Learn About NASAs Pathfinder Mission to Mars

Learn About NASAs Pathfinder Mission to Mars Meet Mars Pathfinder The Mars Pathfinder was the second of NASAs low-cost planetary Discovery missions to be launched. It was an ambitious way to send a lander and a separate, remote-controlled rover to the surface of Mars and demonstrated a number of innovative, economical, and highly effective approaches to spacecraft and mission design of a planetary landing mission. One reason it was sent was to show the feasibility of low-cost landings at Mars and eventual robotic exploration.   Mars Pathfinder was launched on a Delta 7925 on December 4, 1996. The spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere on July 4, 1997 and took atmospheric measurements as it descended. The entry vehicles heat shield slowed the craft to 400 meters per second in about 160 seconds. A 12.5-meter parachute was deployed at this time, slowing the craft to about 70 meters per second. The heat shield was released 20 seconds after parachute deployment, and the bridle, a 20-meter-long braided Kevlar tether, deployed below the spacecraft. The lander separated from the back shell and slid down to the bottom of the bridle over about 25 seconds. At an altitude of about 1.6 kilometers, the radar altimeter acquired the ground, and about 10 seconds before landing four air bags inflated in about 0.3 seconds forming a 5.2-meter-wide diameter protective ball around the lander. Four seconds later at an altitude of 98 meters the three solid rockets, mounted in the backshell, fired to slow the descent, and the bridle was cut 21.5 meters above the ground. That released the airbag-encased lander, which dropped to the ground. It bounced about 12 meters into the air, bouncing at least another 15 times and rolling before coming to rest approximately 2.5 minutes after impact and about a kilometer from the initial impact site. After landing, the airbags deflated and were retracted. Pathfinder opened its three metallic triangular solar panels (petals) 87 minutes after landing. The lander first transmitted the engineering and atmospheric science data collected during entry and landing. The imaging system obtained views of the rover and immediate surroundings and a panoramic view of the landing area. Eventually, the landers ramps were deployed and the rover rolled onto the surface.   The Sojourner Rover The Pathfinders rover Sojourner was named  in honor of Sojourner Truth, a 19th-century abolitionist and champion of womens rights. It operated for 84 days, 12 times longer than its designed lifetime of seven days. It investigated rocks and soil in the area around the lander.   The bulk of the landers task was to support the rover by imaging rover operations and relaying data from the rover to Earth. The lander was also equipped with a meteorology station. Over 2.5 meters of solar cells on the lander petals, in combination with rechargeable batteries, powered the lander and its onboard computer. Three low-gain antennas extended from three corners of the box and a camera extended up from the center on a 0.8-meter high pop-up mast. Images were taken and experiments performed by the lander and rover until 27 September 1997 when communications were lost for unknown reasons. The landing site in the Ares Vallis region of Mars is at 19.33 N, 33.55 W. The lander has been named the Sagan Memorial Station, and it operated nearly three times its design lifetime of 30 days. Pathfinders Landing Spot The Ares Vallis region of Mars is a large flood plain near Chryse Planitia. This region is one of the largest outflow channels on Mars, the result of a huge flood (possibly an amount of water equivalent to the volume of all five Great Lakes) over a short period of time flowing into the martian northern lowlands. The Mars Pathfinder mission cost approximately $265 million including launch and operations. Development and construction of the lander cost $150 million and the rover about $25 million. Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Sensationalism Media Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Sensationalism Media - Research Paper Example â€Å"As we all know, the ethical heights journalists set for themselves are not always reached. But, all in all, like politics, it is an honorable profession practiced, for the most part, by people trying to do the right thing.† (Media / Political Bias) Most of the journalists report the news in accordance with their political bias. For example the recent Indo American nuclear agreement has been reported sensationally by most of the Medias in America and India. The American journalists who had soft corner towards the Republicans reported the agreement as a useful one for the American interest while others reported against it. In India also the left supported journalists severely criticized prime minister Man Mohan Singh and his United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for signing such an agreement with America. They have criticized that the agreement may control the authority of India to conduct further activities in the nuclear energy field. The general public in India and America were confused by the spreading of entirely different interpretations of the agreement. A layman doesn’t know much about the nuclear energy and the agreement and the journalist succeeded in creating confusion among the public. Such sensational journalism may not help the progress of a country and hence it should be controlled by proper means by the government. It is generally accepted that freedom of expression is a basic right. But misuse of even the basic rights must be prevented if it creates harm to the society. Spreading of religious belief is often considered as a basic right in many secular countries. But it should never interfere with other’s beliefs and forceful implementation of such beliefs cannot be accepted in a civilized society. Same way the basic right, freedom of expression should never affect a country’s progress in any circumstances. It should

Alfred Russel Wallace Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Alfred Russel Wallace - Research Paper Example However, only Wallace and other two of his nine siblings (Fanny and John) survived past early adulthood. The deteriorating financial condition of Wallace’s family interrupted his education. However, his home was a rich source of maps, books as well as gardening activities, which Wallace recalled later with pleasure. He notes in his autobiography that he devoted far more time to the games that he played as a child than to the lessons that he received at school, and he found this to be boring and painful. Nevertheless, Wallace was a realistically good student since in his last year of school; he assisted in teaching the younger pupils. This anomalous position of being both a teacher and a pupil was especially repugnant to the tall young man, and he suffered from recurring dreams of colossal torment at school for two decades (Wallace & Camerini, 4). As discussed earlier, Wallace grew up in an underprivileged background, what may be designated as rural middleclass in rural Wales a nd then in Hertford, England. This upbringing was very different from that of other Victorian scientific counterparts (Wallace & Camerini, 4). ... He also had the opportunity of travelling abroad, which gave him exposure and respect for ‘savages’ (persons from non-European cultures) and to the colonial exploitation systems that they were exposed to. Therefore, that his enduring identification with the underdog eventually resulted in his becoming a socialist is not astounding (Wallace & Berry, 1). Wallace explains in his autobiography that in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Britain’s economic base revolutioniz d from agriculture to manufacturing and the British Empire grew in power as well as in size. This was a period of new opportunities as well as mounting dissent. The traditional values of Britain’s agricultural society were based on the status and wealth of the family where one came from. Industrialization and expansion into colonial lands subverted the staid social structure, and there resulted a substantial wealth and power re-distribution out of the need for expertise as well as s cientific knowledge in the change to a manufacturing society. This wide context shaped the life of Wallace while he was young, a context charged with difficulties to traditional forms of authority, particularly the Church of England along with political power based on heritage. The fact that Wallace’s interests ranged so broadly makes it very hard to apply a single label to him. Depicting him as a natural scientist would do for the early part of his life, but so would travel writer and geographer; one would have to add spiritualist, intellectual and social critic for the second half of his life. Equally difficult to pin down is his status within the scientific community. To some historians, Wallace was a loner, an outsider or the ‘other’ man who discovered evolution. These terms however

Lab Report Banana Dna Essay Example for Free

Lab Report Banana Dna Essay DNA is organized into genes and stores genetic information. DNA molecules are long, slender molecules that carry the heritable information of organisms on to future generations. Because of their size, it is impossible to see a single DNA molecule with the naked eye. It would take about 300,000 DNA molecules side by side to make a bundle as thick as a human hair. When subjected to certain conditions, it is possible to collect â€Å"large† amounts of DNA to make it visible. As part of the chromosomes, the information contained in genes can be transmitted faithfully by parents through gametes to their offspring. For the gene’s DNA to subsequently influence an inherited trait, the stored genetic information in the DNA in most cases is first transferred to a closely related nuclei acid, RNA or ribonucleic acid. In eukaryotic organisms, RNA most ofther carries the genetic information out of the nucleus, where chromosomes reside into the cytoplasm of the cell. In the cytoplasm, the information in RNA is translated into proteins, which serve as the end products of most all genes. The process of transferring information from DNA to RNA is called transcription. The subsequent conversion of the genetic information contained in RNA into a protein is called translation. DNA molecule exists in cells as a long coiled structure often described as a double helix. Each strand of the helix consists of a linear polymer made up of genetic building blocks called nucleotides. There are four types of nucleotides which vary depending on the four nitrogenous bases of the molecule. The four nitrogenous are A(adenine), G(guanine), T(thymine) and C(cytosine). These comprise the genetic alphabet which in various combinations, will specify the components of proteins. It was established in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick that the two strands of their proposed double helis are exact complements of one another, such that the rings of the ladder always consists of either A=T, or G=C base pairs. This complementarity between adenine and cytosine nitrogenuos base pairs and between guanine and cytosine nitrogenuos base pase pairs, attracted to one another by hydrogen bonds, is critical to genetic function. Complementarity serves as the basis for both the replication of DNA and for the transcription of DNA into RNA. OBJECTIVES * To learn basic DNA extraction processes. * To properly and successfully extract DNA from banana using cell disruption and separation techniques. * To investigate the effect of temperature on DNA extraction from bananas. * To observe the extraction of genomic DNA from plant cells. * To understand how a buffer solutions disrupts the plasma membrane and releasing cellular components into the solution. MATERIALS AND APPARATUS PER CLASS * (60-70 oC) Water bath * 95% Ethanol * Extraction solution * Cheesecloth Ice chest containing ice PER GROUP * 40g Banana * 2 ziplock bags (Label ‘Extraction 1’ and ‘Extraction 2’) * 2 funnels * 2 test tubes * 50ml conical tube (2 pieces) * 500ml beaker (2 pieces) * Glass Rod (2 pieces) * Shampoo 4ml * Distilled water 40ml * Table Salt (NaOH) 0. 3g PROCEDURE (A) Extraction solution recipe: 4ml of shampoo was mixed with 36ml of distilled water. The solution was stirred well and slowly. The mixture was divided into two 50ml conical flasks (20ml each). The conical flasks was labelled S and SS. 0. g of salt was added into flask SS. The salt was dissolved by stirring slowly to avoid foaming. (B) Banana Extraction 1. A water bath was prepared. (60 oC) 2. 20g of banana was added into each ziplock bag labeled ‘Extraction 1’ and ‘Extraction 2’ 3. Extraction solution ‘S’ was added into ziplock ‘Extraction 1’ and extraxtion solution ‘SS’ into ziplock bad ‘Extraction 2’. The bag was closed with minimum content of air. 4. The bananas were mushed carefully to avoid the bag from breaking. The bananas were mashed for about 5 minutes. 5. The banana mixtures were cooled in the ice chest containing ice for 2 minutes. Then the bananas were mushed more. The banana mixtures were cooled, the mushed again. This process was repeated for 4 times. 6. The mixtures were filtered through cheesecloths. 7. Approximately 3ml of banana solution were dispenced into each test tube. 8. The test tubes were carefully handled to avoid shaking. Approximately 2ml of cold 95% ethanol was added into each test tube. 9. The test tubes were then observed. Result Photo 1: Test tubes containing solution S and SS CONCLUSION We manage to learn basic DNA extraction processes. We are able to properly and successfully extract DNA from banana using cell disruption and separation techniques. We succesfully investigated the effect of temperature on DNA extraction from bananas. We are able to observe the extraction of genomic DNA from plant cells. We understood how a buffer solutions disrupts the plasma membrane and releasing cellular components into the solution. REFERENCES: BOOKS: * Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reece, Lisa A. Urry, Michael L. Cain, Steven A. Wasserman, Peter V. Minorsky, Robert B. Jackson, Biology (8th Ed), Pearson International Edition: Pearson, Benjamin Cummings. * Peter J. Bowler (1989). The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society. Johns Hopkins University Press. * Pragya Khanna. Essentials of Genetics. I. K International Publising House. * Elof Carlson (The Unfit), Mendels Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics, Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Press, USA * Benjamin Cummings(2005), iGenetics: A Mendelian Approach, Pearson; University of Chicago, USA

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World Essay -- History, Mong

The Pax Mongolica, also known as the Mongol Peace and Pax Tatarica, was brought up at the end of the time of Mongols’ conquests. Western Scholars designated the fourteenth century as the Pax Mongolica. The Pax Mongolica contributed to the development of a new global culture because the Mongol Khans pursued peaceful trade and diplomacy (220). The bubonic plague epidemic of the 1300s led to the destruction of the Mongol Empire because of the deaths it caused; also, the plague had demoralized the living and deprived the Mongol Golden Family of its primary source of support by cutting off trade and tribute (247). The unsuccessful attack of Japan and Java is what caused Khubilai Khan to realize that the transport of food through ship is cheaper and more effective than by land route. The attack also educated the Mongols about shipbuilding. The Mongols used peaceful pursuits of trade when their military efforts were unsuccessful (223). The duration of conquering time for the Mongols had ended, and now it was time for the era of peace. Instead of sending mounted warriors and fearsome siege engines, the Mongols now had humble priests, scholars, and ambassadors (220). The Mongols promoted trade along the routes across the empire and diffused shelters with supplies every twenty or thirty miles (220,221). The stations had animals and guides to give the merchants guidance through tough terrain. In the system of shares, of all the goods confiscated in war, the members of the Golden Family, each orphan and widow was designated to a share of the wealth of each part of the empire. The Mongol officials rec eived goods instead of being paid money, and they could sell or trade the goods to the market for money and other merchandise. The Pax Mongolia... ...s misused their common material interest to overcome the political fault diving them, while giving up political unity they had conserved a combined cultural and commercial empire. The connection that the Mongol Empire relied on was the quick and constant motion of people, goods, and information around the empire. In conclusion the Pax Mongolica contributed to the new global culture by promotion trade, having many technological innovations, and by influencing the aspects of the economic life. The decline of the Pax Mongolica was due to religious intolerance, the bubonic and the bubonic plague. The decline of the Pax Mongolica also caused a decline of trade. The plague had a devastating impact on many forms of the Mongolian empire, the trade routes were shut down, and the fear of getting the plague caused civilizations to be completely segregated from each other.

My Favourite Quotation About Love Essay

â€Å"By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus. †Hearing these words, can you guess who she is? Yes, that is Mother Teresa and my fovourite quotation about love is just from her â€Å"not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. † Mother Teresa had devoted her whole life to minister to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying mainly in poor areas of India and other countries. From the photo we can see that Mother Teresa is a very thin and weak woman with a small face full of wrinkles like an old and dry trunk of the tree. However, it is she who received 1979 nobel peace prize but refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India. It is she who was named 18 times in the yearly Gallup’s most admired man and woman poll? as one of the ten women around the world that Americans admired most. How can a skinny woman like her managed to do those things? I have been thinking for a long time, the answer lies in the quotation â€Å"do small things with great love†. As we all know, not everyone was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so we have the ability to donate a large amount of money to charities; not everyone can reach the top position like president or chairman that can decide the life and death of millions of people; not everyone can be the hero that salve the world from disasters. We are just ordinary people with an ordinary life, usually timid not courageous, thoughtful but not determined, kind but afraid to show it, but it dose not mean we are not important, because everything matters if is done with great love even it is very small. The quotation of Mother Teresa tells us the very truth, that is, help and love the people around you , even the favor is so small but the great love behind it is priceless, and this love can grow and be passed to every corner of the world. I would like to tell you a story of Zhang Shuangbin,the writer of a book called the women in wartime, which is a research report of the sex slaves caught by the Japanese army during the second world war in ShanXi Province. Mr. Zhang is a teacher in a small primary school of countryside in ShanXi. In 1980s he accidently met an old women collecting earheads in filed and was deeply moved by her story. That woman is the first war victim from mainland China who accused Japanese army of sex violence during the wartime. What you do not know is that it took Mr.  Zhang 10 years to persuade the old woman to speak out the truth to the whole world, because those women are usually ashamed to talk about the life as a comfort woman . In order to look for those witness and victim alive, he went to hundreds of mountains and villages and surveyed thousands of women, and has written 100 thousands of reports, providing valid evidence for suing Japanese government. After reading his book, I am not only shocked by the nasty and brutal thing done to those poor women but also impressed by Mr.  Zhang’s determination and persistence. Then I finally contacted with Mr. Zhang through QQ, and he told me that there are many old women living in poor condition in rural area, because they have been raped by Japanese and nobody wanted to marry them. As a result, they have no offspring to take care of. Suddenly I came up with an idea that I should translate the book into English to let the people of the world know the truth and look for help globally, because â€Å"not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. If everyone helps those poor women a little bit, the drop of love will come together into river and then ocean. Love the people around you, help the people in need, do not underestimate your help because the love behind it is great. The story of Mr, Zhang is true. He and those war victims still need your help. Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. If you want to help, please contact me.

The Shailendra Kingdom of Java

In the 8th century CE, a Mahayana Buddhist kingdom sprang up on the central plain of Java, now in Indonesia.  Soon, glorious Buddhist monuments flowered across the Kedu Plain - and the most incredible of them all was the massive stupa of Borobudur.  But who were these great builders and believers?  Unfortunately, we do not have many primary historical sources about the Shailendra Kingdom of Java.  Here is what we know, or suspect, about this kingdom. Like their neighbors, the Srivijaya Kingdom of the island of Sumatra, the Shailendra Kingdom was a great ocean-going and trading empire.  Also known as a thalassocracy, this form of government made perfect sense for a people located at the linch-pin point of the great Indian Ocean maritime trade.  Java is midway between the silks, tea, and porcelains of China, to the east, and the spices, gold, and jewels of India, to the west.  In addition, of course, the Indonesian islands themselves were famous for their exotic spices, sought after all around the Indian Ocean basin and beyond. Archaeological evidence suggests, however, that the people of Shailendra did not rely entirely upon the sea for their living.  The rich, volcanic soil of Java also yielded bountiful harvests of rice, which could have been consumed by the farmers themselves or traded to passing merchant ships for a tidy profit.   Where did the Shailendra people come from?  In the past, historians and archaeologists have suggested various points of origin for them based on their artistic style, material culture, and languages.  Some said they came from Cambodia, others India, still others that they were one and the same with the Srivijaya of Sumatra.  It seems most likely, however, that they were native to Java, and were influenced by far-flung Asian cultures through the sea-borne trade.  The Shailendra seem to have emerged around the year 778 CE. It was around this same time that gamelan music became popular in Java and throughout Indonesia. Interestingly, at that time there was already another great kingdom in Central Java.  The Sanjaya dynasty was Hindu rather than Buddhist, but the two seem to have gotten along well for decades.  Both also had ties with the Champa Kingdom of the Southeast Asian mainland, the Chola Kingdom of southern India, and with Srivijaya, on the nearby island of Sumatra. The ruling family of Shailendra does seem to have intermarried with the rulers of Srivijaya, in fact.  For example, the Shailendra ruler Samaragrawira made a marriage alliance with the daughter of a Maharaja of Srivijaya, a woman called Dewi Tara.  This would have cemented trade and political ties with her father, the Maharaja Dharmasetu. For around 100 years, the two great trading kingdoms in Java seem to have peacefully coexisted.  However, by the year 852, the Sanjaya seem to have pushed the Sailendra out of Central Java.  Some inscriptions suggest that the Sanjaya ruler Rakai Pikatan (r. 838 - 850) overthrew the Shailendra king Balaputra, who fled to the Srivijaya court in Sumatra.  According to legend, Balaputra then took power in Srivijaya.  The last known inscription mentioning any member of the Shailendra dynasty is from the year 1025, when the great Chola emperor Rajendra Chola I launched a devastating invasion of Srivijaya, and took the last Shailendra king back to India as a hostage. It is terribly frustrating that we do not have more information about this fascinating kingdom and its people.  After all, the Shailendra were quite obviously literate - they left inscriptions in three different languages, Old Malay, Old Javanese, and Sanskrit.  However, these carved stone inscriptions are fairly fragmentary, and dont provide a very complete picture of even the kings of Shailendra, let alone the daily lives of ordinary people. Thankfully, though, they did leave us the magnificent Borobudur Temple as a lasting monument to their presence in Central Java.