Ramanisblog

Tag: Lego

  • US Shuts Down What Happens

    US economy shuts down.
    US shuts down.

    I read a simple write-up on this from TIME.

    I am reproducing this with my comments.

    My comments.

    Nice write-up.

    Let’s see how this impacts the US so called non-essential services.

    Most of the things might probably be for the good like scientists  not scaring people of imagined diseases,

    State governments‘ relevance and their ability to exist independently of Washington will be high lighted

    Though some jobs will be lost ,the States may accommodate them.

    As things stand the Motto Private Industry sustains will be put to test.

    People say that this shut down will affect the World economy.

    Call the bluff.

    Like, what happens to firemen and policemen who get paid by the government? Will garbage men still come to pick up the stinky trash on your street? Will mommies and daddies who work for the government be in the mood to buy you new Legos? And what is a government shutdown anyway?

    A good way to think about the situation right now is this: the federal government runs on money like a car runs on gas. Lawmakers couldn’t agree on where to go or which route to take, so they ended up driving in circles and reading Dr. Seuss books to each other until they ran out of fuel. Some parts of the car will still operate without gas, but many won’t.

    If the government shuts down, the most important things will still get done. Soldiers and other members of the military who help protect America will still keep us safe. The Post Office will still deliver letters. Air traffic controllers will still help planes land safely at airports. And your old or disabled relatives who get things called “Social Security checks” will still have money for bingo.

    But many services will stop. The government won’t issue as many documents that allow foreign people to visit our country, poor people might not get food stamps to buy groceries, and governments scientists won’t be monitoring the spread of disease. Places that belong to the federal government, like national parks, will have to close during the shutdown. So that long car trip to Yosemite that your family was planning next weekend may be off.

    Many government workers, like public school teachers and firemen and police officers, are paid by local governments or state governments. If the federal government shuts down, it shouldn’t affect their jobs. You will still go to school (unless you’re part of a program like Head Start that depends on grant money from Washington). The policemen in your town will still look for bad guys and firemen will still put out fires. But many federal government employees won’t be going to work.

    There are two types of mommies and daddies who work for the federal government and might be affected by the shutdown: non-essential and essential workers. Essential workers are like the ice cream in a ice cream sundae; non-essential workers are like the toppings — great to have but not the most important ingredients. The toppings people will be told to stay home from work and may be grumpy because it’s unclear whether they will get paid; many may act like your uncle when he’s had too much “silly juice.” The ice cream people, like the President and members ofCongress, will still go to work.

    The government has shut down many times before, so don’t worry too much. One time in the year 1995, the federal government was closed for 21 days. Eventually lawmakers should come to a compromise that gets the car back on the road.

    http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/29/explaining-the-shutdown-to-your-kids/

     

    Related Articles

  • Why Galactic Cosmic Radiation Not Hit Astronauts?

    We know thee is radiation and some thing called Galactic Cosmic radiation.

    We are also told that it would endanger our health and might induce cancer .

    We have been ending Astronauts into Space and there seems to be no effects of this radiation.

    On the one hand Space science claims that thought there may be Radiation that might affect people in Space, but they are protected by the Earth’s Atmosphere.

    If the Earth’s atmosphere can protect some one in Space , why can’t it in Earth?

    And Astronauts are exposed to Space with out this protective () layer of Earth’ Atmosphere on ISS and they also carry out jobs in Space outside the ISS.

    Yet some how, there seems to be no effects of radiation on the Astronauts.

    Read the following interesting story on Boing Boing.

    I was also curious on the effect of Space Travel on human body.

    I have provided a link at the end of this post.

    Very interesting, yet it left me totally confused as to what the answer to my question is!

    Galactic Radiation
    Galactic Radiation

    “Galactic cosmic radiation — also called galactic cosmic rays — is the kind of radiation that researchers are most worried about. It’s made up particles, bits and pieces of atoms that were probably flung off from the aftermath of supernovas. The majority of this radiation, roughly 90%, is made up protons ripped from atoms of hydrogen. These particles travel around the galaxy at almost the speed of light.

    And then they hit the Earth. This planet has a couple of defense mechanisms that protect us here on the ground from the impact of galactic cosmic radiation. First, Earth’s magnetic field both pushes away some of the particles and blocks others completely. Then, the particles that make it through that barrier start to encounter the atoms that make up our atmosphere.

    If you drop a big tower made of Legos down the stairs it will break apart, losing more pieces every time it hits a new step. That’s a lot like what happens to galactic cosmic radiation in our atmosphere. The particles collide with atoms and break apart, forming new particles. Those new particles hit something else and also break apart. At each step, the particles lose energy. They get a little slower, a little weaker. By the time they “come to a stop” at the ground, they aren’t the galactic powerhouses they once were. It’s still radiation. But it’s much less dangerous radiation. Just like it would hurt a lot less to be hit with one Lego block, than with a whole tower of them.

    All of the astronauts we’ve sent into space so far have, at least partially, benefited from Earth’s protective barriers, Francis Cucinotta told me. He’s the director of the NASA Space Radiobiology Program, the go-to guy for finding out how radiation hurts astronauts. He says, with the exception of Apollo flights to the Moon, the human presence in space has happened within the Earth’s magnetic field. The International Space Station, for instance, is above the atmosphere, but still well inside the first line of defense. Our astronauts aren’t exposed to the full force of galactic cosmic radiation.

    They’re also exposed to it for a relatively limited amount of time. The longest spaceflight ever lasted a little over a year. And that matters, because the damage from radiation is cumulative. You simply can’t rack up as much risk on a six month jaunt to the ISS as you could, theoretically, on a multi-year excursion to Mars.

    But what’s interesting, and concerning, is that even with those protections we do see signs of radiation damage to astronauts, Cucinotta told me.

    The big thing is cataracts — changes in the lens of the eye that make it more opaque. With less light able to get into their eyes, people with cataracts lose some of their ability to see. In 2001,

    http://boingboing.net/2013/01/04/how-space-radiation-hurts-astr.html

    What Happens to Body in Space?

    Human beings living on Earth are effected by gravity because about two-thirds of our daily activities are standing or sitting. Great amounts of body fluids such as blood pool in the lower part of the body. The human body is equipped with various mechanisms to oppose gravity to maintain sufficient blood flow to the brain.
    In microgravity environment, the quantity and the distribution of body fluid alter, being free of the gravitational effect. This is the concept of “fluid shift.”

    http://iss.jaxa.jp/med/index_e.html