Oil Spills

An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term often refers to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters. The oil may be a variety of materials, including crude oil and refined petroleum products (such as gasoline or diesel fuel). Spills take months or even years to clean up.

It’s one month ago when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also called the BP Oil Spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill or the Macondo blowout, a massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the worst oil spill in US history happened.

The spill stems from a sea floor oil gusher that started with an oil well blowout on April 20, 2010. The blowout caused a catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform that was situated about 64 km southeast of the Louisiana coast. The explosion killed 11 platform workers and injured 17 others. Estimates of the amount of oil being discharged range from BP's current estimate of over 5,000 barrels (790,000 litres) to as much as 100,000 barrels (16,000,000 litres) of crude oil per day. The exact spill flow rate is uncertain – in part because BP has refused to allow independent scientists to perform accurate measurements – and is a matter of ongoing debate. The resulting oil slick covers a surface area of at least 6,500 km², with the exact size and location of the slick fluctuating from day to day depending on weather conditions. Scientists have also discovered immense underwater plumes of oil not visible from the surface.

BP (formerly British Petroleum) is the operator and principal developer of the Macondo Prospect oil field, which was thought to hold as much as 50 million barrels (7.9×10⁶ m³) of oil prior to the blowout, by BP's own estimate. The Deepwater Horizon drilling platform had been leased by BP from its owner, Transocean Ltd. The U.S. Government has named BP as the responsible party in the incident and officials have said the company will be held accountable for all cleanup costs resulting from the oil spill. BP has accepted responsibility for the oil spill and the cleanup costs, but indicated they are not at fault as the platform was run by Transocean personnel. It is the third serious incident at a BP-run site in the United States in the last five years, following the Texas city Refinery explosion in 2005, and the Prudhoe Bay oil spill in 2006. These previous incidents, attributed to lapses in safety and maintenance, have contributed to the damage to BP's reputation and market valuation since the spill.

The blowout, the New York Times reported U.S. government sources as saying May 27, has far surpassed the Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest in US history. Experts fear that due to factors such as petroleum toxicity and oxygen depletion, it will result in an environmental disaster, damaging the Gulf of Mexico fishing industry, tourism industry, and habitat of hundreds of bird species.

Crews are working to block off bays and estuaries, using anchored barriers, floating containment booms, and sand-filled barricades along shorelines. There are a variety of ongoing efforts, both short and long term, to contain the leak and stop spilling additional oil into the Gulf.

More than 400 species live in the islands and marshlands at risk, including the endangered Kemp's Ridley turtle. In the national refuges most at risk, about 34,000 birds have been counted, including gulls, pelicans, roseate spoonbills, egrets, terns, and blue herons. Since April 30, 19 dead dolphins, none of which have had visible signs of oiling, have been found within the designated spill area. Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia indicated that the oil could harm fish directly, and microbes used to consume the oil would also add to the reduction of oxygen in the water, with effects being felt higher up the food chain. According to Joye, it could take the ecosystem years and possibly decades to recover from such an infusion of oil and gas.

THE PUBLIC OPINION

Regarding the handling of the situation, 53 percent of Americans rate Obama's performance as poor or very poor while 43 percent consider it good or very good, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll taken on May 24-25. Sixty percent said the federal government has done a poor or very poor job while 35 percent rate it good or very good. A CBS News poll conducted May 20-24 also found a negative reception with Obama, with 45 percent disapproving compared to 35 percent who approved, with 20 percent undecided. BP had worse polling numbers with 73 percent in the Gallup poll describing its response as poor or very poor, while 24 percent say it has been good or very good. In the CBS survey, 70 percent disapproved of BP's response compared to 18 percent who approved, with 12 percent undecided.

QUESTIONS

· What is an oil spill?

· It is the first oil spill in the world? When happens the others?

· Has ever happened near us? When? Why?

· Is someone doing something to stop it? What?

· Which are the consequences of this oil spill?

· Do you think that it would affect us?

· Do you think that we could do something to help? What?

· Do you agree with the opinion of American population? If not what is your opinion?

The big problem of the deforestation

Nowadays deforestation is a major problem throughout the tropics. Uncontrolled logging of trees, especially in rainforest still goes on. Subsistence farming is practiced by millions of people who farm the land by burning a part of the forest and planting crops in the seemingly rich soil. The problem is that despite the lush appearance of the forest, the underlying soil is not that fertile. Its fertility is not inherent but comes from a complex interaction of the plants, trees, bacteria and insects that live only in the forest. After burning the forest, crops can only be grown for a couple of years before the soil is depleted and the farmer moves on to burn another section of forest. He leaves behind a dead space directly exposed to the burning sun and torrential rain. The land will take many years to recover. Sometimes it never recovers. What's more, if the topsoil is lost, the land will never recover at all and the topsoil washes into rivers and streams causing further ecological disruption downstream. Even if the fertility of the land recovers it will never truly return to its original state, as discussed below. 

About one half of the forests that covered the Earth are gone. Each year, another 16 million hectares disappear. The World Resources Institute estimates that only about 22% of the world's (old growth) original forest cover remains "intact" - most of this is in three large areas: the Canadian and Alaskan boreal forest, the boreal forest of Russia, and the tropical forest of the northwestern Amazon Basin and the Guyana Shield (Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Columbia, etc.)

Today, forests cover more than one quarter of the world's total land area, excluding polar regions. Slightly more than 50% of the forests are found in the tropics and the rest are temperate and boreal (coniferous northern forest) zones.  

The saddest aspect of forest destruction is the loss of species. The rainforest is a virtual laboratory of interdependent bacteria, moss, lichen, bromeliads, epiphytes, trees and insects. Most of these have not even been cataloged, much less studied. Some of the most beneficial medical discoveries in recent times have come from rainforest life forms. It has been learned that each part of the forest contains some unique species that evolved and live only in that part of the forest. Each square mile of the forest reveals new species unique to that area. When that part of the forest is destroyed, the species unique to that part are lost forever.

The area around El Rancho along the Caribbean Highway between Rio Dulce and Guatemala City is an example of what can happen after clearcutting of the forest. The whole area around El Rancho is a desert with exposed tan colored soil, occasional scrub and brush, yellow weeds and two prominent types of cactus. But it didn't used to be this way. Hank McLaughlin, a long-time resident of Guatemala remembers in the early 80's when it still was an evergreen forest. In the space of 20 years, hundreds of square miles of Guatemala have become a hot, uncomfortable desert. Residents of the area can remember when there were plentiful pine trees and the temperatures much cooler. Local effects are also observed in Guatemala City which has grown much in the last 20 years and now sprawls in all directions over the surrounding hills. Local residents complain that temperatures in the city used to be much cooler, before the surrounding hills became covered with concrete and asphalt.

This situation is happening in most of the world's rainforest like in the Amazons or in the woods of Borneo, and the effects are ver clear. The solution to the deforestation is obviously clear, we have to look after te foest and prevent uncontrolled logging. However, it is not as easy as we think because there are a lot of companies that take many benefits from this situation. These companies only care about short-term benefits but they know that long-term will not have trees to cut down if they continue down that road. This seem very stupid but this mentality is deeply rooted in our society.

If you want, you can answer these questions about the text:

1-Are the rainforest areas good for farming?

2-Why do the farmer have to burn another section of forest if they have one yet?

3-How many hectares of woods disappear every year in the Earth?

4-In your opinion, why the last world's original forest are intact?

5-What is the connection between the deforestation and the loss of the species?

6-What happened in the area around “El Rancho”?

7-Do you know other place that happens something similar?

8-Do you think that most of the big companies in our world do not care abot the climatic change?

Why or why not?

Kevin Manzanera

Climate change

Climate change said to harm the mentally ill and cause more mental illness

According to some leading mental health experts, the negative health effects associated with climate change will be most experienced by those with mental illnesses. Drs. Lisa Page and Louise Howard from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) published an article the last year in Psychological Medicine that examined research on the subject and came to their own conclusion that not only will climate change negatively affect the mentally ill but it will also cause more mental illness.

Study authors claim that climate change will lead to increased natural disasters like major storms, droughts, and hurricanes. As a result, people will become more depressed and experience various disorders and mental problems if they don't have them already.

Since resources are expected to be limited following major catastrophic events, the authors also fear that the mentally ill will not receive the treatments they need because efforts will be diverted towards the many whom will be experiencing trauma due to the catastrophe. Other concerns include that the mentally ill will not cope well with higher temperatures because they are more prone to heat-related death.

For those that are not mentally ill, it is feared that various mental illnesses could develop due to infectious disease outbreaks, mass migration because of flooding, increased urbanization, and even just thinking about the concept of man-made climate change possibly wreaking havoc.

Study authors fear that international leaders will fail to address these issues at the upcoming United Nations conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where climate change issues are expected to be discussed and solutions presented.

Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

The mentally ill tend to deal quite poorly with stress, and climate change may indeed be a source of great stress in the decades ahead. When rainfall patterns are altered -- something we're already seeing around the world -- farmers and families suffer not just from associated economic losses, but also from the mental stress that inevitably results.

Unfortunately, Big Pharma will very likely leap upon the mental health impact of climate change to try to push yet more drugs onto people. And if there's one thing we've learned about psychiatric pharmaceuticals, it's that they harm far more people than they help. Many of these drugs can cause extreme violence, and this can have a cascading stress effect on those innocent victims who are impacted by medication-induced violence (school shootings, for example).

In a world facing yet more economic downturn, chemical contamination, prescription drug over-medication and the possibility of future climate change, adding more mind-altering drugs to the mix is a recipe for disaster.


EXERCISE:

1- What is the relationship between climate change and mental illness?
2- What is the main subject of the article?
3- What do people that is not ill fear? And study authors?
4- What are the problems caused by climate change on mentally ill people?
5- According to Mike Adam's opinion, what will happen to farmers and families because of the climate change?
6- What will be the reaction of big pharma? What consequences will it have?
7- What is the conclusion of Mike Adams?

OIANE MARTINEZ

Wash. Times falsely suggests past warm periods disprove human-caused global warming

A Washington Times editorial falsely suggested global warming science is undermined by studies indicating that the planet, at least in some regions, saw exceptional warmth thousands of years ago. But climate experts don't dispute that certain regions have experienced natural warm and cool periods throughout history; they say climate change of the past half century is "different" because it can't be explained by "natural changes alone". You can check the whole new cliking the following link: http://mediamatters.org/research/201005190055

Our opinion is that Times is wrong. As we saw in "An inconvenient truth", there have been warming periods in the past. That is true. But most of those rises happened at the same time that the CO2 increased. We saw it clearly when Al Gore showed us the graphic of the changes in the amount of CO2 and the global temperature along the centuries: they fix many time. We can say that they go together. Even if it may have happened that at some moments there have been changes in the temperature that weren't related to the change of CO2, those are exceptions. It has been proveed that the greenhouse gases emissions don't let sun energy go back to the space and that because of that, the temperature of the planet is rising.

So we don't agree with that statement, because it is based on arguments that have been proveed to be false.

Ainhoa Montero, Ainhoa AiArtetxe and Unai Elizalde.

Global Warming Leads to 150,000 Deaths Every Year

Infectious disases and death rates rise along with global temperatures

Global warming is not only a threat to our future health, it already contributes to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses annually, according to a team of health and climate scientists at the World Health Organization and the University of Wisconsin at Madison—and those numbers could double by 2030.

Research data published in the journal Nature show that global warming may affect human health in a surprising number of ways: speeding the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever; creating conditions that lead to potentially fatal malnutrition and diarrhea; and increasing the likelihood of heat waves and floods.

Health Effects of Global Warming Hardest on Poor Nations

According to the scientists, who have mapped the growing health impacts of global warming, the data show that global warming affects different regions in very different ways. Global warming is particularly hard on people in poor countries, which is ironic, because the places that have contributed the least to global warming are most vulnerable to the death and disease higher temperatures can bring.

"Those least able to cope and least responsible for the greenhouse gases that cause global warming are most affected," said lead author Jonathan Patz, a professor at UW-Madison's Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "Herein lies an enormous global ethical challenge."

Global Regions at Highest Risk from Global Warming

According to the Nature report, regions at highest risk for enduring the health effects of climate change include coastlines along the Pacific and Indian oceans and sub-Saharan Africa. Large sprawling cities, with their urban "heat island" effect, are also prone to temperature-related health problems. Africa has some of the lowest per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases. Yet, regions of the continent are gravely at risk for diseases related to global warming.

"Many of the most important diseases in poor countries, from malaria to diarrhea and malnutrition, are highly sensitive to climate," said co-author Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum of WHO. "The health sector is already struggling to control these diseases and climate change threatens to undermine these efforts."

"Recent extreme climatic events have underscored the risks to human health and survival," added Tony McMichael, director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University. "This synthesizing paper points the way to strategic research that better assesses the risks to health from global climate change."

Global Responsibilities of Developed and Developing Nations

The United States, which currently emits more greenhouse gases than any other nation, has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, choosing instead to initiate a separate multinational effort with less ambitious goals. Patz and his colleagues say their work demonstrates the moral obligation of countries with high per-capita emissions, such as the United States and European nations, to take the lead in reducing the health threats of global warming. Their work also highlights the need for large, fast-growing economies, such as China and India, to develop sustainable energy policies.

"The political resolve of policymakers will play a big role in harnessing the man-made forces of climate change," said Patz, who also holds a joint appointment with the UW-Madison department of Population Health Sciences.

Global Warming is Getting Worse

Scientists believe that greenhouse gases will increase the global average temperature by approximately 6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Extreme floods, droughtsand heat waves, such as Europe's 2003 heat wave, are likely to strike with increasing frequency. Other factors such as irrigation and deforestation can also affect local temperatures and humidity.

According to the UW-Madison and WHO team, other model-based forecasts of health risks from global climate change project that:

Climate-related disease risks of the various health outcomes assessed by WHO will more than double by 2030.

Flooding as a result of coastal storm surges will affect the lives of up to 200 million people by the 2080s.

Heat related deaths in California could more than double by 2100.

Hazardous ozone pollution days in the Eastern U.S. could increase 60 percent by 2050.

Individual People Can Make a Difference

Aside from research and the needed support of policymakers worldwide, Patz says individuals can also play an important role in curbing the health consequences of global warming.

"Our consumptive lifestyles are having lethal impacts on other people around the world, especially the poor," Patz said. "There are options now for leading more energy-efficient lives that should enable people to make better personal choices."

All in all, in my opinion, as we all know, we will have to take care of our world, for instance not emiting so much greenhouse gases. In the article I have put, it says poor nations as they haven´t got so much resources or money to fight, they will be the weakest in this environmetal issue. But, we also have to look to our nations, what about Spain or Basque Country, more particularly? We are also going to have problems, but how are we going to fight it?

And now, and activity about tropical rainforests, if you want to play, click here: Exercise

Leire Pérez

GLOBAL WARMING

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) between the start and the end of the 20th century.

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. On the one hand, warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests. On the other, the technological, economic and political issues that have to be resolved before a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can begin have gotten no simpler, particularly in the face of a global economic slowdown.

After years of preparation for climate talks taking place in Copenhagen through Dec. 18, 2009, President Obama and other leaders announced on Nov. 15 what had already become evident — that no formal treaty could be produced anytime soon. Instead, the leaders pledged to reach a placeholder accord that would call for reductions in emissions and increased aid to help developing nations adapt to a changing climate and get access to non-polluting energy options.

This would in theory give the nations more time to work out the all-important details. Negotiators would then seek a binding global agreement in 2010, complete with firm emission targets, enforcement mechanisms and specific dollar amounts to aid poorer nations.

At the heart of the debate is a momentous tussle between rich and poor countries over who steps up first and who pays most for changed energy menus.

Read More...Within the United States, Congress is similarly fighting over legislation on climate change. The House in the summer of 2009 passed a bill outlining a cap-and-trade system that could, over the next few decades, lead to an early end to conventional use of coal and oil, fuels that have underpinned prosperity and growth for more than a century. But between stiff opposition from energy interests and the overwhelming distractions of health care reform and the economy, the legislation has stalled in the Senate.

In international discussions over climate, Mr. Obama has urged other countries not to be discouraged by the stasis on Capitol Hill, pointing to big investments in energy efficiency, solar and wind power and his move to restrict greenhouse gases using environmental regulations.

In the meantime, recent fluctuations in temperature, seized on by opponents of emissions restrictions, have intensified the public debate over how urgently to respond. The long-term warming trend over the last century has been well-established, and scientists immersed in studying the climate are projecting substantial disruption in water supplies, agriculture, ecosystems and coastal communities. Passionate activists at both ends of the discourse are pushing ever harder for or against rapid action, while polls show the public locked durably in three camps — with roughly a fifth of American voters eager for action, a similar proportion aggressively rejecting projections of catastrophe and most people tuned out or confused.

In our opinion, global warming is an issue that we should try to resolve because it is causing a lot of problems in our planet. Both for us, for humans, and for animals.

The environment too is suffering a big change due to the increasement of the temperature. We think that developed countries should control the green gases emissions because they are the first guilties.

Furthermore, if we do not resolve this problem now, the next generations will have more problems and for them it will be impossible to solve it because it will be very late.

Do you agree with our conclusion? Do not think that it is better to change some things of our life that are causing these problems in order to save the environment?

Naia Agirre, Iratxe Txarterina, Saioa de la Maza and Eider Sanchez.

A new study finds that the upper layer of the world's oceans has warmed since 1993, which researchers say is a strong signal that the planet's climate is changing.

"We are seeing the global ocean store more heat than it gives off,” John Lyman, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research and lead author of the study, said in a news release. The study's findings are being published in the journal Nature today (May 20).

The international team of scientists looked at multiple estimates of the heat content of the oceans' upper layer and drew on data from more than 3,200 Argo floating monitors deployed around the globe and from other devices dropped earlier from ships to take the water's temperature. Though there are some uncertainties about the data - the ship-deployed bathythermographs are not as accurate as the Argo floats - the researchers concluded that on average the heat content of the oceans' upper 2,000 feet has been increasing the past 16 years.

“The ocean is the biggest reservoir for heat in the climate system,” according to Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratorywho contributed to the study. “So as the planet warms, we’re finding that 80 to 90 percent of the increased heat ends up in the ocean.”

Warming oceans cause sea level to rise, because water expands and takes up more space as its temperature increases. Estimates are that this thermal expansion accounts for one-third to one-half of the rise in sea level.

As the oceans warm, so do bays and inland waters. The mean temperature in the Patuxent Riverhas risen 3 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1930s, according to University of Maryland scientists. Sea level in the Chesapeake Bay has risen about one foot in the past century.

Lab at Bangor University aims to fight climate change


The article: Updated at 16:18 GMT, Friday, 14 May 2010 17:18 UK in the BBC News.

Here is the link if you want to read the article to know more about it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_west/8683348.stm

MY COMENT ABOUT THE ARTICLE: Lab at Bangor University aims to fight climate change

The University of Bangor in the UK has made a program to find new ways to combat the climate change, and to stop the greenhouse gases. This program has been opened by the Novel Prize winner John Houghton.

I think that it is interesting to know that people who knows a lot of about this subject is trying to change the world, and to fight against the climate change.
May in my opinion 500.000 pounds are too much, but I suppose that this things aren’t cheap, and it’s better to spend 500.000 pounds trying to save the world that making weapons, or opening new factories that contaminate more and more every day.

This laboratory has been opened by Novel Prize winner Jonh Houghton so I think that this is going to have a big echo, and a big influence among the people who are interesting in finding new alternatives, and just the people who like to want to know that their world isn’t going to have an ending.

I hope that this group of scientist, would find the “salvation” for our planet, or at least find a way to reduce the contamination, the global warming and the climate change. Because all this things are the cause of the illness of Mother Earth, and not only the wars and the bad behavior of the people in front of the injustices and the broken rights.

Because if we only put attention on the wars (that are important thing), we don’t realize that when we through a plastic to the floor, or we take a car to move 100metres we are killing and ending with our planet.
So to sum up I reckon the action of this scientist has been a very good idea, and if we all follow their way we are going to arrive to a better and clean world, without contamination, deforestation, droughts, thaws…

What do you think about finding new ways to combate the climate change? Are you agree in spending this cantitate of money?

answers to sample questions

SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
Sample questions for 3rd term exam
2nd part
1. About the “Large Hadron Collider”
a. Why news about this huge machine have been in the media lately?
Because it is going to be started soon this year
b. Can you mention two features that give some idea of the importance of this project?
It is 27 Km long, it has 9300 big magnets inside, it is cooled at -271.3°C, it will accelerate protons at 99.99% the speed of light, ...
c. Can you mention two of the objectives scientists are looking for with this machine?
Some of them are: to test the “Big Bang” theory about the origin of the Universe, to test the “Standard theory of matter”; to look for the “Dark matter” that constitutes most of the matter in the Universe, to look for the “Higgs bosom” that has not been observed up to now, ...
d. This is the second try to perform these experiments. Do you know the reason why the previous try failed?
Because the refrigeration system broke down
e. That first try with the “LHC” rose some fears and great controversy in the media. Could you tell why?
It was about the possibility of creating a “Black Hole” that could swallow the Earth.
f. Do you consider the concern justified?
Probably not, but lack of information about possible dangers may give way to speculation from the part of sensationalist media.

g. Do you think that any dark aspect of science should be researched at any cost? What are the possible risks of not doing so?

2. Can you tell something about the “Standard Model of Matter”? (three things)
This theory says that every matter in the Universe is made out of 12 different elemental particles (six hadrons and six leptons) and five force carriers for the four main forces (Weak, Strong, Gravitational and Electromagnetic forces)

3. About the structure of the Universe
a. Our present conception of the structure of the Universe is sustained in two big discoveries that took place in the 20th Century. Which are these two discoveries?
The discovery that every galaxy in the Universe is moving away from each other faster as the distance increases, and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.

b. Who were the scientists that performed these two discoveries?
The first one was made by Edwin Hubble and Milton Humason, and the second one by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.

c. What is the Universe that arise from those discoveries like? Choose among the options and explain why
i. The Universe is infinite and unlimited
ii. The Universe is finite but unlimited
iii. The Universe is finite and limited
The Universe is finite but unlimited; finite because it has a definite amount of energy and matter, and unlimited because in an Universe of at least four dimensions you can’t find the limits of this Universe.

d. Why we compare the Universe with a growing balloon?
Because as time goes on, the Universe becomes bigger and bigger (the distance between galaxies gets bigger).

e. How was the beginning of the Universe? How long ago?
At present it is generally accepted that the Universe began with a big explosion called the “Big Bang” about 15.000 million years ago.

f. How is going to be the end of the Universe? What does it depend on?
It depends on the density of matter at present in the Universe (it is not well known). If density is big enough, the expansion will eventually refrain and then begin contracting again and become smaller and smaller until it will finish in what is called the “Big Crunch”.
If density is smaller than a critic figure the Universe will continue expanding forever and becoming bigger and colder.

g. What is a spectrometer? How can we realise a Galaxy is approaching of moving away with its light spectrum?
It is a device that descomposes light into its different components giving a pattern that is called the spectrum of light.
In the spectrum some dark lines appear depending on the kind of light, and these lines are displaced to the red (redship of light) when the object is moving away, and to the blue (blueshift of light) if it is approaching.

4. About he Doppler effect
a. Relate the Doppler effect with the spectrum of a moving-away-Galaxy.
If an object is moving away, we see the waylength of the radiation it emits bigger tha its original length, and this is the case with moving away galaxies (we see their light displaced to the red side of the spectrum)

b. According to the Doppler effect, how do we hear the sound of an approaching train? And the sound of a moving away train?
We hear its sound higher pitched, and if it is moving away lower pitched.

c. A mother hawk screeches as she dives at you. You recall from biology that female hawks screech at 800 Hz, but you hear the screech at 850Hz. How fast is the hawk approaching?

f = fo [(v±vo)/(v±vs)]

...observers speed (vo) is 0 and source speed (vs) is the unknown factor.

substituting data in the equation...

850 Hz = 800 Hz [(340 m/s+0)/(340 m/s- vs)]

Resolving the equation...

vs = 340 m/s-(800Hz*340 m/s)/850 Hz =20 m/s

the hawk is approaching at a speed of 20 m/s

5. This is a view of the sky on the 10th of February (don’t matter which year -every year is the same-) from a place 40º N
a. At which time has been taken this view? (give GMT time and local time). Remember that February is winter time.
b. On which date can be seen this very view at 00.00 hours (GMT)



6. Answer these questions related with the calculation of our local meridian line.
a. If sunrise happens in....the East................... and sunset in ....the West........., the Sun at noon will be in the direction of ......South.............

b. If Sun is rising in the sky after sunrise and goes down before sunset, at .......noon................ it is at its maximum height.

c. Is for that that at noon the shadow of any vertical object is …minimal………..

d. Taking into account the answers to questions b to c, explain how can we obtain the North-South direction (the meridian of the place)

We must calculate the position of the minimal shadow of the vertical object and draw a line from the basis of the vertical object along its shadow. This is the meridian of the place (the shadow shows the North because the Sun at that moment is in the South)

7. You are in front of a sundial at 14 hours in your watch, but the sundial marks 12 minutes to noon. Explain why. Is it summertime or wintertime?
It is because in most countries official time and solar time don’t coincide, and this is the case in Spain. It is summertime because in Spain the difference between official time and solar time is of two hours in summer and one hour in winter.


8. What is special about Greenwich meridian? What is the difference with other meridians? Are they natural differences or artificial?
What is special is that it is considered (by international agreement) the first meridian (zero Meridian). Apart from that there is no difference with other meridians. The difference , obviously, is artificial.

9. What is the time zone of Spain?
Our time zone is GMT+1 hour

10. What does it mean the acronym GMT applied to time?
It means General Mean Time, and it is the time of the Greenwich meridian

11. How long is a day in the Earth? Is every day of the year equal to any other in duration? Why?
A solar day is by average 24 hours long. But not all days along the year are the same length . The reason is that the Earth doesn’t move at the same speed along its orbit around the Sun.

12. Define a year. How many days does it have?
A year is the time it takes the Earth revolving the Sun. It has approximately 365 solar days and a quarter

13. How many sidereal days does a year have in the Earth? How long is a sidereal day?
It has approximately 366 days and a quarter. It is approximately 23 hours and 56 minutes long

14. A soldier in his training course is left in an unknown place in the desert. He wants to know where he is and with the aid of a stick he draws the local meridian line and in addition he calculates that the Sun height at solar noon is 83º. His watch shows GMT time and he realizes that at local solar noon his watch marks 11:24 hours. It is the 12th of May and the solar declination of the day is 18º and the equation of time -4 minutes.
a. What is the Longitude of the place he is in

The formula you have to use is...

Standard time = local solar noon+ equation of time+ longitude correction

Then ...

Longitude correction = standard time-local solar noon-equation of time

Substituting with data...

Longitude correction = 11:24:00 - 12:00:00 + 00:04:00 = -00:32:00

Taking into account that the Sun needs 4 minutes to cover an arc of 1º,...
Then the Sun in 32 minutes will cover 8º of arc, and as the sign is minus, this means that the arc is minus too, that is, the longitude of the place is -8º, or in other words 8º East from Greenwich meridian.

b. What is the latitude of the place? Is it East or West from Greenwich meridian?
GL = 90 - H + SD where GL is the geographical latitude, H is the height of the Sun at noon, and SD is the solar declination of the day

Substituting with data...
GL = 90º-83º+18º = 25º
The latitude of the place is 25º North

sample questions part 2

SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
Sample questions for 3rd term exam
2nd part

5. This is a view of the sky on the 10th of February (don’t matter which year -every year is the same-) from a place 40º N
a. At which time has been taken this view? (give GMT time and local time). Remember that February is winter time.
b. On which date can be seen this very view at 00.00 hours (GMT)



6. Answer these questions related with the calculation of our local meridian line.
a. If sunrise happens in....................... and sunset in ............., the Sun at noon will be in the direction of ...................

b. If Sun is rising in the sky after sunrise and goes down before sunset, at ....................... it is at its maximum height.

c. Is for that that at noon the shadow of any vertical object is …………..

d. Taking into account the answers to questions b to c, explain how can we obtain the North-South direction (the meridian of the place)

7. You are in front of a sundial at 14 hours in your watch, but the sundial marks 12 minutes to noon. Explain why. Is it summertime or wintertime?


8. What is special about Greenwich meridian? What is the difference with other meridians? Are they natural differences or artificial?


9. What is the time zone of Spain?


10. What does it mean the acronym GMT applied to time?


11. How long is a day in the Earth? Is every day of the year equal to any other in duration? Why?


12. Define a year. How many days does it have?


13. How many days does a sidereal year have in the Earth? How long is a sidereal day?


14. A soldier in his training course is left in an unknown place in the desert. He wants to know where he is and with the aid of a stick he draws the local meridian line and in addition he calculates that the Sun height at solar noon is 83º. His watch shows GMT time and he realizes that at local solar noon his watch marks 11:24 hours. It is the 12th of May and the solar declination of the day is 18º and the equation of time -4 minutes.
a. What is the Longitude of the place he is
b. What is the latitude of the place? Is it East or West from Greenwich meridian?

Sample questions for 3rd term exam

SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
Sample questions for 3rd term exam
1st part
1. About the “Large Hadron Collider”
a. Why news about this huge machine have been in the media lately?
b. Can you mention two features that give some idea of the importance of this project?
c. Can you mention two of the objectives scientists are looking for with this machine?
d. This is the second try to perform these experiments. Do you know the reason why the previous try failed?
e. That first try with the “LHC” rose some fears and great controversy in the media. Could you tell why?
f. Do you consider the concern justified?
g. Do you think that any dark aspect of science should be researched at any cost? What are the possible risks of not doing so?

2. Can you tell something about the “Standard Model of Matter”? (three things)

3. About the structure of the Universe
a. Our present conception of the structure of the Universe is sustained in two big discoveries that took place in the 20th Century. Which are these two discoveries?
b. Who were the scientists that performed these two discoveries?
c. What is the Universe that arise from those discoveries like? Choose among the options and explain why
i. The Universe is infinite and unlimited
ii. The Universe is finite but unlimited
iii. The Universe is finite and limited
d. Why we compare the Universe with a growing balloon?
e. How was the beginning of the Universe? How long ago?
f. How is going to be the end of the Universe? What does it depend on?
g. What is a spectrometer? How can we realise a Galaxy is approaching of moving away with its light spectrum?
4. About he Doppler effect
a. Relate the Doppler effect with the spectrum of a moving-away-Galaxy.
b. According to the Doppler effect, how do we hear the sound of an approaching train? And the sound of a moving away train?
c. A mother hawk screeches as she dives at you. You recall from biology that female hawks screech at 800 Hz, but you hear the screech at 850Hz. How fast is the hawk approaching?
5.