Archives for March 2011 | GreenCupboards Blog

The Rhetoric and Logic of Mars Colonization.

Mar 152011

Mars, Our New Home Away From Home?

A Second World?

The Environmental crisis? To which environment do you speak? Marsseemingly has it all figured out, why not move there? No pollution, no war, no hunger or natural disaster, Mars may become the Earth’s home away from home.

It could sustain us, and more importantly it is ours for the taking. Isn’t it?

Perhaps it is time for a new world order to rise. This new world order would not be on this world at all but on the red ball in the sky, the new world. Technological advancements will inevitably be able to make mars inhabitable for humans.
Human curiosity will inevitably lead to colonization efforts on Mars. In the case of Mars there are obvious idealistic pros and very real consequential cons. This decision and the very-real possibility of a neo astrological colonization era, this decision will come down to the rhetoric from your nations leaders, capitalist, and entrepreneurs alike. It will be the effectiveness of this rhetoric that will decided when this uprising will occur, for there is only one way off this planet; money, and lots of it. Mars colonization must be first marketed and sold to the pubic before any action can be made.
The one way ticket; do you buy it?
• Do you think that Earth environment should be repaired before a substantial investment is made on another planet?
• How should the first colonist, after the initial astronauts be decided?
• Should colonization efforts be made by private investments or government initiative?
• What are the most important things to implement on mars before it is inhabitable, given that basic commodities are given: food, water, shelter.
• Who, and how should Mars be claimed by governing forces, and should a new government be made to mock the one on earth?

Before the rhetoric hits, you should answer the questions for yourself, and there is no right or wrong answer.
Consider a logic based Pro and Con list for yourself, information can be found readily online and in many other formats that discuss a hypothetical colonization. Remember to separate logic from persuasive techniques; sometimes the difference is not easily noticeable.
Mars Colonization
Pro Con

Sources:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C003763/index.php?page=mars03

http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-colonize.html

Image:

http://embraceyournerd.blogspot.com/

Straw Bale Homes

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Mar 102011

An example of a straw bale house.

Everyone remembers the three little pigs:

The first little pig built his house out of straw because it was the easiest thing to do.

The second little pig built his house out of sticks. This was a little bit stronger than a straw house.

The third little pig built his house out of bricks (The Three Little Pigs)

Now the first little piggy’s house is coming back into style with a new eco-trend to make homes based on straw. The straw bales, not only provide structural integrity to the walls, but also functions as an all-natural insulation.

Straw comes from grain. Grain turned into hay is harvested food feed keeping the seeds in tact to be used for animal feed. (Thus why your friends may correct your “Hey” and tell you Hay is for horses).

Straw is a disposable material; it is often burned with the fields. Instead of adding to the black smoke, which often clouds farming communities for weeks during burn season, some innovative contractors are using the raw material to build homes with. Since it’s disposable, the cost of straw is low, and you could get a 480 square foot home for less that $10,000.

Here are a list of things I found on Solarhaven.org, they would be good to run through before you gather up any bales:

1 - are willing if not eager to live simply
2 – do most of the work yourself
3 – use recycled materials whenever possible (and do lots of scrounging)
4 – twist a few friend’s arms to help you once in awhile (free pizza works everytime)
5 – price shop around for the best deals on all materials, especially the expensive items like solar panels, composting toilet, and metal roofing – prices vary a great deal
6 – stick to the simple design features below – fancier roofs or a concrete foundation, for example, really add to the cost…
7 – can build your starter straw bale without having to permit it (more on this later)

Whilst researching straw bale construction I found that there was a large misconception in the bale construction community. Alex Morrison, a straw bale construction expert cleared up the confusion on his site (strawbale.com). You may read about houses being made out of hay bales, even those building the homes themselves may say this. So what is the difference between hay and straw? Straw is just the stalk of the grain, whereas hay contains the seed and grain. But they both look the same right? Right. So why shouldn’t you use hay for your house, because if you do you may find grass growing from your walls, and the seeds will attract critters.

A straw bale home easily traps heat and utilizes natural solar energy, supplementary heating costs are generally low, depending on climate.

Estimated budget of a straw bale home; according to Solarhaven.org:

Straw Bale House:

- Gravel for foundation – $100
- Polyethylene bags and barbed-wire for earth bags – $60
- 120 construction grade straw bales @ $4.50 each – $540
- Bamboo for external pinning – $50
- Galvanized R-profile metal sheeting for roof (new) – $800
- Screws with polypropolyne washers – $40
- Guttering materials for the rain water catchment system – $100
- 3″ thin-wall pipe and connectors – $40
- Some wood for window and door “bucks” which can not be scrounged – $100
- Material for external strapping – $100
- Two 6′ sliding-glass patio doors (used) – $150
- Eight single-pane windows (used) – $200
- Window caulking tubes – $75
- Used sink – $30
- Lime and high-clay content soil for adobe/line plaster – $300
- Washed sand – $100
- “How could I have forgotten that?” – $500
- Subtotal = $3450

Utilities:

- Composting toilet – $1200
- Two 100 watt PV panels – $900
- Three deep-cycle lead-acid batteries (refurbished) – $150
- 300 watt DC-AC sinewave inverter – $150
- Battery cables, connectors, wire, and 12 volt lights – $250
- Solar hot water unit – $700
- Wood-burning stove (used) – $150
- Pipe and roof sleeve – $50
- Subtotal = $3550

Total Expenses for House and Utilities: $7000
(under the conditions outlined at Solarhaven.org)

The straw bale home is ideal for the do-it-yourselfer, the person who wants to be one with the earth and reduce his/her imprint on it. Online there is a bunch of information that can take you step by step through the design/ construction process.

Sources:

http://www.strawbale.com/straw-bale-houses-not-hay-bale-homes

http://strawbale.sustainablesources.com/

http://www.solarhaven.org/NewStrawbale.htm

Images:

http://www.solarhaven.org/NewStrawbale.htm

http://www.rosesfoundation.org/lifting%20the%20lakota.html

The Zombies Are Here! And They’re a Fungus

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Mar 072011

You have heard correctly the zombie outbreak has begun. Yet before you board up your windows and load your shotgun, you can rest easy, as the virus has not yet spread to humans. For now, the zombie fungus is sticking to ants, ant is not brains there after but fungus, or rather, the fungus is after them.

The fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, takes control of the ants brain, the fungus drives the ant away from the rest of its’ colony. Taking it down into the lower parts of the forest canopy, the ant will then climb to the underside of a leaf and make its final bite. Jaw locked, gripping the underside of the leaf, the ant is paralyzed, and will soon be consumed.

When the ant is dead its’ innards are turned to sugar for the zombie fungus to eat. Similar to popular Hollywood depictions of the monsters moaning “Braiiins…” the ant is consumed whilst its muscles are left in tact to maintain the death grip on the leaf.

Soon after the ant dies the fungus will sprout from its’ head and limbs until there is almost no trace of it’s host left at all. There, the fungus will release spores to infect new idle ant victims. The fungus is what ant nightmares are made of, I mean what is more frightening than being consumed by a zombie that takes them over, controls them, kills them, then makes more of itself. It’s a frightening situation indeed, and would be all the more terrifying if this strain should transform into a human, or mammal bound virus and bring life to all those movies we have watched.

What is unusual is that scientist have not yet been able to pinpoint exactly what it is about this fungus that allows it to act as a zombie for ants.

But if the day comes when the zombie virus goes human, have you watched enough movies to prepare for it?

Sources:

http://www.livescience.com/5631-zombie-ants-controlled-fungus.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/zombie-creating-fungi-cordyceps_n_830558.html

http://news.discovery.com/animals/zombie-ants-fungus-amazon-110303.html

Images:

http://www.mcdowellcrook.com/blog/page/11/

http://www.livescience.com/5631-zombie-ants-controlled-fungus.html

No glory, for the Climate Satellite Glory

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Mar 042011

Glory Satellite Takeoff

A satellite that was supposed to monitor the sun’s effect on climate change and global warning, has for the second time in two years failed to launch. In 2009 the first climate satellite was supposed to make orbit and track the effect of different elements on the current climate. The protective covering of the satellite did not break off so it did not have the secondary thrust required for it to break through the atmosphere and into orbit. The same problem that happened in 2009, happened again in 2011.

Both satellite and rocket are now in the Pacific Ocean, probably not to far away from its predecessor. The satellite, Glory, did not retrieve any information whatsoever.

The rocket type, Taurus XL had been launched nine times before, six of those times successfully. The satellite failure has cost NASA roughly $54 million.

Some of the questions that were supposed to be answered by the satellite were, how much of man made carbon emissions are re-absorbed into the Earth and how much is trapped? And what is the extent of the threat of global warming.

The satellite Glory was supposed to set critics of NASA at ease. NASA has been criticized of spending too much time and money studying other planets and not enough effort into learning about our planet, Earth.

“We have a very weakened Earth observing system just at a time where we need every bit of data that we could possibly get,” says Elisabeth Holland a senior member of the National Center for Atmospheric research.

“The NASA team does the things that are important, not necessarily the things that are easy,” Said NASA Earth Science Director Mike Freilich going on to say The loss of Glory will mostly hurt projections and modeling of future climate change.

NASA is planning to re-launch the global warming satellite again in another two years in 2013. NASA officials say they should be able to fix the problems that have caused the last to attempts to go down by then, although, isn’t that what they said last time? The information the satellite would have given us is crucially important, NASA will stop at nothing until they determine they understand our currently climate situation to the best of their abilities, something they cannot say right now.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/24/nasa-satellite-taurus-xl-_n_169425.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_GLORY_SATELLITE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-04-07-48-04

How To Stay Alive, If You’re A Fish

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Mar 042011

A clear head, and eyes on the inside. The intimidating Barreleye

If you think it’s a frightening world above surface, its nothing compared to the world underwater. Every day is a fight for ones life. Predators usually have a size, speed, strength, or poisonous advantage. How do the prey even stand a chance? These minority species use various techniques that help protect themselves underwater from strength in numbers, camouflage, deception, or they too have a poisonous advantage. This article will go over various defense mechanisms used by prey and entrapment strategies uses by the predators.

The porcupine, or puffer fish have a unique talent. By inhaling water or air these fish can double or triple their size. Yet that is not all they have in stock to protect them from any creature who may want to call them brunch, the porcupine fish has needles that cover its skin that stick out when it is inflated; making him very hard to munch on.

Imagine having eyes, inside of your skull. However your skull is transparent and you can rotate your eyes from looking directly above your to directly ahead of you. If you can imagine this you would be able to understand how the Barreleye sees. This fish’s head is transparent, two green orbs make up the lenses of the this fishes eyes, capable of moving up and down inside of the skull it looks though itself to see. The reason for this adaption is that the Barreleye is a thief, he gets his meals by stealing food away from predators with tentacles. The poison that these tentacles have do not affect the Barreleye because all of his organs and eyes are inside of his body.

The Goliath Tigerfish’s name is not near frightening enough to describe this fish, weighing up to 154 pounds and stretching 5 feet in length. This carnivore is the fish that eats the piranha with teeth like an alligator this predator gives prey little chance to survive in combat.

That is why some sea creatures use another defense mechanism, camouflage. The CO sole (image), started its life swimming upright one eye on either side of its face, but over the course of its life it will become flat so that it may blend in with the ocean floor.

Still others in the ocean cannot see at all, like the jellyfish, blindly floating through the sea Jellyfish are found all over the world warding off predators with a sting, they keep to themselves. They catch their prey by eating anything that finds there way into the jellyfish’s poisonous tentacles. This blind predator better hope the Barreleye doesn’t come along to snatch its lunch away.

The Anchovies take a different approach to survival, not by self-reliance but by sticking in a group, or school Anchovies survive by swimming fast and close together so that a predator may not pick out an individual anchovy to attack and eat. This strategy also works on predators using sonar, the anchovies swimming close together in a school send a signal like that of one large body not hundreds of individuals.

The Ocean is a scary place; you need find a way to survive if you’re going to make it, as a fish.

http://www.jellyfishfacts.net/what-do-jellyfish-eat.html

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/36616/

http://seaotter.com/marine/research/pleuronichthys/coenosus/html/coenosus.jpg.html

Image: http://animal.discovery.com/fish/river-monsters/killer-fish-photos/goliath-tigerfish-photos-03.html]

http://www.flickr.com//photos/drsteve/418149552/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/photogalleries/fish-transparent-head-barreleye-picture/

Generate Power on a Walk around the Block

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Mar 022011

Power Generating Fabric Bristles

What happens when your walking to class and your ipod and cellphone dies? How will you get enough battery life to call your mom back? What if you could plug your ipod or cellphone directly into your jacket or jeans. With microscopic bristles rubbing against one another with every heartbeat, every step, and every handshake you could become a walking power generator.

Georgia Tech developed the technology. The bristles are coated with zinc oxide nanowires that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. A square meter of this fabric could give your ipod the battery it needs to finish that playlist or give your cell the boost to finish the call, roughly 80 kilowatts of power.

“The two fibers scrub together just like two bottle brushes with their bristles touching, and the piezoelectric-semiconductor process converts the mechanical motion into electrical energy,” Said Professor Zhong Lin Wang who is overseeing the development of this technology at Georgia Tech.

The material could also be used in tents, curtains, awnings, umbrellas or anything else that is subject to mechanical movement by way of body, wind, or other.

We may very soon be on the verge of developing energy wherever we go. I have covered numerous innovations such as sweet and simple as this one. Combined, all of these technologies could be used to create a truly sustainable utopia. Have hope for the future.

Sources:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/20278/

http://medgadget.com/archives/2008/02/electricity_generating_fabric.html

Who Knows Where Google Street View Goes?

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Mar 022011

Coming Soon to Google Street View

Now Google’s street view is not just on the streets. Google recently came out with new tricycles that are affixed with cameras to extend the range of their popular street view application.

Google street view is a site you can go to view a specific location at a vantage point that is eye heigh, so you can see what an area will look like before you even go there.

The new Google trikes are an addition to the motor pool of street view car’s Google has to capture the streets. The goal of the trike is to take street view off of the paved road and onto trails, footpaths, and through parks.

The trikes are not easy to operate, having a seven-foot pole mounted to the back of a trailer with a camera at the top adds to the 250 pounds. The rider must pull all of this weight through unpaved terrain. For this job Google has been hiring athletes to capture images off the beaten path using the trikes.

A quote on Google’s blog, from the mechanical engineer responsible for designing the Google street view trike:

“I first started thinking about this question around two years ago. My day job is working as a mechanical engineer on the Street View team, but I do a lot of mountain biking in my spare time. One day, while exploring some roads less traveled, I realized that I could combine these two pursuits and build a bicycle-based camera system for Street View. The result? The Street View trike.”

So prepare to soon be able to view your favorite trails, and parks as though you are there. From the comfort of your computer screen at home, possibly even looking at your own front door.