Article 1

Making Buildings Safer        

An earthquake. A natural disaster that begins when the Earth's tectonic plates slip otherwise know as a fault. Earthquakes can be devastating to everything in its path from cities to small towns. Earthquake repair for a small house costs tens of thousands of dollars without the right insurance. However, scientists are figuring out multiple ways to make buildings safer from earthquake damage. In this short article, we will be covering an experiment in which scientists tried to figure out which material was best for earthquake resistant building frames.

In this experiment, scientists built a six story building with a steel frame on a massive shake table that could replicate the exasperating shaking of an earthquake. After some tests on the shake table they turned it on and it began to violently thrash around. Once the shake table stopped shaking they sent small drones with cameras into the windows of the building to examine the damage done inside the building. Inside, they did not see any obvious signs of damage to the furniture or the water heaters inside the building.

They figured out that steel is less susceptible to earthquakes because the steel moves along with the shaking instead of resisting the earthquakes. And if the frame resists too much, it will snap. Steel however has a con to it as well as it's many pros. Steel is much more expensive than wood and for many architects, is too expensive to use. This is a large problem that architects can only get past if they have enough money, or if they find somewhere where the price of decent steel is lowered.

 Other than that, steel is always the better option and if you can afford it, you should pay for it because if not, the building could collapse over an earthquake and many people could be injured and killed. In conclusion, steel is the better frame for buildings.

    Article 2

    Levitating Cars

Think of the future. What is the first thing that pops into your head? Was it infinite energy, world peace, amazing technology? All of these ideas are what people think of when someone says "future" and most other people think of that too. However, I am missing one key thing that is included in the romanticized future, and that is levitating cars. You many believe that levitating cars are something of the future, for the future, by the future. But in the present we have access to the technology that could begin the era of levitating cars.

The way that levitating cars would work is something called magnetic levitation. Magnetic levitation is caused two like magnetic poles, take for instance, a south and a south pole of a magnet are forced together. The magnets then repel each other and move away from each other. If this is controlled you have one magnet floating in the air while the other is on the ground.
 

 We already use magnetic levitation in a transportation device called a maglev (magnetic levitation) train. This type of train uses magnetic levitation to an extent so the train actually can float in the air! To move, the train and track are outfitted with electromagnets of different poles so the magnets on the train get attracted and repelled to the magnet at the same time. The magnets on the train switch poles so it attracts and repels very quickly causing the train to move.

 If this was applied to a car, the rules of the road would change significantly because you would not be in control of how fast you would be going. 

The process of outfitting roads with electromagnets or creating new, above ground roads would take years to build. But if we succeeded with the project there would be significantly less car accidents and speeders. The only major flaw to these type of road system is for police chases.

If a criminal gets into his or her car and sets off before the police officer, it would be impossible to catch the criminal without inflicting major damage to the car and other cars as well.

Another issue with this type of levitating car is cost. The cost of a normal maglev train per mile is about fifty to two hundred million dollars. That's insane compared to regular high speed rail and typical rail which cost twice to eighty times less than maglev trains.

 This means that every five miles of track we would create for new roads would cost at most a hefty one billion dollars! Additionally, repairs and maintenance for four 10.5 by 4 inch bricks of electromagnets would cost thousands of dollars to replace.

Article 3

Global Warming                                          

"This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands." -Barack Obama 

 
When you are driving your car, perhaps running an errand, there is a gas flowing out of the back of your car into the air around you. You may see larger scales of this gas blowing out of factories. 

Depending on your age, you wouldn't think much about it and continue on your journey to the grocery store. You may not realize it, but this gas can contribute to something called global warming. 

Global warming by definition, is an increase in the earth's average temperature that intensifies the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in the atmosphere. This causes the greenhouse effect.