Farag,+Madona

I read the article Could Cell Phone Radiation Damage Our Brains?. Before I read this article, I already knew that cell phones emit radiation, they get a bit warm if you use for long periods of time. I also knew that there was speculation that the use of the cell phone so close to the brain may cause brain or skin cancer or other complications. I also knew that microwaves emit much more radiation than a cell phone due to their longer wavelength. Something I didn't know is that there was a limit to the amount of radiation a phone is allowed to release that the manufacturer has to abide by. I knew a lot of children used cell phones but I didn't know that two thirds of children over the age of seven use cell phones. I also learned that sometimes it takes decades for the brain cancer to form so there are more studies to be done. Some of the people who used cell phones a lot showed increased vulnerability to cancer while for others there was no connection.

Madona,

You always have to be careful to be objective on these issues. Good job! 5 stars! MW

Distilation Something that I didn't know is that you can separate more than two substances from a mixture. You can do this by boiling the mixture at the lowest boiling point of all the substances. Once that part distills out, you change the boiling point to that of the next least substance and so forth. I thought that this was interesting because this is faster than evaporation but does the same thing. When you evaporate, everything that's left is behind mixed together. But in distillation, you'll be doing the different substances one by one so you'll be separating them.

Madona, I suppose crude oil could be separated by evaporation but it would be a very slow process. It's funny that it takes energy to make gasoline which is used as a fuel. 5 stars. MW

Motion Detector Article After reading the motion detector article, I learned that although glass would block the IR of humans, the material that milk jugs are made of would not. Another thing I learned is that one steel ball would do more damage to a window than a million ping pong balls. Although it makes sense, when you think of a million ping pong balls, you would think they would do some damage but their mass and matter isn't powerful enough. I thought it was a very helpful analogy to relate to the strength of different lights on the spectrum. I also learned that rattlesnakes not only have the eyes that enables them to see the visible light that we see, but they have sensors that enable them to detect infrared radiation as well. I guess that makes them much more sensitive than us and they notice us before we ever notice them. I already knew that Einstein had developed the relativity theory (E=mc2) but what he won the Nobel prize for was his identification of the photoelectric effect. I also already knew that bats used echolocation to identify their surroundings and find prey because we did a unit on them in fifth grade. A also knew that humans emit infrared radiation because I remember seeing one of those pictures where it wasn't a photo of a human, but rather a map of sorts with different colors indicating the heat or light power emitting from different parts of the body. I think law enforcement uses that type of thing but I'm not sure.

Madona, Awesome commentary! You really nailed this one! I like your reference to ping-pong balls! 5 radiant stars! MW