78,000 People Apply for One-Way Trip to Mars

By Cary

An exciting project to establish a human colony on Mars has attracted applications from tens of thousands of would-be astronauts, just two weeks after applications opened.^[1] So far, over 78,000 people have applied to become one of Mars’ first immigrants

The non-profit organization, named Mar One, set up this mission only use the contemporary technology. However, there is no technology to send the volunteers back to the earth, so this vocation should be the one-way ticket. After that, another difficulty is money. The company decided to change this mission to a media show, people from all over world can see this TV show. For example, when the mission is begin, they need to select a dozen of people to become the volunteers, and then train them several years. For example, The selection show will be reported by different television station through the world, so the Mars one will get money from it, and they can pay for the mission.

You may have a question, does the Mars one need some people have specific skill or education background? But Mars One said it is not looking for applicants with specific skills, such as a science degree, that might be useful during an interplanetary posting. Instead, they are looking for people who “have a deep sense of purpose, willingness to build and maintain healthy relationships, the capacity for self-reflection and ability to trust.”

In my opinion, there are many people dream of going to the Mars for several days. However, if the visitors will not come back, I will think about my family, my friends and so on. I don’t want to go the somewhere that I can not return back to my home. No matter what, there still many people want to immigrate to the Mars. Good luck.

Reference:

1)        http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/09/78000-people-apply-for-one-way-trip-to-mars/?iid=nf-article-trend-now

2)        http://applicants.mars-one.com/

When does life begin?

by Tomoe Kusubae

North Dakota Voters decide that life begins at conception.  This means a fertilized egg has the same right to life as a person.   The decision is related with the health and safety of women having abortions and whether abortion is possible in the state.

After fertilization, I think life begins.  After the fertilization, a fertilized egg can grow if it is in the uterus.  Even if either ovum or sperm is in the uterus, they can’t be life.  In addition, it can be said that both men and women admit having baby in the situation of fertilization.  We can use pills and other tools to prevent pregnant.  Vitro fertilization needs permission of both men and women.

As I mention my culture’s idea, it is very confused!   It doesn’t depend on their religion, Buuda or Shinto.  By force, fetus helps Bosatsu which is like god and help people in Buuda.  Some says life begins after being born, others says just eggs and sperm are life.

Vitro fertilization is permitted in Japan.  We can abort pregnancy until 21 weeks.  But after 12 weeks・・・, we have to send in a notice of baby’s death and a burial certificate.  We agree.

The importance of thinking about the period when life begins is the abortion and children rate problem in Japan.  Later people marry, later they are pregnant so there　are shortage of children.  We don’t have religious opinion about vitro fertilization, but society effects very much. 

I thought it doesn't matter people recognize whenever life begins.  However the idea is related to social abortion and family plan.  In addition, some religion is strict about this topic so I think I have to have my opinion unless there is no correct answer. 

sourced by ABC news Mar 23, 2013 8:01pm

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/03/north-dakota-voters-to-decide-whether-life-begins-at-conception/

Tobacco Will Be Our Energy Source

By: Yoko

Original source:

1) High Lander. (5/7/2013). UC Berkeley: Using tobacco crops as biofuel source (p.5)

2)NationalGeographic http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/biofuel-profile

Researchers from UC Berkeley and the University Kentucky found that Tobacco will be a good biofuel source. They extracted oil from tobacco by infusing genes from algae to the leaves of tobacco. 

 

 They focused on tobacco crop to use as a biofeul. Actually, according to Faculty Biologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Center and one of the head researchers, Anastasios Melis, there are more productive plants to use as a biofuel source. Corn and Sugarcane are one of them. These are widely used today. Although they have high biomass in their leaves, they are also food crops so they bring about debates. Grasses, for example, giganteous and napier, are also used today. They can be turned into carbon fuels too, but it is difficult to accumulate hydrocarbon products from them.

Now, they succeeded to accumulate about 1 percent of its dry weight in the form of specific hydrocarbon that can be used as fuel. They are trying to reach10 percent within two years.

In addition to this effort, they also attempting to make tobacco uptake more carbon from the atmosphere and produce more oxygen by the process of photosynthesis like algae. When fuels are burned, it produces carbon but if the plant assimilates it, it will be a good cycle of energy.

This technique which inserts certain gene to tobacco to use as fuels would be a good solution to the problem of energy.  Tobacco will not cause controversy of food problem. But still it’s not so practical. Because the amount of the energy we can take from tobacco is so small. Besides, it might cost more and produce more carbon to grow and modify crops than to fossil fuel.

Technology Makes People Happy or...?

by: Takeahi

Original Sources:
1) Is this (finally) our flying car?

2) Liberator - Dawn of the Wiki Weapons

3) Who has liability for 3-D printed gun? Answer not clear

      In 1989, in Back to the Future Part II, the time machine, De Lorean flied into the air and went a time travel. In 2002, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry and Ron controlled the Ford to fly and went to Hogwarts.  People have dreamed to drive a car in the air from the past. Yes. We have had a dream to drive in the air. It sounds totally impossible―until quite recently.

      In this week, the Woburn, Massachussetts-based aerospace company reported that it has begun practicability studies about a car which is capable of take-offs and landings. According to the company, the flyable car, TF-X would have four-seats equipped with hybrid electric vehicle.  In addition, the company announced that the project of developed TF-X comes as a revolution on the transitional shifts from investigation and development to manufacture and customer support activities.


     



      If the wonderful machine goes into mass production and many people get to the cars, the situation may be nothing but a great step toward comfortable future.

      However, I think we need to stop to consider the new technologies really make our life better. If we skip to think about the appropriate usage, that brings calamity upon ourselves.  

 

 

      Last week, a university student, Cody Wilson pronounced that he succeeded to invest 3D printed gun for the first time in the world. In a web-site which he published, there is a blueprint to make the handgun. Namely, anyone can download and make it at home. Last week, I wrote about gun control. Now this investigation would give rise to a problem about the control.

 

     

 

      Of course, it is a wonderful thing that to break through scientific problem and make an achievement. However, we would be exposed to a danger which is derived from the achievement if we lack enough consideration to use it safely. As we get new technology, the possibility of getting danger also increases.  

 

 

Ling Ping is worth 1 million dollars a year

By Ashley:


Ling Ping is a giant female panda who became famous in Thailand for being born in Thailand's Chiang Mai Zoo. In the first four months of her life, she brought in 10 million baht or 330,000 dollars for the zoo.

Because of a previous deal that brought her parents in Thailand, she should have treveled to China at the end of May, but it has been announced this week that she will stay in Thailand for 15 years.

The deal which should have sent her to China was originally planned for May 27th. However, it has been revised on account of an exchange between Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao who agrees to let her grow in Thailand. As a result, Ling Ping will go to China only in October to meet mates, and she will return with her husband to Thailand. The procedure should take less than a year.

Thai officials will have to pay 15 million dollars for her stay in Thailand which is the equivalent of 1 million dollars a year. In addition, they will have to pay the same amount of money for every panda loaned to Thai zoos.

It is rare for pandas born abroad to return to the country where they were born. China accepts to send pandas in another country under the condition that both parents and their babies will still belong to China. The country in question is used to send pandas abroad as diplomatic gifts. This practice is also known as "panda diplomacy".

Due to the aforementioned agreement, Tai Chan, a panda also famous for being born in Washington's National Zoo, was sent to China in 2010.

For information, the giant panda is a bear which is native to central-western and south-western China . The giant panda is an rare and endangered species since it has a really low birth rate both in captivity and in the wild, and since it continuously loses his natural habitat which is polluted and destructed. That's why many organisations tries to save them. There are numerous conservation efforts.


Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/10/182872797/celebrity-panda-to-return-to-thailand-for-1-million-a-year

Moth, how do you find your mate?

By:yoko

source: High Lander, UCR: Male moths use ration-based attraction through pheromones (4/23/2013)

Couple of weeks ago,  I went to the UCR’s main campus and I found the newspaper which name is HIGHLANDER. It looked good. Although I brought one of it to my home, I forgot about it for weeks. For this blogging, I was thinking what to read and I remembered this news paper. I found an article of moth. A research explains how male moths attract female moths.

 

UCR’s former student, Teun Dekker, and faculty, Boyce Chair Ring Carde, is member of this international research. It is known how female moths attract male moths, Female moths have own pheromones ratio unique to their species so only the same species of male moths are attracted. However there are many cases of hybrids. Then how do they find their partner? In conclusion, male moths lose the ability to measure the pheromone ratio as they fly upwind along the pheromone plume. They changed their behavior using the wind. The answer was much simpler than what the researchers thought. They thought that hybrid male moths have two kinds of receptors for the ratio and decide what the correct ration is from comparing to responses. They didn’t think that the answer will be so simple that could be explained by physiological basis. This research may be applied to a mosquito and human’s sense of odors. Carde says that the researchers couldn’t find this fact for a long time because they never thought to change the odor blend while the animal is in the process of responding.

I think it’s interesting that sometimes the answer which many people tried to find is easily explained by simple reason. I expect that they find why mosquitoes bite human and prevent them from doing it. I could find a many kinds of articles in this newspaper. This is placed in many places so please try it if you're interested in.

Childhood food, skin allergies on the rise

by: Hadeel

Resource:

1- CNN : http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/02/childhood-food-skin-allergies-on-the-rise/

2- http://www.health.am/allergies/.

3-http://bbumh.blogspot.com/2012/02/outrageous-and-dangerous-disregard-of.html

I read an article about allergies in children, and how it is increasing nowadays. However, in order to understand what allergies are, it is important to know first the definition of allergies. Allergies are an overreaction of the body's immune system to specific substances that it misidentifies as harmful. In addition, according to the article, food and skin allergies have been increasing for more than 10 years in American children. Between 1997 and 2011 the food allergies increased from 3.4% to 5.1%. While the skin allergies increased more than doubled in the same time. Also, there is the respiratory allergy which is the most common allergy in children younger than age 18.

 In the article they did a survey about children allergies, and they divide the increasing and decreasing in allergies depending on several situations. First of all, income levels, children who live with rich families have higher rates of childhood allergies than others. Second, the origin of the child’s parents, and ethnicity. For instance, Hispanic children had lower rates than non-Hispanic white and black children. Furthermore, scientists still couldn't found a reason for the allergies. According to Dr. Edward Zoratti, he says it’s either an internal bacteria, genetic, or environment. 

Moreover, by analyzing the reasons scientists found that it’s all about our immune system. It’s not strong enough to handle any effect from the environment and other kinds of bacteria. For example, researchers done in Europe found that children who are raised in the farms are less likely to have allergies. In addition, having animals and a lot of microbes around the child, will strength the immune system, and the body will have the ability to fight back. Whereas nowadays our children are living in a clean environment with less outdoor exercises, so all these help to weaken their immune system. Also, the kinds of food are changing to be less healthy and the lack of vitamin D all these are factors to increase the chances to have allergies.    

The Ethical Robot

  by Tony

Video:The ethical robot
Artical:The ethical dilemmas of robotics

.

         Human like to challenge themselves, to exploit the technology that could bring more conveniences for our life. As we have improved on our Techniques, one of the achievement we have is robot. At first, robots are the replacement of human workforce; for example, the robot in the car industry which can built cars, and only couple of the programmers could control the whole industrial process. In the present, there are many science fiction story and movies that have the theme about intelligent robot, yet this is not only appeared in science fiction movies or books. Scientists can put the ethical principles into the robot, and some of the scientists begin to consider the ethical dilemmas that human have design for the robot.

Nao(Robot)

         A video from University of Connecticut described how the researchers want to the machine robot to treat us. Researchers are trying to computerize the ethics into robot. Scientists have built a technique called machine learning which can solve the different cases of ethical dilemma, and the answers of these cases were given by the ethicist . And then, they put this program into a robot called Nao, the experiment was use medical reminder system that they have built with "machine learning". When Nao reminded the researcher to take medicine, the researcher resisted the suggestion. Nao didn't force him to take the medicine, and said it reminded the researcher later. However, there is a simple ethical ramification in this experiment. Scientists believe if people are often not good at being ethical, and they could program a robot behave ethically; thus, robot can teach people behave better.

         The article from BBC News has discussed the ethical robots in the future. what would happen if robots have the intelligence as humans. Would they injure someone, or they have the abilities to resist human being. Currently, there is an expert in South Korea said that they were writing a moral code for the robot to prevent human to use robots for crime and illegal activities. Some of the scientist disagree with developing the intelligence of robot, they are afraid that the robots will become very sensitive to human behaviors. Even the famous "three laws of robotics" which was developed by Isaac Asimov couldn't solve the problem, like the movie "I, Robot". In my opinion, I think we should discover the potential from smart robot, because the great benefits in science always come up with big risk. We need to seek to know whether the benefits are worth for the risk or not.

       

5 years old boy killed his sister

by: Takeshi

Original Sources
1)  Boy, 5, kills sister with his gun
2) Should adults have the right to carry a concealed handgun?


      Children can get their guns before they go to school in southern Kentucky. Stephanie Sparks did not pay enough attention as her 5 years old son played with the gun. During she go outside briefly a horrific accident happened. The boy, Kristian, killed his 2 years old sister, Caroline, with a shot to the chest of her on the last Tuesday. The rifle of Kristian was in a corner of the house, and the family did not know that  a bullet had been left in it.


A rifle similar to the one the 5-year-old used.



      In the US, 48 states of the 50 allow people to carry of concealed guns. In my country, we usually cannot have a gun except people who have special permission like police. When I came the US, I asked my host father. "Do you have own gun?" He said yes. I heard from him that most American people have own guns for self-defense because there are many barbaric crimes. Apparently it may be a good action for a defense   against someone who attacks you. Even so, however, it is not good that every people can own their guns, including just 5-year-old boy. We need to remember that firearms can save your life but also kill yourself.

 

 

 

 
Map showing the concealed weapon laws of each state.

 

 

 

      I want to show another point. I think that people would get be used to guns too much if they start to have guns in childhood. Inevitably people should feel fear about using firearms. A gun can kill someone. A rifle can destroy someone’s life. A firearm can make sorrowful incidence. People who can use guns should never forget these facts. It is not until forgetting the facts that a pitiful incidence can happen. As you know, gun control is a controversial problem in the US. I hope that this mournful incidence gets to be an important opportunity to think about the control.

Sweatshop helps developing countries!

by Tomoe Kusubae

I’m convinced by the article which is In Defense of “sweatshop”.  I went to Bangladesh and talked with the CEO of the national daily goods company.  The CEO said that they need foreign companies to develop the country’s economy.  That’s because Bangladesh doesn’t have know-how to do business and make world level goods.  If the citizens learn know-how and get skills from other countries, they can develop their country.   However, it is difficult to learn in the country because they don’t have education systems.  The sweatshop has training system which works all over the world.  In addition, sometimes the labors don’t trust him because he is also from Bangladesh.  Even though foreign companies tell the same advice, the labors trust not the CEO but foreigner.  The sweatshop has a power as foreigner in the developing country.
   

As the author says, “Because sweatshops are better than the alternatives, any reforms aimed at improving the lives of workers in sweatshops must not jeopardize the jobs that they already have(Porwell, 1).”  The sweatshop has enough facility and environment.  Those conditions are worse than developed countries but they are enough in developing countries. 

     
The sweatshop also gives the benefit for local people except the wage or condition.  My developing countries friends said to me that they wanted to work at the sweatshop because they can get the state of working at foreign big companies.  Some those countries still have hierarchy so they want to be higher state and getting jobs is changeable by themselves while they can’t change the social state of family and gender.  The sweatshop gives those of them higher station in life.  Local people get confidence and can work. 
  
  In short, the sweatshop has world level know-how to do business and works well to tell it to the developing countries labors.  It also gives those countries good working condition and the states of working at foreign companies.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Powellsweatshops.html