Colton Crockett

The small town of West, in Texas, has been hit hard by a fertilizer explosion.  The area within five blocks of the explosion has been effected including 50 to 60 houses.  Several people have been killed and nearly 200 wounded.  The wounded are being treated very quickly.  This is a terrible loss.

There has been no sign of criminal activity yet, investigators and still searching.  This has been a hard week for America with the Boston bombing and now this.  It is such a hard thing to hear that lives are now gone.

All we can do now is try and learn about what went wrong and try to prevent these things from happening again.

I was recently going through the news when I saw an article on Dark Lightning.  This caught my attention because I had never heard of such a thing before.  The article is very fascinating. If you are interested in science I would recommend you read it here:

http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/dark-lightning-who-does-it-hurt-130410.htm

Basically the article says we have known about dark lightning since 1994 due to a NASA spacecraft, but we don’t really know much about it.  Apparently within the electric field of a thunderstorm electrons move very close to the speed of light until the collide with some other atom in which case they emit a gamma ray.  These gamma rays are the “dark lighting”.  Scientists are trying to figure out how harmful this lightning is to humans and especially pilots who may be struck may times while flying.  As of now not much about there harm is known, but it is suspected that we should not be worried.  The lightning seems to be not very strong and fairly spread out from.  If you were struck by the lightning you would most likely not notice it.  The only thing you may have a chance of seeing is purple light, but it is not likely.  In the article they bring up a good point; it has been 250 years since Benjamin Franklin performed his experiment with the kite and key, yet there is still much to learn about electricity.

The United States has been going through some hard times since the recession hit in 2009, and employment isn’t getting any better.  CNN released a report showing a decrease in hires from previous months, but if you looked at unemployment rate you would probably not have expected to see this:

The unemployment rate is dropping, but the number of people looking for jobs is also decreasing.  Since the recession and job cuts many people who were once in the labor force have been discouraged and are now no longer looking for jobs.  In fact, according to CNN’s article the labor force in the U.S. right now is merely 63.3%.

I believe this calls for a drastic change in Fiscal policy.  We need our citizens to be more encouraged to work in order to increase our money flow and to enable economic growth to quickly recover form this recession. Current policy is not offsetting the trends created by the recession.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/05/news/economy/march-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Researchers at the University of Georgia have recently mutated microorganisms so that they can digest carbon dioxide. This is huge!  The organisms have also been able to absorb carbon dioxide with hydrogen gas to form an acid needed for the production of acrylics.  Scientists have been studying the effects of the massive carbon dioxide output of humans for a while now and this is one way that we could control the levels of pollution so that we don’t have to worry about our pollution anymore. The full article can be found at:

http://www.counselheal.com/articles/4585/20130328/recycling-carbon-dioxide-usable-fuel-near-future.htm

This doesn’t solve the fact that petroleum fuels are  going to run out, but it could definitely offset some of the negative effects that have already taken place.  I like that fact that we are able to mutate organisms in a way that makes them more useful to us, but it is also a little weird to think about all the possibilities it opens the world of science to.  I found this article extremely interesting, hope you all enjoy it.

YouTube has reached its eight anniversary and has over one billion viewers.  This is really cool to me and I think other YouTube users will agree that YouTube is one of the greatest websites ever.  The company claims that the have hit the one billion viewer mark and say that if they were a country, they would be the third largest company in the world.  It is kind of shocking to me to think about how many use YouTube, but it also seems completely reasonable.  YouTube is one of the greatest tools on the internet, from instructional videos on anything you can imagine to viral videos of just ridiculous things.  I use YouTube just about everyday and probably several times on most days.  The site was designed to allow anyone to post videos and I believe that it is this setup that has allowed it to grow so quickly.  This company has had great success and it is well deserved.

All information can be found in the article at: http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2013/0321/YouTube-Eight-years-in-and-1-billion-people-strong

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/space-europe-russia-mars-idUSL6N0C6D7Q20130314

http://amyshirateitel.com/2012/09/06/reducing-recycling-and-reusing-on-mars/

I recently found an article about a new mission that is being planned that could lead to huge advancements for space exploration.  Europe and Russia signed a joint deal for a Mars mission in which a apparatus will be sent to mars that can drill into the surface 2 meters and take a sample of dirt so that scientists can analyze what sort of substances exist on the surface of mars.  They have already discovered many interesting things about Mars, but this is the next step.  I think this is pretty interesting, but I’m not sure this will help us establish anything big for the future.

Personally I think we should do more research other planets and trying to find ways to make space travel a more viable option.  It is nice to know all these little details about the planets that are close to us, but wouldn’t it be much cooler to discover a planet that already has everything essential for human and trying to find a way to get there.  Or even finding another planet that has living organisms would be awesome to me.  I am glad scientists are doing this study, but by the time I start working in this field, as I hope to, I think we will be doing much greater things with our research.

picture from link at bottom of page.

Scientist have found a way to connect brains via a physical link so that one brain can talk directly to another.  They performed this using two lab rats in cages fairly close to each other and found that the rats were communicating.  They then replicated the experiment to two rats that were located 10,000 miles apart.  This is a huge advancement in technology and they believe that they will be able to connect millions of brains together to work on problems where all brains could help come up with the solution.

Personally this is scary, this seems like it could lead to some Matrix like stuff that I am not that fond of thinking about.  I am happy with using to internet to connect brains, this just goes a little overboard.  There are probably some big advantages to being able to use a physical link such as speed and better understanding, but is this really necessary?

This discovery is mind blowing to me in many ways.  I would of never dreamed of being able to connect my brain to someone else’s.  I am amazed at the rapid discovery of so many new technologies of our time.  Let me know what you think of this.  You can read the full article at the link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21604005

http://www.space.com/19901-mars-space-tourism-dennis-tito.html

Dennis Tito a multimillionaire  is funding a mission to Mars that will be a round trip of 501 days.  I think this is awesome.  With NASA pulling out of space missions I think it important that space continues to be studied by private enthusiasts.  Space is very interesting to me because of the infinite mystery that is creates.  It is fascinating to think of what could be out there and even though most of space is far from reachable with our current technology it is still important that we explore the things that are close.

http://www.space.com/15243-spacex-quest-rocketry-holy-grail-space-exclusive-video.html

This video is really interesting if you care to watch it.  Basically private funds are being used and space technology is growing very quickly again.  The key thing we need to develop in order to be able to do many space missions is to get a reusable rocket. If we create reusable rockets we will be able to fly many missions much cheaper than before and this will allow exponential growth in the space industry.  I think this is really inspiring and I am hopeful that one day we will all get the chance to go to space or maybe even mars and beyond.

This is my interpretation on Ron Paul’s character, and what I think of him as a person, without considering any of his political views.

I have a lot of trouble believing politicians, and I have good reason to.  If you watch any debate where people are able to ask a politician what they will do about a particular topic, you are most likely not going to get a straight forward answer.  Watching the debates for the recent election was comical for me.  Someone in the audience would ask a question and the politicians either rant about some barely related issue or just skirt around the question all together.  I often question if the politicians even know where they stand on certain issues or if they are just trying to make whoever asked happy?  Or are they saying what they believe or are they saying the beliefs of whoever is shoving money at them? Either way this is where Ron Paul comes in.  This man tells his honest opinion, and I believe that it is honest because he will stick with it even if it isn’t what the people don’t want to hear.  He has also said that he does not take money from lobbyists, and to me this shows that he is speaking his own mind and not someone else’s.

Have you heard about bills that are hundreds of pages long because every little group wants to tack on their own clause to help them out, well I don’t agree with it, but more importantly I don’t think any politician should be subject to the same acts.  This is especially true of someone who is going to run the country.  I feel that honesty is one on the most important things in a leader and I think that Ron Paul in one of the most genuinely honest politicians you will find.

I linked Ron Paul’s Farewell Speech at the top. It is a good representation of how he speaks, and you will see he gets right to the point.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mbusa/featured?v=oPNr0_6MnDo

This is the best Superbowl commercial because it changes the predispositions of this particular company.  People often believe they will have to sell there soul to the devil to be able to afford a Mercedes Benz, which is what this commercial jokes about, but by the end we find out that you can buy a brand new Mercedes for less than $30,000.  So not only does this commercial have some humor with showing you how awesome you will be when you own a Mercedes, but it also is a great way of changing peoples minds about the prices of Mercedes.  I think this is the best Superbowl commercial because it is going to get this company a lot of business.  A lot of the commercials at the Superbowl are funny, but they don’t necessarily make people want the product being advertised.

It also good to consider what makes a good commercial. Is it humorous, or pragmatic? Is it short or long? Humor is almost always necessary if you want to keep a viewer from changing the channel, but if it is only humor is the viewer really interested in buying the product?  Mercedes does a good job a drawing a line where humor gets there product attention, then they use fact to make people want to spend there money.  There is also the factor of how long to make the commercial.  Even if a commercial is funny no one is going to be willing to watch for more than a minute or two, but on the other hand if the commercial is too short it won’t leave a lasting impression and may not provide enough information.  Overall Mercedes has done a great job creating a fine balance between all of the criteria for a good commercial.  They get my vote for best commercial this year.

This photo is beauty in all of its simplicity.  Driving down a road with landscape like this is what I love to do.  I often search for places with great scenery to drive, and a fellow enthusiast, Coolbiere A., has found one of these places on a drive down a Tibetan road.  The slight darkness of the photo gives  very soothing feel along with the very airbrushed look of the clouds and hillsides, but the car on the road is surrounded by light, which creates a feeling of happiness and warmth.  The rolling hills gently push your view down to the car, exactly where I want to be.  I hope that someday I will be able to go to this place, drive down this road, and see this in person.  To me the simplicity of this photo is what makes it appealing.