2014年4月14日月曜日

week 14 homework; 3 reasons not to keep dolphins in a tank


Dolphins are has complex emotional cognition like human being. That qualifies animals are not just animals. We human being put a lot of value on emotions, which is considered to be how we are distinct as human being by majority. This article gives chance to us to think about the relationship between us and animals. 

week 14 homework; evening's discussion

mum was right--Definitely right. I feel better after a cuddle with someone very familiar.

One of my friend argues "No love, no gain". Right, we actually gain from love.

burning the magic bubble--when I was a kid, I was interested in magic. But the thing is that I couldn't do as well as those professionals. They are so skilled that they actually can control our cognition.

Babies may be more language-savvy-- Interesting article. It could be related to genetic information which clearly describes people are by nature different, not differ by education or family environment alone.


2014年4月7日月曜日

week 12 homework; check the following link


http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/cells/index.html

We are made of about 75 trillion cells.

They are so tiny but each of them are so distinct and they are like super little brothers.

Each of them respond to stimulation, stress, emotion, damage differently. It's just like we respond to certain events differently in real life.


week 12 homework; post thoughts on evening discussion

I felt banana equivalent dose is quite interesting idea.

It shows that our life is pretty much the life with radiation.

The only matter is that how big it is... 

week 13 homework; post thoughts on this week's discusssion

This week we talked about the relationship between us and our planet.

Quite a few of us think that we are consuming our planet too much with so fast pace.

Population is growing, so eventually we consume more.

But it is not realistic that all of our nation regulates "One Child Policy".

So our individual effort and the growth of green technology is necessary.

If each of us work a bit harder and technology is improved, we are likely to have solution to the relationship.


Week 13 homework; "the human species is living as if it had more than one planet to occupy"

I think that's partially true.

About 30 years ago, an Economist argues that 30 years later there would be no more resource for us because we are consuming so rapidly and population grows very fast.

Now, 30 years later, some people are still arguing that 30 years later there would be no more resource...

We are rapidly consuming our planet but at the same time technology is rapidly growing.

So it is hard to say there would be no more resource in the future.


2014年3月11日火曜日

Presentation script

Corn

Most produced cereal over the world
2nd rice 3rd wheat



Kernel—biomass ethanol, food (both human and animal), corn starch, biodegradable plastic, corn syrup


Core(corn cob)- xylitol


Leaf, Stem—fertilizer

Corn silk--
Chinese Name: Yu Mi Xu
English Name: Cornsilk

Clinical Usage and Indications

Promotes urination - hot lin, stone lin, edema.
Regulates the gallbladder - yin or yang jaundice.
Wasting and thirsting disorder.
Functional Groups (Click for Summary/Study Notes)

Herbs That Drain Dampness
Dosage and Preparation Notes

Dosage: 15-30g
Channels/Meridians Influenced

Gall Bladder
Liver
Urinary Bladder
Associated Temperature and Taste

Neutral (Ping)
Sweet (Gan)



How to make high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
3 kinds of enzyme reaction
1)      Starch is made of a lot of glucose. Add Alfa amylase (liquefying amylase, type of digestive enzyme can be obtained from microorganism ) and water into starch and at 95 C. degree, Starch will be decomposed.
(Starch molecule is too big, so at step 1 we want to make it into smaller particle by liquefaction, the process to convert something to liquid)
2)      After liquefaction , cool until 55 degree C,  add glucoamylaze which will separate each individual glucose apart from starch, now we have much smaller particle, glucose.
3)      At 60 degree C, add gluco-isomerase (type of enzyme, made from bacteria) which will convert glucose to fructose, fructose is better in quality of sweetness, which is more commercially preferred
Note that starch itself is not sweet because starch is long chain of bunch of glucose.  Our tongue  can feel sweetness if it is individual glucose, but in the form of glucose chain, we can’t.
Then after some sort of processing, corn syrup will made
Corn syrup is as sweet as or slightly sweeter than can sugar, depending on how they process after the third step
The lower the temperature, the sweeter corn syrup is. Soda is sweeter when it’s stored in refrigerator
It’s cheaper than cane sugar, about 70% price of cane sugar, so nowadays in order to reduce production cost almost every soda product use corn syrup (Coke, Pepsi)



How to make biomassethanol
Theoretically we can make bioethanol from anything with high carbohydrate
(sugar cane, corn, rice, etc)
The way to create bioethanol is basically same as they way to make alcohol
Dry grind method – newly developed factory in US
Starch ingredientàdry grindàsaccharificationàbiotic fermentation(organic decomposition by microorganism to produce certain kind of material)  10% ethanol àdistill, 95% ethanol àdyhedrate, 99.5% ethanol àethanol

Bio ethanol is a fuel
Same type of alcohol Found in alcohol beverage
Motor fuel
Additive for gasoline

Occupy 10% of car gasoline (cars nowadays can run on blends up to 10 %)