My Favorite Element: Titanium

Name: Titanium
Latin Name: Ti
Atomic Number: 22
Atomic Weight: 47.87

The element of titanium was discovered in 1791 in Cornwall by William Gregor (1761-1817) and named after Titans of Greek mythology (Titan meaning first-sons of Earth). It is naturally found in mineral deposites found occasionally in the Earth's crust. It has a high melting temperature of 1660-1670 degrees Celsius and boiling temperature of ~3287 degrees Celsius. It is also as strong (if not stronger) than steel and less than half its weight. It has a low density and high corrosion resistance so it will never rust no matter how long its under water/saltwater. It has the highest strength to weight ratio of any metal in the periodic table.

The shape of titanium's crystalline structure is similar to diamond (hexagonal) and is usually alloyed with other metals to improve an aspect(s) of it (e.g: Titanium-Aluminium alloy = lighter). When combined with trace amounts of Ruthenium, Titanium's strength increases by a hundredfold.

Titanium's uses vary but usually appear in things needing a light, strong material. Titanium is used in diving watches, regulators, normal watches, robotics, electronics, bikes, wires, camera cases, jewellery, building materials, springs, cups, pens, pans, glasses, screw drivers, telescopes, handcuffs, oddly shaped computer mouses, engines, shavers, knifes, welding masks, "money clips", cutlery, nuts, bolts, wrenches, and A LOT more. Titanium alloy is commonly used in aerospace facilities and on satellites.

The reason Titanium is my favorite element is because of it's strength and durability which makes it applicable to any situation while looking a bit like an Apple product. I also like how even though its quite expensive (40$ per pound), it's worth how long it will last and how any Titanium product you use can just be cleaned every once and then its ready to use again. I have a diving regulator which my dad gave to me and he's used it for 10 years and it still works fine. The Iron Man suit from Iron Man is made of Titanium alloy and the American Army developed the safest bullet proof vest made of - you guessed it - Titanium!

Science Essay On Earthquake Early Warning Systems

Earthquakes are quite literally quaking of the earth. This has happened over thousands of years and people in the past have thought of many different ways this is caused. When tectonic plates move, giant plates of rock push and pull and slide and overlap; this is where friction and compression and pressure increase until it is released. This releases all the energy contained. Now, since waves are the most efficient way energy goes from point A (disturbance) to point B (any other medium of matter), a wave is how the energy will travel. The wave we are talking about is a mechanical wave, so it can only travel along a medium (basically solids, liquids and gasses). Now, in this situation the plates are transforming (like rubbing hands together) and the jolt sends out a longitudinal wave quickly followed by a transverse wave, since longitudinal waves are quicker than transverse. When the energy enters a building (buildings are a medium), it vibrates because all that movement energy is being forced into something barely containing the energy inside. The energy leaves the building into the air (air is also a medium). If the building was strong enough or flexible enough, it will survive the energy entering and leaving. If not, the energy reduces the building to rubble. This is because the energy is pure movement energy, and it comes from a large source: the Earth’s plates.

Now, as well as knowing what caused them and where, they wanted to know how to stop earthquakes from destroying their homes or at least getting a heads up before everything they had was destroyed. Over years, people devised many methods such as the frogs in a circle with their mouths open to catch a golden sphere from a dragon’s mouth. The way this would work is a wave came from a direction and the wave movement caused the golden sphere to fall and land in one of the frogs’ mouths. The frog that had the sphere showed which way the first wave came from and then safety procedures built off that. This was quite efficient.

The next step would be to locate the earthquake. To do this, they needed to find how powerful the disturbance was from at least 3 different locations. A disturbance is where matter is disturbed and this causes waves from friction, compression and rarefaction. To help locate the disturbance, scientists measure the frequency of the waves caused by the disturbance. They can find the speed of the wave based on frequency, wavelength, and amplitude. After finding the speed, they can tell how far away an earthquake was by how long the wave took to get from the initial disturbance to one of 3 locations. After getting the general distance for each point, scientists get a map of the area including all three locations, and draw circles (the centre being one of the 3 locations) representing the distance of the disturbance in all possible ways. Where all three circle edges overlap in one spot, that shows just where the disturbance happened.

           

The following step to safety was to create a way to either get the people aware and away from anything possible of collapsing, or to build things designed to withstand an earthquake. While some of this is done, a major part of the system (monetary) wants people to buy new stuff which has a “low life time” so you can buy more. This can lead to badly made buildings that look nice but will collapse as soon as look at you or just badly made buildings. Since option number one looked better (and more profitable with all the “buy more earthquake detector kits which will last 3 days before getting boring”), the scientists started designing systems which would warn everyone of an earthquake (and potentially monitor people’s every move) and send off large annoying alarms blaring in everyone’s ear telling them “GET A MOVE ON SLOW POKE OR YOU DIE!”.

One system used is the Quake Guard, and it is used by several countries that lie either right next to or on top of a fault line; such as Japan, Taiwan and Mexico. Quake Guard is an automated system which basically turns a country into a giant nervous system complete with automated brain. When a nerve ending (earthquake detector) receives a painful hit (earthquake) it sends an alarm of sound and electrical signals (literal giant blaring alarms and equally blary light) through the nervous system(wire system) and ensuring the automated computer (brain) does what it needs to do (tell everyone to RUN [not what the human body does]). The Quake Guard also sends out a message to everyone in the country via internet/phone/TV (sort of creepy how they have all phone numbers and email addresses). This system is one of many used around the world. It might save your life one day.

DIY Electro-Magnetism

Guiding Question: How does the size of the nail and number of coils affect the magnetic force of the nail?

Hypothesis: The increased amount of coils will result in a stronger magnet because the copper wire is a conductor.

Variables:

·        Control: Same base components e.g. battery and conductor (copper wire)

·        Manipulated: Length of nail, number of coils, and distance between each coil.

Exploration:

·        Materials:

1.     D-1.5 volt Batteries

2.     Copper wire

3.     Different sized nails (iron, not the ones on your fingers made of keratin).

·        Procedure:

1.     Get a medium sized nail (in comparison to all other nails you have) and wrap copper wire around it so it creates 5 coils on the entire nail. Get the ends of the coil from both sides of the nail and attach each end to the positive side and the negative side to make a circuit.

2.     Test to see if the circuit is complete by testing the electro-magnet on the metal object. If the object is attracted to the electro-magnet, the circuit is complete. If not, check the circuit again.

3.     When you get the electro-magnet working, test to see how quickly the magnet attracts the metal object and how solidly it holds on to the magnet.

4.     Write observations in the table below. Then try the same tests with different variables.

		Small Nail	Large Nail	Circular Nail (Optional)
5 Coils		3 Large nails	3 Large nails
10 Coils		5 Large nails	6 large nails
15 Coils		6 Large nails	9 Large nails

                            

5.     Make a graph based on the table to help with your analysis.

6.     Copy/Paste graph on No. 7

7.     :

Analysis: Based on the graph and table, what can you say about different variables and how they affected the electro-magnet’s power and strength? What could you do to make the electro-magnet more efficient/strong/quick? And is your hypothesis correct?

I can say by the chart that the larger nail gave off a stronger magnetic pull, while the shorter nail gave a slightly weaker magnetic pull. Also, the amount of coils strongly affected the strength of the electromagnet. The more coils, the more paperclips the magnet could pick up. A hypothetical theory I have for the large nail is every 5 coils = 3 more paperclips pulled up. To do this though, the power would have to be a constant charge, giving off constant power.
Conclusion:

My hypothesis was correct; the amount of coils did increase the strength of the magnet. The size of the nail did affect the strength; the larger nail made the magnet stronger. This means the larger the nail, the stronger the magnet. The amount of coils increased the strength of the magnet when there were more coils. 
Further Inquiry:

A further inquiry would be to make an even stronger magnet to pick up paperclips or even something stronger. I would do this by getting a larger nail and adding around 30 coils to make it super strong. Then I would get 2 or maybe even 3 D batteries to power the electro-magnet. All people who view my blog can try this at home, but with an adult since it can get very hot with wires.

Space Exploration: Is It Worth The Cost?

When man took his first step on the moon, it was a great accomplishment. Why did they do this? Because of the Space Race against Russia, the research, and the accomplishment. Was this trip costing thousands of dollars, risking several lives and all to go to a giant satellite made of rock floating around the Earth? Scientists are still looking at the rocks they brought back from the Moon, and it has advanced space research and knowledge of the moon. It has also trained N.A.S.A with many different scenarios. Space exploration trains thousands of people, opens up our eyes to the rest of the universe and unites nations to work towards a common goal. Space is (so far) infinitely large and is continuing to expand. But is it worth the cost, the lives and the risk of several tons of resources?

            It takes 2 years or so to become an astronaut. Experiencing 0-gravity, too much gravity in a rocket simulator and weightlessness is just a small part of training. It costs sweat, money, (maybe vomit), and lots of hard work. However, with that, you get rewards that are literally out of this world. Space is not only beautiful, but it gives knowledge that you can get nowhere else. It helps the studies of plants, birds, insects, and anything else that isn’t used to the environment. Also, limiting space with bits of paper with a value ON EARTH is a tad ridiculous. On the other hand, we should at least use the bits of paper while they’re still being used to solve the problems on Earth. In fact, the money used to go to the moon in the Space Race could have instead been used to form a contract to bond the two sides together, or even to solve the problems on Earth. Also, finding planets that could also support human life is not too helpful when we need to solve problems on OUR planet before possibly completely destroying another and plundering the resources like a virus (note the similarities). We know that there is no life in our Solar System and all we’ve done so far is send a giant laboratory into our exosphere and been to the moon 6 times. We’ve also sent countless satellites that most of which are not being used anymore. Hubble Space Telescope was a great idea because it stayed in orbit doing its job, the only times they went up was for repairs or upgrades and it helped us learn about our universe and how things work. As for going to planets? And moons? Wouldn’t it take less resources and training to simply send robots in a ship to anywhere, get the data/samples they need and head back to Earth? That way they can at least send another if the ship crashes and explodes in a non-fiery sort of way.

            Restoring life on another planet like Mars or the Moon is an idea that would literally jump start a planet’s ecosystem. Trees could grow on Mars because it has a lot of carbon dioxide. It would mean the planet would form its own ozone layer, block in heat so the planet warms, melt any ice, loosen chemicals, bring together the “soil”, and let bacteria survive on the landscape. Yes, it may take thousands of years, tons of resources, a lot of money, a lot of effort, blood, sweat, tears, risking human life, and genetically engineered plants. It isn’t worth it if we move there and then plunder the resources just like Earth, or just make it another tourist destination of the quite far future. We only just started working on reforestation of the Sahara Desert, and so far we’re just testing a method. To be brutally honest, we need to sort out our planet before gazing at the stars and the rest of the universe. The items we make for the space trips like memory pillows, weird blankets, and other things that are efficient is what we should really be investigating. I would give more money to that as a congress-person than exploring space.

As a part of the planet, we should use what we get in the most efficient way possible. Flying up beyond the exosphere and possibly never coming back is not the main thing we should be focused on just yet. We need to sort out our problems here on Earth before spreading them like a big disease. At the moment, we are not prepared as a whole to race through space, going there 6 times or so before leaving footprints in dirt, and a whole lot of other resources which (being on our own with nothing being imported to our planet) we’ll probably never see again. And maybe, one day, when our planet is sorted and there is no poverty, war, famine, and weird systems which are slowly spiraling into collapsing, we might gaze at the stars and finally have a great, true, perspective changing reason to fly beyond the exosphere and explore the rest of the universe.

Titanoboa: The Giant Snake of the Past

In the time of dinosaurs, everything except some mammals were big. Now, a new creature has been added to the list: the Titanoboa. Weighing 2500 pounds (1134 kilograms) and being 48 feet long (14.6 meters) which, in any shape or form might scare your socks off.

The Titanoboa has the girth of a manhole, meaning it could eat a three-man-lengthed crocodile only by slightly expanding its throat. In fact, the museum in Manhattan where the exhibit is located has a life sized model doing just that. The fossil and bones were actually found in a Columbian Coal Mine in 2005. Initially, people didn't really know what it was. They knew it was a great discovery, just not how much of one.  After closely studying the remains they finally concluded it was a giant snake. Then to conclude their conclusion, they got an ancient snake expert from the University of Nebraska to tell them: its a Titanoboa!

I thought the post on D.O.G.O was, while fun and slightly educational, wasn't too descriptive in any other way than just the basic facts. I recommend this to children aged 7 to 10 because its educational enough for 10 year old at the most and won't frighten kids aged 6 or below. (Unless they're knowledgeable enough to grasp at the subject or that's the way you treat children)

Lego Mind storm: A Helping Hand

At England's Cambridge University, a small team of scientists are conducting experiments about bones, and how to make precise artificial bones. If they succeed, they can make artificial bone implants, and even building materials. However, there is one task that bores the scientists to death: putting a solid object like a bolt into a dish of calcium and protein, then in water, then in phosphate and protein. They then do this again and again. Then, a mechanical engineering PhD student decided to make a robot out of Lego to do the job for them.Because the robots don't need anything but energy, they can go on all night, so that samples are ready in the morning. They also have automatic programming, so it means that they don't have to be told to do anything again and again. It's like anything else natural: simple yet efficient.

I liked this post because of how creative and fun it makes science. I recommend looking further into this if you have a creative spirit and a lot of patience.

http://www.dogonews.com/2012/3/18/lego-mindstorm-robots-become-lab-assistants 

The Sahara Desert Project:Its Becoming Real!

We all know that the Sahara Desert is...well a desert. The biggest. However, a project has finally come up to restore the trees to the land of Northern Africa, and turn it into an oasis.

How does it work? The engineers and scientists have designed a greenhouse that draws water from the atmosphere and energy from the sun. While this sounds like something from a Sci-fi alien, it actually exists today. What happens is the sea water from the surrounding oceans/seas (Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Red Sea) is pumped to the greenhouses and then flows around the rooms in little pipes. What this causes is cool air. Now, with glass ceilings, heat comes into the greenhouse as light and condenses the cool air into humid air. Plants love humid air.Then comes the cool part. The walls of the greenhouse "catch air" and cause the humid air to condense. When it condenses, the condensed air becomes water droplets, which slide down the wall into a storage tank of fresh water. This can then be used to give plants cool, fresh water. Now I bet you're wondering "Alex, how does the air reach the walls? Air just rises and falls depending on the temperature!" Well, what happens is they installed fans to draw air through the greenhouse. Where do they get energy to power the fans? Concentrated Solar Energy! How that works is lots of mirrors direct sunlight to tanks filled with sea water, where it steams up, spins turbines and generates electricity. So, in a way, they designed a greenhouse that is solar/water powered!

I chose this topic because it was exciting to see people giving back to the environment in a positive way. And such a big way too! It seems out of this world, yet it seems right were it should be. I recommend looking at this article further if you truly care for this dying planet.

http://www.dogonews.com/2012/3/23/can-the-sahara-forest-project-turn-the-desert-into-an-oasis