A [?Wrong?] Opinion: Surface Pacific water pH trend at Station ALOHA, Hawaii Ocean Time Series

Below is a set of figures that Mr. S compiled from the Hawaii Ocean Time Series data portal . After looking at his plots Mr. S concluded ……..(see below).

A seasonal plot of oxygen saturation clearly showing a seasonal trend but never rising above atmospheric levels (100%)

A seasonal plot of pH showing the cycle of pH over a year.

A seasonal plot of temperature showing temperature increasing in the summer months and decreasing in the winter months

A plot of temperature and pH (insitu and corrected to 25 deg C) showing the “clear” correlation with temperature.

A plot of pH between 1988 and 2008 showing the decrease of pH in the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Mr S. “It is clear to me,from the above data, that temperature obviously controls pH in the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean. pH is going down as atmospheric temperatures are increasing (see wolfram alpha “weather honolulu”). The idea that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are impacting our largest environment are unfounded.”

Your assignment: Create a presentation using the data that you have been given to argue for or against Mr. S’s conclusion.

Presentations:

Science has always been a piece of who I am

I always knew I would be a scientist. In the 5th grade I remember having to do a book report on how birds fly. It wasn’t good enough for me to report that birds flap their wings and “somehow” they fly through the air. What were the use of feathers? Why were wings shaped….like wings. The problem frustrated me so much that it push me over the edge to tears. Luckily, my father knew something about flying and was able to explain to me how the shape of a wing creates high and low pressure that lifts the bird or plane off the ground. A wing on an airplane is shaped like a wing on a bird. Wow. Needless to say, I gave the most technical book report the next day. I believe my teacher did not understand, but I was satisfied.

A wonderful day that I cannot remember

Its actually December 2 and I am trying to remember what Nov 11 was like. The sad thing is that I cannot remember any aspect of that day. I don’t know if it was sunny or rainy or windy. I can’t remember what day of the week it was. I sometimes wonder if I lived a slower more peaceful life, would I live fuller more memorable days??

Aspirations and Goals: Technology Class 2009

I’ve started this blog to use as an example for my students to follow. I hope that they can become respectable  and safe internet users while learning more about social networking then facebook. Everyone has something to say and I hope that they will look back on this in their senior year and understand how much they have grown. I also want to get parents and teachers involved so that they can become active participants in our new learning environment. A “classroom without walls,” let’s join a journey and see where it goes.

Life is Unique

Life is made from very few building blocks, mainly because we are all related on Earth and come from the same common origin. Over the years, ancestors pass the same building blocks down from generation to generation. Life is what distinguishes organic matter from inorganic matter – in my opinion, a human being from a rock. Life separates things that can think for themselves, reproduce, and change from inorganic matter. In my opinion, I do not think life is special. In the Oxford English Dictionary, special is defined as “better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual,” but my question is – who defines what is “usual”?

My definition of usual is different from what Johnny thinks is usual. Everyone has his or her own opinions. I think that life is more unique than “special”. Unique is defined as, “being the one and only of its kind.” No one in the world is the exact same as anyone else. Everyone has their own look, personality, point of view, bias, and individual characteristics that distinguish them from another person. The word “special” may insinuate that the human race is different, but what is it different from? How does it differ? There is no other “living” thing to compare the human civilization to. In my opinion, everyone has certain characteristics that identify him or her from another person, these characteristics might be similar to those of another person, but are not exact. Everyone has different views and opinions which makes up the person you are, from the outside appearance to the internal process of thought – everyone is different and unique in their own way.

What is the Definition of Life

There is only four main building blocks for life. These building blocks are lipids, amino acid, proteins and nucleotides. Why so few parts to something so complicated? Maybe so that it can function smoothly and less dependant. Keeping it simple wit the fewest moving parts is sometimes the best way to go in engineering.

My definition of life is not having a soul or anything like that because plants do not have souls. In that case, life is defined by RNA and DNA. If it contains one of the two, it is alive. Is that life special? Yes, in some degree. Life is made up of these building blocks, but these building blocks are not life when separated. These building blocks have been found on meteorites, but no life has been found on meteorites. I think of it this way. A planet could be absolutely covered in these building blocks, but nothing is going to, or ever will, happen. Why? Because it’s like a bunch of legos spread out across the floor. Somebody has to put them together to make a yoda figurine. Telling me that everything just came together to make life is like telling me that if I sit in a room full of legos, they will eventually build themselves. And on top of that, not only build themselves, but make a complex biological machine that has intellect and can reproduce. Sure, this can happen with almost the same odds as me walking through a wall, but is it not just as if not less ridiculous to believe in a creator? No, that is a ridiculous idea that a being actually put those legos together. The only realistic idea is that they magically built themselves. I do not believe that.

Yes, believing in an eternal being that created everything with his voice is farfetched, but so is this theory of creation. In fact, I think creationism is easier to believe. No I do not believe humans were riding dinosaurs, but there are things about creationism that might not be accurate taking in account that a human wrote it (like the idea of the timeline in which God created things). To further my case, if you were walking down the road and you saw a golden, decorated clock. You would look at the clock and wonder who had created such a sophisticated machine. It would never cross your mind that it would build itself even though all of the elements that the watch consisted of are all right under your feet. The watch, of course without a doubt, must have a creator. On the other hand, if you were walking down the street and saw a rock, you would think nothing of it. The rock is also a sophisticated piece of grouped atoms and bonded molecules to create a hard substance, but it without a doubt does not have a creator; it built itself. Now when you look at another human, you see a super sophisticated energy absorbing, changing, reproducing, thinking, pumping, intellectual biological machine and say that that does not have a creator? It is much more sophisticated than the watch but still, it must have formed by itself. I do not understand this way of thinking when the beginnings of this world are just as dark, if not more, in science as it is in Christianity or any other religion or creation story. Science is of course a tool in understanding how things work and what is happening around us, but when it comes to creation and, we are equally lost, and we will always be. A watch, in its raw material before the watch maker puts it together is not special. Life, in its basic building blocks, is not special. Only when it is intelligently put together does it become special.

Kickoff the 2009 to 2010 Honors Biology School Year

The 2009 to 2010 school year is just about ready to begin and the Honor Biology students are getting their first taste of the course expectations by participating in the class Ning. We’ve been discussing successfully (and unsuccessfully) how math relates to science(or visa versa), oxygen and pH dynamics in the Rappahannock River and the application of Henry’s Law to Ocean Acidification. Hopefully, soon, you’ll be introduced to the new scholars and hear from them.

Self Awareness makes humans subjective to instincts or not?

Humans have  evolved with a brain large enough to become self aware and we think of ourselves as civilized because we choose not to resort to our normal human instincts. I believe that we are just as savage as the animals around us just in different ways. We do not fight for food, but for money. Anyone will do anything to have or receive money. Is this any different from the animals around us or our ancestors? The world that humans strive to succeedin is a terrible place with corruption and people stomping over anyone to gain power just as animals fight for territory, food, and power. How interesting that humans and these so called “savage beasts” fight for the same thing ht for. Are humans so different from our savage counter parts? Not as much as we think we are. Everything will always fight for power. No matter how “civilized” we think we are.

What really characterizes life?

There are 6 key elements to living things.
(1) cells, (2) organization, (3) energy use, (4) homeostasis, (5) growth, and (6) reproduction. Each of these key themes can be found throughout our life here on earth. Everything we see, smell, touch and taste have cells. As a human, I have thousands and millions of cells working throughout my body, helping me to get through each day and survive all the cuts, bruises and bumps I have. Our life on earth is also organized. We have categories within which we all fall and live under. Organization patterns are found all throughout the globe. Every organism on earth uses energy to create the food it needs to continue living. Whether the energy is created through processes within the organism or it is taken in for use, energy is essential. A stable environment is needed for life, thus each organism has some form of homeostasis. Additionally, every organism on earth grows and reproduces to continue life on earth.

Each of these characteristics are essential to life on our planet, Earth. Although these are the major characteristics of life on our planet, what is the definition of life, if it exists, on other planets? If life exists, and it differs from the characteristics that we look at to determine life, how will we know that it does truly exist? I think that we need to expand our horizons and get rid of the mind-set that we have to open the door for the existence of life in places other than just on the planet Earth.

Spontaneous Arrival or Arrival from Space?

Scientist debate all the time about where the first organisms came from during the Precambrian Era. The two most discussed arguments are that life came about spontaneously or that life arrived from somewhere in space. Scientist have studied each hypothesis and concluded that each hypothesis is possible but it is impossible to test either hypothesis because the environment on Earth was much different billions of years ago then it is now and allowed for spontaneous generation. Also scientist do not know where in the universe life would have come from if that hypothesis is correct. Both of these arguments are widely accepted and put against each other, so which hypothesis is correct? Can we even determine which is correct? The spontaneous generation hypothesis presents that life spontaneously arose from nonliving molecules but this could only happen billions of years ago because the Earth was so different. Spontaneous generation would be impossible now because of the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. As for the hypothesis that life arrived from space, it is hard to accept because of the long  journey the life would have had to survive. Also not enough  is known about the universe to determine where this life could have come from and if it could have survived. So how can we determine which hypothesis is correct if we cannot prove them?