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Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Greenhouse Effect - Causes of the Greenhouse effect


What is the Green house effect ?
The Earth is kept warm by it's atmosphere, which acts rather like a woolly coat - without it, the average surface temperature would be about -18 degrees Centigrade. Heat from the sun passes through the atmosphere, warming it up, and most of it warms the surface of the planet. As the Earth warms up, it emits heat in the form of infra-red radiation - much like a hot pan emits heat even after it's taken away from the cooker. Some of this heat is trapped by the atmosphere, but the rest escapes into space. The so-called "greenhouse gases" make the atmosphere trap more of this radiation, so it gradually warms up more than it should, like a greenhouse (although a greenhouse actually does this by stopping warm air rising and escaping from it).
Problems of The Greenhouse Effect
The greenhouse effect causes trouble by raising the temperature of the planet. The actual rise is not very much, but the Earth's ecosystem is very fragile, and small changes can have large effects.
A Panel on Climate Change has predicted that this rise of one degree will happen by the year 2025. What Causes The Greenhouse Effect? Causes of the greenhouse effectThis could potentially cripple the North American corn belt, which produces much of the world's grain, leading to much higher food prices, and even less food for the Third World than they already have. However, it would also mean that some countries which are further north would be able to grow crops they had never been able to before, although there is less land as you move north from the corn belt.
The other serious worry is that rising sea levels from the melting of the polar ice caps could severely flood many countries. A rise in sea levels of one metre, which many experts are predicting by the year 2100 (and some as soon as 2030), would flood 15 percent of Egypt, and 12 percent of Bangladesh. The Maldives in the Indian Ocean would almost completely disappear.

Most of the countries which would suffer most from a rise in sea levels are the poor island states, so the islands in the Caribbean, South Pacific, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean have formed the Alliance of Small Island States, AOSIS, so they have a louder voice in international politics and can make the richer developed world listen to their problems. Britain would lose most of East Anglia, and to protect the coast line would cost an estimated 5 to 10 billion pounds.
The Greenhouse Effect - Possible Solutions
Reducing use of fossil fuels would considerably reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced, as well as reducing the levels of the pollutants which cause acid rain. This can be achieved by either using less energy altogether, or using alternative energy sources. You can help save energy in lots of ways:
    • Turn off lights when you leave a room
    • If you have a car, don't use it for short journeys
    • Basically, anything at all that uses less energy  
Eliminating the use of CFCs is something we can actually do.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were invented in the 1920s, they are a compound of carbon containing chlorine and fluorine. CFCs are man made chemicals, so we call them synthetic chemicals. Since their introduction CFCs have been used as:
  • Refrigerants in refrigerators and air conditioning units
  • Propellants in aerosol cans
  • Foaming agents in the production of packaging
  • Cleaners used in the electronics industry
  • Fire extinguisher chemicals





New refrigerants have been developed, and new aerosols use other propellants such as butane, so it is now actually quite difficult to get hold of CFCs (assuming you wanted to get some for something anyway).
Stopping deforestation by using renewable forests and planting a new tree whenever one is felled would help to raise the carbon dioxide absorbing ability of the planet.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

INCREDIBLE AND SIMPLY MIND-BLOWING!!!

Where two oceans meet... but do not mix! INCREDIBLE AND SIMPLY MIND-BLOWING!!!

These two bodies of water were merging in the middle of The Gulf of Alaska and there was a foam developing only at their junction. It is a result of the melting glaciers being composed of fresh water and the ocean has a higher percentage of salt causing the two bodies of water to have different densities and therefore makes it more difficult to mix.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

STEPHEN HAWKING

STEPHEN HAWKING :-
1- Stephen William Hawking is one of the most famous living scientists. His computer-simula ted voice is familiar on many television science programmes.

2- Stephen Hawking (b.1942) is a British physicist who is famous for his ideas on space and time. Hawking was born in Oxford, England and studied at Cambridge University, where he is now a professor.


3- Hawking suffers from the paralyzing nerve disease called AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS. He cannot move any more than afew hand and face muscles, but he gets around very well in an electric wheelchair.

4- Hawking cannot speak, but he communicates effectively with a computer-simula ted voice.


5- Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time (1988) outlines his ideas on space, time and the history of the Universe since the Big Bang. It was one of the best-selling science books of the 20th century.


6- Einstein thought of and Hawking developed the idea of black holes. They are collapsed objects, such as stars, that have become invisible.


7- Hawking’s contributions to the study of gravity are considered to be the most important since Einstein’s.


8- More than anyone else, Hawking has developed the idea of black holes — points in space where gravity becomes so extreme that it even sucks in light.


9- Hawking developed the idea of a singularity, which is an incredibly small point in a black hole where all physical laws break down.


10- Hawking’s work provides a strong theoretical base for the idea that the Universe began with a Big Bang, starting with a singularity and exploding outwards.


He's Truly an amazing Scientist !!!!! —

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Microsoft

Microsoft was founded on this day in 1975 by Paul Allen and Bill gates..

Paul Allen and Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion in computer programming, were seeking to make a successful business utilizing their
shared skills.

The January 1975 issue
of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry
Systems 's (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer.

Allen noticed that they could program
a BASIC interpreter for the device; after a call from Gates claiming to have a
working interpreter, MITS requested a
demonstration. Since they didn't
actually have one, Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter.

Although
they developed the interpreter on a
simulator and not the actual device,
the interpreter worked flawlessly
when they demonstrated the
interpreter to MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 1975; MITS
agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC .

They officially established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as the CEO