NY City Is Looking at Sewage Treatment as a Source of Energy

     New York City has developed a new system of renewable energy: human waste. NYC’s Department of Environmental Protection issued this strategy on Wednesday. Heating fuel can be extracted from sludge and butanol, an alternative fuel to gasoline, from the algae generated by wastewater. Sewage treatment plants could sell methane gas to provide power to homes. Such projects represent a more sustainable long-term approach to managing a wastewater treatment process that costs the city about $400 million annually, not including capital investments.  “There’s nothing in here that’s pie in the sky,” Caswell F. Holloway, the city’s commissioner of environmental protection, said of the plan. But like other cities around the country looking to reduce both the costs of sewage treatment and disposal and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases emitted in the process, New York is beginning to look at its waste as an untapped resource.

      I think it’s interesting that New York City has decided to take on such a innovative and green way of producing energy and that we have waited so long to do so. For one, New York is far from “renewing” anything. Most systems of transport, energy, and layout are at least a century old. But it’s a step forward.

      I think this relates to chemistry in that it is chemistry: energy conversion. There are definitely more chemists than plumbers working on this project.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/science/09sewage.html?_r=1&ref=science

posted for L. Connors

Brains Radio

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110208093258.htm

          Scientists today have tuned in to precise frequencies of brain activity to unleash new insights into how the brain works. Researchers have used electrocorticography, a technique for monitoring the brain with a grid of electrodes temporarily implanted directly on the brain's surface. Neurosurgeons use this approach to identify the source of persistent, medication-resistant seizures in patients and to map those regions for surgical removal. With the patient's permission, scientists can also use the electrode grid to experimentally monitor a much larger spectrum of brain activity than they can via conventional brainwave monitoring. Scientists normally measure brainwaves with a process called electroencephalography (EEG), which places electrodes on the scalp. Brainwaves are produced by many neurons firing at the same time; how often that firing occurs determines the activity's frequency or wavelength, which is measured in hertz, or cycles per second. Neurologists have used EEG to monitor consciousness in patients with traumatic injuries, and in studies of epilepsy and sleep. In contrast to EEG, electrocorticography records brainwave data directly from the brain's surface. By using grids to watch consciousness fade under surgical anesthesia and return when the anesthesia wears off, they found each frequency gave different information on how different circuits changed with the loss of consciousness, according to Leuthardt. Their results also showed a series of changes that occurred in a specific order during loss of consciousness and then repeated in reverse order as consciousness returned. Activity in a frequency region known as the gamma band, which is thought to be a manifestation of neurons sending messages to other nearby neurons, dropped and returned as patients lost and regained consciousness.

          The article is significant because the brain waves that are being recorded could eventually lead to serious scientific discoveries that could save a few lives and potentially create new life. The neurosurgeons are working to find cures for diseases and ways to understand the human body and its mind. The mind is so complex that if we could get all the answers to it and how it operates that could be very significant to the scientific world.

          This article was written very clearly which made it easy for me to comprehend even though the topic was so complex. I enjoyed how the author spoke about how difficult it is for the brain waves to be recorded and gave us a real sense of what the article is about. I liked this article because I feel that one day the more we monitor our brains the more we can learn about ourselves, which could help prevent deaths and create life.

NASA Satellites Capture Data on Monster Storm Affecting 30 US States

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110201154620.htm


Over the past month our area has been harshly affected by the snow, and recent satellite images from NASA prove that we may have more snow coming our way. NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites have been providing visible, infrared and microwave looks at the storm’s clouds, temperatures, and extent. NASA has been receiving visible and infrared images every 15 minutes. This morning at 9:01 a.m. an image of the low pressure area that stretched from the Rockies and Texas to the New England area blanketed half of the continental United States. Unfortunately for the Northeast the worst weather as of the past few days is in the Midwest, so the worst is yet to come for New Yorkers.

Tonight Chicago is expecting two feet of snow and a total of nine states are under blizzard warnings. The article, written by sciencedaily, is fairly ominous of what is yet to come for the eastern seaboard. This warning article reaches from Texas to Maine as cities such as Boston expect to receive at most 18 inches in the upcoming 24 hours. I thought this was a good article to write a review for because, in recent weeks, Bronxville and most of our area has been hampered by the seemingly endless snow; as soon as we recover from one debilitating storm, another one rears its ugly head. I really enjoyed how the article showed the accuracies of the NASA satellites.

The article was very informative and at the same time it was stating the obvious. The obvious part came from the fact that it is obviously cold and the snow and ice that has accumulated throughout the region has had fairly lasting effects. The educational part of the article finds its root in talking about the use of NASA’s satellites. The use of infrared and microwave looks from satellites was extremely interesting and it made me a little less skeptical about the art of predicting the weather in our area; as we all know weather men are not always right, Dr. Paul Stuart Wichansky would be the first to tell you that. However, using the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) NASA has become a more than reliable way of seeing how the weather will affect society.

Gazing Afar for Other Earths and Other Beings

At NASA, researchers are looking for evidence of life on other planets. The planets are being monitored by a satellite observatory called Kepler, which is keeping track of which planets are best for harboring life. Astronomers are hoping to find “Goldilocks” planets, which have the perfect (neither too hot nor too cold) conditions for life. In the fall, a satellite will leave for Mars, while there are plans for the next mission to be to Europa, Titan, or Enceladus. Since humanity will lose Earth as its home sometime in the future, a new location is needed. While over 500 planets have been discovered, none of them are inhabitable. American astronomers announced last year that they had discovered a Goldilocks planet with water on it in a different system, but the astronomers who discovered the system claimed there was no actual planet. NASA has also tried to develop a system that will find planets that pass in front of a star by keeping track of the blocked light. This method is currently being used, but so far, no planets have been found.

This article is important because if a new planet is found that can support life, it can be used in the future as a resource for the population of Earth. It could become a new home or a way of finding new natural resources that can be used for the people on Earth. It is possible that this planet could reveal new discoveries that contradict previously held scientific assumptions.

This article was very interesting to read. I enjoyed hearing about how the amount of light a planet blocks can be used to find the planet in question. I did feel that some details were unnecessary and confusing, such as the sections describing different planets that were uninhabitable. It would be interesting to find more information about these discoveries and plans in the future, because this could affect society in a profound way if we find a new source of water and life for people on Earth.

Overbye, Dennis. "Gazing Afar for Other Earths, and Other Beings." NY Times. NY Times, 30 Jan. 2011. Web. 1 Feb. 2011. .