Mechanizing the Cosmos

Rene Descartes was an influential French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer. He was considered the “Father of Modern Philosophy” and a key figure in the Scientific Revolution. Descartes developed many new scientific ideas such as the idea to mechanize philosophy by using pieces of matter and their characteristics to explain the physical effects. http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/descarte.htm He also thought of the idea of using distinct elements to place together based on partial size to produce different physical bodies. During this time period, Descartes wasn’t the only Philosopher to come up with ideas; the Scientific Revolution began with Copernicus and his beliefs in Heliocentric Cosmos and ended with Newton’s Universal Laws. http://www.web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Teaching/03sr-definition-concept.htm
For Rene Descartes, human knowledge functions the same way that a simple tree does. He explains this by saying that metaphysics forms the roots and physics creates the overall tree, while medicines, morals, and mechanisms become placed on the branches that eventually form knowledge. This goes out to prove that he was a strong believer in human minds; he was a dualist that believed in the soul (mind) and the human body. Descartes strongly wanted to point out that humans are actually the only creatures that possess a mind and that have the ability to fully control it. http://www.4learning.co.uk/support/programmenotes/micro/kntv/prog4.html
Based on Rene Descartes scientific thinking, the Scientific Revolution was greatly affected.

Reading Connections #2; Where were the women?

Many discoveries were made in the Scientific Revolution, however the only ones that are talked about today were made by men.  Which brings up the question where were the women in the scientific revolution?  In class a couple weeks ago we discussed this question and were able to make some connections to why women's ideas were not taken into account during this time period.

Using the article handed out in class titled Gender, Science and Modernity in Seventeenth-century England, by Ruth Watts, helped us come to various conclusions.  It was stated that women were affected by educational reformation, politics, and the mindset that they were just not educated enough to contribute.  Women in that time period were said to have their place in medicinal or culinary roles, not in science research.  Not only these reasons held women back but they were also not able to attend institutions and university's to further their education and they could not attend the Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.  In this society men were able to further their understanding of science and experiment to come up with new ideas.  Not being able to attend such places made it clear that men thought women in the seventeenth century had no place in science.  

Even though women had all of these struggles during the scientific revolution some found ways around it and began to research regardless.  Such as Maria Cunitz who was stated as the first female scientist.  She was a natural philosopher and was most interested in astronomy.  She was never able to attend any formal university because she was a women but her father, Dr. Henrich Cunitz, taught her himself.  She wrote Urania Propitia in 1650, which was her first work that included new tables, methods, and solutions.  Only a few copies were printed and she published it privately since women were not supposed to be writing on science.  She went on to continue researching astronomy and join the Republic Of Letters where she could share more of her findings.  Maria never went on to publish anything after Urania.

Although Maria Cunitz is considered the first female scientist of this time period there were many others.  Their work was and is not widely known today because it was not right for a woman to be so knowledgeable on natural science.  Mostly important men like Bacon, Aristotle, and Newton are considered the key players in the revolution.  If the women's work was accepted and known about back then the scientific revolution could have been completely.   

Todays Research On Cosmology

While cosmology research began long ago scientists only thought to believe that it was a story of how the world was created and continues to exist.  From reading the article entitled "Cosmology And The 21st Century," by Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack, it was clear how every culture had a certain cosmology but back then researchers did not have the tools to scientifically come up with one specific answer to why it made sense of the ordinary world and what it all meant about the universe.  In today's world astronomers are making vast leaps into finding how the universe is expanding and what we can expect for the future.

While reading from the website Facts On File: Today's Science News, one article entitled Cosmology, gave an in depth look to what the universe will do in upcoming years.  The first time astronomers realized that the universe will always be expanding was in 1998.  That same year they realized that with every passing year it will be expanding at a faster rate by some unknown force of anti-gravity.  This news looked at in more recent years was considered mind blowing to astronomers given the fact that they previously thought the universe would reach a peak expansion point or it would be easy to come up with an explanation to just how fast it was going to keep growing.  Now it is realized that if the universe was to keep expanding at a rapid pace it could collapse entirely.

Now astronomers know that the existence of the entire universe has a lot to do with its mass and density.  It could eventually collapse if it has too little density, which means it would keep expanding forever.  Thus making it collapse on itself because of its own density.

How to measure the ever expanding universe is done using light.  All the stars give off light in a reddish tint to the Earth and therefore scientists can tell how much the universe has expanded from previous years by measuring the "redshift."  

Although scientists are not positive why the universe is expanding at such a rapid rate they do have some different theory's on the idea such as the "Virtual Particles" theory or the "X Matter" idea.  None have yet to be proven to give solid answers but with more research a correct theory and plan could be made for the future. 

Lack Of Sleep Can Lead To Disease

My What's New(s) In Science presentation was about not getting enough sleep at night and how that could lead to disease if repeated each night.  I originally found an article about this topic from the source sciencenews.com.  When browsing this website, which describes itself as a "magazine of the society about science for the public," I found out that all stories relate to science news, both old and new.  The second source I found about this topic was from the website sciencedaily.com.  This website was described as "your source for the latest research news," this article dealt with chronic sleep disorders and was similar to the first source.  They both deal with late nights causing disease, however sciencedaily examined more of a current disorder while sciencenews wrote more of a feature piece on the subject.  

The first article talked about how people who enjoy staying up late into the morning hours can be prone to acquire some diseases.  Some examples include diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.  Sleep deprivation happens when the body feels tired and thus increases inflammation of certain proteins in cells in the blood.  These proteins are called NF Kappa B and are more frequently seen in women than men when sleep deprivation occurs.  These levels can be brought back to normal once a person has had a healthy night's sleep.  A scientist can draw blood from a patient to analyze the protein cells and see if constant inflammation is occurring.

The second article, sciencedaily, reports on an experiment dealing with people who thought that they could be suffering from chronic sleep disorder.  Having this restriction harms cardiac activity in a person which can lead to cardiovascular disease.  This study was researched at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, also known as the APSS.  There the APSS tested the hypothesis that if one does not receive enough sleep for a length of time harmful repercussions may occur.   The experiment consisted of 39 men and women who slept for a normal amount of hours each night and then every night after the amount of hours was shortened by 5.  This went on for a total of 5 nights but the APSS saw that changes were made in behavior and attitude after only the second night.  The main reason this study was performed and researched was to see if sleep deprivation is really a large factor in a person's health.

The two articles were written differently but dealt with the same topic.  The first source dealt more in depth with the chemical aspect of finding what could be affecting a person in the blood stream.  While the second source did more of a hands on experiment using real subjects to see what their response would be after a short time and then relating this to long term affects.

This topic matters to a college student because college kids are usually up late for a variety of reasons.  This topic should matter to everyone who is concerned with their health.  Sleep is an easy thing to do, and if you can find the time to get an extra 2 to 3 hours of sleep each night it can greatly affect a persons health.  This topic appeared in both sciencenews.com and sciencedaily.com because the study and research of sleep deprivation is directly connected with science.  Without having a variety of science websites this information would have never been able to reach the common person.  This news could be revolutionary if more people knew that disease can be a factor if the body does not receive enough sleep.  I think that after reading these articles more people will do their best to try and get more sleep at night to reduce those risks and stay healthy.