Exercise: Working Out the Memory as Well as the Muscles Article

This article talks about how exercise may stimulate the growth of neurons in part of the brain. Earlier, there was a study involving mice that exercised, and scientists found out that the exercising mice grew more neurons in the hippocampus part of the brain. This is because the exercise made more blood flow to that part of the brain. Scientists performed this same experiment on people. Using MRI scans, they saw that the people who stuck with an exercise program for 3 months showed better growth in that area of the brain compared to those who didn't. Both groups were also given a memory test before and after the three month period, and those who exercised did better.
Magnets and magnetic fields are involved in this topic in multiple ways. First off, the MRI uses the power of magnetic fields to take images of the insides of people. The magnet aligns particles in the body that help produce an image for the doctor. These magnets range from .5 to 2 Tesla in hospitals. Anything stronger than that is not allowed for diagnosis, but there have been some MRI machines made that go up to 60T for research.
Another way magnetic fields are used is in the brain itself. When a part of the brain is used, small electrical pulses travel between neurons to send a signal. When this happens, a magnetic field is produced around the spot where the pulse happened. Brain imaging machines detect these fields to see exactly where the activity is happening.

Data Show How Electronics Mix With Medical Devices Article

This article was about how certain electronic devices can interfere with medical equipment. There were two cases given where people with implanted medical devices experienced malfunctions with their equipment because of electronic article surveillance systems. In one case, a man's implanted defibrilator was set off because of the EAS. The other case involved a woman with a pacemaker that went haywire while she was standing next to the machine.
Another thing this article talks about is how cell phones may not be as big of an interference with hospital devices as once was thought. An experiment was performed, and the cellphones they used did not mess up the medical equipment being tested. They say even though the medical devices weren't messed up, it is still a good idea to keep phones off when around them, because there may be other devices that may pick up interference.
All electronic devices give off some sort of magnetic field. This is caused by the electricity flowing through the conductors, which makes a slight electromagnet. If another strong magnetic field is brought in, it could disrupt the flow of electrons in the device, causing it to fail. This is because magnetic fields can cause electrons to change path by turning. Although the conductors in electronics give a specific path for the electrons to follow, I think they could still be messed up by a magnet, causing an undesired effect, like what was stated in the article. The things in the article mostly talked about radiowaves, but I think magnets, if strong enough, could produce similar results.

Spacewalkers Start Switch of Station’s Cooling System article

This article is about how the astronauts on the space station went on a spacewalk to relocate some cooling lines to a better, more perminant location. The spacewalk took about 8 hours, which is longer than expected. This is because they needed to be more careful not to get any ammonia on themselves. That could cause contamination in the air inside the station.

To relate this to physics, the spacewalking suits are full of electrical equipment. In order to control the thrust, electric valves are used to provide the right amount of flow of the propellant. These valves are opened and closed with a flow of electrons from a power source. These electrons push a motor around, powering the valve open. If one of the electrical wires was severed, the electrons would not be able to flow to the motor.

Hubble, NASA’s Comeback Kid, Survives to See a New Dawn article

This article is about the Hubble telescope is having problems and will be repaired soon. The telescope took decades to plan and build, and when they finally got it into orbit in the early 1990's, it could only get blurry pictures of space. It turns out that one of the mirrors used to focus light was ground down to the wrong degree. Luckily, they were able to put a corrective lense inside of it to fix the problem.

Over the years, Hubble has been able to get pictures of distant galaxies that no telescope on Earth could get. The picture from Earth telescopes were blurred and distorted by the atmosphere. That is the main advantage of having the telescope in space.

Since the Hubble space telescope has been in space for so long, there are different things going wrong with it. One thing is that is broken is some of the gyroscopes that are used to orient it correctly. These things, along with other fixes, will be administered in Spring 2008.

Gyroscopes deal a lot with physics. In the center of a gyroscope, there is a spinning disk. The spinning of the disk keeps the gyroscope oriented in the same direction all the time because of the rotational forces provided by the disk. Imagine you are on a merry-go-round at the playground. When it spins, you get pulled outward. A similar thing happens to the disk. The outward pull only has a force pulling out parallel to the disk. This force is enough to keep the disk oriented the same way constantly.

Pair of Satellites Will Document Sun in 3-D Article

This article talks about how scientists are constructing two satellites that will study the sun. To get the satellites into the necessary orbit, they will use the pull of the moon's gravity to help position them. They will be in slightly different orbits so they can get a 3D picture of the sun.

The sun is a perfect example of enery. You can tell it is using energy because of the heat and light it gives off. It also gives off enery in coronal mass ejections, where it sends out supercharged particles outward. The energy that these particles have is enough to cause the northern and southern lights in the sky. It is also powerful enough to mess up electrical equipment in outer space.

Numbers are male article

This article is about how physics and mathematics have been dominated by men in the past and it still seems that way today. Back in the day of Pythagoras, it was thought that working with numbers was a male task and was a part of the gods, and women were to not be a part of that. Today, the idea that math is from god is still thought by people like Stephen Hawking. In modern times, there has been prejudice against women in physics. Emmy Noether helped work on parts of relativity, yet she received no pay or recognition at the time. Slowly, women have been gaining ground in the field of physics.

A lot of these physicists and mathmaticians mentioned have a direct effect on physics today. Without Pythagoras relating the real world with numbers and without the pythagorean theorem, physics today wouldn't be nearly as advanced as it is. It would have definitely been more difficult to perform many of the calculations in the lab this week without the contributions of all the past scientists. But just think how much further we would be if women were allowed and recognized in the field of physics. For all we know, many of the mysteries that confront us today would have been able to be solved years ago if females could contribute.

Shuttle Glides to an Incident-Free Landing article

This article talks about the shuttle Atlantis coming back to Earth. It spent 12 days in orbit to help the construction of the international space station. They were a bit worried about the mission, because the memory of the 2003 Columbia incident was still there. That was when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated while trying to reenter the Earth's atmosphere because of the broken part of the wing.

When reentering the atmosphere, there is a lot of accelerations involved. First off, the shuttle had to slow down 205 mph. Then, gravity began to bring it down at about 32 feet/second. When entering the atmosphere, the shuttle reaches a terminal velocity when the air resistance pushing up equals gravity's acceleration. When the shuttle is reaching this terminal velocity, the friction from the air causes a tremendous amout of heat. That heat is what made Columbia desintegrate.

I can't wait for the international space station to finish being constructed. It will be the next step toward sending a human to another planet. If they get this space station working well, they can start constructing other stations further and further away. These stations can be used kind of like rest stops along the way to another planet. A ship could refuel there to let it go on the next leg of the journey. But we have quite a bit of work ahead of us before we can get there.