How do Electrolytes work in our body?

Electrolytes are ions that are electrically charged and can take the form of liquids, gels, or paste. Basically, it's the scientific or medical term for salt. Our body contains massive amounts of salt and we need them. It is important for us to have salt in our bodies so as the maintain a healthy lifestyle. We need them in order to function properly.
The foods we eat and drink contain a lot of mineral salts once consumed they dissolve and form electrolytes in the form of liquids. Like stated before, electrolytes are electrically charged. This helps us a lot because our muscles-- like our heart-- are sent electrical signals from our brain in order to move. Sodium, calcium, chloride, magnesium and potassium are electrolytes and they can be found in our foods. If our body has too little electrolytes, the electrical signals from our brain cannot travel to our muscles, that's why sometimes when exercising, our muscles cramp up. Having a balanced electrolyte level in our body is crucial. All you have to do is remember that you're heart is a muscle too and without it functioning properly, you're dead man.

Other than helping your muscles function properly, electrolytes also help maintain your body's fluid levels. They are controlled by the moving of electrolytes into and out of your body's fluid compartments. Your kidney is an organ that filters your blood for electrolytes and keeps the level's balanced and constant. Your body does a bunch of acts that help balance your water and electrolyte levels. When you sodium (salt) level is too low, your kidneys are signaled to produce more urine (pee, we're gonna say pee from now on because it's cooler) which restores the balance by lowering the amount of water in your blood. When your sodium level gets too high though, your brains sends a signal to you to develop thirst. Once you drink more water, the body wants to keep that water so your brain sends more signals to your kidney to stop you from peeing.

And that's how electrolytes work in your body... :]

What is Lightning? Why does wearing rubber shoes help you in a storm?

Examples of a small-scale static discharge is like that static shock you get when you touch a doorknob. Now image that shock at a larger scale. That shock is lightning. Lighting is static electricity caused by storm clouds. The amount of electric potential in something is the measure of how much energy or volts something can produce in an electric field. Lightning has the electric potential of millions of volts which causes it to unleash large amounts of energy in different forms (heat, light, sound).

During a thunderstorm, lightning can strike the ground at any moment. Rainwater conducts electricity (because it's acidic) and with all the rainwater on the ground it is important to have rubber at the soles of our shoes. Should we have metal soles, the electric charges from the lightning -- which like said before has the electric potential of a million volts-- can travel to ground, through the water, up the soles of our shoes to our bodies. Since we do not want the charges to get to us we wear rubber at the bottom of our shoes because rubber is an electric insulator (they help prevent electric charges to pass through easily). That way we can walk, sing and dance our hearts out in the rain without being the night's special of "fried human on a stick".

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A Life Without Electricity

What would a day in your life be like without electricity?

Well, let's try and see what I use in a day that requires electricity?

• Cellphone (as an alarm to wake me up, a communicating device...etc,.)
• Laptop (used for leisure and for homework, to find out little answers to the little questions that pop up in my head)
• AC (I'm a stay cool person, I don't like to perspire because it's gross-- healthy, but gross)
• Lights (keeping my room bright, it helps me see things for the way they really are...)
• Internet (no comment... )
  

Without my cellphone, I would not be able to wake up when I would like to. My body wants me to sleep-in, so I do. I would have gotten out of bed at 'round 11. The lights in my bathroom would not work so my bathroom would be all dark and I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror and see how messed up my hair became when I went to bed. The AC would not be working, so the fans in the vents would not work either. The air in the house would be still and by this time I would get pretty frustrated. My patience has always been low and I can't tolerate "still" and stuffy air. Now I would probably open a window and get even more frustrated as all the dust and bugs from the construction site fly into my house.
Breakfast, the most important meal in a day. I usually skip this meal on school days because my tastes buds don't work unless I'm "alive, awake, alert, and a wee-bit enthusiastic". I take cereal but since there's no electricity, my fridge would not work and the milk would be all curdy. No cereal equals no breakfast equals to me being pissed. I like cold stuff. I need my chilled OJ or milk. I don't like water when it's room temperature. Already 30 minutes into my day without electricity and I'm already irritated.

Now since I do not have my cellphone, mp3, CD player, laptop, or television I would just have to resort to the ol' paperbacks. I like reading-- in a comfortable environment which would usually be on a beanbag in a room with AC, with random music on (it doesn't really matter, just as long as I don't hear my family's ruckus). My only choice would be to go to the roof, still on the ledge and read. Without music, reading for me is tricky, but I think I can handle the silence on my apartment roof.

I'd read until 1) I'm bored and/ done with the book, 2) I start getting hungry, or 3) I get pissed and irritated of the drilling noises from the construction site. I'd go back to my apartment. I can't go any where else because that would mean to climb 11 floors down the empty, scary staircase (no electricity = no elevator). My whole family would be a wreck. The modern culture has convinced my family (heck, everyone) that we need all these little things that need electricity to live life. Lights, ventilation, entertainment, etc,.. the list goes on and on.

By dinner time, I expect my family to have turned barbaric already-- like those prep guys in Lord of the Flies. If we are still standing it must be a miracle. I'd be reading, my little brother would have playing with his toy trains. My mom would be trying to keep the house clean, my little sister would be in her room drawing or doing some creative %$#%!@, while my dad reads the paper or takes a nap. My older sister (haha) would be walking around complaining about life without electricity since she basically lives on the modern technology and communication to keep her sane.

Bottom line: I, my family, would not be able to live life without electricity. A day is all I can handle. Culture has caused us to believed that "we need entertainment" or "we need cool air" or "we need cars and transportation to get around" and "we need our cell phones because snail mail is too slow". We have evolve into such a planned life and we can't get out of that habit unless we find the meaning of what life is. Electricity is a need in our life. It wasn't supposed to be-- but it is now.

A/N: If there was no electricity, there would no internet, therefore it would have been impossible to complete this homework blog post assignment.