Templin,+Treyton

(Artificial Blood) Post: I found this article to be fairly fascinating. I have heard of using artificial organs or body structures before, but never before have I heard of using artifical blood as an alterative to donor blood. After reading this article I feel it is a concept that should be funded and research should continue. There are many setbacks to using real blood that artificial blood can avoid. These setbacks include disease and a lack of blood (there is very very low amounts of blood within blood banks.) I was even more surprised to see what had been used as a blood alterantive in earlier times (urine and wine?) The only thing I question about artificial blood is how it will be able to be accepted by its new host body. I know that if a body gets an unkown substance within its body it will try to destroy it and as a result of this the host dies. As a whole I found this article to beinteresting and I learned quite a bit about a really cool concept, artifical blood.

Trey, Looks good. You're insight was excellent. You might try spell check in the future though. 5 stars. MW

I was also very suprised with all of the crazy things they can do these days. I never though that artificial blood could actually be used as donor bloodf to help someone. Very good! Ben Raver

(Redefining the Kilogram) Post: Apparently the "official" kilogram is beginning to lose weight. This is somewhat of a calamity to some scientists as well as other people who really care about the weight of things.) I'm surprised that scientists actually know how many atoms there are in a kilogram (5.0185515 x 10 to the 25th power.) Though I wonder why the fact that the official kilogram weight is getting smaller is as much of a problem, scientists know exactly how much it is, especially if they know how many atoms there are. I feel as though the most valuable point in this article was that if the weight of this single kilogram weight changes then the entire world's standard of a kilogram will change. Just one chunk of platinum holds the entire fate of a weight standard in its hands.

Trey,

Funny and well written. Can you identify three things and an a MVP? 4 stars. MW

(Airline Security) Post: I have always found airline security to be annoying and rather bothersome. I understand why we need it (you can't trust anyone anymore) and frankly I'm ashamed the world has came to this. Gone are the days when passengers on an airplane were trusted be mere passengers, not insane terrorists or bombers. Anyone who passes through the necessary security in order to reach the terminal see the metal detectors they walk and send their luggage few. Few people (including me) know how much more there is to how airports study and analyze their will be passengers. These security stations use high tech technology that is far more complex then metal detectors in order to see what the airline travelers are bringing on or with them. I had assumed that airlines only used metal detectors, I didn't ever think far ebnough to remember that individuals can make explosives with a varitey of basic household products (though I honestly don't see how fertalizer is explosive.) While I was amazed that airlines use these technologies I found some to be less logical then others. I personally have a real problem with the "puffer" machine described in the article. I understand that it uses blasts of directed air ("puffs") in order to find bits of dangerous materials such as metals on a passenger or their luggage. Let's say the passenger was a woman who was wearing a glittery make-up product, could she set off the machines warning alarm? Couldn't their be a variety of logical reasons (not including carrying a bomb or weapon) that an airline passenger may have came in contact with a metallic dust of sorts? Unlike the "puffer" (which I found to be a not-so-great concept) I did learn of types of danger detection technology I did find to be a good idea. The two I liked the most were the miniature mass-spectrometer and the desctibed "micro-detector." These seemed like types of technology that were unlikely to create erronous assumptions about the airline travellers and additionly made sense to be in an airline setting as they are small and could be un-detectable to those who carried dangerous things into an airport (I'm assuming that people who plan on doing harm within airports or planes can figure a way to avoid getting caught by the big/ obvious metal detectors.) While I find this article on higher-tech airline security measures (and how they relate to chemistry) fascinating and enjoyable, I don't think my opinions of airport security to be highly altered. It is only in my best wishes that some intelligent individual figures a much speedier and convienent (yet productive and satisfactory) way for airline passengers to pass through the airport security.

(I also liked that one of the the individuals mentioned in this article was a Purdue graduate, go Boilermakers).

(Crude Oil) Post: I learned more about crude oil from this short video then everything else I have heard about it before. I had always previously thought that crude oil was what they put into cars. I never knew that there were so many different uses for crude oil, it is used for various gases and fuels, not only what powers cars and motors. I was also interested to learn of how many steps crude oil goes through to become all of its final processes. In addition to what I learned about oil, I learned the many steps of distillation. This process isn't as simple as merely turning a liquid to gas then purifying it, there are other stages. I think the most valuable point of this video was that crude oil has to go through an interesting distillation process to become the products we use today.

Trey, This process is without a doubt the most profitable, economically important one in our world today. Good post! 5 stars. MW

(Motion Detectors) Post: This article I found to be fairly interesting. I had already known of the type of motion detectors that are tripped when somebody steps in front or blocks a light source. I had also known that some animals like bats use echo-location in order to se their surroundings in the dark. Additionally, I had known that Albert Einstien had recieved a Nobel Prize for his monumental discoveries and theories involving light. Before this article I didn't know that snakes had thermal vision, though it now makes sense to me why snakes are such dangerous predators at night. I had not know that people used sound as a manner of motion detecting, though now I see why submarines use a "ping" to spot other subs or boats underwater. Finally previous to reading this article I had not known that there were systems of using thermal signatures to spot or detect hidden people or objects.

Trey, Good reflectons (no pun intended). I like your reference to submarines but they use sound, not light waves - still a good connection though! 5 stars. MW

(Where Do Elements come from?) 25 worder: Sub-atomic particles are stored within stars and when the stars supernova these particles are released into space and fuse with other sub-atomic particles creating elements.

Trey, Nicely done! 5 stars. MW

(Sugar Explosion) To start this off I must say I'm pretty surprised I haven't heard of this disaster, as an avid reader of the newspaper I don't remember having ever seen this. That being said I wish I had seen this as it was rather interesting. This article informed me of how small dust like particles of several things (such as sugar) can cause a combustion reaction and explode. This made me wonder why this isn't a more common occurrance, one would think that their would be other similar explosions regularly around the world. While the article says that they want to stop this type of thing from happening I don't really see how one could. Dust is really small (microscopic) and it wouldn't be too hard for a little dust to go unnoticed, next thing you know BOOM a factory goes up in flames. I'm also surprised how small particles of granulated suager are, they would seem larger in appearance. While I have heard of other explosions never would I have thought it could be caused by sugar!

Trey, i imagine it was big news in Georgia. I read that some factories have dust a half an inch thick on the floor! How does this relate to our class? 4 stars. MW

(Helium) This article was very informative about how things float specifically balloons filled with helium. An important point is that there is a basic formula for being able to decide if an object would be able to float. Another interesting point was that the higher you rise the lower the air pressure which again will alter what will/will not be able to float. Another important thing to consider when you think whether or not something will float is density. The density of the object affects the ability to float as it must be less dense then the air otherwise it will fall towards the ground. Because the density of an object is so significant to its ability to float I believe it is the most valuable point in this article.

Trey, Once again well written! You have a talent for writing. 5 stars. MW