Energy and Place
Essential Questions:
1. How does energy production impact place?
2. How do your sense of place, your environmental ethic, and your understanding of our energy needs influence your perception of human's use of Earth's resources and your own lifestyle decisions?
1. How does energy production impact place?
2. How do your sense of place, your environmental ethic, and your understanding of our energy needs influence your perception of human's use of Earth's resources and your own lifestyle decisions?
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Click here to view my infographic!Project Reflection Through this project, my knowledge of energy production broadened as I discovered differences between nuclear, renewable, oil, and natural gas energies. While I was aware of the obvious differences between the energy sources, I wasn’t aware of the amount of energy we are using and how efficient the energy sources really are. I figured that solar and wind energies were the best among it’s competitors based off of my own biases, so when I found out that it’s not the more efficient way to produce energy it almost didn’t sit well with me. Nuclear energy rather than solar and wind with our current technologies seems to be the best of all of the options, so long as we are able to generate energy through nuclear fusion rather than fission. Learning this information shifted my own environmental ethic, causing me to realize not all can be fixed by utilizing our natural renewable resources. Innovation must be the next step in our energy production. Our population is increasing, and therefore our energy needs are increasing. Renewable energy sources are not the best way to approach this growing problem, I learned, so I now believe strongly in the potential of nuclear energy. That’s what caused me to investigate radioactivity for my capstone lab. I wanted to frame my research in a way that would allow me to see possible health issues surrounding nuclear energy, along with how common radioactivity really is in our households. This investigation helped me understand nuclear power and radioactivity in a greater context than the classroom walls, and that was incredibly valuable to me.
My infographic attempts to educate the audience about some facts about radioactivity, specifically in Durango. I calculated the average amount of radiation in the Durango area, along with investigated how much radioactivity there is in Colorado and Durango compared to the U.S.’s average amounts. After all of that research, I culminated it into a piece that would educate people on how common radioactivity is, especially in our region of Colorado. I dipped into speaking to the Uranium mining, which would increase the level of radiation we are exposed to as some houses are built near the area and using the tailing of the uranium pile. The purpose of it was simply to educate rather than speak to a particular bias of mine, such and speaking specifically to nuclear energy production. I finish off the infographic by giving the audience a bit of information regarding protection against radon and how to detect it as recommended by the EPA. I feel as though educating an audience about a subject opens up the door to their own research to develop their own biases. I also felt like localizing the subject would appeal to some NIMBYists, along with giving the locals a little bit more information about the location in which they live. Being able to appeal to an audience in a creative and educational way was very fun and allowed me to take a break from the strict lab-writing procedure of the lab I was writing simultaneously. |
Materials Project
Elevator Pitch
Cancer kills an estimated 564,800 people a year; it’s the second leading cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart disease. The current methods of cancer treatment are long, painful, and tedious. But, DNA nano cocoons are injected directly into the tumor and kill the cancerous cells. This works because DNA is woven into a cocoon that closely mimics the appearance of a yarn ball with the anti cancer drug doxorubicin inside. Doctors will inject the microscopic cocoons straight into the tumor to allow them to get inside of the cancerous cells and destroy them. This is a big step in figuring out more effective ways to fight cancer, and most importantly, a less painful and invasive way to fight cancer. Not only will these DNA nano cocoons help fight cancer, but in the future, there are hopes that they will be able to house more drugs inside of themselves and battle other complicated diseases. The research into this has already been completed, but we need the funding to get into preclinical and human trials. A more effective and less painful way to fight cancer is almost within reach, so please find it in yourself to donate to the research.
Project Reflection Chemistry’s influence is all around us; whether it’s the metal around a building that has been altered to become stronger and more durable, or it’s the composition of the superglue on your shelf. Chemistry, even before we knew how some of it worked, has always been around us, and is helping us make our present more pleasant and our future brighter. For example, biochemistry is currently working on a new way to administer anticancer drugs through the use of small biocompatible cocoons. Understanding the world and how it all works allows us to take certain aspects and manipulate them to benefit us in whatever way they can. I find it beautiful that we can take our knowledge and understanding of the world and create hundreds and hundreds of different things by taking out smaller components and shaping them into something else. Chemistry is the art of understanding the world and figuring out how to help the world through that knowledge, and I have high hopes for the future and where our understanding of chemistry will take us.
Understanding things on a very small level may seem difficult, but it really is a series of puzzle pieces. The different types of bonding are different shapes of puzzles, which allow them to connect to other kinds of puzzle pieces of a similar shape. If I were to look at sulfur, for example, I would see that there are covalent puzzle pieces that don’t connect to the other puzzle pieces that allow it to form into a cube-like shape. I find that it prefers to stick to other puzzle pieces that are nonmetals, and likes to attach to itself. These puzzle pieces will form in a non-crystalline structure, and once they get enough atoms to join together, they’ll look like more of a powder than little cubes or grains like you’d find in salt or sugar. Based on how they connect on an incredibly small level determines how they act and how they look; if they connect to other puzzle pieces that allow them to conduct a high amount of electricity, it’ll effect how they act on a macroscopic level. Every little piece in a material is important, and it all adds up to determine the appearance and the characteristics of a material. |
New DNA Nano Cocoons Open Up Doors in the Medicine World
Cancer has always been a looming danger over the heads of my friends and family, even more so for those who have had family members fighting or have fought cancer. Cancer may very well be one of the most prominent and threatening diseases in our modern age that we still haven’t found a cause or a cure for. There are 224,210 new cases of lung cancer in 2014, and an estimated 159,260 will die of the disease. Treatments of cancer are often long and painful for the patients and do not guarantee the removal of the cancerous cells in their body. However, a break through in biological science opens up the door to a brand new way of treating cancer and killing the contaminated cells; DNA nano cocoons.
Researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina have developed a DNA-based medication vehicle that is absorbed into the contaminated cancer cell. There is little to no chance your body will reject the DNA cocoon, with no variables based on your blood type or previous medical conditions. This is because your DNA is 99% identical to the President of the United State’s DNA, meaning that your body will accept the DNA based medication with no problem or need to take a DNA sample from your own body. The single strand DNA is wrapped up into a cocoon or “yarn ball” as Wujin Sun, the lead author in Ph.D student Zhen Gu’s lab, had said. The science behind the DNA nano yarn ball allows your body to accept the150 nanometer (that’s really, really small. So small it could move through a surgical mask) cocoons absorb into your cancer cells and terminate them. The cocoon has the strong anticancer drug doxorubicin woven into the DNA polymer strand, surrounded by DNase, which is an enzyme that breaks down the DNA structure. The DNase has been hidden beneath organic acid degradable polymer strands to make sure it will not destroy the cocoon before it can reach the cancer cell. The substance and the enzyme are hidden underneath polymer stands because DNA itself is a polymer, because of it glucose structure. In order to get the cocoon to attach itself to the cancerous cell and later be absorbed, it has folic acid ligands dotted along it’s surface. They attach to the cancer cell and trick the cell into absorbing it, because it acts like it’s another enzyme that will feed it. These nano cocoons mimic the appearance of an enzyme that the cancer cell recognizes as good. It’s the Trojan horse of modern medicine. This means that these nano cocoons will be available to patients without having to break the bank. The delivery method of the cocoons will also help the patients by being a simpler, less painful way to kill off the cancer. The drug is administered straight into the cancerous tumor without using a serum injected into the veins or radiation, which may make it a more effective and less violating treatment plan with no side effects currently recognized, as the project has not yet gone into preclinical testing. Not only can these nano cocoons administer anticancer drugs into a tumor, but in the future, these administering vehicles will be capable of carrying other forms of medication. Drug administration may no longer be a long, unpleasant experience once these nano cocoons are fully developed. They are currently going into preclinical testing, so sometime soon, you or someone you love may be able to experience a pain-free anticancer treatment. The cocoons are currently in Step 2 of the FDA’s Drug and Device approvals, and has three more steps to undergo; clinical research, an FDA review, and post-market safety monitoring to determine whether or not there are negative effects after the procedure is done. The world of medicine and biochemistry are looking up and beyond the standards of medicine we have been seeing our whole lives. “Keep moving forward” appears to be the motto of today’s society, and after seeing the advancements we’ve been making in things as complicated a cancer treatment, I can confidently say we are indeed moving forward. |
Stuff Matters
Everything around us is made up of smaller parts; a book used to be a tree, your spoons were pulled up from the ground and came from rock. Right now, I'm looking at my plastic binder that I keep a lot of my school work in. What is plastic made out of? What does plastic classify as? Plastic is made up of oils, which is a carbon-rich raw material. I would never think that the binders that I carry with me to school every day have come from the ground. Plastic can be bent into any shape using various types of monomers (short carbon-containing compounds) in different arrangements to make a variety of plastics all with different chemical properties. Plastic is classified as a polymer compound.
To make plastic and all of it's different forms, you have to have a team of scientists making sure that the process of mixing the monomers with the polymers is done correctly, then once they have produced the plastic in mass quantities, it's sent out to multiple factories where it's then sculpted into all of it's different forms. My pink binder is a result of an abundance of research to make it durable and light weight, which is an insane thought to think about. A lot of people never stop to think about where the objects they use every day come from and their use in their everyday life. My binder is important to me because it keeps all the looseleaf papers in order, it helps organize my school work, and it helps me keep track of all that I'm doing. When you realize what work has gone into the everyday objects that you use, it enables you to see the world through a whole new lens. I'm going to be far more appreciative of the plastic in my life now.
To make plastic and all of it's different forms, you have to have a team of scientists making sure that the process of mixing the monomers with the polymers is done correctly, then once they have produced the plastic in mass quantities, it's sent out to multiple factories where it's then sculpted into all of it's different forms. My pink binder is a result of an abundance of research to make it durable and light weight, which is an insane thought to think about. A lot of people never stop to think about where the objects they use every day come from and their use in their everyday life. My binder is important to me because it keeps all the looseleaf papers in order, it helps organize my school work, and it helps me keep track of all that I'm doing. When you realize what work has gone into the everyday objects that you use, it enables you to see the world through a whole new lens. I'm going to be far more appreciative of the plastic in my life now.