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.