leads to increased time in finding an effective vaccine with no side effects. 

COVID-19 vs. SOAP WATER

Due the recent pandemic, All that we care about is to keep ourselves hygienic. Precautions like wearing a mask, to not touch our faces and wash ours hands several times a day. Coming to washing hands, Is soap water enough to eradicate the virus from our hands? What does soap water do to the virus? 

The Corona virus that causes COVID-19 has an outer protective Bi-lipid layer. These lipids are pin shaped molecules whose heads are attracted to water, and the tails are phobic to water. Similarly, the outer structure of the virus break through the cell membrane and hijack our cells. This is where soap comes in, A single droplet of soap has millions of molecules called amphipiles, which resemble lipids. 

The tails of amphipiles compete with the virus' bi-lipid layer for space. This causes a chaos in the outer membrane of the cell and hence can break the virus' membrane, making the whole organism crashing down. Then the amphipiles form clusters around the virus remains and become whole, which gets washed away with water. 

Science behind hiccups

You do it though you don't want to, you just don't seem to stop it on your own. This phenomena is called hiccups. You all have gotten that one ever lasting hiccup streak and have always wondered why you get it. 

Hiccups are caused by involuntary contractions in the diaphragm. Diaphragm is the muscle that separates your chest from your abdomen and plays an important role in breathing. This involuntary contraction causes your vocal cords to close very briefly, which produces the characteristic sound of a hiccup.

Hiccups pass in a couple of minutes for everyone. If they keep coming and going, then they are most likely a result of your eating habits and digestive function. 

To decrease hiccups, one needs to stimulate the Nasopharynx and the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain to the stomach. The following could decrease hiccups:

1) Drink a glass of water

2) Bite on a lime

3) Gargle with water

4) Pull hard on your tongue

 Charles Osborne has the Guinness record for longest hiccups. It is an astonishing 68 years long!

LISTEN UP!

Hi there, fellow readers.

I just wanted to take some time in thanking all those who have followed this blog and to those have constantly been reading. This blog was created a year and a half ago and to my surprise has been holding up more than just alright!

I have 32 awesome posts that have earned 2084 page views in such a less amount of time. The views have been from all round the world, and again to my surprise, I have a plenty good amount of views from an ' unknown region ', as said by google. Hats off and thanks to whoever you are buddy!

If you dear readers are interested in reading mystery and horror stories that keep you at night, it just happened to be your lucky day. I happen to have an another blog which you can tune into for the stories. The link is given below!

But, we have let's say, 1900 people who read and only 7 that follow. So there is still 1893 people to convince that this blog is actually a good idea to invest time on, and to follow it. There are a lot of good things here and we need to convince other people of that. So help me spread word about Bio Geek and all it takes is to press a tiny follow icon. There's just so many things that this one little icon could do!

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Science behind permanent tattoos

Hey..yeah you! The one with the beautiful ancient fire breathing dragon on your arm, I'm talking to you. Ever thought how a permanent tattoo lasts? Wouldn't the immune system clot the tattoo?

Tattoo application uses a mechanized needle to puncture the skin and eject ink into the demis, the second layer of the skin. Since the needle damages the skin, white blood cells try to absorb the ink particle to excrete it in the blood stream. Usually, this would work.

The actual secret behind the permanent nature of the tattoo is the particles of the ink and their size.
The pigment particles size are way too big to be eaten by the white blood cells, so it just sits there.

The ways to remove them are crazy dangerous, but it works. I meant Methods like burning it and cutting it out. But a much safer way is for a laser treatment. The laser beam would break the ink particles small enough to be flushed out by the white blood cells into the blood stream. But it causes problems like formation of scars and sometimes the tattoo doesn't come off completely!