ELECTRIC AND HYBRID CARS

Today, the topic that I chose to talk about is electric and hybrid cars. On Thursday one of our classmates talked briefly about hybrid cars in the two minutes presentation (although the time did not allow that person to go deep in the topic, he still did a good job of explaining what a hybrid car is all about). Anyhow, I would like to start off by introducing the terms electric cars, or electric vehicles are vehicles that use the chemical energy stored in a rechargeable battery to be converted to electrical energy in order to power its electric engine. Many electric cars are capable to accelrate quicker comparing to conventional vehicles, they are quiet, and do not produce exhust fumes such as carbon dioxide. Electric cars have a great potential to reduce people’s dependency on petroleum, which ultimately could reduce global warming. Unlike electric cars, hybrid cars are vehicles that uses more than one source of power to run their engines such as, internal combustion engines (ICE), on-board rechargeable energy storage system (RESS), and human powered bicycle. Hybrid cars, also uses electric engines run on batteries, which is the same mechanism electric cars use. Both, electric and hybrid cars are associated with major disadvantages, which includes expensive replacement of batteries, limited speed, and very limited range. There is another big disadvantges of the usage and the manufacting of hybrid cars that average people do not even have a cule about. And that is the special type of battery hybrid cars need in order to run. Recent studies shown that manufacturing that type of special batteries produce more pollution rather than keep buring oil by usind conventional cars. The reason for that is because of the harmful elements that go in the production of such a type of batteries, also the disposal of this kind of batteries is very harmful to the enviroment. This defeats the whole purpose of developing and producing hybrid cars.

PH LEVELS IN SWIMMING POOLS!!!

Today I went swimming with my friends; it was fun off course with today’s hot sunny weather. While hanging out around in the pool we had nice little talks with lifeguards. One of the guards was actually counting the number of people in the pool and other guard was checking a digital meter drilled onto the wall. When we asked what exactly that thing that looks like a watch is he said that it measures the PH level of the pool. When I came back home I decided to explore this topic little more of what I’ve been told by the guard, and her is what I found. PH levels in swimming pools should always be monitored and maintained to stay within an acceptable range (PH level of 7) by the operators of the pool, in order to prevent serious injuries. This process of regulating PH starts when a notable change occurs in the PH level of the swimming pool recorded by special instruements, then a series of calculations would be conducted to determine what kind of chemicals (Acid or Base) and how much in terms of weight, finally the process ends when adding the well-situated calculated amount of chemicals to the water. The process in detail starts first by recording the amount of water in the pool in liters. Then, perform a series of calculation of the PH level change with reference to normal PH levels. Then, next step would be to convert the PH change to a concentration value (moles/liters), which would allow the operators to determine what type of chemicals to add acidic or basic. Finally, when all needed variables are available for the calculation, we can determine the required weight. If PH levels were higher than normal, people would be affected of basic solution, which got the potential to cause infections and serious diseases. If PH levels were too low than normal people will be swimming in an acidic liquid, which got the potential to be corrosive to people’s skin. That’s why operators always keep an eye watching the PH levels in big swimming pools.

WHAT IS CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS?

In the past decades, governments around the world stopped the usage of many different chemicals and materials that are involved in the production of a wide variety of useful products. The reason for that is because the disposal and the combustion of some of these materials cause exceptional harm to the environment. The Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) is one of these harmful chemicals. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are referred to be organic compounds that contain three elements, which are carbon, chlorine, and fluorine atoms. Chlorofluorocarbons was a very cheap, reliable, and useful compound to use. Until, the mid 1970s when scientists identified CFCs as the main cause of ozone depletion in the earth’s atmosphere, this was later confirmed by using satellite technologies and records of the size of the depletion of the ozone layer. Due to this important discovery the use of CFCs in any kind of products was restricted and the production of CFCs was disbanded. When CFCs are released into the atmosphere, they diffuse to high altitudes ranging from 25 to 40 km. There, they are separated with the presence of ultraviolet light as shown by the reaction: CF 2 Cl 2 → CF 2 Cl + Cl. The resulting free chlorine atoms (Cl) decompose ozone molecules (O3) into oxygen (O2) and chlorine monoxide, Cl + O3 → ClO+ O2. Then they regenerated by contact with free oxygen atoms (O) present in the air, ClO + O → Cl + O2. When chlorine is regenerated again, it continues to break down other ozone molecules. This process keeps ongoing for the atmospheric lifetime of the chlorine atom, in which it destroys an average up to 100,000 ozone molecules. All of these reactions demonstrate the cycle’s chlorine atoms, which are present in CFCs, goes through to cause the depletion of the ozone layer.

What Is Multiple Sclerosis?

My blog today is going to be about a rare disease that affects and destroys the human nervous system of thousands of people around the world, called Multiple Sclerosis (MS). After, searching for long her is what I discovered about this disease.

First, I would like to introduce the term the Nervous System. The Nervous System is one of the most complex systems in the human body. The Nervous System coordinates the activity of the muscles , monitors the organs, and also control sensory input from the senses,integration, and motor output. The Nervous System is composed of two major parts: the Central Nervous System (CNS) which includes the Brain and the spinal cord,and the Peripheral Nervous system (PNS) which includes all the neurons and nerves in the human body excluding the (CNS) parts.
Prominent parts of a Nervous System include neurons and nerves, which are used in coordination. All parts of the Nervous System are made of nervous tissue. Some neurons can regenerate some can’t for instance: the neurons in the brain. During research in the past years, a lot of diseases were discovered that have a critical impact on the Human Nerves System. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one of the discovered diseases that critically affect the Human Nervous System and its functions.
Multiple Sclerosis (abbreviated MS) is a chronic, demyelinating disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS), a critical part in the Human Nervous System. Multiple Sclerosis affects neurons, the cells of the brain and spinal cord that carry information, which allows the brain to control the body. Surrounding many of these neurons is a fatty layer known as the “myelin sheath”, which helps neurons carry electrical signals. MS causes continues destruction of myelin sheat and cuts across of neuron axons in patches throughout the brain and spinal cord. When the myelin is destroyed, the neurons can no longer effectively conduct their electrical signals (some neurons would still be functional but not with the same previous pace). The name Multiple Sclerosis refers to the multiple scars (or scleroses) on the myelin sheaths. This scarring causes symptoms which vary widely depending upon which signals are destroyed. MS can cause a variety of symptoms, including changes in sensation, blurred vision, loss of balance, muscle weakness, depression, difficulties with coordination and speech, and so on. MS can cause impaired mobility and disability in more severe cases. Most people with MS experience periods of remission and periods of progression of the disease. A recent research indicated that MS could be caused because of less sunlight exposure and possibly decreased vitamin D production in the body, which raises the question of how likely people living away from the equator are going to be affected by the disease. MS is well known that its not an hereditary disease, however research suggests that genetics may play a role in determining a person's susceptibility to MS.

Unfortunaetly, Multiple Sclerosis has no known definitive cure. However,several types of therapy have proven to be helpful. Different therapies are used for every specific condition patients face. More treatments are being studied and researched. Mitoxantrone is a medication which proved to be effective, but is limited by cardiac toxicity. Interferons is another medication derived from human cytokines which help regulate the immune system. Hence, Multiple Sclerosis would be slowed down from causing its affect on the Central Nervous System (CNS).

ELECTROPLATING

Ok today, I going to talk about my first attending lecture. The lecture was a chemical engineering lecture and the topic was electroplating. From what was presented during the lecture the concept (electroplating) looked worth searching about. And her is what I found. Electroplating is a term used in many engineering disciplines that describe the process of using electric power to transfer atoms of a conductive element to another, such as coating a copper ring with silver atoms. The process of electroplating starts with identifying the anode (connects to positive terminal) and cathode (connects to negative terminal) of the electroplating cell; those terminals should be connected to an external supply of electic current, which could be an electrical generator device. The object being plated should be connectd to the negative terminal. When the external power supply is on, the metal at the anode is oxidized (oxidation reation= Ag → Ag+ + e- ) in order to form cations with a + charge. These cations will be mixed with the anions in the solution. When oxidaion takes place the + cations (Ag) will move to the cathode, and when reduction takes place (opposite of oxidation) all the anions will move to the anode. This results with an effective transfer of Ag from the anode source to a plate covering the cathode. In order to have a successful electroplating, we should consider several factors including reliabel conductive metals with different reactivity range, approiate amount of electrical current, conductive solution, and low reactive electordes. Chosing the suitable factors carefully, will hopefully result with a successful electroplated object. Electroplating is used to coat many different materials with sliver or gold.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Today, I decided to talk about because nuclear power and its disadvantages as a renewable source of energy. Nuclear power involves the use of heat generated of nuclear chain reactions to produce significant amounts of usable energy, such as electricity. For a period of time, nuclear power was thought to be the solution to the world’s energy increasing demands. That is because initially nuclear power was viewed as a reasonable source of power in terms of economics, environmental issues, and energy output. Later on, the media revealed to the public serious potential danger of nuclear power to the ecosystem of the environment and living organisms. The production of nuclear power usually results with radioactive nuclear wastes or by-products that should be stored and disposed safely. The safe storage and disposal of nuclear waste is considered to be a significant challenge due to the waste’s nature that takes along time to decay and it is a very expensive process to conduct because many human and physical resources are required. The most important waste stream from nuclear power plants is spent fuel. Spent fuel is (a term used among nuclear engineers) is a very radioactive chemical and needs to be handled with great care and given special attention, and that’s due to its lethal nature to its living surroundings. Conversely, spent nuclear fuel becomes less radioactive over long periods of time due to the half life cycle the radioactive fuel goes through. These radioacive wastes are very dangerous to human life existence and to the living environment and its ecosystem.

THE OZONE LAYER

Last week, I attended a geology lecture that was mainly about the climate system and global warming. I learned a lot about new phenomenal aspects that happen on daily basis on our planet (there too many to list). The ozone layer and its function was one of the most exciting and interesting topics discussed in the lecture. Therefore, I decided to comprehensively research the ozone layer. The ozone layer is a layer that surrounds the earth, and its main role is to prevent high ultra-violet radiations that create fanatical temperatures to the earth’s living organisms. It’s, also listed as one of the earth’s atmosphere layers. The ozone layer is known to contain significant concentration of ozone molecules (O3). During, the past hundreds where the industrialized revolution had already began the number of factories increased dramatically, which lead to a significant increase in the releasing of polluting gases including sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc…
All of these gases mentioned earlier proved to be the cause of the shrinking and the destruction of the ozone layer. The destruction of the ozone layer is considered to be such a concern, because of the fatal consequences of its shrinking that may include intolerant high temperatures, dangerous ultra-violet radiations, and notable increase in ocean’s water levels. The ozone layer is beneficial to all living organism on earth, because it regulates the earth’s temperatures to realistic levels and prevents the high frequency ultra-violet radiations from reaching the earth. The ozone layer could also be harmful if the layer kept on shrinking, because its main functions wouldn’t be present and living organism will start to face serious consequences.