De Cumbres al mas Allá

El pasado miércoles 10 de abril tuvimos en nuestra prepa un evento llamado Spring Day en el que tuvimos eventos, ventas, competencias y visitas de invitados externos a la prepa.

Entre estos eventos, y el más importante para su sección de ciencias y tecnología fue ‘De Cumbres al Más Allá’. Este evento, organizado por el departamento de Ciencias Sociales, consistió en una competencia de objetos voladores en la que participaron alumnos de la prepa ya fuera en equipos o individualmente.


Para esta competencia los alumnos debían crear su propio objeto volador con su imaginación y conocimientos científicos para hacerlo volar a través de la cancha de futbol de nuestras instalaciones. Para participar, los alumnos realizaron una inscripción previa al evento e incluso contaron con la ayuda de algunos maestros que se prestaron para el evento.

Se contó con 2 categorías a calificar, creatividad y distancia. Como jueces tuvimos a los profesores Rodolfo Fernández y José Armando Valdez para calificar aerodinámica y la profesora María del Rocío Ferráez para todo lo referente a estética y creatividad. También contamos con la ayuda de la ingeniera Malui con su grupo de alumnos para medir distancias en la cancha.

El total de equipos participantes fue de 20, los cuales pertenecían a todos los semestres. Hubo de todo. Desde una catapulta, hasta un frizbee e incluso un arco y flecha. También se pudieron observar muchos lanzamisiles y otros que simplemente utilizaban la fuerza del brazo humano, ya sea porque así fueron diseñados o porque su diseño original no funcionó como se esperaba. No solo la física influyó estos proyectos puesto que varios de ellos se basaron en reacciones químicas para ser empujados y lanzados por los aires, tales como 3 basados en agua y otros varios con otros tipos de compuestos y mezclas.


Los rangos de distancia fueron desde los 3m hasta los 100m, siendo el objeto que logró esta última marca el gran ganador. El nombre del equipo ganador es Der Friegende Holländer (el holandés errante). Su objeto consistía en un tubo que fue previamente conectado a una botella de refresco que contenía hielo seco y agua y el cual creó una reacción química que lanzó una pelota de tenis a 100m de distancia. Este equipo ganó ambas categorías: creatividad y distancia.

Este evento fue todo un éxito y puso a prueba tanto a alumnos que cursan la materia de física como a estudiantes que llevan otras materias que llegan a no relacionarse en absoluto con esta anterior. Fue todo un desfile de creatividad, ingenio y muchas ganas de ser el gran ganador. Aprovecho la oportunidad para felicitar a todos los equipos participantes por su gran esfuerzo y para invitarlos a todos ustedes lectores a que se acerquen a eventos relacionados con las ciencias y comienzen a darse cuenta de lo que pueden llegar a lograr, tal como Gerardo Ruiz Gomez y Christian Recio Águila (ambos miembros del holandés errante).

Aprovechen oportunidades como esta.

¡Acérquense al mundo de las ciencias y las tecnologías!


Fuentes: Fotos de Prime Snap http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Prime-Snap/300818635894

Mariluz Ayala

Debut del Elemento 117 de la Tabla Periódica

Sí, físicos han reportado que lograron sintetizar el elemento número 117 de la tabla periódica, dando así un paso más en su intento de crear elementos ‘super pesados’ dentro de un laboratorio.

Un equipo del ‘Joint Institute for Nuclear Research’ en Dubna, Rusia, reporta haber chocado calico-48 (un isótopo con 20 protones y 28 neutrones) y berkelio-249 (que tiene 97 protones y 152 neutrones). Las colisiones resultan en 3 o 4 neutrones, que crean 2 distintos isótopos de un elemento con 117 protones.
Muchos de estos elementos, más pesados que los 92 protones del uranio, no existen naturalmente en la tierra por lo que tendrían que ser creados artificialmente en un laboratorio para su posterior estudio.

Este elemento fue creado en una investigación de la universidad rusa con colaboraciones de científicos estadounidenses, incluyendo a la Universidad de Vanderbilt y el Laboratorio Nacional de Oak Ridge en Tensesse, donde fue creado el berkelio. Este último forma parte también de la lista de raros elementos súper pesados creados por mano humana en laboratorios. Sólo 22 miligramos fueron obtenidos del nuevo elemento, los cuales decayeron casi al instante.

Los investigadores obtuvieron señales del nuevo elemento 117 en 2 pruebas de colisiones, las cuales duraron 70 días cada una. Afirman en sus reportes haber observado que el isótopo más pesado del elemento 117 decayó en 78 milisegundos, mientras que el más liviano decayó en 14 milisegundos.

El nuevo elemento queda entre los elementos 116 y 118 de la tabla periódica, los cuales ya han sido descubiertos y son creados también sintéticamente. Estos elementos súper pesados suelen ser radioactivos y decaen casi al instante. Aún así, muchos investigadores creen en la posibilidad de hacer que estos elementos lleguen a ser suficientemente estables como para pertenecer a la ‘isla de la estabilidad’.


Con este término anterior, siendo el cual inspira este tipo de estudios, se refiere a la teoría que los científicos tienen de que un cierto rango de elementos aún no creados pueden llegar a permanecer estables por más tiempo del que los científicos han logrado mantenerlos hasta ahora en los laboratorios.

Hofman, uno de los investigadores a cargo de este experimento, dice que el elemento tiene características muy peculiares. Tales como el hecho de que su isótopo con 177 neutrones decae en dubnio (número atómico 105) y el de 176 neutrones decae en roentgenio (número atómico 111). El estudio de este comportamiento ayudaría a los investigadores a entender mejor a los elementos súper pesados, los cuales siguen siendo un misterio en la actualidad.

Tentativamente se le conoce a este elemento como ununspetium. Aún se espera la confirmación de la existencia de este elemento para asignarle un nombre permanente, lo cual según los expertos tomará un buen tiempo. Para dar un ejemplo del tiempo que toman este tipo de procesos tenemos al elemento 112 de la tabla periódica que fue descubierto en 1996 y oficialmente nombrado en febrero de este mismo año.

Aún no se conoce ninguna explicación para el comportamiento de este tipo de elementos de vida corta, pero la síntesis de elementos súper pesados es vital para probar los modelos que explican la manera en que los neutrones y protones de estos se unen entre sí. Y estos modelos explican la porción relativa de elementos más comunes en el universo y predicen la existencia de otros átomos raros que pudieran existir naturalmente en la Tierra o en meteoritos.

Elemento 117…¿quién se lo iba a imaginar?

Mariluz Ayala

Spider Man Reboot in the Works

Every comic-superhero-movie fan has had high hopes for the Spider-man movies since the first was released in 2002 and with the sequel having both high reviews from critics and the audience as well. The third movie in this franchise, however, didn’t lead to the expectations of fans and critics, especially the way characters like the villain Venom were integrated into the story, the plot might not be considered the best, but the director for the franchise, Sam Raimi did a great job in the end.

In the beginning of this year Spider-man 4 had no release date ready, this was considered to be because of script problems. Sony Pictures’ scheduled date, May 5, 2011 was very unlikely to be the official release date. It was known that Sam Raimi was having huge problems with the original script the scriptwriters made. It was rumored that Raimi hated the script, which the producers of the franchise had already agreed on working with. There were also problems on deciding which villains should be in the movie, since it is said that Raimi wanted John Malkovich as the Vulture, but Sony wanted Anne Hathaway to play the character Black Cat, a love interest for Spider-man.

In the end, Mike Fleming and Nikki Finke confirmed that Sony decided to reboot the entire Spider-Man franchise after Raimi backed out of Spider-Man 4 because he felt he couldn't make its summer release date and he wanted to keep the film’s creative integrity at the same time. This means no more Spider-man 4 and instead they’ll make a whole new franchise with an entire new cast. This is similar to what happened when Batman rebooted with Batman Begins, and the successful Dark Knight. Tobey Maguire the lead actor of the franchise also decided to not continue with the franchise but is glad of his work in the franchise.

This brought many fans to rejoice and others became concerned, there has been speculation to which actor they will cast as the new Spider-man and if they will base the story when Spider-man was still in high school. Fans are also hoping this time the superhero, will return to the screen better than ever.

Recently filmmaker Marc Webb has signed on to direct the new film. He was the director of the movie, (500) Days of Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. There has also been speculation that Gordon-Levitt might take the role of Peter Parker. There is also a script made by screenwriter James Vanderbilt, who has previously worked on the film Zodiac. Filming is due later this year and the film has a tentative release date of 2012.

Estephy Larsen

Biomimicry: Sharkskin

Biomimicry refers to the discipline that studies nature’s designs, patterns, and processes, and then imitates them to solve human problems. An example of this is the new sharkskin-inspired material scientists have developed to stop bacterial breakouts.

Sharks have been known to have a skin that makes it impossible for parasites and bacteria to stick to it. The secret behind this is the pattern on the sharks’ skin. Recently, Sharklet Technologies, a biotech company in Florida, has been able to print this particular pattern unto an adhesive film.

A plastic sheet has been developed that could be ideal to use in places such as hospitals, schools, and other places with ill people and small children. A small test was carried out in a hospital over a period of three weeks. Results showed that the sheet prevented E. coli and Staphylococcus A from establishing colonies large enough to hurt humans.

Although a three-week test in one hospital is not enough proof of the sheet’s success, this new technology shows great promise. This only goes to show how much we can learn from nature and how valuable it is. This should open our eyes to the importance of protecting our planet.

Ada Bersoza

Where is your Guitar

Microsoft team members like Scott Samponas, have been working on a project that may change completely what we know as controls.

The Microsoft research team has been developing a new “muscle-computer interface” which will allow the user to interact with different applications, only by moving their muscles.

How does this work? Well, researchers aided with special imaging devices have been gathering information of the muscles used by a person when performing certain tasks. For example, one application these researchers found was guitar hero. They were able to control what you normally do with the guitar; they controlled it only pressing their fingers against each other, as if they had their guitar…an invisible guitar.

This is only one example of the immense uses this new muscle user interface can bring to technology, but as another example is when you have your hands busy carrying some bags and boxes, opening your car trunk would be as easy as pressing your index finger with your middle finger.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_7BzUED39A&feature=player_embedded

Ignacio Morales

Water...at moon?

Finally, water has been discovered at the moon.

NASA spectrometers have discovered small amounts of hydroxyl (oxygen and hydrogen molecules) along with water molecules. Spectrometers or M3 have been studying the Moon’s surface since Cassini’s flyby in 1999. The strange thing here is that hen Cassini passed by, information was gathered and the data apparently showed what seemed to be water, but scientists did not want to take the risk and confirm that they’ve found water at the moon.

“NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3, instrument reported the observations. M3 was carried into space on Oct. 22, 2008, aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and the High-Resolution Infrared

Imaging Spectrometer on NASA’s Epoxi spacecraft contributed to confirmation of the finding. The spacecraft imaging spectrometers made it possible to map lunar water more effectively than ever before.” (NASA)

What these spectrometers do is quite simple. They measure the light reflected at the moon’s surface, then analyze it at infrared wavelengths. From that information gathered they can tell the surface composition, because different minerals or materials have different absorption rates of light. So what they discovered was that the data collected showed very similar patterns of absorption, compared to those of water. That´s how water and hydroxyl particles were discovered.

What´s next? We should keep on investigating, gathering more information, who knows, maybe in a very near future we could live at the moon.

Ignacio Morales

Antartic Sea Ice

You are probably tired or hearing “ice sheets are melting-end of the world”, BUT there’s something you are not aware of, and that is the strange opposite process at Antarctica. Scientists have found that ice sheets at the North Pole (Arctic) are being melted, but those at Antarctica are expanding northward 1 percent per year (approximately 100,000 square km) three different theories have been proposed and those are: Ozone layer, Southern Ocean Stratification, Flooded Sea Ice turned into snow ice.

Ozone Layer

In the 1980’s scientists discovered that the emissions of refrigerants called chlorofluorocarbons caused the ozone layer depletion. This ozone depletion caused that another atmosphere layer called stratosphere, lowered its temperature (cooled down approximately from 2 to 6 degrees Celsius). This cooling process caused changes between the stratosphere and lower layers of the atmosphere, being these changes projected as fierce winds at Antarctica. Meaning that colder, fiercer, stormier and faster winds are rushing over the waters encircling Antarctica (specifically a location called the Ross Sea) this produces areas of open water (polynyas) that are ideal for sea ice production.

Stratified Southern Ocean

Oceans are often warmed by the normal flow of water, convection causes hot water (found at bottom layers) to get mixed with fresh water (found at upper layers) which then causes heat from bottom layers to come up to the surface. Jinlun Zhang, an oceanographer at the University of Washington developed a software that allows him to reproduce this convection process at water currents, and he found out that if air is hot this convection process would not take place at the same rate. Since fresh water is less dense and less apt to mix with the heavier, saltier, and warmer water below, the layer at the ocean’s surface could become more stratified and mix less. This, in turn, would reduce the amount of heat flowing upward, allowing surface ice to expand.

Flooded Sea Ice Turns Snow to Ice

Accumulation of snow ice presses down the sea water, its weight causes this snow to submerge, then as current flows on top of this snow layer, the snow gradually freezes until it is completely frozen and an ice sheet is formed. Studies suggest that at least 38 percent of the sea ice is made through this process.

So as we can see there are also other side effects of our pollution, but we should take in consideration that the rate at which Ice Sea is recovered is much slower than the one at which it melts due to our pollution.PLEASE take care of our OWN planet, try not to pollute otherwise we would have to face terrible effects such as disastrous hurricanes PLEASE.

Ignacio Morales