BioHazard Issue 9001
Synthetic Biology
New technology creating new life (p. 6)
Nuclear Science
Revolutionizing the way we think about energy (p. 13)
The Giant Squid
The truth about the deep sea’s mysterious monster (p. 21)
Volcanoes and Ice Cream Amazing experiments that you don’t need a lab to do (p. 17)
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Table of Contents Letter from the Editor
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Contributor’s Page
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Synthetic Biology
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Human Evolution
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Nuclear Science
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Home Experiment
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Fish of the World
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The Giant Squid
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What we’re all about and our inspiration for the magazine
All about the writers of this magazine
Picture courtesy of: GloFish.com
14 Picture courtesy of: BBC News
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An up and coming field that could revolutionize the way we look at life How we became the species we are today
How we manipulate the building blocks of the universe
Picture courtesy of: Oregon State University
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Our science brought to your home
The way fish around the world have adapted to their environments An amazing and mysterious creature that we are just beginning to understand
Cover photo courtesy of: GloFish.com
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A Letter From BioHazard We have had a hard time bringing you this month’s Biohazard magazine, and we take pride in our work and hope you enjoyed your read. Biohazard’s mission statement is to educate the ordinary of the science of the extraordinary, and this month’s magazine certainly has been educating, with prevalent topics that were unbeknowst to the public not long ago. We thought of the idea when we realized the way science is being taught in schools is quite boring. We set out to make all these science topics actually interesting so students can better understand these topics and become fascinated with them. We hope you, the reader, have yourself have become fascinated and will read more of our magazine.
Picture courtesy of: Elizah Flores
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[Contributor’s Page] Michael Barre Michael Barre was born in Louisiana and moved to Austin at an early age. He went to Patton Elementary School and Kealing Middle School and is now a freshman as LASA. He has always had an interest in science and the more technical aspect of the world. He currently spends a lot of time programming, but has a general interest in all fields of science and computer-related topic. He also played soccer through elementary school and has picked it back up in high school.
Nick Blacklock Nick Blacklock, born in Austin, Texas, is fascinated by marine biology. He also has an unnatural obsession with fishing, which he is quite good at. Besides marine biology, he enjoys science in general as well as math. He goes in fishing trips almost every weekend. His likes alternative music by generally lesser-known artists, and is almost always listening to some form of alternative music.
Caleb Ellignton Caleb Ellington, an aspiring bioengineer, was born in Indiana. He is the head of the Synthetic Biology Club at LASA. In the summers, he works at a Univeristy of Texas Lab for cichlids (a type of fish) and animal behavior studies. He’s been playing guitar for five years and trombone for four, and is currently learning piano. He has played ultimate frisbee since middle school, and can ride a unicycle.
Pictures courtesy of: Michael Barre
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If you can imagine it
Picture
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you can make it
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Playing God How genetic engineering and synthetic biology are changing the world
By Caleb Ellington
A couple years ago the idea of real X-men was just a comic book fiction. To achieve the goal of a superhuman, we would have had to modify the building blocks of how our bodies work, meaning that a change in our protein structures was necessary, a massive feat for today’s engineering and biology. However, we may only be a couple years away from creating modern x-man equivalents thanks to a young and useful field called synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is the design and construction of biological devices and systems for useful purposes. Thanks to this newly emerging field, protein structure changes may be possible, along with many other amazing things. Synthetic Biology does not only have future applications though. Today scientists like Dr. Sara Sawyer of the UT Virology lab and Dr. Edward Marcotte of the UT Biochemistry lab are using these new practices to create HIV/AIDS resistant T-Cells and predict genetic diseases that have never occurred before, respectively. This and many other projects that could affect and help our entire world are being undertaken by this new and revolutionary field. Dr. Marcotte, a UT professor of biochemistry, is a prominent scientist today. He is renowned for his recent studies in genetic diseases and protein interaction within cells, as wells as his lead in the charge of synthetic biology. “[Synthetic biology] is a field in its infancy.. relatively few major industries or processes have been built around it yet.” Marcotte said. This means that synthetic biology is a lesser known field right now; However, Marcotte states that in the near future, possible applications would be custom manufac-
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Picture courtesy of : GloFish.com The flourecent fish are above called GloFish, created through the implementation of genes for certain flourecent proteins along with muscle promoters, turning the fish’s muscles different colors. Scientists hope to have these fish detect pollution in water in the future by turning the flourecence on and off.
turing long pieces of DNA, genetic circuitry, de-extincting organisms, and better ways to produce drugs and biochemicals through bacteria and yeast. Today though, synthetic biology is already making technological leaps and bounds in the Marcotte lab. In a recent project, Marcotte has been able to predict and prove the effects of genetic diseases that have, officially, never happened. It may seem like a something a psychic would do, but thanks to synthetic biology, the results are completely real.
“It's getting fairly straightforward to tell which of someone's genes have changes that might make them malfunction,” He said, “Combine knowledge like that with the growing catalog and you start to be able to diagnose which particular genetic changes might cause a given person's genetic disease.” Marcotte was able to synthesize proteins from genes he had manipulated in order to create a scenario for a genetic disease. After synthesis of the new protein, he observed
Picture courtesy of : Wikipedia Commons Axotl Salamanders made to glow by the introduction of Green Flourecent Protein (GFP) genes and muscle promoters into their genome. This process has beeen applied to many other organisms including pigs, cats, mice, and fish (such as the GloFish seen earlier)
whether the mutated protein would have functions and properties different from the old one or whether it would just be a useless hunk of amino acids with no function. From this, and the way the normal protein would behave within the body, the impacts of the mutated protein’s function on the organism could be predicted and so a genetic disease could be identified, without anyone ever contracting it. In his current project, Marcotte is using synthetic biology to create a map of our cells. However, he is not creating just any map; Marcotte is creating new proteins and using ones found within our cells to map out the intricate inner workings of our cells. “Proteins are the roads, the scaffolding, the supports, the factories, the motors, and the machines of the cells. We still don't know what half of them are doing in any detail, so we hope that by mapping out their relationships, especially which proteins physically connect to which other ones, we'll get a sort of Google map for the cell, a birds eye view of what and where the different proteins are. ... This map is just the starting point for lots of future research to figure out what the proteins are doing,” Marcotte said. A map of the ways cells carry out their jobs and interact outside and within themselves would serve a great benefit to many different fields. Being able to know how protein networks interact would allow us to see cells in a much different way than the current organelle based view we have today. Marcotte’s research would allow us to see cells for what they really are. Another product of this project is possible medical treatment to shut protein
networks down, One of our main creating a feasible problems has been anticancer drug by the nasty little retstopping mitosis, rovirus HIV. It has as well as other become a pandemmedical medical ic, spread everyaid. Albeit synthetwhere across the ic biology being globe and since it a new field, it has mutates nearly as already begun to rapidly as the in-Edward Marcotte help in major projfluenza virus, the ects like this one, one that changes that tackle humanity’s problems today. too fast we need to get a vaccination ev ery year, no cure can be found. Not even
“these are systems so complex that they make the most sophisticated man-made device seem relatively trivial.”
Playing with Pigment IN AN EXPERIMENT CONDUCTED by the Ellington lab of Biochemsitry at UT, E-coli bacteria were given light sensors and modified in other ways. The properties of their modifications ranged from generating pigment when the light sensor detected no light, to creating a communication molecule (quorum) to interact with other molecules in order to create complex pictures.
Mask
In Vivo
In Silico
A.) When there is no light, bacteria produce pigment
B.) Bacteria produce quorum molecules when not in light, when other bacteria pick up the quorum, the produce pigment C.) When there is light, bacteria produce pigment
D.) Pigment is turned on only when bacteria in the light come in contact with quorum, only produced by bacteria in the dark, creating the border Picture courtesy of : Ellington Lab
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our own bodies and their immune systems in, creating a new type of cell from the “Countries that invest can find a way to triumph this virus since combination of the immune system of a HIV preys on T-cells, the very cells deorganism’s and our own, for the more will hire better different signed to kill intruders. However, humanpurpose of becoming unaffected by the scientists and do better virus. It is not a perfect treatment though. ity’s reckoning day with the virus may not come thanks the creation of HIV resistant science, and then get to “The idea would be to give these cells T-cells. Doctor Sara Sawyer of the UT vireap the commercial re- to people that already have HIV in orrology lab has created these revolutionary cells through advances in the way we think der to keep them from getting AIDS wards of that.” about genetics because of synthetic biology. and dying,” Sawyer said “It's sort of -Scott Hunicke-Smith a desperate, expensive, and extreme “The type of synthetic biology that I do measure, but that is the reality of is to engineer human cells to encode immune system compo- where we are with AIDS. ... The more densely humans nents from other species. We have learned a lot about the in- live on the planet (increasing all the time), the more disterplay of viruses and immunity by doing this,” Sawyer said. ease will be a problem and the more new diseases will arise.” The role of other species in the process of outsmarting a virus It is a harsh reality that, although this is an inefficient is very important. Because a virus evolves to trick a particular and desperate cure, it is still one of the only ones there species into being a host, it cannot jump to another species im- is, and if it proves to work, that is all that matters at this mediately. This is why we don’t get mistletoe and other tree dis- point. Still, it is a cure, and we have synthetic biology and eases just from walking by or touching them; Those diseases are its advances in virology and genetics to thank for that. specifically evolved to affect trees.So, if we could get our cells to be taken by the virus as, say, a tree or another species, rather than Synthetic biology goes hand in hand with genetics, which is why our own, that would render us immune to that virus. But in or- it has been able to manipulate virology and biology to create the der to be taken as something different by viruses, we would have amazing aforementioned results. Its ability to cooperate with and to take their DNA, and that is where synthetic biology comes manipulate genetics so easily is why synthetic biology is cata-
A diagram of the DNA/RNA interface that is the basis for most biology. By changing a nucleotide (A,T,C,G) in the DNA, it subsequently affects thhe proteins made by the RNA, and thus the organism is altered. Picture courtesy of : Wikipedia Commons
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Picture courtesy of : Ellington Lab Bacteria modified with genetic circuitry to produce pigment when in light have had useful applications in the discovery of Bioengineering. A sort of meta-art is displayed above, with E-coli taking a picture of itself on a petri dish
Picture courtesy of : Ellington Lab An image of Dr. Ellington, head of the UT Biochemistry lab, created by the bacteria mentioned above
pulting to the forefront of science right now. Our DNA is the chief of command, the defining factor for who we are, and the new ability to manipulate an organism by changing a couple of nucleotides has proved to be an amazing and incredibly useful one. Doctor Scott HunickeSmith, head of the UT genetics sequencing department, has had a long history with genetics. Through the years he has witnessed the change in the way we see our DNA from a unchangeable, defining string of nucleotides, to the manipulatable, program type of view we have today. “I picked up a part-time job in the biochemistry department because they needed new engineering solutions so we could sequence the first human genome as fast and as cheaply as possible. That field was great - many more unanswered questions than answered ones and people just starting to learn how to ‘build’ - like DNA cloning, genetic engineering, etc. So I jumped in,” Smith said.
Since he jumped in, many of those unanswered questions have been answered through new technology, and most recently, the question of whether we will ever have the power to create organisms by design, a god like feat, has been answered with a yes. Smith was a mechanical engineering major before he discovered the field of genetics. Because of his previous knowledge of engineering and his newfound passion for biology, he was able to accomplish projects that other geneticists and biologists would not dare to attempt. Recently he created a machine in which, a piece of DNA could be split evenly and predictably, a process that was somewhat left to chance with other machines, and at the molecular level, precision and predictability are a necessity. These new defined strings of DNA are easier to use than the strings created by previous methods, and that means that the use of synthetic biology in genetics, the lifeblood of biology, is only growing. Synthetic biology has proved itself through various feats in science such as the cellular maps of protein highways, foresight in deadly mutations, HIV resistant T-cells, and its use in genetic engineering. The field can only grow and expand to become a defining factor in our future, perhaps to produce fuel for our cars as oil reserves run dry, facilitate organ synthesis, de-extinct organisms that have been long gone, or even create our real life x-men equivalents through the modification of our genome. These examples may appear a little
far fetched, but with the help of synthetic biology and its amazing potential, every day that passes make these ideas look less like something that came out of a science-fiction novel and more like a reality.
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OH, THE HUMANITY WE WERE NOT ALWAYS HUMAN. Our journey to the sophisticated creatures we are today has been an onerous and fascinating one. Once unevolved monkeys, we have made our way past vicious pretators, natural disasters, and even other subspecies of ourselves to make it into the modern world. This diagram demonstrates the millions of years of natural selection, speciation, trials, and troubles that have brought modern man to his vast hold on the Earth today.
Aridpithecus ramidus, the link between us and apes Picture courtesy of www.humanbeings.50web.com
1.) A r d i p i t h e c u s r a m i d u s
2.) K e ny a n t h r o p u s p l a t yo p s
3.) H o m o r u d o l f e n s i s
4.) Australopithecus anamensis
5.) A u s t r a l o p i t h e c u s b o i s e i
6.) Australopithecus africanus
7.) Australopithecus robustus
8.) H o m o h a b i l i s
9.) H o m o e r g a s t e r
10.) H o m o e r e c t u s
11.) H o m o h e i d e l b e r g e n s i s
12.) H o m o n e a n d e r t h a l i s
Date of Origin: 4.5 million years ago Key Characteristics: lanky and hairy, 20 percent sapien brain size. Straighter spine. Significance: The link between humans and monkeys. Where Discovered: North Rift Valley
Date of Origin: four million years ago Key Characteristics: Related closely to Ardipithecus, climbed trees Significance: Link between Africanus species and Homo Where Discovered: Kenya, Ethiopia
Date of Origin: two million years ago Key Characteristics: heavy chewing complex, large jaw crests Significance: adapted to be savage (more gorrilla like)for dry environment Where Discovered: South Africa
Date of Origin:1.5 million years ago Key Characteristics: physically similar to H. ergaster, much more technological advances Significance: first hominid to venture beyond Africa and colonize other parts of the world Confirmed use of controlled fire. Where Discovered: Pliocene epoch
13.) H o m o s a p i e n s
Date of Origin: 400,000 years ago Key Characteristics: Domed cranium, smaller feet and hands, shorter legs and arms, advanced tools Significance: The final stop . Humans developed civilization. Much larger cranium and smaller jaw than all previous species
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By Caleb Ellington
Date of Origin: 3.5 million years ago Key Characteristics: flat face, smaller jaw Significance: Natural selection starts to have a large effect, speciation Where Discovered: Southern Ethiopia, Rift Valley
Date of Origin: 2.3 million years ago Key Characteristics: Massive Jaw, small cranium, much like modern day gorillas Significance: Massive teeth and smaller brain for harsh environment Where Discovered: Eastern Africa
Date of Origin: 2.3 million years ago Key Characteristics: Long arms, short, smaller jaw, half the cranial capacity of humans Significance: close enough to be within the “Homo� family Where Discovered: Kenya
Date of Origin: 600,000 years ago Key Characteristics: Use more evolved tools than those of Homo Erectus, more spread throughout the world Significance: last branch between H. neanderthalis and sapiens Where Discovered: South Africa
Date of Origin: two million years ago Key Characteristics: larger cranial capacity than platyops, less protruding face Significance: From a different lineage, yet similar enough to humans to be genus Homo Where Discovered: Northern Kenya
Date of Origin: three million years ago Key Characteristics: slender build, larger cranium, human like posture, large teeth Significance: First of our bipedal ancestors Where Discovered: All Africa, four fossils
Date of Origin: 1.8 million years ago Key Characteristics: Thinner skull bones, less protrusive face, larger cranial capacity Significance: cranial capacity starts to increase drastically, first use of tools among hominids Where Discovered: Rift Valley
Date of Origin: 400,000 years ago Key Characteristics: flatter skull than modern humans, use of more advanced tools. Significance: evolved at the same time as Humans, humans most likely out-competed this species, causing it to go extinct. Where Discovered: Neander Valley
CHANGE BY THE AGE
Millions of years ago
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Gone Fission
By Michael Barre
Picture courtesy of: Michael Kappel Cooling towers of a nuclear power plant in Illinois
AFTER THE BOMBING of Hiroshi- in a nuclear plant. Knowledge of the ben- action must be a heavy isotope, normally ma and Nagasaki in 1945 and throughout the Cold War, the word nuclear evoked images of explosions and mass destruction. Now, however, the word nuclear means much more than a bomb. Nuclear science has created a promising source of renewable energy in the future, and given us a much better understanding of the universe.
efits of a nuclear power plant as opposed to other forms of energy generation will make people see the potential of nuclear science.
Dr. Sheldon Landsberger, a nuclear and radiation engineer at the University of Texas, believes the benefits in using nuclear power outweigh the potential danger of a nuclear meltdown.
“Renewable energy technologies share the problem that they are much more expensive than fossil fuels, and this is also the case for nuclear energy,” he said.
“The emission of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is much more serious to the environment and people,” he said. Nuclear reactors are a great source of energy, but many people are scared of them because they don’t understand how they work and they think they are in danger. A proper understanding of how nuclear reactors work and how they differ from nuclear bombs, both as a potential resource and safety precautions, can make people feel safer about energy produced
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Dr. Mark Deinert, a professor at the University of Texas, said nuclear reactions produce millions of times more energy than fossil fuels.
While this means that nuclear power is a viable form of energy, there are some problems with the use of nuclear plants. There are two different types of nuclear reactions, fission and fusion. According to PopSci, a website with information on popular scientific topics, in a fission reaction, a subatomic particle is fired at the nucleus of an atom. This splits the atom and releases energy. For the process to work best, the subatomic particle must be a “free neutron”, which is a neutron not bound to an atom. The atom in the re-
some variation of uranium or plutonium. Once the atom splits, the new pieces collide with more atoms, creating more splits, and causing a massive chain reaction. This entire process produces tons of electromagnetic radiation and kinetic energy, which mainly manifests as heat. While this produces massive amounts of energy, fusion reactions produce more energy than fission reactions, but that’s not the only thing taken into account when deciding an energy source. Deinert thinks if fusion was economically and technologically feasible, then it would be the better choice.
“Their operation is safe, the byproducts are not a concern, the fuel is plentiful, and per kilogram of fuel, fusion produces about four times the energy of nuclear fission. However, fusion reactors have been in development for 60 years and there are significant technical obstacles that need to be overcome before fusion is commercially feasible.”
think that a nuclear plant has the chance to explode like a bomb would. Biegalski finds this fear understandable but untrue. “[There is] no real comparison to a nuclear bomb. A reactor core will just not explode in that manner.”
Picture courtesy of: ITER and Fusion Energy
The process of nuclear fusion, showing two molecules fired at each other, which create a new atom and release energy.
Research from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy shows, in the process of fusion, two light weight particles are heated to extremely high temperatures (about 100 million degrees celsius) and fired at each other. The particles used are generally atoms of deuterium and tritium, because both of those atoms are types of hydrogen, which is the lightest element in the universe. To prevent the particles from cooling, they are trapped in a magnetic confinement system.
to them because of radiation risk. What these people don’t realize is that everyone on earth is exposed to radiation every second of the day from normal environmental factors. Nuclear reactors do produce tons of radiation, but Dr. Steven Biegalski, another professor at UT, says this isn’t a reason to worry.
When the deuterium and tritium collide, they fuse into hydrogen and neutrons traveling at high speeds. The energy from the neutrons is converted into electricity. Unfortunately, the technology for such a reaction is out of our reach because there is not yet a way to feasibly maintain the conditions that would be required for such a reaction to take place.
Radiation is normally measured in millirems, or mrems, and a normal person living in a brick house receives about 10 mrems of radiation a year. A person living close to a nuclear reactor may receive about 1 more mrem per year, and this practically has no negative effect.
“The radiation risk is very small. The reactor core itself is very radioactive, but it is also well contained,” he said.
Picture courtesy of: Marco Brigandi
According to the website for the company Duke Energy, there are several common misconceptions about nuclear forms of energy, and because of these many people have fears that actually have no scientific backing. The first common myth about nuclear energy is that the fuel is a radioactive green goop that could leak out of the reactor. The fuel is actually small pellets stacked into rods, and willl stay in this form indefinitely. These pellets will never leak out of the reactor as a dangerous slime. This myth leads straight into the next one though, because of the idea of radiation. Many people also believe that living close to a nuclear reactor poses a danger
Io9, a futuristic and science advancement blog, says the simple answer is the “enrichment” of the uranium used in the reactions. Uranium that occurs in nature is mostly useless for reactions. The process of enrichment removes some of the uranium that cannot be used. Power plants only use uranium that is about three or four percent, uranium - 235, which is the isotope required for the reaction to take place. Nuclear weapons generally use uranium that is 80 - 95 percent enriched, which means that even if all of the safety measures of a nuclear power plant failed, which has happened before, the result would be nowhere close to the destruction caused by a bomb.
Control rods used in nuclear power plants.
Picture courtesy of: Wikipedia Uranium fuel pellets used in fission power plants.
So there isn’t a leaking radioactive green goop leaking anywhere, and there’s no danger of radiation from being close to a plant, but neither of those address probably the biggest and most feared misconception about nuclear energy. Because the word nuclear is generally associated with the idea of a bomb, many people
The power plants don’t just rely on this to prevent disaster though, one of the most important safety measures put in use is the introduction of control rods, made of a material such as boron. The reason boron is special is because it can absorb neutrons, but it cannot undergo a nuclear reaction. This is useful in a fission reactor that’s producing too much heat because the reaction is carried on by the production of more neutrons which collide with more atoms, causing more splits, and the removal of the neutrons into a material that they will have no effect on slows down the reaction, preventing the reactor from meltdown.
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While the power plants don’t pose a real threat to the general public themselves, there’s still the matter of the final major misconception about energy coming from nuclear power. Many people believe reactors produce millions of tons of radioactive waste. While the waste is radioactive, this figure is nowhere close to the actual number. Over 50 years of use, the nuclear reactors of the United States have produced only about 63 thousand metric tons of waste, and it’s all properly contained. Dr. Andrew Osborne, an expert on the topic of nuclear science, says the biggest problem with nuclear waste is storage of it because it can remain radioactive for several million years.
“Solutions to this have been proposed, such as storing the waste in a secure, geologically stable underground facility, such as the canceled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project.”
Picture courtesy of: Yuccanmountain.org
Biegalski believes the Yucca Mountain project is the proper choice for storage of the waste. “Years of research has shown that this is a very good option. Opposition is just politics,” he said. According to Reuters, a news and general information website, Yucca Mountain was chosen as a storage site mainly because of
Map of nuclear related sites in America, including power plants and waste disposals.
its location. It’s in the desert and far from any large populations, which means that the waste would potentially have little impact on anyone. There are currently about 100 storage sites all over the US, and the Yucca Mountain site would have been the alternative to all of these. The opposition to the Yucca Mountain is mainly from politicians who claim that having the site in the state would reduce tourism and create potential water pollution sources. They also say that shipping nuclear waste across the country would create targets for terrorists and that the site is too close to frequent fault lines. The other option is to try to reduce the waste being produced by the reactors. Osborne believes this is a possible solution.
Picture courtesty of: The Living Moon
The Outside of the Yucca Mountain nuclear containment site.
Picture courtesy of: Wikipeida
Diagram showing how a containment chamber in the mountain would have been designed.
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“Methods of eliminating waste have already been produced” he said. “It may be possible to reduce nuclear waste from a million-year problem into a five-hundred year one.”
Smithsonian A little bit of something for everyone 19 Museums and 9 Research Centers in Washington DC, Capitol Row
African American History and Culture American Art Air and Space American Indian Arts and Industries National Zoo Natural History
Air and Space Museum Marine Science Museum
Pictures courtesy of: Smithsonian Institute
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How to Make Hot Ice and Other Ways to Misuse Your Kitchen
SCIENCE IS INTERESTING IN GENERAL but everyone knows that the best science is what you can actually do at home. Unfortunately, many experiments that produce really cool effects require many safety precautions and some rather hard to get materials. These three experiments can be carried out by just about anyone and with materials that most people could find by just looking around their house or with a quick trip to the store. By Michael Barre
Ice That Freezes At Room Temperature What You Will Need: • Baking soda • White vinegar • 1 pot (at least 1 1/2 liters) • 1 glass container (at least half a liter) • A measuring spoon and cup • An icebath for the container (optional) Step 1. Put three tablespoons of baking soda into the pot. Step 2. Add one liter (4 1/4 cups) of vinegar to the pot. Do this slowly to ensure that the bubbling reaction between the baking soda and the vinegar will not spill out of the pot. Step 3. Boil the solution down to increase the concentration of the sodium acetate (the mixture of vinegar and baking soda). The solution will be ready when there are little pieces of sodium acetate sticking to the side of the pot (little white specs) and a crusty film is forming on the top. Don’t mix the pieces of sodium acetate back in, instead gather them with a spoon and store them seperately because you will need them later.
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Step 4. When the solution is ready, move it into the glass container and add a tablespoon of vinegar to the solution. Then stir the solution to make sure that any solid pieces are completely disolved because any solids can cause the solution to freeze early. Step 5. Cool the solution in the icebath if you have it. If not, then you can just put the solution in the fridge or freezer, but it will take longer to cool this way. Now add the soduim acetate pieces saved from earlier to the solution. They should set off a chain reaction, causing the entire solution to freeze. If the solution does not freeze, it was either not cold enough or not boiled down enough. Step 6. The sodium acetate has been frozen, but you’re not done with it. You can remelt the sodium acetate and then recool and refreeze the soluiton as many times as you want.
Why it works: When vinegar and baking soda interact, carbonic acid is created, which is so unstable that it immediatly decomposes into carbon dioxide, which bubbles up, and water. A dilute solution of sodium acetate in water is left behind. Boiling increasing the concentration of soduim acetate becuase water boils before sodium acetate. After boiling, the solution is cooled and undergoes a process known as supercooling, which is when a solution is cooled below its freezing point, which for sodium acetate is about room temperature. Introducing solid sodium acetate to the solution disrupts it and causes it to freeze.
Make a Volcano With Yeast What You Will Need: • 1 packet of quick rising yeast • Hydrogen peroxide • 1 8 oz. bottle • 1 measuring cup • Food coloring Step 1. Put half a cup of hydrogen peroxide into the bottle. Step 2. Add some food coloring to the peroxide to color the eventual lava.
Step 3. Add a tablespoon of the quick rise yeast to the bottle, and watch the “volcano” explode. The foam should last for a few minutes.
Why it works: The hydrogen peroxide is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, and the introduction of yeast causes the hydrogen peroxide to decompose much faster. than it normally would The hyodrogen peroxide decomposes into water and oxygen, and the bubbles you see are oxygen bubbles.
Homemade Ice Cream What You Will Need: • 1 quart size plastic bag • 1 gallon size plastic bag • Whole milk • 2 quarts of ice (crushed if possible) • Vanilla extract • Rock salt • Sugar (optional) Step 1. Put a cup to a cup and a half of whole milk into the quart bag. If you want to add sugar, add about a tablespoon of sugar to the bag. Then add a half a teaspoon of vanilla (or a little more if you’re using a cup and a half of milk) to the bag and mix it all together. Seal the bag. Step 2. Fill the gallon bag up about halfway with the ice and then add about a cup of rock salt (does not need to be precise). Information From: www.wikihow.com, chemistry.about.com
Step 3. Put the bag of milk into the bag of ice and salt, making sure the bag is tightly sealed. Seal the ice bag. Start flipping the bag of ice over, trying to make sure the milk gets evenly cooled. Continue until the milk begins to solidify. Then take out the milk bag and enjoy!
Why it works: Icecream is just frozen milk with added flavoring, so the real science is in the rock salt. The salt causes the ice to melt by lowering the freezing point of the water through disrupting the chemical bonds in the water. This allows the mixture to cool the milk faster and more evenly.
Pictures courtesy of: Michael Barre
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Plenty of Fish in the Sea By Nick Blacklock
Largemouth Bass
Record Weight- 25 lb 1 oz Eating- minnows, worms crawdeds, hunts in hydrilla, suspends, schools in summer Spawning-spawns at a certain temperature, in the spring,
Roosterfish
Record weight- 144 lb 0 oz Eating- chase sardinas along shores Spawning-release eggs in water column and are fertilized
Dorado/Mahi-Mahi/Dolphinfish
Record weight- 95 lb 0 oz Eating-chase sardines in schools out off coast spawning- Spawn every two nights
Atlantic Blue Marlin
Record weight-1150 lbs 0oz Eating- Chases sardines in schools Spawning-Swim to warm waters every year to spawn
Art From: www.tpwd.state.tx.us, www.foodforsport.co.za, www.redorbit.com,www.crushfish.com
There are many observable fish from many places that we can learn from and see how they have evolved over time. Here are some of the many fish from around the world.
British Cod
Record Weight-58 lbs 8 oz Eating-Eat small fish but prefer squid
Spawning- Spawn in fish hatcheries buit in Britain
Skipjack Tuna
Record Weight- 76 lbs Eating- hunt sardines in schools Spawning-Release eggs which are then fertilized in the water column
Giant Trevally Record weight- 160 lbs 7 oz Eating-Eat small fish around estuaries and crabs Spawning- Leave eggs to be fertilized in water column
Giant Grouper
Record weight- 395 lb 9 oz Eating- Mainly eat crabs, and other crustacians and small fishes Spawning- Form large spawning groups in places and spawn through the summer
www.fisheries.no, eol.org www.jrusselljinishiangallery.com, spearfishingcharters.com.au, www.vectortemplates.com
World’s Deepest Mysteries by Nick Blacklock
Picture courtesy of :DeviantART
The depths of an undersea trench
INGER WINKELMAN THOUGHT The ocean is still very much unex- 21 species, I was expecting a lot more SHE HAD MADE A MISTAKE when plored. The Giant squid is one of the variation than there turned out to be... gathering data on the giant squid at first, but then she checked again, then checked again. The data was not going to change. It was astounding. No one could have guessed that the giant squid is all one species. The kraken, sailors used to tell tales of it eating entire ships. this creature was mainly folklore, but did have a shred of truth to it. It is believed the kraken tale was theorized after sights of the giant squid
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most unknown creatures in the ocean. Since it lives in such deep and murky waters, scientists have lots of trouble studying it. Most specimens of giant squids are found dead washed up onto beaches and are also cut out of sperm whales’ stomachs. Finally scientists have sent samples from museums all over the world to Inger Winkelmann and her team.
The giant squid varies a lot in physical form said Winkelmann. This newly found data was extremely surprising to scientists. The specimens collected were from all over the world from Europe, to Antarctica. This data was gathered from museums that had found giant squids washed up on shore and put them in jars with preserving liquids.
“Since the list of suggested giant squid species goes all the way up to
This preserver makes it possible for scientists to have accessible samples.
ing away the very creatures we want to discover. I hope it gets across the point that we’ve been scaring animalaway. I also hope it encourages more use of submersibles instead ROVs.” said Widder
Edith Widder lecturing at a TED talk
Before all this, Dr. Edith Widder was close to the coast of Japan, trying to film this elusive beast.The Medusa, is deployed only for the second time onto the ocean floor.The Medusa whirs to life and begins recording at the depths of the ocean. It simulates a jellyfish under attack, but the giant squid doesn’t want the jellyfish. It wants what is attacking the jellyfish. The squid swims up to examine this odd contraption, and thus the first video of a giant squid in its natural habitat.
Picture courtesy of :TED.com
giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time ever. The Medusa is a very complex machine, the first of its kind, engineered by Widder’s team or the “squid squad’ This is much different than other methods.
“Previous attempts have used noisy platforms fitted with bright white lights that I believe scare animals away. “ said Widder. “Medusa is a camera platform that be de“ It was the Medusa that recorded can ployed as The overall simul- the first images ever recorded of a lander or a drifter. taineous and in- a giant squid in its natural habitat As a landstant re- , something that’s been described er it drops to the botaction to this was as the Holy Grail of natural history tom and remains cinematography.” their recording “A lot of wild screaming and near disbelief” until we send an acoustic signal that causes it to drop a weight and float to says Widder. the surface where it is recover. ” saidWidder. “The Medusa was based on The Eye- in-the-Sea which I developed as a new “ It was the Medusa that recorded the way of exploring the deep sea. Part first images ever recorded of a giant of the inspiration came from a deep squid in its natural habitat – somesea fish that uses red bioluminescence thing that’s been described as the o be able to see without being seen. Holy Grail of natural history cinemaUnlike most deep sea inhabitants it tography. It was a wonderful validacan see red light. We used the same tion of the point that I’ve been making for a lot of years now – that we are trick.” said Widder. This camera was set out to record the exploring the oceans wrong and scar-
After all this Inger Winkelmann publishes her paper and astounds the world yet again. “difference in physical appearance is the main reason for suspicion of more than one species” says Jan, a coworker with Winkelmann. “The newly found data is interesting and intriguing” Widder said And there is always room for the future. The giant squid is shrouded in mystery. Winkelmann describes in closing “Although the similarity of their mitochondrial genomes is very compelling evidence in favour of one global species, we should still wait and see what the nuclear sequences look like. I would not be surprised if these animals had a few more tricks up their sleeves, or mantles if you will.”
Picture courtesy of : Discovery
A full body shot of the giant squid
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The Kraken Finally
Revealed
Picture courtesy of : Discovery
Photo of the giant squid taken from the medusa
From the notorious Kraken, the giant squid has come a long way. The image of it today isvastly different from the original myth. Though it does contain some common features, the myths are nothing but, that, myths. Ships will have no reason to fear this beautiful creature. We know so little about this species of squid we have no idea how many of them remain. The photos taken by the medusa have just scratched the surface. We have a long way to go before we can ever truly understand this species.
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