"All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind."

-Abraham Lincoln

On the Moon

Anyone who grew up with the Apollo moon launches in the 1970s, along with the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (which premiered in 1968), was left with the impression that there would be colonies on the moon ANY DAY NOW. Given that it's now more than 30 years later and there has been no significant progress, it is safe to assume there won't be a moon colony any time soon. But it's still a tantalizing thought. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to live, vacation and work on the moon?
Let's say we did want to colonize the moon. There are some basic needs that the moon colonists would have to take care of if this were any sort of long-term living arrangement. The most basic fundamentals include:

Breathable air
Water
Food
Pressurized shelter
Power
It would be ideal to get as much of these resources as possible from the moon itself, because shipping costs to the moon are unbelievable -- something on the order of $50,000 per pound. Just one gallon of water weighs about eight pounds, so it costs $400,000 to get it to the moon! At those rates, you want to carry as little as possible to the moon and manufacture as much as you can once you get there.

Obtaining breathable air, in the form of oxygen, is fairly easy on the moon. The soil on the moon contains oxygen, which can be harvested using heat and electricity.

Water is trickier. There is now some evidence that there may be water, in the form of buried ice that has collected at the south pole of the moon. If so, water mining might be possible, and it would solve a lot of problems. Water is necessary for drinking and irrigation, and can also be converted to hydrogen and oxygen for use as rocket fuel.

If water is not available on the moon, it must be imported from Earth. One way to do that would be to ship liquid hydrogen from the earth to the moon, and then react it with oxygen from the moon's soil to create water. Since water molecules are 67 percent oxygen and 33 percent hydrogen by weight, this might be the cheapest way to get water to the moon. As a side-benefit, the hydrogen can react with oxygen in a fuel cell to create electricity as it creates water.

Food is also a problem. One person eats about 450 pounds of dehydrated food per year. A whole colony of people would require tons of food. The first thought that anyone on Earth would have is, "Grow the food on the moon." We think that way because here on Earth, chemicals like carbon and nitrogen are freely available in the atmosphere, and minerals are freely available in the Earth’s soil. A ton of wheat is made up of a ton of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, potassium, phosphorous, and so on. To grow a ton of wheat, you will have to import all the chemicals not readily available on the moon. Once the first crop is in, and as long as the colony's population is stable, then the chemicals can be reused in a natural cycle. The plant grows, a person eats it, and the person excretes it as solid waste, liquid waste and carbon dioxide in the breath. These waste products then nourish the next batch of plants. But you still have to get tons of food or chemicals to the moon to start the cycle.

In the shelter category, it is likely that the first shelters will be inflatable structures imported from Earth, but a lot of research has been done on the possibility of building structures from ceramics and metals created on the moon.

Power on the moon is an interesting challenge. It would probably be possible to manufacture solar cells on the moon, but sunlight is available only part of the time. As mentioned previously, hydrogen and oxygen can react in a fuel cell to create electricity. Nuclear power is another possibility, using uranium mined on the moon.

With all of this information, you can begin to see why there is not a colony on the moon right now -- it's complicated! But let's imagine that we wanted to create a 100-person self-sustaining colony on the moon. Let's further imagine that, to start the colony, the following was shipped to the moon per person:

The person him/herself -- 200 pounds
A starter pack of food (or chemicals to grow food) -- 500 pounds
Initial shelter and equipment -- 1,000 pounds
Manufacturing equipment -- 1,000 pounds
That’s approximately 3,000 pounds per person and 300,000 pounds for the colony. When you realize that the space shuttle orbiter weighs 165,000 pounds without fuel, and you understand that the 100 people are going to live their entire lives on the moon off of the materials found in just 2 space shuttle orbiters, you realize how extremely optimistic this weight estimate is. At $50,000 per pound, that's $15 billion just for the shipping costs. By the time you factor in design, development, materials, training, people and administrative costs, as well as actual amounts of materials that have to be sent, as well as the time and money that has been invested just to get the International Space Station into low-earth orbit, you can see that even a small colony on the moon would cost hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars.

-HowStuffWorks

"All war is deception."

-Sun Tzu

War

"I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war."

-Georges Clemenceau

Amphibian Extinction

It's a rare thing to witness the extinction of an entire class of animal. We weren't around to see the dinosaurs disappear, and the dodo was just one species of bird -- it's not like all birds slowly disappeared. But according to many conservation scientists, that's exactly what amphibians are facing: Frogs and others in the amphibia class are on their way out unless the conservation community takes immediate action.
The amphibia class in general -- frogs are just the most populous group of the class, which also includes salamanders and caecilians -- has actually been on the decline for some time. Pollution, global warming and habitat destruction from human development have already taken a serious toll. Frogs, in particular, have suffered, having lost an estimated 170 species in the last 10 years alone, with another 1,900 in a threatened state, which is one step below the endangered designation (meaning extinction is imminent). But only part of the destruction is man-made. A fungus identified in the last decade seems to be speeding up the death of the worldwide frog population exponentially. The chytrid fungus coats the frog's skin and makes its pores non-functional. Because a frog relies on its porous skin for hydration and for some of its respiration, the fungus essentially cuts off its water supply and makes it difficult to breathe. In the end, the frog dies from dehydration.

Scientists believe the fungus may have begun spreading around the world in the 1940s, when African clawed frogs -- one of the only species known to be immune to the effects of the fungus -- were shipped around the world for use in medical research, specifically pregnancy testing. African clawed frogs lay eggs when they're injected with the urine of a pregnant human. It's possible that the African fungus then started attacking other frog populations, which had no immunity to it. The discovery of chytrid fungus and its devastating effects on the amphibian population has led to the development of a $500 million project called Amphibian Ark.

Amphibian Ark calls on all zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums around the globe each to take in 500 members of at least one species of the amphibian class. The zoo will clean each animal to make sure the fungus doesn't make it into the protected population, and then isolate the population. The idea is to salvage members of each of the roughly 6,000 remaining species until science has found a way to stop the spread of the fungus in the wild. Once the fungus has been controlled, the zoos will release the frogs, salamanders and caecilians back into the wild. Conservationists see the protective action as an absolutely necessary step in assuring that future generations will know what a frog sounds like, that South America won't be overrun by disease-carrying mosquitoes, and that live-saving medicines will continue to be extracted from frogs. Pain killers rely on frogs for at least one active ingredient, and AIDS researchers have found a chemical in frogs that seems to have an anti-HIV effect.

There are reports that two-thirds of several amphibian species in Central and South America are gone. The mountain yellow-legged frog has nearly disappeared from Yellowstone National Park, and most of the park's remaining members of the species have the fungus. In January 2007, Japan found its first cases of the fungus in its frog population.


HowStuffWorks.com
-Julia Layton

Life

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Buddha on Life

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."

-Buddha

How You Sense Position and Motion

Vestibular organs
Orientation and motion are sensed by using the vestibular system, which is located in the upper portion of the inner ear.

Here is how the vestibular system senses orientation with respect to gravity:
-It has otolithic organs that contain crystals of calcium carbonate (chalk).
-The crystals are attached to hair-like sensory nerve cells in different orientations (x-, y- and z-axes).
-When you bend your head in different directions (forward, backward, sideways), gravity pulls on the crystals that are oriented in the direction of the pull.
-The affected crystals stimulate the attached hair cells to send nerve impulses to the brain.
-The brain interprets these signals to find out which way the head is oriented in space.

Here is how the vestibular system senses motion:

-There are three semicircular canals for sensing motion, specifically acceleration.
-They are oriented at right angles to one another, and each is in one of the three directions (x-, y- or z-axis).
-They contain fluid called endolymph and hair-like sensory nerve cells.
-As your head accelerates in a given direction, the endolymph lags behind because of its initial resistance to change in motion (inertia).
-The lagging endolymph stimulates the appropriate hair cells to send nerve signals to the brain.
-The brain interprets them to find out which way the head has moved.

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. "

-Thomas Paine

Despite the enormous size of modern governemnt, the US federal institution was originally intended to be weak and small in order to prevent the causes of the Revolution. The government had built in check and balances to keep any one person or body from becoming too powerful. At its conception parties were also banned, as the founders did not wish to see a large group support a single agenda.

What if people had exoskeletons?

Human beings are like reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish in the fact that we all have internal skeletons. Muscles connect to the skeleton to provide motion, and we have soft skin on the outside. However, a huge percentage of the life on this planet does it the other way around. They put their skeletons on the outside, in the form of exoskeletons. Insects are the most common example, and then there are crustaceans like lobsters.
Why might humans want to have exoskeletons? Anyone who has ever tried to crack open a crab leg knows that exoskeletons are strong. An exoskeleton would certainly cut down on cuts and bruises, and it would also eliminate the need for all those pads that professional football players have to wear!

So why don't people have exoskeletons? Probably the biggest reason we don’t have exoskeletons is that, physiologically speaking, it is highly impractical and could actually be pretty dangerous. Many creatures that have exoskeletons experience a process known as molting -- they lose their entire outside shell. Unfortunately, the new exoskeleton is not completely intact or finished when they shed their previous one. The time it takes the new encasement to harden is directly related to the size of the creature. The larger the animal, the longer it takes. During this time it is extremely vulnerable, exposed to the elements, predators and even disease.

Although having real exoskeletons wouldn't be prudent for humans, some folks believe there are reasons for fashioning a wearable variety. Humans aren't the swiftest creatures on Earth, and most of us are limited in the amount of weight that we can pick up and carry. These weaknesses can be fatal on the battlefield, and that's why the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is investing $50 million to develop an exoskeleton suit for ground troops. This wearable robotic system could give soldiers the ability to run faster, carry heavier weapons and leap over large obstacles. These exoskeletal machines could be equipped with sensors and global positioning system (GPS) receivers. Soldiers could use this technology to obtain information about the terrain they are crossing and how to navigate their way to specific locations. DARPA is also developing computerized fabrics that could be used with the exoskeletons to monitor heart and breathing rates.

Basically, these wearable machines would give humans enhanced abilities. Imagine a battalion of super soldiers who can lift hundreds of pounds as easily as lifting 10 pounds and who can run twice their normal speed. The potential of non-military applications is also phenomenal.

If the U.S. military has its way, it will have throngs of super soldiers who can jump higher, run faster and lift enormous weight by strapping these exoskeletons on themselves. However, developing these devices is expected to take years, if not decades.

-HowStuffWorks.com

Opportunity

"A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it."

-Francis Bacon

Men

"Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away."

-Anaxagoras

Freedom

"Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men."

-Mortimer Adler

Staying Friends

When Napoleon gives a french medal to a common soldier in Tolstoy's War and Peace, Alexander, the emperor of Russia, is in a sense forced to reciprocate. Thus it is that not all medals are won or lost, but rather obtained by luck.

Pierre and Andrew

In Tolstoy's War and Peace, Andrew and Pierre had an interesting discussion of what creates happinesss in a person's life. According to the war weary Andrew, it is serving of oneself that brings happiness, while Pierre with his newfound masonic ideas insists that it is serving of his neighbors that truly makes him happy. Both assume that happiness is the greatest goal in life, and that life is the most precious thing that they possess.