Remixing Knowledge

This week for my blog post I was told to find a source that was created by a professional in my field of chemical engineering this is essentially a remix. I found a site called American Institute of Chemical Engineers. This site is made up of all chemical engineers from all over the world. The site is considered a membership only site for chemical engineers, so you would need to login to be able to fully access all the information it has to offer. This site is great because it allows chemical engineers from all over the world to interact with each other and provide research to all the members. This creates a community of chemical engineers who are willing to help each other out to better the world for the future. The site has many tid bits about what this organization is doing to help better expand the chemical engineering field.

I will now break down this website through the use of RAIDS. Revision of this website would be what does it mean to be a chemical engineering professional? Also another revision about this website would be what are some benefits this organization can give to a chemical engineering professional. Arrangement of the website is broken down into different parts of the organization into two columns. It highlights the main points of why a chemical engineer professional should join the organization. The invention for this website is chemical engineers have their own big named organization and chemical engineers are willing to put all their research and ideas onto a website for other chemical engineers to look at. The delivery of the website is very clear, crisp, and right to the point. The website breaks down the most importan aspects to entice a chemical engineer to join their website. The website provides little descriptions about each category to really make sure that when a chemical engineer reads their material, they will get a understanding of what the institution is try to accomplish. The style of this website is straight forward. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers tell you exactly what they are doing and how it can help the chemical engineer who is in need of connections or a way to talk with different employers.

The audience that this website is targeting is mainly chemical engineering professionals. The purpose of the website is to entice as many chemical engineering professionals to join their organization because they have so much to offer to each and every engineer. The comprehensive site allows chemical engineer professionals to interact with one another and with other employers. This organization makes it much easier for chemical engineers to network with not just people in the close community, but with a larger community of chemical engineers all around the world. The overall success of its rhetoric is phenomenal, this website touches upon everything that a chemical engineer professional may be looking into. The access that a chemical engineer is able to have through this website is beyond what a professional can imagine. This organizations website did a very good job with how they are trying to get more chemical engineers to join their site. 

Citation:
"About." American Institute of Chemical Engineers . n. page. Print. <http://www.aiche.org/about>.
About. N.d. American Institute of Chemical Engineers Web. 31 Mar 2013. <http://www.aiche.org/sites/default/files/styles/aiche_content/public/images/overview_page/about_image_chemical-engineers-in-plant-iStk_0.jpg>.

Teenage Girl Creates Sustainable, Renewable Algae Biofuel Under Her Bed

A teenager name Sara Volz was able to create renewable fuel in under her bed. That is phenomenal because not many people can just think of using alge to create renewable fuel. She was able to create renewable oils from the alge to be used as a way of sustainable fuel. It is amazing to see people at such a young age looking for alternative ways of energy. The scholarship that she won will allow her to open the world up to others about a renewable source of energy. A new thing that I learned from just reading over this remarkable post is that alge can be a source of fuel. I never knew that it was possible. It is really awesome to see that teens and not just scientist are finding new ways to obtain renewable energy. If people are able to work together and formulate a better solution for the future, it would help this planet tremendously especially in the future. What do you think about Sara's accomplishments?

Link:http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/151087-teenage-girl-creates-sustainable-renewable-algae-biofuel-under-her-bed

Citation: Plafke, James . Teenage girl creates sustainable, renewable algae biofuel under her bed. N.d. Extreme TechWeb. 27 Mar 2013. <http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/151087-teenage-girl-creates-sustainable-renewable-algae-biofuel-under-her-bed>.

Noting Cultural Assumptions

In this weeks blog post I looked for a portrayal of my job in popular culture. I am looking to be a chemical engineer, but trying to find specifically chemical engineering in popular culture was a little difficult. So I went in the route of looking at engineers in general. For my popular culture portrayal, I chose a youtube video about Dilbert. The video describes the curse that engineers get called the "Knack". Dilbert is the engineer and he explains to his dog what it means to how he got the "Knack" as an engineer.

The cultural assumptions that are portrayed in the video is that all engineers like to take apart machines and put them back together to make them work. The video shows how engineers are always looking for ways to make things work a lot easier for them. Also the assumption is that all engineers are smart and are able to figure out how to fix a broken machine right away. The video shows how Dilbert as a young boy is able to fix a machine while he is at the doctors office, but no one else is able fix. Popular culture views engineers job as jobs that cause people to be disconnected with the normal world. The "curse of the engineer" as Dilbert puts it is that engineers can not live a normal life like other people do. Popular culture makes engineers look like all they really do is work in labs or do there own thing and never really interact with people. Many cultural assumptions are portrayed in popular culture are totally differently from how people actually act and do their jobs in the real world. Engineers do have tough jobs, but popular culture at times seems to stretch the idea "that engineers can not live a normal life like others" too much.

Solar Energy Used In Tanzania

Solar energy is expanding in my different directions. It has now expanded all the way to Tanzania, Africa. This is a great thing because a lot of countries are moving towards becoming a greener country. By having solar energy in their own country they can finally be moving towards their goal. There is currently a policy in Africa called Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff which allows the country to harness solar energy. By allowing this policy to pass it can open a whole new world for solar energy use in Africa. A new thing I learned from reading this news article is that solar energy is expanding all over the world. This is a very good step forward in trying to use less coal or oil to power homes or buildings. Even though it may seem like some cities in Africa do not need a lot of energy, it is the meaning behind trying to have a solid solar grid around the cities that counts. Solar energy can be stored for later use, but if coal or oil just happens to run out then having solar energy as a back up can come in handy. Hopefully in the near future Africa can rely on solar as their number one source for energy. 

Citation: 
Dobson, Richard. Mama Sara Obama at Solar Panels Installation in Kenya. N.d. n.p. Web. 21 Mar 2013. <http://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/Multimedia/photos/Name-goes-here/>.
"Tanzania Encouraged On the Use of Renewable Energy."allAfrica. n. page. Print. <http://allafrica.com/stories/201303200164.html>.

Contemplating Controversy

This week for my blog post I will be finding out about a controversy that has happened in the chemical engineering field. A report from the site called Forbes talked about how news medias are reporting stories for the sake of getting good ratings. There are also researchers out there that are using some information from their research to provide results about the type of research that is going on, but it is only a small portion that suggests the answer to the bigger research question. Researchers are doing this so that they can be able to obtain more grants to continue their research.   

            Many times consumers are mislead by researchers because of what the media puts out or what researchers want the world to see. The controversy that arose in the chemical engineering field is the link between the chemical BPA, also called bisphenol A, and obesity in children. This was an example of bad news reporting and also bad science by the researchers. The way researchers tested BPA levels of these kids were through urine samples. They seemed to have found links that there are high levels of BPA in their diets, but there were no inclusive evidence that BPA leads to obesity or weight gain. “They did find a correlation among white children and teens, but not with blacks or Hispanics – a strange and unexplained result (Miller).” The test was not able to show the link between BPA and obesity.  

Another test was done on monkeys to show that BPA would cause birth defects and miscarriages. Basically test monkeys were given continuous BPA capsules. The capsules would enter their system and it showed that the high levels of BPA caused birth defects. Researchers and news reporters would let consumers know about such research. Since the monkeys were given direct amounts of BPA to be put in their system the studies indicated higher levels of the chemical in their system. In reality consumers will never really be exposed to such high levels of BPA that the monkeys endured. This stirred up a major controversy in the field.

The main side of the issue is that media has a great influence on what consumers see and hear. They are able to at times dictate how the consumer will react to a story, like the controversy above. Even researchers have some influence on the consumers with the type of research that they do on a daily basis. The studies that they have done on BPA made consumers much more on their toes than what the real results states.

Citation:
Miller, Henry . "The Controversy Around BPA: Bad Reporting On Bad Science." Forbes. n. page. Print. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2012/10/10/the-controversy-around-bpa-bad-reporting-on-bad-science/>.

How Wind Energy Is Used Today

This week I have provided a in depth youtube video about how wind energy is transformed from wind into energy. This video really dives deep into how wind energy is being used in the modern world. These are the little steps that are being taken to move towards the use of renewable energy. A new thing I learned about wind energy from this video is that wind energy is able to power homes not only in the vicinity of the giant generators, but also homes that may be miles and miles away from the towers. With so many places in the United States that are able to generate natural wind more and more of these propellers are being built up so that they can collect the wind and transform it into energy for later use. With so many states with vast majority of land, why do we not just build more and more of theses towers to try to collect more energy?

Citations: N.d. YoutubeWeb. 10 Mar 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTyMImpNWyY>.