Tausi Insider

Photo : New Africa ( Shutterstock ) You might love essential oils, but there are good reasons to avoid putting them inside of your humidifier. Essential oils can corrode plastic A humidifier isn’t made to have essential oils in its water storage tank. The type of plastic they’re made from, usually ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene), isn’t designed to hold oils long-term. They can corrode, causing the water tank to crack. The oil can actually degrade the plastic so that the plastic itself ends up in the water, causing odors and clogging your humidifier’s parts. Essential oils can damage the filter Anything besides distilled water in your humidifier can cause problems. Since the filter mechanism in a humidifier is only designed for environmental elements like dust, minerals, or pollen, oils can get sucked into the filter and cause it to break down. This’ll obviously make the filter less effective, reducing your air quality and preventing the humidifier from doing its job. It can ...

If someone on your holiday shopping list has an interest in astronomy, but you don’t know the Pleiades from pilates, read on. Herre is a ground-zero, get-started guide with 11 gifts that are perfect for budding star-gazers and planet peepers containing everything from gear and books to chemical helpers for the… Read more... https://www.tausiinsider.com/11-of-the-best-gifts-for-amateur-astronomers/?feed_id=330766&_unique_id=644e582ecace4

Photo : DimaBerlin ( Shutterstock ) If you live in an area that regularly gets snowfall, you know the love-hate relationship with the white stuff. A snowy evening can be a peaceful, beautiful thing—everything gets quiet, and that untouched blanket of snow creates a gorgeous blank slate of a world. There’s sledding, and snow angels, and kids having snowball fights. And then there’s the cleanup. Snow and ice look pretty for a while, but they also make getting around dangerous and difficult, so the day after a snowstorm is a day of sweaty, back-breaking shoveling. And making sure that no one slips and falls outside your house usually means applying some form of ice melt on your sidewalks, driveways, and steps. While we tend to use the generic term “ice melt” (or the very specific term “rock salt” as a generic), there are actually a lot of different compounds used as ice melt, and each one comes with some pros and cons. In order to choose the right one for your property, here are the ...

This is totally what nuclear fusion looks like, probably. Photo : hallowhalls ( Shutterstock ) It is big, big news that scientists were recently able to perform a nuclear fusion reaction that gave off more energy than it consumed . It is also true that this type of reaction could potentially be a useful energy source in the future. Or as physicists are fond of saying, useful nuclear fusion has been “10 years away” for the last 50 years or so . Read on for more on why scientists are excited, but also why our homes are likely to be powered by the same ol’ power plants for a long time to come. Is nuclear fusion the same as nuclear power? Nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs use a fission reaction, which is different from the fusion reaction that made the news recently. Fission occur s when an atom is split apart. Typically you start with a uranium or plutonium atom, smack a neutron into it, and split that atom into multiple pieces which can then break into yet more pieces. Fiss...

This is totally what nuclear fusion looks like, probably. Photo : hallowhalls ( Shutterstock ) It is big, big news that scientists were recently able to perform a nuclear fusion reaction that gave off more energy than it consumed . It is also true that this type of reaction could potentially be a useful energy source in the future. Or as physicists are fond of saying, useful nuclear fusion has been “10 years away” for the last 50 years or so . Read on for more on why scientists are excited, but also why our homes are likely to be powered by the same ol’ power plants for a long time to come. Is nuclear fusion the same as nuclear power? Nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs use a fission reaction, which is different from the fusion reaction that made the news recently. Fission occur s when an atom is split apart. Typically you start with a uranium or plutonium atom, smack a neutron into it, and split that atom into multiple pieces which can then break into yet more pieces. Fiss...