My view on airport security

By hijacking planes from U.S. airports on Sept. 11, 2001, and flying them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, terrorists killed thousands of innocent people and first responders and revealed an ugly truth: Our airports were not safe.

Today, thanks to a decade of American ingenuity and innovation, many of those security holes have been patched.

WIDE ANGLE: 9/11 Remembered: 10 Years Later

Airports are using new technologies, like refined X-ray backscatter equipment, which enables intimate searching of a passenger without the need for them to strip or be stripped by federal agents.

Soon, removing your footwear and coat and throwing away your bottled water, will be a “thing of the past” for air travelers in the U.S., said Peter Kant, executive vice president of Rapiscan Systems, which is working with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), to improve gate security.

“There’s new machinery in process that will allow screened passengers to keep their shoes on while moving through checkpoints,” Kant told FoxNews.com.

Those baggage handlers may still "touch your junk," but tremendous changes have made air travel safer and securer.

Behind the scenes at LAX's Terminal Five, computing giant Siemens AG installed new baggage screening systems that let passengers drop off their luggage as soon as they get to the airport.

“Delta Airlines found that they went from processing 200 to over 500 bags an hour with this system,” Megan Zaroda, a spokeswoman for Siemens in New York City, told FoxNews.com. “TSA said that it’s removed congestion and minimized safety risks in airport lobbies.”

DNEWS VIDEO: Therapeutic War Game Helps Iraq Vets

Yet another technology coming to the nation’s airports: video surveillance equipment that lets the feds detect “abnormal” behavior in crowds, said Michael Silevitch, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, and co-director of ALERT, a Department of Homeland Security-funded science and technology R&D center.

“This technology was used successfully, after the fact, to identify the Times Square bomber from the rest of the crowd,” Silevitch said.

And new sensors will identify dangerous individuals who have “explosive residue” on their clothing, so would-be bombers don’t even get into an airport, he said.

“These portable sensors could be used outside of the airport itself to identify dangerous individuals or vehicles before they get close enough to do damage,” he added.

Technology gurus aren't promising that TSA will no longer touch your “junk,” as software programmer John Tyner said last fall after an incident with agents at the airport in San Diego. But they do foresee a kind of return to normalcy at the nation’s airports, and even cargo ports, in the coming years.

NEWS: Going Through Airport Security: What to Expect

Funding for so-called “port security” has increased by about 700 percent in the last 10 years, according to an estimate provided to FoxNews.com by the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics, a department of the Georgia Center for Economic Development.

Most of this funding comes from the government and agencies like the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the port authorities that own, maintain, and manage the physical infrastructure of airports, bus terminals and seaports.

The federal government spent $259 million on port security efforts in fiscal year 2001; by 2005 the figure had climbed to $1.6 billion per year, and that has increased under the current administration. The money has gone to port authorities in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans. And of course, the Department of Homeland Security itself was created after 9/11.

Private sector firms that operate terminals have also invested heavily in IT security during the last 10 years. For cargo screening, for example, new technologies include "non-computed tomography transmission X-rays," explosive trace-detection devices, large-scale gamma ray machines, and even hand-held radiation detection devices, Anne Isenhower, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics, told FoxNews.com.

Also behind the scenes, police and border patrol are using IT to share data more quickly than before 9/11. “Before the terrorist attacks, data could only be shared between agencies that were working off the same databases,” said Mike Sullivan, a spokesman for CODY Systems, a government IT provider. “Advancements in technology now allow data to be shared despite the use of disparate databases among agencies, which leads to more intelligence-led policing.”

Sullivan notes that a terror suspect was arrested at the airport, en route to Pakistan, based on the partial VIN number on the car used in the attempted bombing. “Officers were able to identify the original owner of the vehicle which then led them to identify the suspect, all within 48 hours of the incident,” says Sullivan.

And more innovations, pioneered by American IT firms, are in the offing.

“The airport of the future will have security tiers, allowing passengers that submit to advanced background checks and pre-screening more leeway when it comes to security scans,” Kant told FoxNews.com. “Other passengers will have to pass more rigorous, on-premises checks.”

After reading, I think the government has succeeded in collecting our information even without us knowing. Such stuff like keeping your shoes on means they are going beneath the layers, invading our privacy. This because 10 years ago, terrorists bombed US. I think one organisation's errors led to lots of money spent on technology, fears, speculations, hatred at the Muslims. I feel that Science is being applied wrongly. I do not believe that scientific knowledge should be applied to war. If so, we would be doing more killing than living, forgetting our roots. Science is to study our world and its interactions, not to be used to actually kill the world. Very little is done to create new things that help the disabled, but it is more lucrative to make guns, bombers. This is everybody's fault.

My science ace

This is about nervous system(just intro):
www2.hci.edu.sg/y10hci0282/ns.pptx

This is about refraction
www2.hci.edu.sg/y10hci0282/refraction.pptx

These two were my science powerpoints. I did on refraction because it was the term subject and I read about the eye in the Bio textbook. For nervous system,I liked it the best out of the other systems. This is the most cool, because it involves the brain telling us what to do.

My personal developments in Science

In term 1, I learnt the periodic table and bonding. The hard part was in remembering the list of elements and bonding reactions.

In term 2, I learnt acids and bases. This was easier to remember, in terms of concepts, but needed more thinking to apply.

In term 3, i studied the human reproduction, and ecology. Both are all about cause and effect, like how food chains are affected when one organism increases or decreases, and if the ova is unfertilised, what happens to the uterus. For ecology, I just needed to know how reactions work, and for reproduction, I had to memorise the process.

I found that subjects needing memorising took more effort to remember, but very little effort to apply. They are more theory. However, subjects which have a few basic concepts that apply to many kinds of problems, those require a lot of thinking. In term 1, I think I did well because I could remember most of the info, in term 2, because I had enough practise applying the three concepts(acid+base=?). In term 3, I did ok because the test focused on theory, which I had memorised.

However, I feel that memorising makes subjects very dry, since its only about facts. Not much application there, but applying a concept is interesting but more difficult since the answer has to be processed, and thought through, but the challenge is more fun. Thus I feel that science should have more application.

My reflections on my learning

I am happy to learn Science, however, I have faced a few issues. Most of my science lessons have been carried out mostly in powerpoint. Also, my syllabus is too superficial. Why do I say so?

Powerpoint presentations are powerful in bringing concepts across in pointers. They boost the mere lecturing by adding colour and sight to engage another of our senses( the visual) to aid our memory. However, as with all things, for a good, there's a bad. When our teacher uses Powerpoint, concepts may become watered down. This is because long paragraphs are not aesthetically pleasing, and if the teacher does not fully elaborate on the main point, the student does not understand the main concepts. Also, Powerpoints are very logical in their structure, as the teacher advances from slide to slide. Some students do not learn this way. Some need the teacher to explain to him what he does not understand, and/or adjust the difficulty of the explanation to him. A powerpoint is dead, but a teacher is real- the teacher can do a lot of things the powerpoint cannot, so why should the teacher rely on the powerpoint? And since science is about exploring the world through our senses, a classroom sharing like this is quite dead. Why not at least a video?

Secondly, we only learned 7 topics this year. I feel that our current science lessons are too few. Only two and a half hours, math is three hours, is the school placing more emphasis on math? I feel that too little time is given to science. The country is going to need more scientists to make our country ready to face the challenges from global warming and defense technology. And the school says our lower secondary education is to find our interests. If too little time is given to any subject, I'll say there's bias. It's not right. Science must be given at least as much as math, about three hours. Then we can truly learn each subject to find our interests.

Thus I feel these are the two main areas the school needs to look into. I don't think adding more science subjects solves the problem, I think we need to give our students more time. And more exposure to the wonders that science is working out there.

Sexual Reproduction in Human

It took me quite a while to memorise the diagrams, but now I can identify the parts of a male and female reproduction system , and recite the menstrual cycle. I was interested to find out more about embryonic stem cells, so here:
It refers to extracting the inner cell mass, killing the embryo.

Embryonic stem cells are distinguished by two distinctive properties:
their pluripotency, and
their ability to replicate indefinitely.

ES cells are pluripotent, that is, they are able to differentiate into all derivatives of the three primary germ layers: ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. These include each of the more than 220 cell types in the adult body. Pluripotency distinguishes embryonic stem cells from adult stem cells found in adults; while embryonic stem cells can generate all cell types in the body, adult stem cells are multipotent and can only produce a limited number of cell types. Human ES cells measure approximately 14μm while mouse ES cells are closer to 8μm .

This means that embryonic stem cells are very versatile. It makes it useful for cancer patients, but the argument is that killing a life for this is wrong.

This is where science and morals clash. Sometimes the most powerful is the most innocent. I do not support embryonic stem cell research. This is because this may lead to scientists thinking that as long as the baby does not feel the pain, it is alright and may lead to even more morally questionable methods being developed. Lab babies are possible, but not without two human parents. Thus the parents have the right to refuse. We have the choice to refuse this. Even if cancer patients are dying we whould not be exchanging another's life for theirs. It goes against human rights. I think humans need to rethink respect for each other.

Reproduction is an interesting subject. How creation is done, a unique being is formed, but at the same time, somewhere in the world, someone ones to take it apart in the name of science.

Enzyme that could boost super long-term memories

Increased levels of one natural brain enzyme supercharge rat memories, a study suggests. And it's not just new, short-term memories. The enzyme -- called PKM-zeta -- gives rats better recall of old remembrances. In a number of recent studies, researchers showed that they could make rats forget a range of old learned behaviors by blocking the protein in the brain. Rodents with too little PKM-zeta, for instance, didn't know to avoid liquids that had made them sick in the past. On the other hand, when the scientists increased this enzyme, rats that had this could remember unpleasant tastes that they had been given to experience 4 days before better than control rats without the increase. However, how this enzyme helps the retrieval of this memory is unknown. PKM-zeta seems to be a brain gardener. The enzyme waters and arranges neurons, keeping the connections between these memory-storing cells flowing. Even momentary disruptions to PKM-zeta can obliterate many long-term memories seemingly for good. This is a very powerful enzyme that could help Alzheimer's or trauma victims to control their memory. I feel that this could be an artificial boost that is very powerful for people who need powerful memory, like soldiers, old people or young children.

Brief intro to bonding

A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms, and other covalent bonds. In short, the stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding. Instead of giving electrons, the atom merges its electrons so that they form 2 or 8. To read more go to http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=55