Blog 7

In this article, Weisman is talking about what would happen to the world after everyone is gone. He goes into some intense detail about nature would take over everything like houses and buildings because it would be free to grow without any human interference. One thing that really caught my attention about this subject was his statement about how everything people think is permenant really isn't. In class, Brian actually made a perfect example of this. He said that people think houses and buildings are permanent and that things like plastic bottles are not. However, in reality, buildings can easily be brought down be nature (as explained thoroughly by Weisman) and plastic bottles can't.
I liked the article, although Weisman had a certain tone against humanity that i didn't like that much. However, his intense description of a house being slowly deteriorated by nature was very interesting and I enjoyed reading it. I do not know if everything will go exactly how he says it will because I doubt he's ever sat down for years and watched a building be destroyed by nature, but I do like his imaginative ideas about it.

The Checklist

The beginning anecdote in this article really caught my attention. In fact, the whole article really caught my attention. Never in my life did I think that someone could come back to life so many hours after dying! It really amazed me to see how something as complicated as surgery could be simplified and made efficient through something as simple as a checklist. When I sat back and thought about what I had just read, I realized that this article was completely right. I make myself a checklist of the things I have to do everyday, and this honestly helps me lower my stress levels and handle my day efficiently. Now the idea that surgeons don't make a checklist is what amazed me. If they know that doing so will significantly help the survival rate of their patients, then why not make one?
How can someone, even a professional, have a list of hundreds of steps in their mind? They can't. Therefore, I believe that it i vital for people to make these checklists, regardless of the situation they are in. Through this article it is obvious how helpful they can be. It saves lives. I know that throughout my life, I will make chacklists to help me get through my days.

Dolphin Diabetes

Researchers have found a new test subject that portrays signs of diabetes very similar to human diabetes. This new subject, the bottle nose dolphin, experiences drastic changes in glucose, or sugar, levels just like human beings with diabetes experience. Due to this, researchers believe that they will be able to study "dolphin diabetes" in order to discover new and very important advances in human diabetes. One day, according to this article, researchers hope that by studying the blood-glucose levels of dolphins, they will be able to find a cure for this terrible disease.

I believe this discovery is extremely important, and unfortunately, not many people know about it. For example, one of my best friends (who has diabetes) doesn't even know. Therefore, I really hope that this new discovery will find its way to the major news distributers. Then, these researchers would be able to receive more funding, and they will get even closer to finding the cure.

Here's the link: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/02/dolphin-diabetes-could-be-import.html

Polymers are Forever Response

This article was very interesting to me because ever since I was little, I was always taught to recycle. My parents always told me about how bad plastic was for the environment. While I was reading this article, I grew more and more frustrated at how bad the problem actually is. However, I was happy to see that, as stated in the article, our landfills are actually made up more of newspapers and other biodegradable products than plastics. I thought of this as a plus because those products, like newspapers, will one day breakdown.

What I did not understand was why Thompson would wait so long to act on his discoveries of those small plastic beads in the ocean. For example, it said that he started finding these beads around the 1980's, and soon after the article mentioned other findings around the 1990's. Why would Thompson continue to collect these plastic beads for research instead of going to the public and trying to put an end to the source of these beads?

A Master Blueprint for Making Stars

I decided to read this article because last night, I read an article in a magazine about star formations. Although my major has nothing to do with space or astronomy, I have always enjoyed reading about the mysteries of space. I found this article on sciencemag.org and it's called "A Master Blueprint or Making Stars". Its main purpose was to explain the phenomenon of star creation.

The article began by talking about the difficulties astronomers have when trying to find stars that are in the process of creation. Then, the author explained that these stars have dense clouds that prevent astronomers from actually seeing the stars. Therefore, the astronomers use special infrared telescopes that allow them to see through the clouds. With this technology, astronomers were now able to find the answer to their main question: "Do large stars form differently than smaller ones?"

After decades of study, astronomers were finally able to see that all stars form similarly. To describe how they formed, the author explained the masses as "jets" and "disks" of differently colored dust clouds. This was an important find because even small stars are created in this manner. Finally, with this information, astronomers will be able to pinpoint the one factor that determines the size of stars.

I liked this article because it explained every scientific term it used, so it was easy for me to understand what the writer was talking about. I really enjoy reading about subjects like these because there are many mysteries about space that are being solved on a regular basis.

Here's the link to the article: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2010/127/3

Blog #2

Homework Assignment for Feburary 1

Twilight of the Books

I honestly found this article to be very interesting. I already knew before I started reading that less people read, but I never really saw strong data to support that claim. I really liked how the author used numbers, or statistics, to stregthen his points. Also, I liked how the author referred to history in several parts of the article. For example, it was very interesting to me how a written language affected the Egyptian and Summerian civilizations. The author did a great job at supporting his ideas by using several different types of support (like raw statistics and historical reference). That is what I liked most about this article because it made it more interesting to read.

To me, the notation system did not really help. I liked the idea of it, but I did not like how I found myself worrying more about the notation system than the actual article. I see how it can be helpful because it helps people remember how they reactedto certain parts of what they read, but I have never really had a problem with that. I usually remember everything about what I have read. Some people may like it,but i saw it more as a unnecessary task.

Blog #1

Blog 1: "How did you become interested in science, medicine, or engineering? What particular problems in science are subject areas which interest you?"

I became interested in science and engineering when I was still in middle school. What sparked my interest was definitely a magazine that my dad would buy for me called Popular Science. This magazine would have different articles about new inventions and technology. It is a really interesting magazine that I still read to this day.

I was always stuck in between biology and engineering, but I finally decided to enter into the College of Engineering last summer because I realized that there are much more job options for an engineer than someone who majored in biology. For example, with an undergraduate degree in engineering, someone can go into law, business, or medicine. Therefore, I liked the idea of having many job choices in my future.

The problem in science that interests me the most are handicaps in seeing and hearing. Therefore, I would also love to become an engineer that helps create tools for aiding people with those disabilities.