From photosynthesis to a new energy source

We know photosynthesis from biologie class in school. The plants use it to change water into oxygen and hydrogen. Together with CO₂ from the air hydrogen changes to glucose which the plant needs to grow. The oxygen which stays form the photosythesis gets emitted to the environment.

Now scientist decoded the photosynthesis – they could use their knowledge to change water into hydrogen and oxagen synthetically. They hope that that’s a new way to produce hydrogen – maybe to use it as a new fuel for cars…

Until now, the production of hydrogen was very negative impact on the environment, because of the evolving  CO₂. With the new possibilities we could produce hydrogen without the polluting CO₂.

CO2 To Cement – A New Way To Remove It From The Atmosphere

The aim of a lot of scientists is either to reduce the CO₂ emission or to remove it from the atmosphere.

One new idea is to use CO₂ as a basic material of cement which would have two advantages. On the one hand a big part of the CO₂ we produce would be bonded and on the other hand the production of cement would need less energy. The idea is to bond the CO₂ with sea-water because it reacts with its magnesium and calcium to cement. The grow of corals is used as antetype for this technology. But up to now it’s not really sure whether this technology works in a large scale.

Microsoft xbox360

The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft,after the big succes with xbox.

It´s a kind of new videogaming in high definition quality.

A prominent feature of the Xbox 360 is its integrated Xbox live service.

It allows the players to play games online. They can also use it to download movies,music and or special 

game downloads.

The console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan.

Xbox 360 is available in three different configurations: “Arcarde” , “Pro” and “Elite”,each with its own accessories.

Many accessories are available for the console, including both wired and wireless controllers, headsets for chatting

and three sizes of hard drives(120GB, 60GB, and 20GB).

Natural gas pursued cars – Why not?

Petrol gets more and more expensive in these times, so an alternative must be found. But is there a gas generant which is cheap enough for everybody, which preserves the environment and which exists in sufficient amount? 

Natural gas seems to be a perfect solution. The development of natural gas cars had already started 150 years ago, but now the technology is good enough to go into standard production. Companies like Opel, Volvo, Ford and Fiat are producing models with this non-polluting technology. 

There are three different types of gas impulse: Compressed natural gas (CNG), Liquiel petrol gas and Fermentation gas.

The advantages of CNG are the low carbon dioxid outputs which would spare our ozon layer.Also are there no outputs like sulphur dioxid and soot.  

Driving with Liquiel petrol gas is better than driving with normal benzin but it is highly explosive, so just a few countries are using it, such as France and The Netherlands.  

However, Fermentation gas is also a popular and more frequently used gas generant. Its composition corresponds to that of the CNG so both can be used for the same vehicles. 

Hopefully those alternatives will become more popular in the future.

Renewable Sources of Electricity

Electrical energy can be produced by using the renewable sources for example wind, sunlight, hydropower, biomass etc. These energy sources are renewable, meaning that they can be replenished naturally. In comparison to fossil fuels that are commonly utilized for generating the energy, these renewable sources are eco-friendly. Another major advantage of renewable source is that they produce clean electricity without the emission of dangerous greenhouse gases. With the raising need of electricity and issues regarding the energy crisis, renewable energy sources are the future hope to meet the demand of worldwide population.

Human Reliance on Computer Technology, Good or Bad?

Nowadays, over 79% of Citizens in the United States own a personal computer at home and over 67% own  mobile phones. Those who do not own computers have free access to them at local libraries or paid internet cafés, those without phones have the capability of using Pay-Phones on the streets of almost all towns and cities in the United States. Everyday Americans across the country spend their time in front of their Computer screens; e-mailing, shopping, banking online, talking to friends through Instant Messaging services, or even buying groceries. 

      Technology is constantly developing, creating shortcuts for those who have access to the Internet. The big question is: Is this a good thing? Or is this development just increasing laziness of Americans.  The Computer overall is an extremely useful tool, it is an excellent aid for scientists, doctors, developers, architects and engineers, providing reference for them and enabling them to work faster, completing tasks that without the help of a computer could take weeks, months or even years. The Computer has also provided jobs for a lot of people such as developers or PC repair services. As well as being a great work-aid, the computer has also become a great reference-tool, with the use of sites like “Google” or “Wikipedia” the computer has gotten rid of the need to use Encyclopedias or Dictionaries. Computer technology has also provided us with capabilities of contacting people all over the world with programs such as “Skype” or “MSN Messenger”, webcam technology even allows us to be able to get a live video feed as well as live audio feed. The Military has even adapted the use programs like Skype for Military personnel overseas to be able to contact their families back at home. With many of these good points mentioned about Computer Technology, come many bad points and weaknesses. Although many jobs are gained through Computer technology, many jobs become obsolete as the workers are often no longer needed as there task can be done for free by the Computer. This saves the company’s money in the long stretch, but the worker is at a disadvantage. As many companies have moved on from workers in factories and on to machines and computers, this has given many people the opportunity to gain money illegally from companies through ‘hacking‘. Many so called ‘hackers’ have taken advantage of the increased use of computers to set up, fraudulent internet sites aimed to steal your money. Not only do hackers practice fraudulency, but many other hackers have used their computer skills to gain access to classified government information, as organizations such as the FBI, CIA and The Military, do a lot of work involving the internet. This type of hacking is known as ‘Cyber-terrorism’ and is rapidly becoming a huge problem and threat to National Security.

      Computer technology does not only have negative effects on the Government and the average worker, but children in our society today are also being effected, often without knowing it.  Everyday children are spending hours and hours on the computer, mostly talking to friends or surfing the internet, when they could be outside doing sports or hanging out with their friends. Internet sites such as, “Myspace”, “SchuelerVZ” and “Facebook” have become more and more popular in recent years, eating away precious time that children could be using for more useful things like sports or schoolwork. Such sites have also been used – along with online chatrooms – by adults for the wrong reasons. These internet sites can be used to find out personal information of children, making it easier for pedophiles, kidnappers or other criminals to find their victims, and carry out various crimes. Not only do adults use the internet for bad intentions, but children have figured out ways to do so too. Many internet sites aim to help children cheat in school. Internet sites, with the help of school curriculums, have taken advantage of this and put out access to essays and information used for plagiarism by students in elementary schools all the way up to college. Copying and Pasting from sites like “Wikipedia” has also become a huge trend in the student world, this makes it harder for teachers to correct work, and the child doesn’t learn anything from it.

      Although Computer technology has enabled us to excel in society, it has increased the capability of many large companies and allows us to access great masses of important and fun information, but  it also have many bad side effects that constantly challenge us on a day to day basis. So the big question is, is this a good thing, or were we better off without it?

Obesity

One of the problems we have which is increasing rapidly is obesity and being overweight. But first of all, what’s obesity?

Obesity describes a high fat percentage in the tissues (fat tissues), which raises health risks. It’s a high financial burden, because you can get all kinds of illnesses, for example: diabetes, many types of cancer, heartstrokes and even premature death.

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a useful method for measuring if someone is over-, or underweight.

To measure the BMI, you divide kg by the square of the body height in metres.

A BMI of 25-29,5 means you are overweight, 30 and more shows obesity, 18,5-24,9 is considered to be overage and a BMI smaller than 18,5 states that one is underweight.

You also can measure your waist to find out, where the fat has accumulated.

Recent surveys of the “International Obesity Task Force” show that about 2/3 of British men and ½ of British women are overweight.

In America 2/3 of the population is overweight.

Most of the time the causes of obesity are fastfood, Pizza, chocolate, crisps, cars (because they don’t really move) and television.

Not only adults but also teenagers are related to it.

The magazine “Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine” reported that American teenagers are mostly affected by obesity.

If you want to die later, be a chick dater!

Newest studies of german scientists show that men who live together with 15 to 17 years younger women often live a 20% longer life than coeval men living together with a women who have more or less the same age. The studies even show that men who married an older woman die sooner than men who married a woman with the same age. One theory is that apparently, younger women take more care of their life partner as older do.
However it seems to be different by women. According to the theory, a woman dating a man who is 7 to 9 years younger increases the probability she will die sooner by about 20%. With 15 to 17 years younger partner even 30%.  
But, we also have to respect the fact that women can often better get along with younger men. So we shouldn’t always follow the common rule (emphasized by this study), that the man in a relationship should be older than the woman.

Hubble and its follower

The Hubble telescope which is circling around the earth since 1990,is now at the end of his mission in space. The telescope a result of the of Nasa and Esa working together in the 80ies,was and still is a big help for scientists all over the world.It took pictures of galaxies,its birth and disappearances as well as of stars which are millions of light-years away.It has shown astronauts and us lots of new and fascinating things about our universe and has provided new discoveries.But now Hubble is coming to the end of his life and the question is: What comes next?

The follower of the Hubble telescope is already under construction and is expected to start in the year 2013. Its name is James Webb telecope (named after Nasa head during the Apollo era).The difference between Hubble and James Webb is the fact that the Webb telescope circles around the earth in a distance ofone and a half million kilommeters.It will be much bigger and its primary mirror is going to be 7 times lager than Hubble’s. In addition the James Webb will be able to discover the universe in infrared spectrum. In that way it gives us the possibility to see young stars,new planets and the first galaxies wich had been arised after the big explosion.The James Webb telescope will allow us a look in the deepest areas of the universe,which humans eyes have never seen before. And now we are looking forward to the next news from space coming in 2013.

 

Steve Jobs

Steven “Steve” Paul Jobs, born 24-02-1955, is the co-founder of Apple. He was born in San Francisco and was adoptet by Paul and Clara Jobs.
After High School, he went to college but left after the first semester. His first job was to develop a game for Atari, with Steve Wozniak, the other co-founder of Apple. They founded Apple and produced the first Computer in Jobs’ garage. The first CEO, chief executive,
came from Peps-Cola. After a few years Jobs was kicked off from Apple. Then he founded the computer company NeXT which had advanced computer technology but was dismissed by industry even though they had great success such as theWorld-Wide-Web. Later Apple bought
NeXT and Jobs returned in a leading position. Today, the Apple computers still have a NeXT design. After the CEO got kicked off, Jobs
got the job. He also founded Pixar Studios, a movie group. The most succesfull movies were Nemo and The Incredibles. Today Jobs
is one of the richest persons in the world with a net worth about 3.4 billion US$ (Forbes). He is married to Laurene Powell and has 3
children with her. He also has a daughter from Chrisann Brennan. But Jobs is not going to be be the CEO from Apple any longer,
after 2009 he will retire because of his cancerous tumour. But still, Jobs is one of the persons who changed the world.