Asteroid

This presentation was told by Neil Degrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist. Firstly, he gave us a little of background information about asteroids. In solar system,the sun in centre and some planets like the Earth, Mars or Venus move in different orbits around it. However, there are many debris of all size from pea, car, home to even a mountain between the planets. They can move with a speed about 30000 to 40000 miles per hour. When they go through the Earth's atmosphere, small objects might be burnt before hitting the ground and become shooting star while bigger ones keep coming and explode on the Earth with frightened damage. An typical example is a rock of Mount Everet hit the ground and extinct dinosaurs 65 millions ago.

Now, the history may be repeat by an asteroid which is as wide as Rose Bowl, a football pitch in 2036. The maximum probalitity was about 1 out of 37. On Friday 13th 2029, it will come by close to the Earth. It will be about 10 times closer to us than the Moon is. 7 years later, it will hit the Earth and spread energy of 100 nuclear bombs at the same time. It can fall into Southern California or Pacific Ocean and make a stunami which is high 50 feet, so what is a solution? According to the scientists, the way we see in a movie is bad because this asteroid will be shattered into a lot of debirs and we don't know what is going to happen. A simply way the scientists mentioned is to slow it down or speed it up so that it would misss the Earth. Another solution is that we launch a spaceship fly ahead of the rock and use its gravity to change the asteroid's orbit. However, the concern of the scientist is not only this rock but also more 4000 other asteroid near the Earth as well as more thousands we have not discovered yet.

Response: After watching this video, I had a mix of different kinds of feeling. First of all, it is an interest because of the information about our solar system and especially about asteroid in this presentation. Most this knowledge I never knew before.It made me so surprised. Also, it stirred the curiousness in my mind. I thought our universe has full of mysteries like asteroids, galaxy, black holes which I would like to discover. On the other hand, there is sadness because I felt that the Earth and human are really tiny in this immense universe and the life is so short. We are alone in the darkness of the universe. It made me think about the meaning of my life and what I should do.

Poverty in the United States

This report give us a general view of povery in the US:

The offical povery rate in 2005 was 12.6% with 37 millions people.
Povery rate for black was 24,9% and Hispanic was 21.8%.
The povery rate in 2005 for children under 18(17.6%), from 18 to 64 years old(11.1%) and over 64(10.1%).
The poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites was lower than other racial groups with 8.3% and accounted for43.9% of people in poverty.
Among Asians, 11.1% were in poverty in 2005.
Among Hispanics, povery rate was 21.8% and9.4 million in 2005.
Of related children under 6 living with single parent in poverty was 52.9%, over 5 times the rate of married couple family.
In poverty, 87.8% was native, 4.7% citizen borned in a foreign country and7.4% were not citizens.
The poverty rate for Northeast was 11.3% and Midwest was 11.4% while the South was 14% in 2005.
The poverty rate among people lived in suburban areas was 9.3% and in urban areas was17%.
People 16 and older who worked had a lower poverty rate than those who are unemployed(6% compared with 21.8%).
For married couple families, poverty rate was 5.1% and number was 2.9 million in 2005
Income to poverty ration with 3 ranges: below 50% of poverty, below 100% of poverty and below 125% of poverty.
The income deficit for families in poverty averaged $ 8,125 in 2005. The $ 5,189deficit for women was lower than $5,605 for men.

Respone:This report just gave data in poverty without causes. However, it give us a chance to know a little about poor state in the US. It showed that the rate of poverty in America is high, though the US is the most powerful ecomical country in the world. It is not a paradise like many people misunderstand.

Note: Cite from " Income, poverty and healthy insurance coverage in the United States: 2005"