mars introduction

“It would be great some day to have astronauts in a rover on Mars. But just about anyone except an oil company executive would say it’s more important to have 50 million solar powered vehicles in the United States.” says Brad Sherman, a United States representative. I agree that  while an intriguing idea, the costs associated with the colonization of Mars far outweigh the benefits for our species as a whole.

Best Invention

My father thought that either penicillin or lightbulbs were the most important inventions contributing to our modern society. He thought that lightbulbs were quite important because they increased our efficiency after or before exponentially and let us have longer days.  Penicillin gave us the ability to overcome what now seems like minimal diseases and eventually eradicate multiple of them. Overall, both of these things were revolutionary developments that increased our population and working time. These type of developments are the ones that truly let us progress as a whole.

SNOWFLAKES

Snow is formed somewhat similarly to rain, except the water crystallizes and becomes ice. It starts out as forming as a hexagon that grows larger and larger. Eventually, the ice begins to branch off of the point of the hexagon, simply because that is the farthest point away from the mass. It branches off again and again until it finally either becomes structurally unstable or falls from the cloud in a snowstorm.  I am actually not sure if the water crystallizing lets snowflakes form without particles, but I am guessing that they still would because the ice has got to start somewhere.

The Effects of Space

In this chapter of Physical Sciences, I will be most excited to learn about the physical and mental effects that space has on the human body. Especially the travel to mars and all of the time spent alone in zero gravity. If astronauts are driven insane by the trip to mars, how are we ever going to get there?And to even further places? Do the space-foods have enough nutrients or variety to keep a full grown man physically stable? Can an astronaut bail out of their spaceship and survive from so many feet up if they have the parachute or another method of slowing the descent? I have no clue.

B A N A N A YAY

One of the most common misconceptions about bananas is that they grow on trees. Turns out, bananas are actually herbs (I know, your whole life is a lie). Oh and herbs don't grow on trees, they grow on herb plants. So when you see a banana "tree" it's actually a giant herb. And now the reason that bananas are considered herbs is because for something to be considered a fruit, it has to have some sort of woody tissue connecting the fruit to the plant and bananas don't have that... And there's not a specific reason that bananas are considered fruits other than the fact that they're sweet-ish and are fruit-looking I guess.


picture citation: "II: Fruit Crops – Part 2." Living Farmacy at Rancho Margot. Rancho Margot, 10 Nov. 2015. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.

Nasty water

In the past 200 years or so the sanitation of water has increased greatly. The fact that there is filtration and processing for every drop of water that we drink is amazing. If you look at the sewer systems in chicago and new york and such, you can see all of the filth that has to be removed from the system for it to be clean. And i'm glad the sewers are underground and not on our streets and all over the place. The thing that fascinates me the most is that this was revolutionized in the mid 1800s which took lots of thinking and genius for back then.

election results -_-

I feel ok about the election I guess. I would tell them that the results are the results so we're going to have to deal with it right now. I feel like most people weren't happy because the voting was strategic and not because they liked their candidate, they just disliked them less. This causes lots of disappointment. But this is how politics works :/.