Some scientists believe that the Higgs boson, a never-before-seen subatomic particle, is the fundamental building block of the universe that gives mass to matter. Recent high-energy particle experiments at CERN and Fermilab have hinted at the existence of this particle. But make no mistake — there’s more mystery and misconception surrounding the Higgs than the question of whether or not it exists. Click more to read symmetry magazine’s Kathryn Grim little-known facts about this subatomic particle.

10-weird-stories-about-the-higgs-boson

Sophie J. McCoy
PhD candidate (Ecology and Evolution)
ARCS Foundation Scholar at the University of Chicago
www.home.uchicago.edu/~mccoy/Sophie.html

Sophie is interested in how ecological communities interact with climate and react to changes in climate. Sophie’s research project is focusing on a group of marine algae from the northeastern Pacific Ocean. As in all ecological communities, the coexistence of many similar kinds of algae depends on subtleties in their ecological behavior, in this case, small differences in growth rates and resistance to algae-eating mollusks. Changes in seawater chemistry associated with increased global CO2 emissions have altered the growth environment for both algae and their associated mollusk community. Sophie aims to understand how these chemical changes in seawater affect interactions among these organisms, and how to interpret these changes by placing them in a broader historical context. Sophie’s project takes her to the beautiful coastal Washington State and to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

Global investment in renewable energy jumped 32% in 2010 to a record $211bn according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011 report.

But how excited should we be about China’s green energy? And how will Chinese green energy investments affect the U.S. and its energy production and conservation?

Post your thoughts and join the conversation!

April 21, 2010

Ocean Acidification – carbon dioxide and its effect on Earth’s oceans

Since the first Earth Day was celebrated forty years ago, the focus has been on awareness and environmental action. However, most attention in the past has focused on “terrestrial earth”, even though most of the earth’s surface is covered by water.

The issues that seem to be receiving the most attention are related to carbon dioxide emissions from man’s combustion of fossil fuels and the changes observed to the climate. Certainly, climate change is one of the most urgent issues facing the survival of man, but few people know that over thirty percent of the carbon dioxide released by man has already been absorbed by the oceans, which is causing unfortunate changes in ocean chemistry.

Ocean acidification is now receiving some attention in the media as more scientific studies are showing that carbon dioxide is also affecting the chemistry of the Earth’s oceans. One could argue that the term “ocean acidification” is not the best term to describe changes in ocean chemistry since changes in pH are only one result of the ocean’s uptake of carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, ocean acidification is the current terminology being used to describe these changes. We are already seeing small decreases in pH in parts of the oceans, especially shallow areas and at the surface.

Ocean acidification is defined as an ongoing decrease in the pH of the oceans, caused by the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Chemists will often remark that carbon dioxide acts as an acid in water, and bubbling a small amount of CO2 into seawater will drop the pH quickly. But the drop we see in pH is really part of a much more complicated shifting of the carbon cycle, changing the concentrations of carbonic acid, carbonate ion, and bicarbonate ion.

The main concern for the oceans results from a decrease in the carbonate ion, which is altering the main food web by reducing the ability of calcareous organisms, such as plankton, corals, and shellfish, to produce their calcium carbonate skeletons.

Carbon dioxide will continue to cause problems to our atmosphere, but even if CO2 emissions were to cease now, approximately 90% of the gas already emitted will be taken up by the oceans by mid century. We can expect to see further degradation of coral reef habitats and major changes in the types and numbers of organisms living in the oceans. Only with rapid decreases in man made carbon dioxide do we stand a chance to allow the ocean’s calcareous organisms to survive in our changing oceans.

Allen LaPointe
Vice President of Environmental Quality
John G. Shedd Aquarium

Nano 101

Adapted from www.nano.gov

What is nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers (nm), where unique phenomena enable novel applications not feasible when working with bulk materials or even with single atoms or molecules. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; a single gold atom is about a third of a nanometer in diameter.
Researchers seeking to understand the fundamentals of properties at the nanoscale call their work nanoscience; those focused on effective use of the properties call their work nanoengineering.
Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering, and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at the nanoscale.

What is the nanoscale?
The nanoscale is the dimensional range of approximately 1 to 100 nanometers.

What is a nanometer?
A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. (A meter is 39.37 inches, or slightly longer than one yard.) The prefix “nano” means “one billionth”, or 10-9, in the international system for units of weights and measure. The abbreviation for nanometer is “nm.”

What are nanomaterials? Do they exist in nature?
Nanomaterials are all nanoscale materials or materials that contain nanoscale structures internally or on their surfaces. These can include engineered nano-objects, such as nanoparticles, nanotubes, and nanoplates, and naturally occurring nanoparticles, such as volcanic ash, sea spray, and smoke.

Is nanotechnology new? Where did it come from?
Nanotechnology as we now know it began about 30 years ago, when our tools to image and measure extended into the nanoscale. Around the turn of the millennium, government research managers in the United States and other countries observed that physicists, biologists, chemists, electrical engineers, optical engineers, and materials scientists were working on overlapping issues emerging at the nanoscale. In 2000, the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) was created to help these researchers benefit from each other’s insights and accelerate the technology’s development.

What are nanoparticles, nanotubes, and nanoplates?
These are different types of nanomaterials, named for their individual shapes and dimensions. Think of these simply as objects with one or more dimension at the nanoscale.
Nanoparticles are bits of a material in which all three dimensions of the object are within the nanoscale. Nanotubes have a diameter in the nanoscale, but can be several hundred nanometers long—or even longer. Nanoplates have a thickness at the nanoscale, but their other two dimensions can be quite large.

Where is nanotechnology used today?
Nanotechnology is used in many commercial products and processes, for example, nanomaterials are used to manufacture lightweight, strong materials for applications such as boat hulls, sporting equipment, and automotive parts. Nanomaterials are also used in sunscreens and cosmetics.
Nanostructured products are used to produce space-saving insulators which are useful when size and weight is at a premium—for example, when insulating long pipelines in remote places, or trying to reduce heat loss from an old house. Nanostructured catalysts make chemical manufacturing processes more efficient, by saving energy and reducing waste.
In healthcare, nanoceramics are used in some dental implants or to fill holes in diseased bones, because their mechanical and chemical properties can be “tuned” to attract bone cells from the surrounding tissue to make new bone. Some pharmaceutical products have been reformulated with nanosized particles to improve their absorption and make them easier to administer. Opticians apply nanocoatings to eyeglasses to make them easier to keep clean and harder to scratch and nanoenabled coatings are used on fabrics to make clothing stain-resistant and easy to care for.
Almost all high-performance electronic devices manufactured in the past decade use some nanomaterials. Nanotechnology helps build new transistor structures and interconnects for the fastest, most advanced computing chips.
All told, nanotechnologies are estimated to have impacted $251 billion across the global economy in 2009. This is estimated to grow to $2.4 trillion by 2015 (Lux Research, 2010).
Where are some future uses of nanotechnology?
Exciting new nanotechnology-based medicines are now in clinical trials, which may be available soon to treat patients. Some use nanoparticles to deliver toxic anti-cancer drugs targeted directly to tumors, minimizing drug damage to other parts of the body. Others help medical imaging tools, like MRIs and CAT scans, work better and more safely. Nanotechnology is helping scientists make our homes, cars, and businesses more energy-efficient through new fuel cells, batteries, and solar panels. It is also helping to find ways to purify drinking water and to detect and clean up environmental waste and damage.
Nanomaterials are being tested for use in food packaging to greatly improve shelf life and safety. Nanosensors to detect food-borne pathogens are also being developed for food packaging. New nanomaterials will be stronger, lighter, and more durable than the materials we use today in buildings, bridges, automobiles, and more. Scientists have experimented with nanomaterials that bend light in unique ways that may enable the development of an “invisibility cloak.” The possibilities seem limitless, and the future of nanotechnology holds great potential.

Cold fusion is one of those topics that elicits strong words and sentiments. Due to these powerful feelings and discourse about the topic, it is the perfect subject to be tackled by the filmmakers, whose goal is to show the human side of science. Read more about The Believers at Joanne Manaster’s blog in Scientific American, Making Scientists Seem Human–Through Film!

The dependence on oil and other fossil fuels for over 80% of our energy and the continued emission of carbon dioxide threatening stable
climate are captured in a single term: sustainability.

Question: What does sustainability mean when it comes to Energy production? Do you think it is possible?

Topic Resources:
Energy = Future
Controlling the Functionality of Materials for Sustainable Energy

Fracking is a step in the production of gas and oil by the high pressure fragmentation of shale using water, sand and chemicals. Using fracking to produce shale oil and shale gas has the potential to make the United States largely independent of foreign sources of natural gas and significantly less dependent on foreign sources of oil. The major exploitation of shale oil and gas will depend on dealing with environmental concerns surrounding potential ground water contamination and water depletion that result from the fracking process.

Question: Do you think hydraulic fracturing is the answer to our energy independence?

Topic Resources:
Future of fracking holds promise for U.S. energy outlook
The Fracturing of Pennsylvania
Millions Spent in Albany Fight to Drill for Gas
Natural Gas
How America Can Escape the Energy Trap
Drilling Down

Current Statistics: From 2005-2009, adult obesity increased by 9% to 29.7%. This translates into 67% of Chicago adults being either overweight or obese. Among Chicago children, available data reveal that 3-7 year-olds have more than twice the obesity rate (22%) than that of young children in the U.S. as a whole (10%). Other local data reveal that 71% of high school students and 29% of adults do not get adequate physical activity, and over 70% of students and adults do not eat the recommended number of servings of produce. In 2010, an estimated 380,000 Chicagoans lived in food deserts.

Question: What intervention policies should be in place to stop the obesity epidemic in Chicago?