Billy Ramundo

3/23/15

Earth Science/C Even- Mrs. McClellan

Bilefsky, Dan, and Melissa Eddy. "Europeans (Carefully) Gaze Upward for Glimpse of the Solar Eclipse." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Mar. 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/science/space/solar-eclipse-europe.html?ref=space>.

Europeans (Carefully) Gaze Upward for Glimpse of the Solar Eclipse

           The article that I decided to read for my current events assignment talked about the recent solar eclipse in parts of Europe that occurred on Friday, March 20^th. From Europe, a total solar eclipse could be viewed on this date, and many were excited for the event because it was the first since 1999 in Europe. However, many people in Europe were disappointed because due to fog and cloud clover, people in places like London and Paris could not even see the eclipse. This frustrated many people because the eclipse had very high expectations, and most people felt that the event did not live up to them. Even people in places such as Berlin, where the eclipse was completely visible due to clear skies, were let down by the underwhelming eclipse. In the article, it states that a woman who viewed the eclipse stated that, “This time, it barely went dark.” In comparison to the last total eclipse viewable from Europe, this was a very negative review, because in the article, the same woman said that during the last eclipse, “…it went perfectly still…The birds stopped singing, the streetlights even started to come on.” This was not the only negative comparison between the recent eclipse and the one in 1999 in the article. The article detailed first-hand accounts from other people who explained their disappointment in the recent eclipse, and how much more they liked the eclipse that occurred in 1999. Despite all of these negative reviews of the solar eclipse, some people were excited by the event. For example, scientists taking a video of the eclipse from a Norwegian archipelago were amazed by the view, and one of them described it as, “an incredible, incredible sight to see.” Because of these mixed reviews, the article tells us that many people had different thoughts about the solar eclipse, but overall, it is an amazing, and rare event, that scientists await with great joy every time it occurs.                  
         The article I read is not just important because of its content, but also because it can influence people around the world in a big way. This is because a solar eclipse is an event that all of the world experiences at one point in time or another. That means that all people living around the world, will at one time in the future, have the chance to view a total solar eclipse like people in Europe did on March 20^th. Therefore, the reviews of the solar eclipse that appear in the article that I read can have a very big effect on how people living around the world think of solar eclipses. For example, due to the negative reviews in this article about the recent solar eclipse, people might feel less inclined to watch a solar eclipse occurring in the skies above them than they would have before hearing these bad reviews. This shows that, in simple terms, people could become less and less interested in very amazing celestial events that happen all around us just because some people don’t care about them. This may sound far-fetched, but people react in a big way to things they hear on the news, and they are very influenced by the media. Because of this, hearing that a solar eclipse is not all that it’s worked up to be from so many different people who just recently viewed it, can lead to them no longer caring about solar eclipses. This would be a truly horrible thing to happen because solar eclipses are supposed to be amazing, and everyone should view such rare events. However, it is completely possible that this article could have this effect on society.                                 
             The last aspect of this article that I would like to discuss is not the content of it, but how it was written. First off, I believe that the article did not do a very good job of explaining what solar eclipses really are, and what the one that occurred on March 20^th looked like. I think that the article more focused on what people in Europe thought of the eclipse, and I felt like this wasn’t very relevant to the topic of the article. The article’s title was, Europeans (Carefully) Gaze Upward for Glimpse of Solar Eclipse, and the article barely talked about the solar eclipse itself. Also, I think the author could have included some pictures of the solar eclipse to really show the readers what his topic was, as many people learn better with visual aids. Despite not liking these things, I felt that the author’s grammar and structure of his writing were very good, and it made for a well-written article. Overall, I thought it was very informative, and although I didn’t learn much about solar eclipses, I learned a lot about the circumstances surrounding the recent one in Europe.            

Philpott, Tom. "Invasion of the Hedge Fund Almonds." Mother Jones. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015. <http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/california-drought-almonds-water-use>.

                                                                                                                                 Harry Vollmer

"Invasion of the Hedge Fund Almonds"

California is in the midst of an unprecedented drought, which is putting tremendous strains on agriculture and safe drinking water. One sector which is being particularly affected is the almond industry. In “California Goes Nuts”, an article by Tom Philpott in Mother Jones, the author describes conditions on a California almond farm. The journalist explains that almond farming is a very water intensive form of agriculture, and increasing global demand for almonds is putting pressure on California’s scarce water resources.

Philpott visited an almond farm where the owner explained that he is shifting his grape production to almonds due to higher profitability. According to the article, almonds, which are mostly produced in california, are the U.S.’s #1 export and have a market which is worth about $4.8 billion per year. One reason almonds have had such a large spike in popularity is due to it being high in Protein/Fat and low in Carbohydrates, making it popular across many diets. The article claims that that it takes one gallon of water to grow a single almond and that there are about 48,000 acres of almond farms (about three times the size of Manhattan). The drought is also making it necessary for wells to be deepened, which can cause a potential health threat as the water deeper in these aquifers can contain up to three times the EPA’s arsenic limit. Some people fear that corporate farms are putting the needs of agriculture ahead of safe drinking water.

This drought in California is being worsened by our over-exploitation of California’s resources for corporate benefit. Coping with this drought will require politicians to work with engineers and scientists who using their knowledge of Earth Science, outline some possible solutions. Lawmakers will also need to create stricter rules on underground water usage. This would require bipartisan cooperation between lawmakers and scientists. These restrictions and plans would help the public decide on how to allocate scarce water resources. In addition it would help keep wells safe and improve water quality.

This article is in-depth and goes into many details about the almond industry in California and its impacts on the geography and the health of certain Californians. I liked that it used lots of evidence and was fact based. I did not like the fact that this article appealed more to the political aspects of the controversy. I would have preferred if it focused either on just the growth of the almond industry in California and how it should be regulated or it’s impact on the drought and how the drought will be solved.

Lauren Schnepp

Article: Sun Experiences Seasonal Changes, New Research Finds.

"Sun Experiences Seasonal Changes, New Research Finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2015.

Recently, a new study by a team of researchers and astrologers, led by the National Center of Atmospheric research (NCAR), found that the sun experiences changes and withstands a seasonal changeability where its activity is waxing and waning over the course of about two years. The suns inconsistent behavior affects the peaks and valleys in the eleven-year solar cycle and sometimes weakening the solar storms that can strike the Earth's atmosphere. Scott Mcintosh, the lead author of the new study and director of NACR’s High Altitude Observatory said that in the below picture “What we’re looking at here is a massive driver solar storms” and by better understanding the activity of the solar storms and how these activity bands form in the sun and cause seasonal instabilities, the potential to vastly improve forecasts of space weather events.

According to the observations by the research team at NACR, the overlapping magnetic bands are powered by the rotation of the Suns deep interior. This causes the bands to move within the Sun’s northern and southern hemispheres, activity rises to a peak as the bands move over a period of about 11 months, which is also part of a longer cycle that lasts about 22 years, and then begin to wane. This is called a quasi-annual variation, and can be compared to regions on the earth that have two seasons, a dry season and a rainy season.  

The new study led by the National Center of Atmospheric Research is only one of  a variety of research papers by the NACR research team that examines the magnetic bands on several; interrelated cycles of solar magnetism. In a paper last year in the Astrophysical Journal, the authors grouped the 11 year sunspot cycle in terms of the two overlapping parallel bands of opposite magnetic polarity that slowly migrate over almost 22 years from high solar altitudes towards the equator where they discontinue. Researchers can now look to modern computer simulations and receive more detailed observations to find new discoveries in the the profound influence of the bands on solar activity.

Icy-Moon Discoveries: What They Mean for Alien Life Search

Margot Richards

Icy-Moon Discoveries: What They Mean for Alien Life Search

Choi, Charles Q. "Icy-Moon Discoveries: What They Mean for Alien Life Search | Space.com." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.

Recently, Scientists have made impressive discoveries about the moons in the outer solar system. These discoveries about the satellites, Enceladus and Ganymede, could offer potential news about life outside of Earth. It was discovered that Enceladus could possibly possess hot springs. These hot springs could be evidence of active hydrothermal vents and would show that Enceladus contains conditions similar to those in the Lost City in the Atlantic Ocean on Earth. This area on Earth is home to many different forms of sea life, which leads many to believe that Enceladus could also contain life forms. Sadly researchers have found that life on Enceladus is still unlikely. This is because there is much less pressure at the base of the Enceladus’s ocean compared to Earth’s ocean. Without this pressure, chemical reactions would not take place and life would not form. Ganymede on the other hand has much too high a pressure at the base of its ocean. This forms a high pressure ice layer, which makes life highly unlikely. The most likely source of life in our solar system outside of Earth is Europa, a moon of Jupiter. It is unknown yet what is under the surface of Europa’s icy outer layer, but researchers believe it could contain both an ocean and hot springs. Until future missions, researchers have no way to tell.

Although finding life on a distance object could seem useless, it could have a large effect on our future. Finding life on our planets would allow us to learn large amounts of information about life and the way in which it forms. We might also be able to learn about, depending on the life forms found, the way life used to be on Earth or the way it will be. Some objects with live could be hospitable to humans and one day could be home to humans. If this is the case, this object or planet could potentially save human existence. Once the sun has heated up or we have used all of our resources, we will need a new place to live. If we find an object with life forms, this could be our future home.

Overall, I thought this article was well written, but it could have been improved. One thing the author did really well was talk about both reasons why the object could contain life and why the object could not contain life. This made the article appear less bias and more legit. One thing the article could have done is talk about all the ways the planet could or could not contain life. The article focused mostly on the aspect of water and its effect on life. I thought that the article should have also talked about the other necessities for life. I also thought that the article should have expanded more on the idea of life on Europa because it only talked briefly about it and could have included more details. In conclusion, I thought that the article was overall well written and could have improved in some areas.