Combined, the coal plants in America produce 2.8 billion pounds of CO2 per year, compared to the 800 pounds per year human beings emit, thus many agree we need some way to clean it up, or move away from it. Wei-Ping Pan, who has a doctorate in Chemistry, and is director of the Institute of Combustion Science and Environmental technology (ICSET), said, that Kentucky is third in the nation in coal production, and that WKU is one of the top two universities when it comes to clean coal technology.

Chemical looping is a process in which, while coal is burning, the machines use a metal oxide that reacts with the fuel to separate the nitrogen from the carbon dioxide and water vapor. once they’re separated, the water vapor is condensed, leaving only the carbon dioxide produced through the burning of the coal behind. From there, it is contained and put into various places. The most common place, currently, for it to be pumped, is into used up oil fields.

While scientists can claim no carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere, environmentalists claim they’re being misleading with that statement.

Dr. Gary Verst, chairman of the Mammoth Cave chapter of the Sierra Club, one of the oldest grassroots environmentalist groups in the country, said, “The problem isn’t with the process itself. It’s just like nuclear power, the problem comes with the waste. It’s actually more dangerous than nuclear waste — the carbon dioxide can evaporate, and come up through the ground, affecting the crops and water of villages, along with just going back into the air.”

He said, “Not to say that [carbon dioxide seeping through the ground is] guaranteed to happen. If it was assuredly going to happen, I’m sure the scientists wouldn’t continue to pursue it. Basically, environmentalists are against the term, “clean coal”. We recognize that it makes the coal cleaner, but it’s a bit of a misnomer to call it clean. It diverts attention away from what would still be a problem, and we don’t need that.”

He and Dr. Pan agreed on one thing: the world needs to find on alternative forms of energy.

“Ideally,” Dr. Pan said, “we won’t need to use nearly as much coal, which is the best overall solution for the environment. Solar power, hydroelectric, wind, all of these need to be implemented, at once. Also ideally, people would use less power than they do now. You’d have people drying their clothes on a clothesline as opposed to drying them. But I doubt that will happen, so we try to make the methods we do use cleaner.”

Verst added, “It’s really hard to justify all of the energy we use. There are so many renewable resources we could use to decrease the total amount of energy we use, it’s hard to wrap your mind around. We need to start utilizing the methods available to us.”

Kentucky produces the third most coal in the nation, making this a hot issue amongst its citizens. Dr. Pan argues for the new methods, saying he thinks the technology will add more jobs, while letting coal miners continue to keep their jobs and mine at their current pace.

Pan was particularly proud of the fact that his team in Bowling Green is at the forefront of this movement. His combustion laboratory has been granted more than $500,000 in grants from various sources, and in 2004, received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

ICSET has not only pioneered technology in cleaning the burning of coal, but also in monitoring emissions from power sources such as coal, and analyzing it to determine its effects on the environment [http://www.wku.edu/ICSET/comblab.htm]

This excited Verst as well, saying, “I think it’s great that WKU is pioneering this. It should really help boost WKU among universities, nationally, especially among young chemists and engineers, who would have a chance to work on such a technology.

This technology, however, isn’t completed — Dr. Pan and his crew are still working on ways to simplify and improve the processes they currently used.

Dr. Pan said, “You can expect this technology to be commercially available by the year 2020. Hopefully by then, we’ll already have come up with a new way to use our energy even better, even more efficiently.”

While it was known that water had existed on Mars, this was found roughly half-way between the north pole and the equator, making it the lowest latitude at which water has been found or detected on Mars.

The water that was found was detected to be rather pure, at around 99% water, which came as a surprise to scientists.

Shane Byrne, a scientist at the University of Arizona and a member of the team which made the satellite that found the water, said

“The other surprising discovery is that ice exposed at the bottom of these meteorite impact craters is so pure. The thinking before was that ice accumulates below the surface between soil grains, so there would be a 50-50 mix of dirt and ice.”

In a constant search for new life in the universe, this serves as slight vindication of it’s possibility. This, however, is not the first time water has been found on other celestial bodies. Less than two weeks before that, water was found on the moon in the crater left behind by the Centaur rocket fired into it by Nasa.

If you ask people, science is near synonymous with the far east – Japan, India, and China are the scientific and scientific centerpieces of the world. If it can or will change, no one knows.

In an attempt to find out, I talked to Kenny Lee, head of the science department at Warren Central High School in Bowling Green, Ky., and Vice President of the Kentucky chapter of the American Association of Physics Teachers, on Oct. 24. Lee has been teaching Physics at Warren Central High School for 16 years, and regularly takes teams to the TEAMS competition at the University of Kentucky, as well as other competitions.

Q: In general, US education — especially in science — lags far behind far eastern countries such as India and Japan. Why do you think this is?  Is this a cultural difference, or is it something we could change?

A: I definitely think it’s changeable. We went from the top to the middle, right? I personally don’t see a reason why that couldn’t happen again, but in reverse. Whether it’s likely, though? That’s an entirely different, much harder, question.

Q: If you do think it’s changeable, what would you recommend that could help jump start this change?

A: This is a question that kind of eats at me. Maybe it is just me, but I’ve always found science an inherently interesting subject. I would like to think that it would cause interest on its own, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Despite the decline in science, the changes are everywhere. American students just don’t seem to be that bright compared to foreign students. And it’s obviously not because our students are less bright, we just do a poor job motivating them. Every subject needs to step it up. In my physics classes, I like to do a lot of demonstrations. During our optics and light unit, I have what I call “The Wave Show”, which is a two day long light show. The students always seem to really love it. Seniors who experienced it their junior years always try to get out of class to come see it. I guess all I could recommend to other teachers is to just engage students. Even if it takes extra effort, making the class interesting, and making the students want to come to class to learn, that’s how we turn this around, I think.

Q: In the optics and light unit, which you said students seem to like, has there been a noticeable change in grades in comparison to other units?

A: To a degree, yes – it won’t turn an ‘F’ student into an ‘A’ student, that’s for sure, but ‘B’ to ‘A’ is pretty common. I think that everyone learns better when they’re more interested, that’s pretty obvious. The grades always revert, though. I don’t think that’ll change until we can make students like learning, not just liking a specific subject.

Mark Roth, 50, is pioneering new emergency treatment options in which a small amount of poison gas is introduced to eliminate oxygen. Roth’s theory is that lack of oxygen is not what causes death, but a number of chemical reactions that are caused by this lack of oxygen. By eliminating oxygen from the picture, the person would enter a state of supposed “suspended animation”, in which the patient would not be living, but they would not be dying either, allowing emergency doctors time to treat the patient and hopefully allow them to live longer.

Initial experiments were carried out on fish embryos; for as long as a day, he left them without any oxygen in their system, and noticed no differences. It simply took a day longer for the fish to mature. No developmental setbacks.

This has proven to be more difficult on larger creatures, however.

“[Using hydrogen sulfide] is so simple, it’s genius,” says David Lefer, a researcher and cardiothoracic surgeon at Emory University, who is now experimenting with hydrogen sulfide in his own lab. “But the failures with larger animals have been a big disappointment. To make this effective for humans may take a combination of sodium sulfide and additional agents. We’re just not sure what form it will take.”

This process could allow hours more for doctors to perform emergency care on patients. This is a potentially huge step in this field, and one that should definitely be watched in the coming time. What do you all think about this? Would you be okay with this being done to you?

The fossil, named Darwinopterus after the famous father of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, shows pterodactyls that date back 160 million years. These fossils fall within the time period between which two different varieties of pterodactyls have been found. It also shows characteristics of both of these kinds of dinosaurs.

This development surprised the scientists that found it. Evolutionary theory has traditionally pointed to a slow moving evolution. These pterodactyls, however, have evolved many different parts at once.

“We had always expected a gap-filler with typically intermediate features such as a moderately elongate tail — neither long nor short — but the strange thing about Darwinopterus is that it has a head and neck just like that of advanced pterosaurs, while the rest of the skeleton, including a very long tail, is identical to that of primitive forms,” he said.

This is not enough to prove the theory of evolution, however. According to the researchers, more study will need to be conducted to prove that evolution could in fact occur so rapidly.

This could, however, provide evidence to a long scrutinized theory. Many have advocated that evolution not be taught as the common theory in schools as to how life came to be.

Eric Finnegan, engineer from John Hopkins University, which is managing the project, had this to say:

“Slowing the spacecraft by [9,500km/h], Messenger’s orbital period around the Sun will be decreased by 13 days, closely matching the 88-day orbital period of the innermost planet.”

From there, the probe will continue to monitor Mercury and attempt to figure out some of its secrets. It has already been mostly mapped by the probe, leaving only a few areas unexplored.

We know little about Mercury, due to it’s proximity to the sun, and the cloud of charged particles raging above the surface. What we’ve found, though, is a mostly solid planet, made of metal. One of the odd little features of Mercury is its tail, a trait usually featured by comets. This tail is produced by the atom cloud that surrounds Mercury being pushed around by the gases of the sun, giving them the appearance of ‘trailing’ Mercury.

The probe will be closest to Mercury at 3:55 CST Tuesday, but don’t worry about the spacecraft:

“Advances in materials science allow spacecraft electronics and sensitive instruments to run at room temperatures behind the shade while the front surface temperature rises to over [315C],”

NASA’s Kepler Mission is a Discovery satellite that was sent out last March in an attempt to find earth-like planets that can support life.

When asked about the possibility of life on other planets, many felt the universe was too large for there not to be life on other planets.

Beth Nathaway, a 17 year old student, said “There is definitely life here — not even necessarily in this galaxy. We have hundreds of thousands of galaxies, I don’t see how there couldn’t be some form of life out there.”

While students seemed unified on the issue of there being life, many had differing ideas on when we may find it.

“I definitely think it exists,” said Jacob Middleton Dierken, 19, “but I don’t think we’ll ever find it in my lifetime.”

People had different ideas on what life meant. Some were merely thinking of living cells, or water, while some imagined sentient beings, capable of sharing technology with us.

The students were most divided on the issue of funding — some felt it was worth it, some thought the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Nathaway said, “It’s the pursuit of knowledge, and that’s what our life is about. Of course it’s worth it.”

Micah Houchens felt differently. “Healthcare is messed up right now, I think that would be a much more effective use of our money, but this isn’t a complete waste.”

Students also felt that there could be many advantages of finding other life. Some of the named advantages were better scientific technologies, and some even believed we could meet other sentient life forms which could show us different ways by which to use technology.

Life on other planets conjures many images. Some think of little green people, some think of micro bacteria smaller than the eye can see. Regardless, the general opinion seems to be that life exists in some form, and that we should search it out if at all possible.

The snake is now dead, so no live experimentation or analysis can happen, but an autopsy will be undergoing an autopsy soon to discover the cause of this seemingly unique occurrence. The body was preserved in alcohol before she took it to West Normal University.

The discovery has shocked many scientists, including snake expert Long Shuai. What is perhaps more surprising, is that the hand was usable.

“I turned on the light and saw this monster working its way along the wall using his claw.”

Such a drastic evolution could cause many changes in the ecosystem, including the reduction of animals on which snakes prey.

What we can learn from this Snake is not yet known, but this topic is newsworthy due to it’s impact, at least in the scientific community — an evolutionary appendage that could change the entire species of snake as we know it is a huge discovery. Aside from that, the novelty of a snake with a hand provides entertainment.

According to a study done by the University of Virginia and University of Maryland-Baltimore, ancient farming methods, which involved burning down copious amounts of forest to plant crops in the fertile soil. Once they had used that land, they would move to another section of forest, and would continue to do this in a nomadic fashion for most of their lives.

Addressing a possible issue with the conclusion, one of the lead researchers, William Ruddiman, had this to say:

“It seems like a common-sense idea that there weren’t enough people around 5, 6, 7,000 years ago to have any significant impact on climate. But if you allow for the fact that those people, person by person, had something like 10 times as much of an effect or cleared 10 times as much land as people do today on average, that bumps up the effect of those earlier farmers considerably, and it does make them a factor in contributing to the rise of greenhouse gasses,” Ruddiman said.

The theory behind why this particular method caused a rise in greenhouse gases is that the large amount of fire caused huge amounts of carbon dioxide to spead into the air, warming the climate.

Despite the controversy over global warming, this is a possible explanation for the origins of the rise of Earth’s climate. Many people felt that if we cut down on greenhouse gas emissions today, we can stem the progression of global warming. If this is true, the damage caused over such a significant amount of time could mean any efforts now could be too late. However, this also raises an important question: If global warming was caused by the farming methods of ancient peoples, is this really such a hastily advancing and deadly trend, or something far less sinister? Chime in and tell me what you think.

So next time you see an article about stem cell research, or particle acceleration, don’t skim over it, give it a look, form opinions, and help shape the world in which you live, because science is one of the few true things that can do that.

Of course, if you don’t want to go hunting for news articles, feel free to drop by here for plenty of science news. The blog was made for a class, but I fully intend to make it into a legitimate source for important scientific news.