A place to share questions and comments about Science at ATA. In our monthly SINS (Science In the News) Students review a piece of media (newspaper, magazine, radio, T.V., Internet). Then share and discuss. Brief Synopses of our Labs will also be posted here. Feel free to comment! :-)
Thursday, October 10, 2013
September 2013 S.I.N.'s
Here is what we all found interesting on the Scientific News front in September of 2013.
Anna Kordunsky gave an interesting view on the current situation in Syria in her article “Why are Chemical Attacks Different?” on National Geographic online. In 1925, the countries of the world signed a treaty know as the Geneva Convention. The treaty outlawed chemical weapons. Recently, Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad released a gas know as Sarin onto the streets of Damascus, killing hundreds. This event signifies a crime against humanity and a definitive call for justice.
Sarin gas is very similar to Xyclon B, the gas used by German concentration camps in WWll. When inhaled, Sarin blocks neurotransmitters that carry information to major limbs. The victim will then lose their hearing, sight and eventually die. The user of these weapons should surely be brought to justice, because the use of such weapons crosses a “red line” of humanity.
Scientists all over the world are investigating effects of earthquakes and what the quakes are causes by. In the 7/11/13 National Geographic online article F.R.E, Ker Than reports that some of the more devastating earthquakes are caused by fraking. Fraking is a way of gathering natural gas and extracting it from the ground using water and other chemicals. When the chemicals are released into the ground it weakens a fault line. A fault line is a fracture in the earth’s surface leading down to the tectonic plates.
These fault lines are weakened when water is pushed into the ground so far that it evaporates from the super heated magma and travels back up through the earth into the atmosphere. The results of multiple fracking wells weaken the surface of the earth enough so that the tectonic plates can move. A 7.9 earthquake in Alaska caused by fraking traveled by smaller earthquakes to Yellowstone National Park setting off geysers all at once. Oil drilling can also have the same effects on the earth causing quakes.
Is there a black hole at the center of the Galaxy?
At the very near center of our galaxy is a small star called Sagittarius A*. It is approximately one Astronomical Unit (93 million miles) in size, which is much smaller than our solar system (~ 2.8 billion miles). Astronomers have seen pulsation near the radio position of Sagittarius A* in the near-infrared range of light, which they attribute to an un-seen radio source flaring. In 1974, Sir Martin Rees proposed the idea that super massive black holes could exist within the centers of active galactic nuclei or quasars. In that same year, Balick and Brown made the connection between their radio detection of Sagittarius A* and other known active galactic nuclei. By studying the stars around this point, scientists saw that a large number of stars were orbiting something, some of them swinging quite close and shooting away again, in what is known to astronomers as a "Gravitational Slingshot". Few things could produce a large enough gravitational field to do this, and the source is nearly un-detectable, leading people to believe in the existence of a super-massive black hole. This article was posted by the UCLA Galactic center group on their website in 2013.
The Lycurgus Cup is a 1,600-year-old glass chalice. Under normal light it’s washed-out green color—but transforms to a blood-red vessel when lit from behind. When researchers looked at broken fragments under a microscope they discovered that the Romans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt. The exact mixture of the precious metals suggests the Romans knew what they were doing. The ancient nanotech works like this: When hit with light, electrons belonging to the metal flecks vibrate in ways that alter the color depending on the observer’s position. When researchers poured solutions of water, oil, and sugar and salt onto the surface of a chip of recreated glass the colors changed markedly—light green for water and red for oil, for instance. This ancient technology could potienaly save lives by detecting poisons and parasites in water.
4 comments:
Why are Chemical Attacks Different?
Anna Kordunsky gave an interesting view on the current situation in Syria in her article “Why are Chemical Attacks Different?” on National Geographic online. In 1925, the countries of the world signed a treaty know as the Geneva Convention. The treaty outlawed chemical weapons. Recently, Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad released a gas know as Sarin onto the streets of Damascus, killing hundreds. This event signifies a crime against humanity and a definitive call for justice.
Sarin gas is very similar to Xyclon B, the gas used by German concentration camps in WWll. When inhaled, Sarin blocks neurotransmitters that carry information to major limbs. The victim will then lose their hearing, sight and eventually die. The user of these weapons should surely be brought to justice, because the use of such weapons crosses a “red line” of humanity.
Fracking related earthquakes
Scientists all over the world are investigating effects of earthquakes and what the quakes are causes by. In the 7/11/13 National Geographic online article F.R.E, Ker Than reports that some of the more devastating earthquakes are caused by fraking. Fraking is a way of gathering natural gas and extracting it from the ground using water and other chemicals. When the chemicals are released into the ground it weakens a fault line. A fault line is a fracture in the earth’s surface leading down to the tectonic plates.
These fault lines are weakened when water is pushed into the ground so far that it evaporates from the super heated magma and travels back up through the earth into the atmosphere. The results of multiple fracking wells weaken the surface of the earth enough so that the tectonic plates can move. A 7.9 earthquake in Alaska caused by fraking traveled by smaller earthquakes to Yellowstone National Park setting off geysers all at once. Oil drilling can also have the same effects on the earth causing quakes.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/07/130711-fracking-wastewater-injection-earthquakes/
Is there a black hole at the center of the Galaxy?
At the very near center of our galaxy is a small star called Sagittarius A*. It is approximately one Astronomical Unit (93 million miles) in size, which is much smaller than our solar system (~ 2.8 billion miles). Astronomers have seen pulsation near the radio position of Sagittarius A* in the near-infrared range of light, which they attribute to an un-seen radio source flaring.
In 1974, Sir Martin Rees proposed the idea that super massive black holes could exist within the centers of active galactic nuclei or quasars. In that same year, Balick and Brown made the connection between their radio detection of Sagittarius A* and other known active galactic nuclei. By studying the stars around this point, scientists saw that a large number of stars were orbiting something, some of them swinging quite close and shooting away again, in what is known to astronomers as a "Gravitational Slingshot". Few things could produce a large enough gravitational field to do this, and the source is nearly un-detectable, leading people to believe in the existence of a super-massive black hole. This article was posted by the UCLA Galactic center group on their website in 2013.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/journey/smbh.html
Ancient Goblet is a feat of Nanotechnology.
The Lycurgus Cup is a 1,600-year-old glass chalice. Under normal light it’s washed-out green color—but transforms to a blood-red vessel when lit from behind.
When researchers looked at broken fragments under a microscope they discovered that the Romans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt. The exact mixture of the precious metals suggests the Romans knew what they were doing.
The ancient nanotech works like this: When hit with light, electrons belonging to the metal flecks vibrate in ways that alter the color depending on the observer’s position.
When researchers poured solutions of water, oil, and sugar and salt onto the surface of a chip of recreated glass the colors changed markedly—light green for water and red for oil, for instance. This ancient technology could potienaly save lives by detecting poisons and parasites in water.
http://discovermagazine.com/
Smithonion magizine
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