My Science Space » Science & Society

Science and Society

Mr. G — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:16:30 +0000

Over the next few weeks you’ll be reporting on 3 separate news items related to science. I’ve embedded the presentation below for you to review. If you have questions, comment on this post so everyone can benefit.

What will you be doing at 1:36 am Tuesday?

Mr. G — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:26:19 +0000

Yah, I know I need my sleep, and I need to be ready for school in the morning but everyone I know will be up at 1:36 am EDT Tuesday (tomorrow). How about you?

I’ve been sitting at my computer watching live feed from the Cape. The sun is setting and Discovery’s on the launch pad bathed in light, vapor coming off the external fuel tank. Really a beautiful site.

I am a little concerned about the weather both at the coast and here. There maybe some rain and concerns about lightning near the launch site and here we might have cloud cover to obscure the site.

I’ll be watching the forecast tonight before I set my alarm. Hmmm 1:30 am or 6:30 am?

Waves From Bill

Mr. G — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:15:22 +0000

I was sitting at the table Saturday morning having breakfast with my wife, in the background the weather channel was talking about the waves that we could expect from hurricane Bill, then close to 1,000 miles away off the coast of Virginia. Hard to imagine that something that far away could have a significant affect on the beaches of Florida.

About an hour later we were standing on the beach in New Smyrna. Waves were running 5-8 feet and breaking far from the waters edge. A few people played near shore where one minute you were in ankle deep water and the next almost to your waist. The pull of the water as it ran back out to sea was amazing!

Unfortunately later that day the power of the waves took the life of a body surfer in New Smyrna and today waves from the same storm may have claimed more lives in Maine.

Looking Back To Space

Mr. G — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:27:47 +0000

From Zoe 5 on The Sky This Week, 2009 January 23 – 30
i am watching the launch of a kepler thats going into space and its looking for other earths. i wonder how fast it really is going when it gets into space?

From christopher P4 on The Sky This Week, 2009 January 23 – 30
when a shuttle goes into space would the speed of the shuttle be the same as its speed flying on earth?

Just a couple of comments from students who are looking back into space (or maybe they never stopped).

Unfortunately tonight’s launch of the space shuttle was scrubbed due to a hydrogen fuel leak, next earliest date for launch will be Sunday. SO how fast do these space craft go?

Mt Redoubt Ready to Erupt?

Mr. G — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:14:53 +0000

I know we are looking into space right now, recording images of the Moon and watching Venus, but lets take a quick look back at Terra Firma.

Remember how we said that earthquake activity can signal a possible volcanic eruption? Well scientist have recently noticed an increase in seismic activity around Mt Reboubt in Alaska.

A little hard to read but here is an image from the seismograph. Click on the image to get a larger view.

I’m sure many of you do not know where Mt Redoubt is located so here’s a map.

Glaciers Keep Melting

Mr. G — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:21:00 +0000

Atmosphere Journal (April 14, 2008)

Glaciers worldwide keep shrinking at an alarming rate, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The rate of thinning doubled from 2005 to 2006. The study looked at data from 30 glaciers in nine mountain ranges around the world.

On average, glaciers shrank by almost five feet (over 1.5 meters) in 2006, the latest year with available data. Some glaciers lost much more than the average… (more)

Asteroid Passes Near Earth

Mr. G — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:23:00 +0000

Near-Earth Asteroid Offers Rare Chance for a Close Look
(From US News and World Report)

Scientists call them “near-Earth objects”—the giant space rocks that whiz by our planet every 5 years or so. The one that passed us early this morning came within an unsettling 334,000 miles of Earth. Not to worry, experts say, the asteroid, which may be up to 2,000 feet in diameter, isn’t close enough to do any harm, and besides, NEOs that size are likely to hit us only once every 37,000 years.

But the flyby gave professional and amateur sky watchers alike a rare chance to bring out the big glass to catch a glimpse of the object. In a dark and cloudless sky, the asteroid … (more)

Earth’s Plates May Take a Break

Mr. G — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:46:00 +0000

By Phil Berardelli

ScienceNOW Daily News

4 January 2008

Movement of the plates that made up the
supercontinent Pangaea could have stopped
temporarily and decreased Earth’s volcanic activity.

Gridlock.

Credit: Nicolle Rager, National Science Foundation,
based on Pangaea map data, Paleogeographic Atlas
Project, University of Chicago

Time and tide may wait for no man, but continents occasionally do. That’s the conclusion of a study published today in Science, which finds that the inexorable drift of Earth’s tectonic plates isn’t inexorable at all. In fact, the planet could be headed for another pause in continental drift, with uncertain and possibly ominous consequences…. (more)

Tungurahua Acting Up Again (January 7, 2008)

Mr. G — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:15:00 +0000

(View of Tungurahua volcano courtesy Ecuador Geophysical Institute.)

Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano is getting feisty again. In recent weeks, the volcano belched clouds of dark ash and streams of lava. Lahars or mudslides rumbled down its slopes while the ground around the summit shook from swarms of small quakes.

People in villages surrounding the volcano are nervously watching the new activity. In August 2006, four people were killed and 5,000 homes were destroyed in an eruption that scorched thousands of acres of farmland.
Tungurahua, which means “throat of fire” in the native Quechua language, sits about 90 miles (150 kilometers) south of the capital Quito. Its last major eruption lasted from 1916 to 1918. In October 1999, an eruption forced villagers to flee the nearby town of Banos.

Like a breath of fresh air

Mr. G — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:37:00 +0000

EurekAlert!

Contact: Beverly Law:

bev.law@oregonstate.edu Oregon State University

Imagine you are walking in a forest and can actually feel or hear trees, shrubs, and even soil breathing. As the sun shines in the daytime, you sense a huge whoosh as plants breathe in and a long sigh as they exhale carbon dioxide. Just like the in-and-out movement of air in a human lung, the living parts of the forest have regular rhythms of exchange with the air.

Across North America, a network of more than 90 towers called AmeriFlux monitors this daily breathing of forests, grasslands, croplands and shrublands. Professor Beverly Law of the Oregon State University College of Forestry is a “biosphere breathing” expert and the Science Chair of AmeriFlux. Law can use tower data to create a graph of forest breathing; carbon dioxide plotted by time, which looks like a series of up and down lines for each day. Photosynthesis and respiration by forests and other vegetated ecosystems are the processes that cause this daily change in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

All plants photosynthesize, or are able to use the sun as an energy source to convert water and carbon dioxide into molecules that comprise all living tissues. During the day when the sun is available for photosynthesis, plants take in carbon dioxide through tiny pores in the leaves to produce sugar-like carbon molecules for energy and release oxygen. Forests gather enough carbon dioxide from the air to create the equivalent of one pound of sugar per square foot each year.

What happens to those sugar carbon molecules? In just a few days, most of the carbon molecules are broken down and returned to the air as carbon dioxide. Night and day plants are constantly turning carbon molecules, like sugar, into energy to grow. Plants release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere during their growth and maintenance of living plant tissues. Microbes are also actively breaking down dead leaves, roots and animals in the soil; another respiration process that releases a large amount carbon dioxide in forests. Overall, forests exhale about 80% of the carbon dioxide taken up in photosynthesis. The rest of the carbon dioxide becomes the plant tissues that make up lofty trees and soft forest floor.

Law and other scientists want to know: do ecosystems always take in more carbon dioxide from the air than they release? This is an important question because carbon dioxide in the air from burning fossil fuels is the main culprit in global warming.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps warm air in the atmosphere which increases global temperatures. Using AmeriFlux tower data, scientists have estimated that in the United States, vegetated ecosystems take up 30% of the carbon dioxide that is released from fossil fuel burning. This is yet another of the services that we receive from forests and natural areas, provided simply by plants’ daily living and breathing!