Science Cheerleader

From Science Cheerleader report, Dr. Ohab:

On Saturday, July 11, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA), the Defense Agency responsible for protecting the Pentagon, conducted an operational response test to a simulated outdoor airborne biological attack on the Pentagon grounds. The study consisted of the release of a harmless gardening powder into the Pentagon parking area, where nearly 100 citizen volunteers were positioned, followed by subsequent decontamination and surface sampling of the volunteers. The results will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of various emergency personnel and guide future operational responses to attacks on the Pentagon.

Best of all, Pentagon security relaxed its usual restrictions on photography and permitted media to film virtually all aspects of the operation. I had an opportunity to interview various subject matter experts, including Mr. Paul Benda and Dr. Christina Murata, Director and Deputy Director of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives Directorate at the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, as well as some of the volunteers for a SciCheer video report.

If you’re interested in learning more about the operational response test, check out “Armed with Science”, the Defense Department’s weekly science podcast, this Wednesday at 2pm ET on Pentagon Web Radio. I’ll be interviewing Mr. Benda and Dr. Murata live, and anyone can submit questions before or during the show by posting to the Armed with Science podcast or the Twitter page.

All Matter is Made of Atoms

Professor James Trefil (author of Science Matters, Why Science?, and 30 other books on science literacy) identified 18 key science concepts every adult should know to be a science literate. We’re here to reintroduce adults to science, in a fun way! It’s all part of our Brain Makeover project to increase adult science literacy. Here’s concept #4, presented by 76ers Cheerleader Lauren and explained by Professor James Trefil.  We’ll post one each week (more or less) and it to the Brain Makeover collection.

#4. All matter is made of atoms.

As the science of chemistry developed in the eighteenth century, it became clear that there are two kinds of  materials in the world: there are materials that can be broken down by chemical means (think of wood burning) and those that cannot. The latter class of materials are called ‘elements’. In the early nineteenth century, it was proposed that to each of these elements, there is a small structure called an atom (the term was borrowed from classical Greek philosophy), and that all the other materials are made by combining atoms.

In the early twentieth century, experiments showed that the atom has a definite structure. In the center is a small, massive, positively charged nucleus, which the electrons circle in orbits. The development of the science of quantum mechanics further showed that electrons can change orbits in the atom, absorbing light when they move away from the nucleus, emitting it when they move in the opposite direction.