That Ringing Sound

We live in a sonic world, immersed in vibrations that stimulate microscopic hair cells deep inside our ears. This unseen energy influences our mood, our learning, even our health. We experience it as comforting music, as information-laden speech, or—all too often—as irritating noise, a by-product of our increasingly mechanized world. Despite all the ways sound affects us, we often let it slip unnoticed into the background of our lives. Hoping to understand it better, I set out to explore the mysteries of sound in the course of one day.

At 6:50 a.m., my alarm clock begins the assault on my ears as the groggy gray matter between them is rudely yanked toward consciousness. My eyes shoot open, and as awareness slowly crystallizes, a single idea crowds out all others: Make the noise stop. My right hand knows just what to do and immediately puts an end to the awful blare.


I like this lede because the writer puts you in all of the situations of sound associated with your everyday life. Things like waking up to the alarm clock to the busy subway, to a silent room in your own home are all things you don’t think of when you go through the day. The intro also makes me want to find out what her sound-filled journey was like, so it successfully drew me in to read the rest of the article.

The Lede

It is twilight time on Saturn.

Shadows lengthened to stretch thousands of miles across the planet’s famous rings this summer as they slowly tilted edge-on to the Sun, which they do every 15 years, casting into sharp relief every bump and wiggle and warp in the buttery and wafer-thin bands that are the solar system’s most popular scenic attraction.

From her metaphorical perch on the bridge of the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn for five years, Carolyn Porco, who heads the camera team, is ecstatic about the view. “It’s another one of those things that make you pinch yourself and say, ‘Boy am I lucky to be around now,’ ” Dr. Porco said. “For the first time in 400 years, we’re seeing Saturn’s rings in three dimensions.”


I like this lede for a couple of reasons. First, the structure is very good with a nice variety. It starts with a catchy one-liner to get the reader an idea of what they're reading. The second graf has a very vivid description of the rings, and the third has a good quote, setting the reader up for the remainder of the story. The topic itself intrigues me, making this lede even better.

Big Blue Wasp

I almost died from a bee sting once. One stung my ankle while being stirred up by a lawn mower. Soon after, my head began to lighten and I passed out on the lawn. I woke up on my grandmother’s couch with an ice pack on my forehead, and from that day my fear of being stung has remained.

Back home, there is a blue-looking wasp that I cannot identify like the rest of villainous pests that fly around. The other day, I found that same wasp in Plattsburgh while standing on my front porch, so after swatting at it and ducking back inside, I needed to figure out its identity. This particular wasp I actually knew, but I didn’t know I knew it. It’s a mud dauber, a wasp that builds in barns, attics, garages and any other dry and quiet location.

There are three different kinds of mud daubers; the organ pipe mud dauber, the black and yellow mud dauber, and the iridescent blue mud dauber. Since this particular wasp was blue, I’m guessing it’s the third choice, labeled scientifically as Chalybion californicum. They like to build nests made of none other than earthy substances, and will re-use the nests for years if untouched.

Though I dislike them, there are some fascinating and startling facts about these relatively non-aggressive insects. Their biggest threat to humans is not via the stinger, but by their choice of nesting. Some of their favorite spots to nest are inside small tubes in plane engines. The daubers’ presence was confidently named the ultimate cause for the crash of Birgenair Flight 301 in 1996, killing nearly 200 people.

The mud daubers also prey on one of the deadliest creatures in the world; the black widow spider. This insect has the venom to easily paralyze and kill a human, but the mud dauber can attack it, paralyze it with its sting, and harvest the spider to the nest for the larva to feed on.

I hate wasps, bees, or anything else to do with stinging that can hurt me. However, it is comforting to know that these intimidating blue bugs flying around are actually not aggressive, mind their own business in secluded buildings, and kill deadly spiders.

This Flower

I found this orange flower in someone’s yard while walking Brinkerhoff St. on Sunday. After searching the flower’s appearance for a good amount of time, I concluded the only match I can find is a flower called the Aster (Diplopappus Cass). The flower was included in a group of others just like it. The petals of the flower are thin and numerous, and the stem is relatively short. The species of flower originally was located in both North America and Eurasia, but now is primarily located across the ocean. The word Aster comes from the Greek word astror, meaning star.
After further examination, one Aster is located in New York and Canada (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii), or the New York Aster.

Flu Link

Here is the link to the previous story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/08well.html?_r=1&ref=science

The Flu

It seems to be that time of year again: flu season. Apparently, the worry for this season is much higher than previous years because of the H1N1, or swine flu strain. The article, "Preparing for a Stressful Flu Season," shows families the precautions they should be taking and the symptoms they should be looking for to prevent a disaster of an illness.

Although we are in college and should have nothing to worry about, this problem could be a big one this fall. With the main target age for the disease to be from the range of children to young adults (college kids), this could pose a serious issue for not only this campus, but campuses across the country. According to the article, approximately 195 million vaccines will become available on October 15. However, with allergy season in full swing, a body's immune system is battling and may not be able to fend off a cold.

What if the disease comes a little sooner than expected? Sure, keeping clean and avoiding contact with others will help, but would it be enough to stop such a powerful disease such as H1N1? There aren't many worse places to try and protect from disease than a college campus. Even if strict guidelines for preventing a disease are posted frequently across the town, many of the students would not pay attention.

This poses a big problem for Plattsburgh and many other campuses, especially if the disease surfaces. Once here, the swine flu could either be thrown under the rug or made into a large panic. Hopefully the disease does not make it here, but if it does, we will have to follow the usual cleansing and vaccination tactics that are used every year for the flu.

Breath Detector

This article proves that the medical field is the most amazing in the world. Cancer is one of the most devastating diseases, affecting most people in one way or another. The discovery of detection by someone’s breath is one step towards battling back. The article states that someone who has lung cancer has a different breath that someone who’s healthy. How these doctors designed the tool to detect the difference is incredible. The gold sensors in the device are five-billionths of a meter wide. Articles like this are showing how technologically advanced we are becoming, especially in the field of medicine. Hopefully this leads to bigger and better things in the fight against cancer

Warming Up

The article on global warming slowing the arctic cooling trend is startling to say the least. The fact that humans have altered 4,000 years of cooling in a little over 100 years is not only remarkable, but terrifying as well. Dr. Overpeck’s comment that the next ice age could be skipped altogether further strengthens the fact that we need to act on the issue immediately. If humans have the power to change the entire climate, there is no reason why we cannot change it back over time. Though the damage may be already done, there must still be time to act.