A First Look at Flight in 2025

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/flight_2025.html

01.13.11

During the last months of 2010, NASA established contracts with three teams, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and The Boeing Company, in order to study and create new designs for aircrafts that should be able to take the skies in 2025. During the time they signed the contract, NASA gave a sneak peak to the particular design they plan to make. All the designs that they have thought of, look different physically, but all final designs have to meet goals for less noise, cleaner expulsion of fuel consumption. The aircraft should be able to do all of these things at the same time, requiring a complex combination of the new advanced technology. This aircraft has to be able to operate in modernized air traffic and has to fly up to 85% of the speed of sound, cover a range of approximately 7,000 miles, and carry between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds of payload of either passenger or cargo payload. For the rest of 2011 each team will be exploring, testing, and developing technologies to make a final design this winter.

I personally liked this post, because it is interesting how NASA is trying to collaborate with current problems in the earth. Launching space crafts and aircrafts for commercial purposes, pollutes the environment because of the fuels used, and it’s great how they are trying to solve this issues. I think that it would be great to have these new aircrafts because they will pollute less and people who live near airports won’t have such a noisy holiday because of planes coming in or out of the airport. I think it’s a great thing what they are doing. I also liked this article, because in October we are going to this conference in Lima, to talk about environmental issues in the world, so I can really relate my learning with this article. Just a couple of days ago I read that NASA had developed a technology for suppressing sound in the aircrafts and had discovered that chicken and beef tallow derivate fuel polluted less than normal fuels and were developing this new technologies. So I think that it’s really great that they are doing this for the world, because everyone needs to help, and if this type of companies starts to help the world, more companies will help solve the Earth’s issues.

Dry Ice, Wetter Mars

Dry Ice, Wetter Mars

April 21, 2011

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/73147/title/Dry_ice%2C_wetter_Mars

This article is about a new found reservoir of dry ice on the surface of mars. This new discovery adds to the evidence that Mars once had a carbon dioxide atmosphere thick enough to keep liquid water on the surface without evaporating. It is still unclear if the planet would have a adequate atmosphere to host life, because of the temperatures in mars may have been slightly colder during the time when the atmosphere had more amounts of carbon dioxide. The newly found reservoir could nearly double the mass of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars, the climate changes would be normal, and would not generate a warmer and wetter Mars. Phillips a scientist in a University in Colorado says that during times of higher tilt, more carbon dioxide would settle in the planet’s surface. The surface frost, would offset any greenhouse warming from the extra gas in the atmosphere, and would tend to maintain the chilly temperatures now typical on the Red Planet.

I chose this article, because of its title. I thought that it would be interesting to put something related to Mars, because everyday more signs of “life” in Mars are present. More things that may allow scientists to prove that humans can live in Mars are showing themselves, something that interests me greatly, because I think it would be really amazing if Mars had similar characteristics to the Earth that would allow us to live there. I believe that all of these discoveries are amazing, and that people should really be interested in it. I can’t really relate it to my life, because I don’t live there, or plan in a near future to live there, and it doesn’t affect me directly. But it does affect me, because it shows me that there are possibilities to have life there. I find it highly interesting, and I think that that’s why I chose it, because I believe that living there could be really great, another planet, relatively near ours, that has similar characteristics to the Earth, I just find it amazing.

Obesity Messes With The Brain

Obesity Messes With the Brain Friday, March 25th, 2011 This article talks about a series of tests that were ran by scientists, to explain the how the work is affected because of obesity. Apparently obesity affects memory, thinking, and reasoning among other things done by the brain. At Kent University in Ohio, John Gunstad, ran some test on 150 obese people who weighted an average of 300 pounds, some more than the others. Two thirds were going to get a weight-loss surgery soon. The scores of the obese people were compared to the results of very healthy people in the Brain Resource Internacional Database, were most people have lived a healthy life. Results for the obese people were really low compared to the results that healthy people had, that included their memory span. After 12 weeks, when the surgery was done, and the patients had lost about 50 pounds, the test was done again. The lighter but still heavy people scored substantially better than before. But the people who had not had surgery, or lost weight, performed worse than on their first test, something that surprised Gustand. After using a MRI researchers found out that with higher levels of CRP also correlated with “with worse performance in executive function, including tests of psychomotor speed and attention.”

I think I chose this article, because I was interested by the title. I think that obesity is one of the most concerning issues that is happening mostly in the United States, but is progressively spreading around the world. Obesity leads to diseases that can cause death to a person, and is something that people should be concerned about, it could happen to anyone if they didn’t pay attention to how much they are eating, or what they are eating. I was also interested, because I didn’t know that obesity could affect your brain. After reading the article, I realized that people with obesity problems have more issues than what they appear to have. For example they are obese, and they can barely move, but they also suffer of lack of memory, of reasoning, and have problems with thinking, something that is important for everyone, no matter what you are doing.

I think I can’t really relate this to my life, because I don’t know anybody who has an obesity problem. I see people walking down the streets, who have obesity problems, and I think “how could they get to that size” I mean, like without realizing that they need to stop eating such amounts of food, or doing more exercise. But I think I can relate it to my life, because I would like to know, if there is anything that over weighted people can do to reduce their size, so their brains are not affected, because, it’s not fair, that they have to carry themselves around, but with no reasoning or way of proper thinking. I think it’s really sad, to see someone lose the control of their minds, because they suffer of obesity.

Link:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/71742/title/Obesity_messes_with_the_brain

Cell Phones May Affect Brain Metabolism

Cell Phones May Affect Brain Metabolism 2.22.11

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/70134/title/Cell_phones_may_affect_brain_metabolism
This article is about how cell phones affect the metabolism of the brain. Researchers did an experiment involving 47 people, who had strapped to their heads two cell phones, one on each side. The phone on the left was turned off and the one in the right turned on, the one on the right received a 50 minute phone call, but was muted for the purpose of the person not knowing which one was on or off, and to prevent the stimulation of the brain’s hearing center. An exam ran right after the call was over showed that the area of the working phone had higher glucose levels, the other side was practically unaffected. The particular brain region could have changed depending on how the person holds the phone or the phone’s design. Glucose metabolism rose in these areas by about 7 percent normally seen when brain regions are active. Research says that the percentage is underestimated, because there is more brain activity when you are speaking on the phone. The heightened activity may not have any ill effects, or it may be dangerous, particularly with years of heavy cell phone use or in the developing brains of children and teens.

I chose this article because I thought that it was interesting that the brain is affected by cell phone activity. I think that I chose this because I can actually relate it to my life right now; I believe that today’s teens and adults live off their cell phones, and are constantly using them daily for hours. Now knowing that the brain is stimulated by cell phone activity, makes me realize that the cell phone has to be used with precaution, because it’s pretty scary to know that your brain is being over stimulated by cell phone waves. I chose this article because I can directly relate it to my life, I can spend two hours on the phone easily with a friend talking about anything, and now I know that by spending 50 minutes with the phone in one ear can increase the stimulation 10 percent because I’m actually talking, not only listening. I think that people should keep this in mind, and instead of being on the phone for hours you can text people or have shorter conversations. The most important thing is that people are aware of this because this came as a shock to me, and I’m going to try to reduce my calling time and spend that much time texting.

Moon Has Earth-Like Core

Moon has Earth-Like Core 01.06.11

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/lunar_core.html

Discovering details about the core of the moon is very important in order to create an accurate model of the moon's formation. The data sheds light on the evolution of a lunar dynamo -- a natural process by which our moon may have generated and maintained its own strong magnetic field. The team's findings suggest the moon has a solid, iron inner core with a radius of nearly 150 miles and a fluid, liquid-iron outer core with a radius of roughly 205 miles. Where it changes from Earth is the partially molten layer around the core estimated to have a radius of nearly 300 miles. The research indicates the core contains a small percentage of light elements such as sulfur. The researchers used data collected during the Apollo-era moon missions. The Apollo Passive Seismic Experiment consisted of four seismometers deployed between 1969 and 1972, which recorded continuous lunar seismic activity until late-1977. "We applied tried and true methodologies from terrestrial seismology to this legacy data set to present the first-ever direct detection of the moon's core," said Renee Weber, lead researcher and space scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Although sophisticated satellite imaging missions to the moon made contributions to the study of its history, the deep interior of Earth's sole natural satellite remained a subject of speculation since the Apollo era. A primary lunar seismic study was the wash of "noise" caused by overlapping signals bouncing repeatedly off structures in the moon's crust. Stacking improved the signal-to-noise ratio and made it able for the researchers to have a clearer track path of each unique signal as it passed through the lunar interior. "We hope to continue working with the Apollo seismic data to further refine our estimates of core properties and characterize lunar signals as clearly as possible to aid in the interpretation of data returned from future missions," Weber said. this article interested me, because I am very interested in space things, since I was a little kid, so I think it is mainly why it interested me. Another thing, is that the moon in the Earth’s satellite, and we never really talk about it, because we see it every day, it’s kind of the everyday thing. We always talk about planets and planet satellite’s such as Jupiter or Saturn, so for me, seeing an article of the moon was interesting, because I don’t see many of them in the web page. What you mostly see there is things about the planets in general, and photos. For me this is connected to my life, because I consider it a major thing in my life, I’ve always been interested in space things and always will be. It’s connected to my life in that sense, it’s a part of me, and the moon for example, is something that we can always admire, we can see it every day, in each of its stages, some days its brighter, bigger, or rounder, or the other way around. But we can always admire it, in any way or form that it takes. So I think that writing about the core of the Moon being similar to the Earth’s is something that may interest everyone, because we can actually relate it to something we know and where we live.

Hubble Discovers new "Life" in an Ancient Galaxy

Hubble Discovers new "Life" in an Ancient Galaxy

November 18, 2010

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/ancient-galaxy.html

Elliptical galaxies were thought to be aging star cities whose star-making heyday was a billion years ago. But NASA’s Hubble Space telescope, has helped prove that elliptical galaxies still have some “youth” in the, thanks to an encounter with small galaxies. Images of the core of NGC 4150, taken in near-ultraviolet light with the sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), have helped reveal streams of gas, dust, and clumps of new born blue stars that are less than a billion years old. The evidence is shown, that the star birth was activated due to a merge with a dwarf galaxy.
This new study, has helped to create the belief that maybe, in all elliptical galaxies, there might still be young life, in order to bring old elliptical galaxies their life back.
"Elliptical galaxies were thought to have made all of their stars billions of years ago," says astronomer Mark Crockett of the University of Oxford, leader of the Hubble observations. "They had consumed all their gas to make new stars. Now we are finding evidence of star birth in many elliptical galaxies, fueled mostly by cannibalizing smaller galaxies.
The Hubble images reveal turbulent activity inside the galaxies core. The young blue stars, create a ring around the center that is rotating with the galaxy. The stellar-breeding ground is about 1,300 years-light across. Long strands of dust are seen against the yellowish color of the core, which is composed by older stars. From a Hubble analysis, of the stars colors, Crockett and his team measured that the star-formation boom started about a billion years ago, which is a relatively recent event in cosmological science. The star making has slowly stopped since then.
"We are seeing this galaxy after the major starburst has occurred," explains team member Joseph Silk of the University of Oxford. "The most massive stars are already gone. The youngest stars are between 50 million and 300 to 400 million years old. By comparison, most of the stars in the galaxy are around 10 billion years old."
The encounter that triggered the star birth would have been similar to our own Milky Way galaxy, swallowing whole the nearby Large Magellanic cloud.
For every major encounter, there are probably up to 10 times more frequent clashes between a large and a small galaxy. Major collisions are easier to see because they create fireworks: galaxies, long streamers of gas, and dozens of young star clusters. Smaller interactions are harder to detect because they leave relatively little trace.
Crockett and his team selected NGC 4150 for their Hubble study because a ground-based spectroscopic analysis gave tantalizing hints that the galaxy's core was not a quiet place. The astronomers hope to study other elliptical galaxies in the SAURON survey to look for the signposts of new star birth. The team's results have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.“The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C”.
This article interested me, because when I was away in summer, I saw this IMAX video in a museum, about how galaxies were formed, and how about stars. Then another day, I saw another video talking about the repairs over the years made in the Hubble Space Telescope, and how astronauts were trained to do this task. I also think this interested me, because of the name, when I saw it i said I had to read it, because I thought it was like life, live something that lived, but when I clicked on it, it was about how galaxies that were billions of years old still had young stars. For me, reading all of these articles found in the NASA web page, is really important, because I aspire to become part of NASA when I grow up, and knowing about this things that are happening in the program now, has to be important somehow. I think that it is also important that we know about this things, because we are all very closed minded, and we only think of what we know and what is a fact, most of the time we like to stick with things that we know. Some people just like to know what they know and don’t try to strive for higher knowledge. I on the other hand, I always want to know more, and be more aware of what is going on in the world, because I think it is very important to know what is going on around us, even though its billions of years from Earth.

Pet Frogs Can Transmit Salmonella

PET FROGS CAN TRANSMIT SALMONELLA
October 22, 2010


Pet African dwarf frogs harboring salmonella have sickened at least 113 people, most of them children, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.
“This is the first multistate outbreak of salmonella associated with frogs,” says Shauna Mettee, a public health nurse at the CDC in Atlanta who presented the findings October 22 in Vancouver, Canada, at a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
CDC investigators became curious when doctors began reporting a spate of cases of the typhimurium subspecies of salmonella in 2009. Between April 2009 and March 2010, Mettee and her colleagues identified 113 cases of this infection, three-fourths occurring in children under age 10. The average age of the patients was 5. Symptoms ranged from cramping to severe and even bloody diarrhea. There were no fatalities. Bacteria transmission took many forms. For example, one woman cleaned a frog aquarium in the kitchen sink and subsequently bathed a 3-week-old infant in it, Mettee says.
The researchers traced the infected frogs to a single breeding facility that houses 800,000 to 1 million African dwarf frogs and sells them. Health authorities are now working with the facility’s owner to create a cleanup procedure to limit the salmonella within the animals.
Amphibians and reptiles can carry salmonella bacteria without appearing sick, says Patricia Griffin, a physician and chief of the enteric diseases epidemiology branch at CDC. She notes that pet turtles, which were popular in the 1970s, were found to expose people to salmonella. Small turtles have since been banned as pets, but some street sales continue, Mettee says.
Since March 31, an additional 57 cases of the salmonella subspecies have been reported. Mettee and her colleagues are now checking whether these cases also trace to frogs from the same breeding facility.
I think I choose this article, because when I was little I used to go to the pet store, and see the pet frogs in the fish tanks, and tell my mom I wanted one, and every time we went to the store I said the same thing. Luckily I never got one, because it would have been bad if I had gotten a frog and had salmonella. I think I chose this article because it interested me on how a frog that seems harmless and that is kept as a pet, could make such harm to you, like getting salmonella. I think I also thought of this article, because it took me back all this years of wanting a pet frog, but I think I don’t want it anymore. I really think that people should be aware of this, because I see lots and lots of people buying salamanders, and frogs, and amphibians, without the knowledge that they might give them a disease, so I think people should read the news a little better, just to know what’s going on.