Thursday, September 17, 2009

Current Chemical Research

Today you read magazine articles about current chemical research. Tell me which was your favorite article and why. I expect you to write at least 5 sentences. This assignment is worth 5 points. If you need to expand, you can always write about more than one of the articles.

35 comments:

  1. I read the article about the new material with a large serfuce area. This is the one i also found the most interesting too. I thought it was pretty cool how out of something the size of a gram can have the surface area of 5000 meters. I hope they extend the knowledge of this new material and use it in vehicles.

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  2. Ichose the Oh Rats report. It is about the level of oxygen in the brian. They tested it on rats first. The put a biotelemeric system in their head to run second-by-second readings of their brains oxygen levels. They hope they could use it to help fight alzheimer's and parkinsons diseas.

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  3. I read the first article. It is about scscentists finding bomb-grade plutonium. They thought iit was brought by terroist. They are trying to find more about it. They are trying to find new ways to find it.

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  4. My favorite article was Oh Rats! New Wireless Sensor for Instant Brain. I think its really cool that this device will help people with traumatic brain injury. The method they are using now is microdialysis, this method has severl disadvantages, including low sample rate and the necessity of a complex analytical apparatus. The wireless sensor would be able to ovwrcome many of the challenges, and help us advance in the study of the brain.

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  5. i chose to read the plutonium article. scientists found a historic sample of bomb-grade plutonium in a waste burial trench in hanford, washington. they had to order an environmental cleanup because of the level of radioactive waste at the site. they dated the sample back to 1944. now they are afraid that terrorists will try to smuggle in radioactive materials in order to make illegal nuclear weapons.

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  6. i chose to read the "new material with record high surface area". This was about using hydrogen to make a clean fuel cell. it was very interesting but also confusing. I dont understand how it can be so tiny but have such a huge surface area. i wonder how much the person that discovered this made?

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  7. I chose to read read about murcury levels in arctic seals may be linked to global warming. It was kinda interesting to read about how the saeal and what they eat are liked to the global warming. Scientists studied the murcury content in the muscle samples collected from adult ringed seals. they selected muscle murcury than levels in the liver because it accumulates over time. The murcury that they get is gotten from the fish they eat such as arctic cod.

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  8. I read the article about the hydrogen gas. I thought it was cool that a tiny piece of material has the surface area of a football field. I also think it is cool that it may soon be possible to run a car off of hydrogen. The thought of having a completely clean fuel source is a very cool concept.

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  9. I loved the article about the hydrogen storage material. This is a huge breakthrough in the hydrogen fuel cell research. I think that this could be the new primary fuel source for cars sometime in the near future. I would love to own a hydrogen car! The only thing they produce is H2O.

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  10. Well, I don't know how much I can say about the rat's article. However, I do think it's really cool that the probes they're putting in the rats' brains could help with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. I thought the article about the water cars is really cool, too. Or maybe it was about something holding Hydrogen. I don't remember. I wasn't really paying attention to Zach. I rarely do.:) But I feel bad about the seals with the mercury poisoning. But they kind of deserve it; they eat baby penguins. :(

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  11. I read the article "Mercury Levels in Artic Seals May be Linked to Global Warming. All I really have to say is.. aww.. that's so sad.. poor seals! The last article "New Material with Record High Surface Area" was pretty intreging too. The sponge-like nanomaterial with a record high surface area for holding gases and only 1/30th of and ounce of the material has the approximate surface area of a football field. Wow!

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  12. In the first article i thought that it was cool how you can find out exactly how old somthing is using isotopes. I didnt really get how the seals could make global warming happen because you wouldnt think that they couldnt hurt anyone or anything when u look at them, besides penguins. I thought it was interesting how you can control mice, and that they wear little helmets when u do it. I thought it was very cool how one little gram of somthing can become as large as a football feild. It was the most interesting article i think.

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  13. I read the Oh Rats! aticle. I thought it was intriguing. I like how they tested the microsensor on rats. The microsensor helps test drugs such as Marijuana, Cocain, crack, meth, heroin, PCP, acid,LSD, shrooms, Peyoti, and other various assortments of drugs. I thought it was amazing how small it is.

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  14. The rat's article is sort of cool how they can use the rats to hopefully find a way to treat alhiemerz and other brain related diseases. The seal article was interesting too. I do feel sorry for the poor baby penguins that get eaten by the seals. Then one other thing I found interesting is was the New Material article. It is really cool how a material as big as a football field can weigh only an ounce. That was the most interesting part of the reading.

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  15. I read about the Plutonium. That is cool that they found nuclear waste from 1944. I don't think it would be very safe to dig it up tho. Did anyone know about this site or did they just accidently find it. I wouldnt want to be a nuclear archeologist. It seems kinda lame. I wouldn't want to find old nuclear waste just to figure out when it was made. What are they going to do with all the waste they find?

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  16. So, i read a wee little article about higher mercury levels in seals being linked to global warming. They might have something going here. You see, seals eat fish. The sun melts ice. In summer the sun melts quite a bit of ice, meaning fish can travel more easily without ice. So, in the summer season in Seal Land they could be eating animals other than fish containing mercury, but since the sun is out more often in the summer time of Seal Land by the North Pole, it is melting some good ol ice and making seals metaphorically inject mercury directly into their weird little fins because global warming.

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  17. scientists have found platonium at an old bomb site. It is the oldest sample of plotonium used in bombs since the discovery of it in 1940. Scientists are mixing plotonium and uranium to make some sort of chemical cleaner. They are trying to clean up the plotonium with this so that they can lower the amount of radioactivity in the area.

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  18. I read the New Material with Record High Surface Area article. It is really cool that scientists are trying to make vehciles powered by hydrogen. Also, the UMCM-2 is facinating because it is so massive, but incredibly small.
    The surface area is 5,000 meters/gram, but it has a width of about 1/50,000 of an human hair. That's crazy!

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  19. I liked the Mercury Levels article. Because it's kind of interesting how the seals can get more mercury in the every year. I don't really know how that's possible, but I guess it is. Also I think it's because the get eaten by other things which puts more mercury in them. The scientists analyze the mercury in the seals' musceles to find how much of it is in them. :) coolio.

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  20. i read the article about the oxygen brain probe thingy. twas pretty cool. they made a probe that tests oxygen levels in the brain and they tested it out on rats and it worked. the information they get if they use it on humans could help scientists know more about brain injuries and diseases like parkinson's and alzheimers.

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  21. My favorite article that we discussed in class was about Plutonium.Scientists in Washington discovered remaints of plutonium in the desert, from America's nuclear weapons program. Their research shows how this can be used as a tool to construct nuclear weapons. The Goverment is afraid that illigal immigrants are going to come and take the plutonium, and use it to make nuclear weapons, and attack us with them. So, they have assigned a whole field of archeologists to go to the desert, and find all of the lost plutonium. That way the immigrants can't get it. =]

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  22. I read the article about the seals. I really enjoyed reading this article because i learned so much. I didn't like how the seals are dieing though. The seals are dieing becuase of the mercury leval. Global warming is melting the ice and the mercury leval rises. Therefor the seals obtain a higher leval. This os all i have to say..... This is James David Boyd and i am out...............

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  23. I read the thing about how there is nuclear waste out in the desert left from plutonium from the bombs tested back in WWII. It was cool, cause they created a whole new job to discover it. These jobs are called nuclear archaeoligists. Their jobs are to go into the desert into the old testing grounds and find the plutonium and take it back to Hanford college. They do this so illegal immigrants don't sneak over and steal this plutonium in order to build nuclear weapons.

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  24. I read the arical on the sensor in the rat brains. I though it was cool how they had sensors that were so small but could do so much. It was amazing how they got so much stuff in a device the size of a dime. It was cool how they made a wireless sensor. I also liked how if it worked right then it could be used in humans.

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  25. I read about the bomb-grade plutonium. It's kind of cool that plutonium was found in nuclear weapons. Terrorists shouldn't be smuggling them though. I didn't know that plutonium was dangerous. I actually don't know hardly anything about most of the elements, but that's no suprise.

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  26. My favorite article was the new material with record high surface area. I liked it because I found it interesting that a material that is smaller than a human hair can have a big surface area. I liked the name of the material, too. It was UMCM-2, which stands for University of Michigan Crystalline Material-2. I didn't know that a material could be named after a school.

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  27. The one I found the most interesting was the one about the wireless brain sensor. I can see how it would be able to make a major difference in the medical world. Since treating brain injuries and illnesses is very tricky, something like this would deffintely even out the playing field. I believe that, with this sensor, medical experts will be able to develop new treatments quickly and more effectively. Hopefully they'll be working on a human scale device soon.

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  28. I read the article about the mercury levels. It talks about how Canadian Arctic Ringed Seals eat Arctic Cod, which causes the seals to have high mercury levels, which researchers believe is linked to the vanishing sea ice (caused by global warming). The researchers took mercury content in the muscle from the seals, and analzed it over years, and noticed that the mercury levels are getting higher. I thought it was wierd and kinda cool how what seals eat is linked to melting ice. I wonder if they're going to try to do something about it, because there isn't really much they CAN do-- the Arctic Cod is the seals' food.

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  29. I read the article about the new material that has the huge surface area. I think it's cool that they found something like that. It's neat how just a really really small amount can have the same area as a football field. I also like that people are trying to find new fuel sources. It's great that we're a little closer to not needing fossil fuels.

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  30. I read the artical about scientist putting wirerless sensors in rat brains. I liked that they could get information about the oxygen levels in the rats brain. I thought the most interseting thing was that the little sensor could help treat people with brain injurys. It would be even intersesting if it could save their life. Its cool how such a little thing can give of so much date and even save lives.

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  31. I read the artical on the levels of plutonium. They found a bunch of plutonium in Washington. They used plutonium to make nuclear wepons. Beacuse of the high radioactive waste they have to clean up the sight in Washington. They call it the nuclear archeolog in a bottle.

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  32. I read the article on hydrogen. People at the University of Michigan have developed a new material to store hydrogen. It has a surface area of 5000 square meters per gram. This is the most anyone has ever acheived. It is made of zinc-oxide nanoclusters. This can be useful because hydrogen can be used as fuel to run cars and other things.

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  33. I read Mercury levels in Arctic Seals. It was very intersting and educational. They had high mercury levels because of their fish based deit. The fish had the high Mercury because of the melting Ice caps. I liked how well this article explained things.

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  34. I read the article, Scientists discover historic sample of bomb-grade plutonium. I found it highly interesting, because the scientist in Washington state found the oldest known sample-reactor bomd device. I just think that would be awesome to find something for a discovery taht you are doing knowing that it was the oldest bomb device!! and I got it for my discovery! it would be legit!
    ashely mcdonald!

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  35. i read the article about hydrogen and the new way to store it. the surface area is 5000 meters square per gram. i think this is very interesting. it is made of zinc-oxide nanoclusters, this will be usefull all over the world and well go into history.

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