Obama's Speech: Troubleling or Reassuring?

Yesterday, history was made in Washington. The first Hawaiin president was sworn into office. (Oh yeah, he's black too.) Anyway, his name was Barrack Obama. He was sworn into office and then gave the inaugural adress. But just because he gave a speech does not mean the viewers liked it or disliked it.
The first article I found had a negative stand point. They believed that with all of Barrack's talk of change, he had let the market fall. As it says, " Obama's Mountain of hope produced a disappointing and fearful mouse! Wall Street dropped more than 300 points because they saw no hope for real Change! Even after Obama got his wall Street 350 750 billions of "giveaway" Bail-out money, more in TARP money, and promised them 1. 3 trillion dollars of extra expenditure for road, bridges, infrastructures and Green Jobs to nowhere. As he was speaking instead of hope they saw despair and dumped their stocks because any one with economic 101 knows that borrowing from China to buy Chinese and Mexican industrial products and filling Wal-Mart with cheap goods at the expense of American jobs would lead to 13 trillion Dollars National Debt by the end of 2009, that in combination of budget deficit, Balance of Trade deficit would bring this great nation to is knees." From: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/insurgentone/2009/01/obamas-inauguration-a-disappoi.php
Even though some citizens were unatisfied with Obama's speech, some were overjoyed by his new plans for America. The next article I found is suggesting that Obama was a brave soul for running for president. They also felt that his speech inspired peple to work for a better America. As it says, "Before a sea of people that stretched for over a mile down the Washington Mall, Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States and immediately set about steeling the nation's resolve for more hard days to come. It's a repair job, Obama suggested, that will require a little something from everybody - from Wall Street titans, to government leaders, to everyday Americans already struggling to make ends meet."
Taken from: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/01/20/2009-01-20_barack_obama_sworn_in_as_44th_president_.html

X-Rays: Useful in Medicine, Yet Harmful to the Body

They say today's medicinal technology is the best it as been. However, that does not make it 100% safe. For instance, X-ray machines enable us to see the body in a nonsurgical manner. But the radiation adds up over time. Even though there is not much in the amount o0ne is given for a broken bone, combined with the radiation in the air and matter we associate with, it can be harmful. The X-ray radiation can kill cells in your body. So, as a precaution, in dental x-rays, people wear lead vests to reduce exposure. So, even though x-rays are helpful in the medical field, thay must be handled with precaution.
Valuble Info From: http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/xrays.html

Black Holes

When a star explodes in a supernova, it seems like that is the end of it's billion year life span. However, some stars go on to be a black hole. A black hole is a vacuum in space that even light cannot escape. It sucks everything near by into its depths. Since cameras would be destroyed and crushed within a black hole, no one knows what happens inside one. Some say that it is a portal to another universe. But more likely it is just a region in space where everything is destroyed through mass compression. These holes are very mysterious, but what would life be without questions?

Valuble info from http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/black_holes.html

Asteroid Incoming

As we sit soundly in our homes, a menace lurks up in the sky, slowly approaching Earth more and more every year. This menace is an asteroid, that could bring about the downfall of humanity. NASA has named this asteroid Apophis, after the Egyptian god of evil.

Apophis is estimated to hit the Earth in 2036, a shockingly soon date. Scientists all around the Earth have collaberated ideas to stop this catastrophe from occuring. Of course, there is no certainty that it will collide with us. On a rating of 1 to 10, there is a 4 rating of collision. However scientists must be prepared for the worst. so, they came up with a plan.

The easiest plan could be the solution. NASA will send two space crafts. One will collide with Apophis at a ridiculously high speed, while the other craftt will study the change in the rocks orbit. But this is no gaurentee.

Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer from Queen's University Belfast, said: "When it does pass close to us on April 13 2029, the Earth will deflect it and change its orbit. There's a small possibility that if it passes through a particular point in space, the so-called keyhole, ... the Earth's gravity will change things so that when it comes back around again in 2036, it will collide with us." The chance of Apophis passing through the keyhole, a 600-metre patch of space, is 1 in 5,500 based on current information.

So, there is hope of survival. Untill then, keep on working scientists! Valuble info from http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/dec/07/spaceexploration.research

Honey Bees Vanish from Earth

As humans buy fruit from the grocery store, or as we gaze at beautiful flower garden and inhale the wonderful scent, people don't realise who are responsible for these pleasures. Well, the answer is honey bees. However, we might not have as much fruit in the future as we do now. Honey Bees have been rapidly vanishing from the Earth for 35 years now. No one is sure why this is happening. Some people say that this is due to global warming or desecration to forests. German bee expert Professor Joergen Tautz from Wurzburg University said: "Bees are vital to biodiversity. There are 130,000 plants for example for which bees are essential to pollination, from melons to pumpkins, raspberries and all kind of fruit trees - as well as animal fodder - like clover." As stated, bees serve an extensive role in ecology. So, when plants are ready to be pollinated, bees come and take the pollen to make honey. But if the plants are not pollinated, the plants decompose instead of turning into seeds to allow new life. Eventually, there might be no more honey bees, which would lead to no more plants, endangering the animal kingdom. To conclude we must do something about the extinction of bees before time runs out.

Valuble informatin from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1545516/Honey-bees-in-US-facing-extinction.html

The Sun: An Essential Key in Food Chains

From polar bears to crocodiles to even humans, all organisms need the sun to survive. Though the sun may be on the bottom of the food chain, every organism relies on the sun's energy and resources to prosper.
Many people think that plants and fungi are on the bottom of the food chain. Yet as organisms, they must have someway to consume energy. This is done through photosynthesis. The plants absorb energy through sunlight and make it into glucose. So say in a desert food chain, a coyote eats a roadrunner, who eats a snake, who eats a mouse, who eats a cactus, who absorbs sunlight. So, if the sun is blocked out, the cactus that the mouse should have eaten does not grow so the mouse starves to death. The same happens to the snake, roadtunner, and coyote. And right there is whole region wiped out due to the absense of the sun. So, the sun is important to everyone. Even us humans. We eat animals that eat plants that use sunlight. So we, as omnivores, would starve from the lack of plants and animals if the sun should cease to serve it's purpose. In conclution, for a sucessful ecosystem, the sun is a valuble factor.

Valuble info from: http://http://digital-desert.com/wildlife/food-chains/

New Horizons Is On Its Way

As humans discover and seek out the last regions unexplored in our solar system, Pluto became the last world to be unvisited. Space crafts have explored every other planet. Now Pluto is the object left, and NASA has already sent a craft there. That craft is New Horizons, which will pass by Pluto in 2015. It is the size of a grand piano, and is certainly on its way.
Launched on January 16, 2006, its mission is to land and explore Pluto and then to go on out to the edge of the solar system and explore the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is much bigger than our asteroid belt. It is home to many dwarf planets including Pluto, Makemake, Haumea, and many more.
Glen Fountain, the project manger, says that "You've got to remember that it takes nine-and-half years to even get to where we want to take the mission. So we need a highly reliable system. So, we have built into the electronics nearly two of everything. We are redundant. We have two guidance control processors, computers. We have two command and data handling processors. We have two solid-state recorders. Even if there is a failure, you can switch from one to the other."
So, as said in the quote, since New Horizons is going to take so long to reach Pluto, it is using the highest technology to get there. Well, until 2015, lets wish New Horizons a sucessful jouney.

http://http//www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/glen_fountain_transcript.html
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_993.html