Week 6: Vision and evolution of the Eye

This week's topics of discussion were by far the most intriguing to me.  We touched on the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the evolutionary aspects in the birds of paradise. This brought me back to the good memories of biology class in junior year of high school. Before I got into my thoughts about the birds of paradise in New Guinea, watch the videos below to have a better understanding of what I will be talking about.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7QZnwKqopo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTR21os8gTA

As you can see, these birds have exotic practices to find a mate.  The males have all these extra
features on their body that seem to have no other function other than to attract a mate. Now the question is why would female birds find these exotic feature advantageous to reproduce with, such as the yellow poof or the long antenna like things in the picture below.


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7QZnwKqopo


http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/birds-of-paradise/laman-photography

The reason why it is so puzzling to scientists around the world is because of the natural selection process and evolution. The driving force of the way life came to be as it is today is natural selection and other factors of evolution.   Charles Darwin's idea of natural selection is the gradual process of having the  advantageous traits in a population be passed on and the disadvantageous traits become less common.  This happens through survival of the fittest, organisms with traits that help them survive and evade predators or disease will live to reproduce another generation. On the flip side, organisms within a species who have traits that are a disadvantage are usually more vulnerable to death and not being able to reproduce.

With that in mind, think back to the videos and the way that one bird cleared out a whole space on the ground to perform in mating dance.  In addition look at the pictures and notice that these birds are brightly colored and have these extra features that can get in the way of make them less agile. Now take in account their habitat, they live in tropical rain forests where the best protection from predators is to camouflage in the dense forest and these birds to the exact opposite. Their common predators include humans, snakes, and larger birds.  It puzzled me how these seemingly disadvantageous traits kept getting passed on until I found out that one possible explanation is that the females look for a lot of baggage and bright colors because if these birds can survive with the disadvantageous traits making them more susceptible to disease and predators then that means they must be quite resistant.

It is definitely an interesting way to look at it because it kind of goes against the traditional ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest.  It shows that even if a bird has advantageous traits that make it camouflaged from predators and survives to live a good life, the traits will ultimately not be passed down to another generation if it can't find a mate.  This demonstrates the impact and importance of the female birds preferences in finding a mate.

http://a-z-animals.com/animals/birds-of-paradise/
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25

Week 5: Satellites

This week in class we learned about artificial satellites and their orbits. Most people know the basic idea that the artificial satellites revolve around the earth to provide us with things like Google Earth/Maps, GPS, and weather forecasts.  That is all the information I knew about satellites until this past week too. After reading some articles about satellites and their orbits I became very interested in the mechanics and uses of satellites because I realized how relevant and important they are to our daily lives here on Earth.  Therefore I researched three different satellites that have been launched since 2005; SMAP, MUOS 3, and the CZ-4B.

SMAP - Soil Moisture Active Passive, built by Jet Propulsion Labratory was launched by NASA with a Delta 2 rocket on January 31st, 2015.  This satellite has a 176 x 701 km x 98.1 deg parking orbit. Its orbit is near polar, sun synchronous, and travels from pole to pole in 98.5 min.  It has many purposes but the primary purpose is to measure the top 5cm of the earth's soil moisture and freeze/thaw states.  In addition, it will advance the accuracy behind short term weather forecasts, measure net carbon flux in boreal landscapes, drought monitoring, flood forecasting. The data collected from this satellite can address the problems in many other fields of study as well.
I am interested in hearing what the analysis on the threat of global warming comes back to be after the data has been collected.

Below are some pictures and videos related to SMAP.



Below is a link to see the SMAP spacecraft seperation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLY-w5wgPvw

MUOS 3 - Mobile User Objective System 3 was successfully launched January 20th, 2015 by United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket. This satellite's primary purpose is to improve ground communications of U.S forces around the world. This will allow better communication capability including simultaneous voice, video, and data using 3G technology.  I think this is much needed because communication is essential for military safety and the availability of communication in the middle-east and in foreign waters where most of our military forces are sent is very poor.

Below is a picture of the MUOS 3 launch.



YaoGan-5 a remote sensing satellite was launched by China via the Chang Zheng-4B in December 2008. From the information available, it is said that this satellite will be used for scientific research, land resources surveying, crop yield estimate and disaster prevention and relief. However, since little information has been released about this satellite and the fact that is a remote sensing and disaster relief satellite causes for skepticism about it's possible uses for military purposes.

Below is the picture of YaoGan-5 CZ-4B launch.



http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2008/12/china-orbits-yaogan-5-via-chang-zheng-4b/
http://www.ulalaunch.com/ula-successfully-launches-navys-muos3.aspx?title=United+Launch+Alliance+Successfully+Launches+the+U.S.+Navy%E2%80%99s+Mobile+User+Objective+System-3
https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/events/2015/january/launch-atlas5-muos3.aspx
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/87781
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4471

Week 4: Cuban Missile Crisis

2/6/15

This week in class we read up on numerous articles involving the uses of aerial photography for military purposes.  Last week we left off at the uses of balloons and airships in the civil war and then about 50 years later WWI arrives and need for aerial photographs increases dramatically.  Especially towards the end of the war, 10440 photos were being examined by Allied interpreters in just a week. In total 6 million prints were produced on the Western Front during the war. Both sides saw the advantage of having access to what the enemy's latest movements were, and what their bases looked like.  Therefore, with this knowledge the officers in command could strategize accordingly before taking action.  On the other side, the countries with under developed imaging techniques were practically marching blindly into battle. The time period in history that interests me the most where aerial imaging was crucial is the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Tension began to escalate in the late 1950s and early 1960s between Russia and the United States primarily over Cuba and Communism.  Due to the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. used to have the final say over some of the relations and policies of Latin American nations.  However, Fidel Castro begins his way to fame during the Cuban revolution in the 1950s. In 1959 Castro successfully overthrows Batista and establishes a new government with himself as Prime Minister.  In 1960, Castro meets with Soviet leaders and signs the Soviet-Cuban trade agreement. Cuba's new relation with the Soviet Union did not sit well with the U.S.  Over the year the U.S. trains and supplies Cuban exiles so try and take Castro out of power. These attempts end in multiples failures and Castro envelopes himself and Cuba in the Safety net of the Soviets (Roberts).

October 14th, 1962 becomes one of the big moments in history for aerial imaging.  On that day a U-2 surveillance plane flew over Cuba and some of the photographs captures nuclear-capable missile installations (Roberts).  I thought this was pretty interesting so I found some of the aerial photos of Cuba's missile installation bases and I pasted some of the clearer and focused pictures below. The thing I have trouble comprehending is how the interpreters were able to accurately justify that the pictures showed nuclear-capable missile installations. Without labels on the images I would have no idea what was featured in the photographs.  It must have been even more difficult for the interpreters because not only were the photographs in black and white but they probably haven't had any previous knowledge of what nuclear missiles looked like in photographs because they were new to this time period.  These interpreters were extremely skilled so see from a different dimension and valuable to have in the intelligence sector of the military.






http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=94

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/09.24.12.%20kokoshin%20cmc%20paper%20FINAL%20COMBINED.pdf

Roberts, Priscilla Mary. Cuban Missile Crisis: The Essential Reference Guide. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2012. Print.

Week 3: Military Ballooons

1/30/15:

This week in my first year seminar class we researched and discussed the use of balloons for aerial imaging, especially its role in the military. Before this week, if anyone asked me if balloons were used in the civil war or world war one I would probably answer "no way." It is truly amazing to read how braze some of these individuals were that volunteered to go up in the balloon first or to test out parachuting from the balloon. Even after almost a century of innovations and safety guidelines applied to parachuting I am still not sure I would feel comfortable skydiving.

I am just shocked that anyone would come within a radius of the balloons they used back then because it is easily comparable to a floating bomb.  These balloons were filled up with hydrogen gas and if you are not familiar with hydrogen gas, it is very explosive.  Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe was the mastermind behind ballooning in the civil war and really made it possible to use them in battle.  He created the portable gas generator which then led to ground crews hauling from site to site. Lucky for the balloon crew, the guns of the civil war did not have the ability to reach the balloon when it was high above the battle field.  But it was not so much the same story for the balloon crews in World War I.  In WWI the enemy weaponry were powerful and accurate enough to reach the balloon at times and yet the balloons were still filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas. They made some renovations since the civil war such as a parachute for the trained balloon pilots but it was just as hazardous.  For example, there was an incident when the ground crew was anchoring the balloon down by rope and sandbags.  As one of the crew members was tying it down the static electricity from his hands rubbing the rope caused the whole balloon to ignite. This accident killed one and injured a few others. I know it is very important to gather the information and locations of enemy lines and bases but I don't think it was a smart move to use the military balloons they had for WWI.

The ideas and innovations made by Lowe and the other balloon engineers were new and impressive but the reliance on hydrogen gas was a big safety issue. If someone tried to make similar balloon today they would surely be arrested for a possible terrorist threat. Thankfully, today our hot air balloons rely on the principles of buoyancy and are not filled with just hydrogen gas.