EC Blog for CH. 11, 12, 13 Test

Midwest Tornado Formation

Based On: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411100716.htm

Summary:

Even in the Midwest, tornados still occur, which is unusual since their normal path is around the plains of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. The bad thing about these tornados is that they form late at night and during the colder seasons. Scientist Robert Trapp, of Purdue University, said that his team has studied more than 3,800 United States tornadoes. The study that Trapp and his colleagues did, at the University of Oklahoma, is trying to better the ability to predict tornado strikes and warn civilians a little bit longer than just a  few minutes. They started the study by finding which types of storms produced the destructive funnels. 79 percent of about the 3,800 tornados Trapp team followed, came from cells, but 18 percent came from line storms in the Tornado Alley. In the Midwest, about half of the tornadoes came from line storms. Cell storms frequently form in the spring season, in the afternoon, which is why most tornado/storm warnings occur in the late afternoon. Though line storms are almost the opposite, where they form most during the night and during the late fall and very early spring. Trapp concludes by saying something like he's not trying to be alarmist, but wants people to be prepared who reside outside tornado alley. Trapp also mentions that his study's are a step to better prediction, but there is still much needed to be done.

Impact:

The impact of earlier tornado warnings is obvious....less deaths. If tornado warnings were broadcasted out sooner, many lives would be saved. It could also make more people aware of how many tornadoes actually occur during the night as line storms. This would also impact in a good way. In a way, that the News Stations would be able to see tornadoes on the radars since they wouldn't come up as blotches but as actual funnel looking storms instead.

No More New York, D.C., or San Francisco

Based On: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514153032.htm

Summary:
Scientist predict that a total or partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, as a result of the effect of global warming, would not raise global sea levels as high as anticipated. Although, sea levels on both sides of North America could raise as high as an amazing 25 percent more than the global sea level average, threatening areas around major cities such as New York, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. Just to put the size of Antarctica into perspective, it is about nine time the volume of ice of Greenland. Scientist have become very interested in the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, also known as WAIS, because of its instability. As new studies continue on WAIS, scientist have started to realize that they greatly overestimated the potential for a rise in sea level. Jonathan Bamber, the lead author of the study published in Science May 15, said, "There's a vast body of research that's looked at the likelihood of a WAIS collapse and what implications such a catastrophic event would have for the globe, but all of these studies have assumed a 5-meter to 6-meter contribution to sea level rise. Our calculations show those estimates are much too large, even on a thousand-year timescale." Bamber and his colleagues found that if there was a collapse, that sea levels would raise by about half of what has been predicted, so about 3.3 meters.


Impact:
This could impact the surrounding world and me in multiple ways, such as tourism and life forms that live under water. This could cause sea levels rise high enough in the Pacific and Atlantic that coral reefs would be killed off. Coral reefs breed and spread at a certain depth from the service. Since coral reefs are stationary animals, they would not be able to move closer to the surface as it rises with the collapsing of WAIS. Also the sea layer at which the coral resides in could change, as the thermocline and surface layer would primarily be affected. This would result in a die-off of coral reefs and other fish that need the coral as homes and food to survive. With the coral dying off, it would also result in a lessening in tourism, as there would be less scuba diving, tour charters and snorkeling around these areas. If WAIS collapses, huge cities would be wiped out since the sea level would rise 25 percent more than of which the global sea level would be. If you have a major city, for instance New York, which has a population of somewhere near 19.5 million people, where would those people go if they were unable to live in New York. This could lead to overcrowding in the United States. Also mainly, the United States' major cities are huge tourism areas which would make America's revenue lower substantuly. Either way the collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet would not be beneficial to the United States and even the rest of the World.

Lighting as a New Power?

Based on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090501204039.htm

Summary:

At Penn State, a group of researchers, have determined the highest known breakdown strength for a bulk glass ever measured. How much energy can be stored in an insulating material before it fails and begins to conduct electricity, is what breakdown strength and dielectric constant refers to. With these two terms, a bulk glass using them, would make a great way for the next generation of high energy density storage capacitors to power many things today that would require gas or electricity. Usually the highest dielectric strengths for bulk glasses are 4-9 MV/cm, but for this test the strengths reached 12 MV/cm! This is remarkable. Nick Smith, Ph.D at Penn State, created the glass so thin that it was able to bend and also able to disinergrate if mishandled. He made it so thin, because the thinner the glass the more electric field could be applied. In this glass burst of lights were made in which is why they are calling it lighting inside.

Impact:

This could impact me in multiple ways, such positive and negative. In a positive way it could affect me by making gas prices go down. It would make the prices go down because it would either lighten the ammount of gas used by my car because it would only need to use gas to accelerate, or it could completely eliminate the gas in a car. This could make hybrid or electric cars cheaper for the public to purchase. If they made this available to customers for their house they could have cheaper electric bills, in the long run helping the economy even out because people would have more money. On the other side though, it could be negative because it has not been tested a lot. Electricity is electricity and if you ever had direct contact with it you could be incredibly harmful. I personally think more test should be performed to make sure that this is safe and reliable.

Microscopic Wires as a Fuel

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090311153412.htm

 

SUMMARY

Little platinum microscopic wires soon could fuel our vehicles someday. These small wires are called nanowires and are about 1/50,000 the size of normal human hair. Many different types of shorter nanowires have previously been used for technologies such as nanocomputers and nanoscale sensors. The new nanowires are the longest platinum ones ever made, which could speed the process of development of fuel cells. The process they are made by is called electrospinnning, which is a technique used to produce long, ultra-thin solid fibers. One of the places developing nanowires is University of Rochester. Rochester has found that the wires will increase longevity and efficiency of fuel cells, and could soon power and fuel many vehicles. This will help reduce the reliance on petroleum fuels. Platinum is the primary element used because of its durability inside of a fuel cell.

 

IMPACT

This will impact me in multiple ways; good and bad. It will affect me in a good way because this could help reduce the cost of fuel for a car, putting more money into my pocket. Also the amount of emissions would greatly reduce, making the air cleaner and healthier. Your mileage on a car might skyrocket using nanowires because it will be using it instead of gasoline. This could slow down or even help reduce global warming. Either way it will have more of a positive affect because there will not be so much carbon dioxide being put out into the atmosphere, allowing a human to breathe cleaner air. The downside or bad impact is the cost of platinum is very high. This could make cars much more expensive, which not everyone can afford a $50,000 car. With cars probably being so expensive it might take long to compensate for the lessened amount of gas purchased.

Sheet of Ice, the Size of a Country Could Fall into the Ocean

Based on:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090318140522.htm

SUMMARY

One of the biggest causes of global warming is excess carbon dioxide. Well a
five-nation scientific team has said that a slight increase in carbon dioxide could lead
to the decrease in stability for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (also known as WAIS).
This enormous sheet of ice covers the pacific side near the Transantarctic Mountains.
If this massive piece of ice fell into the ocean it would cause a rise in global sea levels.
The research on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is being based on a 4,100 foot long
sample of sedimentary rock that was taken beneath the sea floor. This sample is/will help scientist to see how WAIS will respond and stand up to future global warming over the next few centuries. So far what scientist have found is that, under projected global warming conditions, ice shelves could possibly shrink or disappear making WAIS vulnerable to melting. In which case, the rise of global sea levels would occur. The sample also shows that a few million years ago the ice shelves started to disappear, causing melting deep under water.


IMPACT

This would impact the world definitely by the rising the sea levels, reducing our
size of landmasses. People who live along the coast would have a problem with water
coming to close to their house. New Orleans has levy's and needs storm-surge
defenses and would need more if the water rose. If the sea rose just a small 20
centimeters, it would cost a estimated 740,000 people to become homeless.
Also another problem would be that Antarctica would slowly start to shrink if parts
of it just fell off and melted adding to the amount of water in the oceans.

Plane flies on Hydrogen and Carbon

Based On: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090131095501.htm

SUMMARY

NASA and other research groups were testing two different non-petroleum jet fuels last month in February. They were researching in hopes of finding an alternative fuel for commercial airlines and cheaper oil cost. The test were seeing what happen to the performance of the plane and the emissions from the coal and natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch process. The Fischer-Tropsch process is a chemical reaction in which a synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, is converted into liquid hydrocarbons of various forms. A synthetic petroleum is produced from this, making the fuel. This process, the Fischer-Tropsch process, is very expensive. There are no plants for this in the United States of America, but they are around the world that the United States could import from. The test plane for this, is a DC-8 plane. It's one of NASA's planes. It is being used because it's engine operations are well documented. If the synthetic fuel test are successful this fuel could be put into use, reducing emissions and improving air quality.

HOW IT WOULD EFFECT ME?

This will affect me in many ways; the main one is that airline prices would be much cheaper for me. This would mean my family and I could travel for much cheaper. Also the air would be much cleaner and not as polluting. This could also mean more travelers, which would make airline companies have more money to offer more perks on flights. With cheaper flights, it could help the economy become stronger. The only negative to this, is the reliability of the fuel. What would happen if your 10,000 feet in the air and your fuel started acting weird because it was clumping together. I do think there needs to be more testing and planning in this idea. Other than that I think its a great idea and a better way to save money.

Death by Dust!

Based on: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/whole-universe/30-how-a-cloud-of-dust-could-wipe-out-life-on-earth

How a Cloud of Space Dust Could Wipe Out Life on Earth.

The dust I am talking about isn't actually dust that we know of in our own homes. It's actually dust in space, that is in the form of a cloud, containing different gases, dust and so on and being much denser than the space we live in now. It would destroy all life on Earth by the cloud moving onto covering the sun, reducing the suns influence on our planet. The cloud would then move towards Earth's orbit, deteriorating the oxygen in Earth's upper atmosphere. The Cosmic Rays that the cloud would bring along with it, would begin to tear the Earth's atmosphere apart until there was none left. The cloud would eventually make Earth naked of all types of life. All though you shouldn't worry because this Cloud could come no where near to occurring in a humans lifetime. This wouldn't occur for another millenia at least.

Who this would Impact.

The only way this worry's me is if it could ever occurred in the next couple of hundreds of years. I think astronomers should widen their view on things like this instead of just meteors and asteroids. When and if this does happen, it will eventually just kill humans off because of the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere and because the ozone will soon be destroyed. When this does happen there will be no more ice age occurring, no more starting over because there will be no more ozone to host a place for lifeforms. When this does happen in millions and millions of years from now I believe there will be enough technology to figure out to prevent this. Also a big theory is that the sun could move closer to the planets and swallow and heat earth up so much that there will not be anymore life. This could be before Space Dust ever meats our planets orbit.