The Four Jacobs

[thefourjacobs]

“Quantum Teleportation” by Aleistar M.

From Star Trek fans to sci-fi addicted individuals that want to know all about future technologies, many people have been interested in teleportation. Scientists have been trying for a long time to make teleportation possible and have made new discoveries in new technologies such as quantum teleportation.

Last September, teleportation had only been done with a 63 mile transfer of protons using carbon nanotubes to transfer the data; however, since then, the record was broken when scientists teleported protons a distance of 81 miles. Teleportation is done when the data of the object is captured using the logic of quantum physics and then data is transferred to a different location. In a future not so far away, though still distant, we will get to the point where we are entering an era of real life Star Trek-telepads.

Scientists believe that using teleportation or "Beam me up, Scotty" from Star Trek will also be able to make improvements to other things. An example would be the development of quantum computers, which would be the perfect thing to add to the real life Star Trek theme, for they could also help with the condensing, moving, and rearranging of the quantum "info" that your body would become. Quantum teleportation could also be used for unhackable or untappable long distance communication by sending quantum inscriptions to and from different points of space. So far, teleportation can’t be done instantly. It can only go as fast as the electrical current data transfer, which currently is about 225 terabytes a second.

Someday, with this amazing technology, we will enter an era of a Star Trek-like world. Currently, we can only send information and protons. The dream of many about a future of Star Trek like machines and inventions is still a very good possibility.

                                                  Works Cited

Grant, Andrew. "Entanglement: Gravity's Long-distance Connection."Science

           News. N.p.,7 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Jan. 2016.

[thefourjacobs]

“Self-Accelerating Particle” by Solomon M.

It seems that Newton's unbreakable law has been broken... or at least bent. Inside the labs at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology (M.I.T.), there was discovery of a subatomic particle, which could accelerate to near light speeds without any external force acting upon it. This seems to break Newton's First Law of Motion, but this is not the case, even though the particle is accelerating on its own.

"It turns out that this self-acceleration does not actually violate any physical laws — such as the conservation of momentum — because at the same time the particle is accelerating, it is also spreading out spatially in the opposite direction" (Chandler). The particle is not only going forward at an increasing speed but also in the exact opposite direction at the same speed. It is essentially stretching in the opposite direction, which means that the particle, though seemingly doing the impossible, is actually doing something completely possible.  Scientists have the particle speed up like this by changing its basic properties that make it an electron, or photon, or whatever particle they use.

This phenomenon can be accomplished by changing the wave structure of an electron.  The Dirac equations of basic quantum physics describe basic fundamental particles in terms of wave structure. Considering the phenomenon that higher speeds force, time literally slows down for the thing going at such speeds, which could allow for extreme preservation of matter. This can preserve things such as unstable compounds that break down in a manner of milliseconds (Kaminer).

But this discovery is still new and not a lot is known about how it could have any other practical use. Though our knowledge of this discovery is still in its infancy, this is a very interesting phenomenon that has the potential for something amazing.

                                               Works Cited

Chandler, David L. "Particles Accelerate Without a Push." MIT News. MIT News,

          20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.

          <http://news.mit.edu/2015/selfaccelerating- particles-0120>

 Kaminer, Ido. "Self-accelerating Dirac Particles and Prolonging the Lifetime of

          Relativistic Fermions." Nature Physics. N.p., 14 May 2014. Web.

          1 Dec. 2015.

           <http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n3/full/nphys3196.html>.

[thefourjacobs]

“Another Splash in the Smartwatch Market Caused by Pebble” by Jacob S.

Contrary to what many people believe, the Apple Watch was not the first smartwatch released to the public. Two years before the Apple Watch came out, there were many other technology companies that had invested in the smartwatch market. Sony introduced the Sony SmartWatch in 2012; Samsung, the Galaxy Gear in 2013; Pebble, the Pebble Watch in 2013; and Motorola, the Moto 360 in 2014. All of these companies had released their watches before 2015, and all of them reflected each company's different ideas of how a smartwatch should be made. (“Smartwatch Timeline…”)

Pebble is the odd one out in the smartwatch bunch. Their smartwatches have nearly seven days of battery life, the most in the market. Another factor that separates Pebble from the others is the lack of touchscreen. Instead, the watch has four buttons that control the screen, left, right, select, and back. Some people prefer the simplicity of the buttons, while others like the multiple gestures you can make with a touchscreen, like swiping across it. The most defining part of Pebble is its history as a company, not its watch. Other technology companies that make smartwatches started out selling other pieces of technology like computers and cellphones.  Pebble started out with one of the biggest crowd funding campaigns in history. They initially raised $10 million to fund their company, and they have grown from there. (Price)

The newest watches from Pebble- the Pebble Time and the Pebble Time Round are serious competitors to the Apple Watch and the Android Watches. The Pebble Time sells for $200, and the Pebble Time Round for $250, which is about the same prices as Android watches and much cheaper than the Apple Watch. These new watches have a longer battery life, ranging from 7 to 10 days, and with new designs and colors, they look formal and fancy. These new watches will definitely make a splash in this expanding smartwatches market. (“Meet Pebble…”)

Works Cited

“Meet Pebble Time Round." Pebble Time. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

Price, Michael. "Here's How the Pebble Smartwatch Became the Most Funded

          Project in Kickstarter History." The Huffington Post.

          TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

"Smartwatch Timeline: The Devices That Paved the Way for the Apple Watch."

          Wearable. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

[thefourjacobs]

“Alternative Energy” by Christina T.

A plethora of rotten foods are thrown out every day but Sainsbury, a U.K. grocery store,  is putting the rotten produce to work. Unlike many companies, Sainsbury is broadening the world’s perspective on alternative energy by using rotten produce to obtain energy.

“Every single day we either lose or waste one third of our food -- that's 1.3-billion tons a year” (Dodge).  In many areas, rotten produce is thrown away; however, a Sainsbury's store in central England has decided to take this rotten produce to create energy using a process called anaerobic digestion.  To obtain this energy: “Biffa Cannock, the maker of the  anaerobic digester, uses a process similar to what happens inside a cow's stomach after dinner" (Diep).  Food is taken in through oxygen free tanks with certain bacteria. The bacteria breaks down the food in multiple steps; however, during the last step, bacteria makes carbon dioxide and methane gas.  Then the carbon dioxide and methane gas are separated, which creates biomethane to produce energy.  

This method is a good idea, considering they are doing something that is original, but very efficient. Most groceries stores are just wasting the money they spent on these products. One problem that might arise is the fact that they may not have enough produce to make electricity for the stores because it takes 40,000 tons of produce to create methane and electricity.  An idea that might help them in the long run is using foods that easily break down.  Because it takes a long time for the produce to break down, there might not be enough produce to make energy for all of the Sainsbury stores.

We are always looking for new ways to make more efficient energy, a goal Sainsbury is achieving. So, the next time you’re in your local grocery store think about how Sainsbury is using innovation to create alternative energy from rotting foods!

                                              Works Cited

Diep, Francie. "U.K. Supermarket To Run On Electricity Made From Its Own

          Rotting Food." Popular Science. Popular Science, 22 July 2014. Web. 30

          Dec. 2015. <http://tinyurl.com/zth792j>.

Dodge, David. "Harvest Power: Turning Your Rotten Food into Energy." The

          Huffington Post. Huffington Post, 17 May 2014. Web. 30 Dec. 2015.

          <http://tinyurl.com/z9odoa3>.

[thefourjacobs]

“All Bottled Up” by Elvin L.

If they swim in, they can’t swim out, for no fish that can fit through the funnel escapes the funnel of the plastic bottle trap.

Thousands of years ago, the bottle trap was made of nets and called a pot trap. Today, you can make one out of a soft drink bottle. The trap attracts fish inside a net that's weighed down to stay in place against the currents of a river. The fish go through a funnel and enter a space, and the fish can't find their way out because of visual appearances.

Today the stickleback trap is what has become of the bottle trap of old days. Below is an example of the stickleback trap. Like the trap of old days, the funnel (now a cut off and inverted soda bottle top) is the same, yet the material is plastic. The fish swims in and can't find its way out. The stickleback trap dates back to thousands of years ago when people used to make fence funnels to trap fish. The fish can't find their way through these funnels. Later on, people took physical bottles and used bottles to trap eels.

A trapper places bait inside to attract fish; then waits for a few hours. The bottle uses the funnel in technique just like the fence. The bottles were easier to use, for they could be picked up after trapping an eel opposed to having to net an eel in a fence trap. Nowadays, the bottle trap is used to trap fish as well as eels. Building a bottle trap is easy; all you need is a plastic bottle along with some bait, scissors, a weight, and tape. Then you place the trap into a river and wait for it to bottle up a fish or two.

This trap comes in handy when a person is in need of food. The trap draws fish in, and keeps them in the bottle (all bottled up) for humans consumption.

                                            Works Cited

Basil, Keane. 'Te hopu tuna – eeling - Hīnaki – eel pots', Te Ara - The

          Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 22-Sep-12. tinyurl.com/o7ov9y5

[thefourjacobs]

“iPhone 6s” by Hailee B.

          Ditch that Android and come to Apple because the new iPhone 6s is out, and it is better and faster than any iPhone before it.

          Under the screen of the iPhone, there is a sensor, which makes 3D Touch possible. When pressed down on the iPhone screen, it measures the amount of pressure on the screen. In iMessage, press down lightly on the screen, which enables the full message without opening it all the way. If the user presses down harder, it will go directly to the iMessage.

(This is an example of 3D Touch)

          Apple has also made some improvements to the camera and features. The back camera on the iPhone 6s now has 12 megapixels.  Apple has also invented Live Photos, which are like photos in Harry Potter that were always moving and replaying the moment instead of just a static image. When in the camera app, at the very top of the screen in the center, there is an icon that looks like a sun; hit it and take the picture. In the camera roll, press down on the picture, and it will play the moment it was taken.

          iOS 9 isn't that different from iOS 8, but it has some changes such as save battery mode, multitasking feature, and a new search bar that shows what apps are used the most.

         The iPhone 6s is an example of cutting edge technology and how much Apple has advanced in the past few years. They will continue to make improvements in the upcoming years on 3D Touch, the camera, and Live Photos.

[thefourjacobs]

“Phone Designs” by Matthew M.

          Big phone companies are always changing their product. Mr. Thornton's design class recently finished an interesting project, and peers got to view their P.B.L. projects on phone designs they made.

         When phone companies like Apple or Android make a new model of a phone, they aim to make them sleeker, thinner, lighter, and more appealing than the last model for consumers. For example, the Galaxy Edge was made so that people would be able to see notifications easily without interrupting a conversation. Many people don't always care about the designs of the phone. People usually buy the phone because of brand or because it's the next big thing, so phone companies have unique designs, which is why people like that brand. Phone designs have a big part in consumer spending.

         Mr.Thornton's class seemed to focus more on the person's lifestyle than the phone design. There many unique designs, and groups had to decide what type of phone they wanted to make. None of the designs were the same.  For example, a group would focus on an athlete or a celebrity's needs, and they would have apps that would benefit that person's lifestyle  While groups could've made them curved, most groups made them blocky.  

        Some of my peers liked how the groups got to think about how they would design their phone for different functions because each group’s design was a little different from the last. I think that it is very interesting to think about how phones are designed by different people.

[thefourjacobs]

“The Harvest Moon” by Nicolette B.

When working at night, farmers use the moonlight to see what they are doing. During late summer and early fall, many crops were ready to harvest, so farmers struggled to harvest their crops because the sun would start to set earlier. Farmers who worked later would use the moon; therefore, the harvest moon was born.

The harvest moon is the full moon that falls closest to the fall equinox when the earth is in its rotation around the sun, and the sun’s rays shine directly on the equator, making day and night about the same amount of time. This year, the harvest moon was on September 28th, 2015, less than a week after the fall equinox, which was September 23rd, but this past moon was different because it was a supermoon.

On September 27th, the eclipse started at 9:07 p.m. and lasted for 3 hours and 18 minutes. Totality, which is when the moon is completely enveloped by the earth’s shadow,  began at 10:11, and lasted for 1 hour and 12 minutes. With all of these factors, the facts make this past harvest moon a supermoon.

This harvest moon was the last of four consecutive supermoons that have been visible from North America. In 2015, the harvest moon was special, being eclipsed; however, one day maybe in the future people will see this again.

                                                  Works Cited

NASA. "Total Eclipse of the Harvest Moon - NASA Science." Total Eclipse of the

          Harvest Moon - NASA Science. NASA, 22 Sept. 2015. Web. 15 Oct. 2015

          http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa

          /2015/22sep_lunareclipse/

[thefourjacobs]

“Help for the Colorblind” by Spencer T.

From not being able to tell what type of apple they're buying to not being able to tell if their clothes match, life for the colorblind is a challenge. But now scientists have made a breakthrough and colorblind people no longer have to live a life without color.

Scientists at EnChroma Labs have created a pair of glasses that allow colorblind people to see colors for the first time. These glasses were originally invented to protect surgeon's eyes from dangerous lasers, but the new EnChroma glasses had an unexpected benefit, they give the colorblind a color boost and lets them see color like never before. The most interesting thing about the glasses though is how they work.

First, in order to know how the glasses work, it is important to know what causes color blindness.  It is caused when someone's retinal cones pick up spectra that overlap, and most commonly, the red and green spectra overlap. Therefore, it makes it a lot harder for some people to distinguish red from green.  The glasses absorb the frequency of light at the overlaps, which means that the colors they're supposed to see are much more distinguishable.

These glasses are changing the way color blind people live, they are helping them in indescribable ways.  Soon we may not even be able to tell the difference from a colorblind person to someone that's not and being colorblind will also be a thing of the past.

                                                 Works Cited

Ossola, Alexandra. "Glasses Let The Colorblind See Pigments For The First

          Time." Popular Science. A Bonnier Corporation Company, 17 Sept. 2015.

          Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

[thefourjacobs]

“Blogception” by Jacob L.

If one were to look inside Mr. Maletta’s trailer they would probably see something that looks odd and out of place in an English classroom. All of the students sit in different parts of the room, typing away on IPads or computers. Mr. Maletta’s students know this as blog work, and it's an integral part of their learning in English class. It may look like the teacher, Mr. Maletta, is just letting the students do whatever they want while he sits in the back typing on his computer, but beneath the surface, both student and teacher are working together to make each student’s writing the best it can be.

So how does this blog work thing actually work? Well, it starts out with each student coming up with an idea that meets the very broad subject guidelines. Each blog piece must be about a STEM topic and can include things we're working on in class. After meeting this requirement, the students start writing; each piece is very different because of how few guidelines there are. This lack of restriction allows each student to make their blog piece the best it can be using their own writing method. It also makes each piece seem more like one singular part of a blog that covers all different subjects and makes them interesting.

But writing the piece is only the beginning of the process to get a piece published. Once a student writes their piece, they enter a cycle of editing and revising their piece, making it better each time until it's good enough to go on the class Tumblr blog. The first thing a student will do when they finish their first draft is to find another student to edit their piece. This process benefits the student who's getting his or her piece edited, as well as the one who's doing the editing. The student doing the editing learns important editing skills that they can use to improve their own piece, and the person having their piece edited gets feedback that can make their piece stronger. All of these activities give students points that contribute to their final blog work grade.

The point system keep students on task by rewarding them in more ways than just writing blog pieces. The point system rewards students for staying on task, but still gives them many options to earn points through ways other than writing. Students can earn points for editing someone else's blog piece, revising their own piece, changing the design of the class Tumblr page, and getting published. This makes each student try their best to get as many points as possible by the end of each quarter.

 The competitive grading of the blog work system keeps students motivated to complete blog work whenever they are given time to do so;  it keeps each student engaged in the task. Blog work also gives students the opportunity to do some writing that they could find themselves doing as adults in the real world, instead of essays that don’t relate to anything important in a STEM career. The system of blog work that Mr. Maletta has created allows students to get more writing practice than other, more conventional methods. It’s obvious that it would be beneficial for other English teachers to look at implementing a system similar to this in their own English class.

[thefourjacobs]

“Air Sharks” by Abby W.

Off the coast of South Africa, near a spot known as Seal Island, something incredible waits under the surface of the calm water; this something is over 2,000 lbs, 18 ft long, and possesses a mouthful of over 300 serrated teeth. It is the perfect predator with a stocky, streamlined body, and an upper jaw that detaches from its skull to better grip its prey. This predator is, of course, Carcharodon carcharias, the great white shark.

Usually the great white's preferred hunting method is to ram into its prey, mouth open, taking huge chunks out of the prey's side. But the sharks off South Africa are different. During seal pup season, these sharks do something incredible, propelling themselves, and their prey, completely out of the water, using a method called breaching. The great whites off South Africa are the only recorded population of sharks known to do this.

Seal pup season is when the most seals are in the water. The seal pups are just learning to swim and have started venturing out into the deeper water where the sharks lurk. The pups do not know the dangers that hide beneath them, so they stay near the surface, making noise, giving the shark a perfect ambush position, and the seals are none the wiser.The sharks swim deep, waiting to see a silhouette of a seal or other prey. They then propel themselves upwards at over 40 mph, ramming into the unfortunate seal and launching them both out of the water. Some great whites can get over ten feet above the surface of the water.

This behavior in itself is extraordinary considering some of the animals can weigh over two tons. Scientists are still not completely certain why these sharks do this, but they have theorized that it is a more efficient system of killing prey. This behavior gives scientists an important look into the lives of great white sharks.

                                                 Works Cited      

"White Shark Breaching." White Shark Breaching. N.p., n.d. Web.

          12 Nov. 2015.

[thefourjacobs]

“Yeast Mode” by Elvin L.

If a blob of dough is left next to a field of rye or wheat on a windy day, the blob’s owner returns to find that their dough has doubled in size, by yeast. The yeast, called Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is better known as baker's yeast and is used to rise bread dough worldwide. Bread starts as a flat dough; then using CO2, the yeast doubles the size of the dough in 2-3 hours.

People have baked with yeast for thousands of years, starting in ancient Egypt when the Egyptians baked their bread. They made dough and left the dough outside because they knew about baker's yeast and how it made their bread rise. The only problem was that it might take a long time for the bread to rise because the rise time depended on how much yeast was in the air. The method of sitting dough outside in a random place was not a guaranteed way for dough to rise. Then it was discovered that dough placed next to a field of barley or wheat for at least two hours would guarantee that the dough will double in bulk.

In 1780, the Dutch started to sell baker's yeast commercially in jars. The yeast inside was spooned out and added to dough. Today, anyone can make their own yeast-made dough with something called a sourdough starter. Get a mason jar, a bag of unbleached flour, pineapple juice, and water. Mix a half cup of pineapple juice with a half cup of flour in the mason jar; the flour already has yeast inside it.  Dump a 1/4 cup of hot water into the jar. Feed the yeast the same flour and pineapple juice for a week; however, make sure that the jar is sealed tight, but not too tight (after screwing the lid tight unscrew it as far as a half turn of your wrist). After a week, feed the yeast with water and flour; now the sourdough yeast is ready to bake with. A sourdough starter basically grows its own bread; therefore, no money is spent buying bread from the store. It just takes a bag of flour and hot water and the dough made doubles with the yeast.

Without yeast, the bread at the store would be flat pita bread instead of the sliced loaves, and sourdough wouldn't exist without yeast. With yeast, we have doubled the size of our bread for centuries, and will continue to do so for years to come.

                                               Works Cited

Kline, Leo, and T. F Sugihara. "Microorganisms of the San Francisco

          Sourdough Bread Process." Microorganisms of the San Francisco

          Sourdough Bread Process. 21.3 (1970): 459-65.

[thefourjacobs]

“E Sports” by Jacob A.

In Roman times, gladiators would kill each other in battles for entertainment; nowadays, we can slay our enemies online with a team of up to five online players for the whole group's entertainment. With a growing audience worldwide, eSports has taken the entertainment world by storm. The popular MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game League of Legends is one of the most popular eSports, and it is arguably the most popular video game of this generation. Catering to an audience of 67 million registered players is not the easiest thing to do, but League of Legends has done so successfully.

League of Legends has many tournaments, including MSI (Mid-Season Invitational) and IEM (Intel Extreme Masters). In MSI and IEM, the top seeds from each region partake in a tournament for a $100,000 prize. Worlds, the biggest tournament, is at the end of every year with each stage of the tournament held in numerous places around the world, like Seoul, the site of the 2014 Worlds tournament. This year it will be held in different places for the four different stages of the tournament. The sixteen qualifying teams will compete in Paris, with only eight teams moving on to the quarterfinals. Quarterfinals will be held in London with only four teams moving on to Brussels and two teams will move on to Berlin for the finals. Last year for the 2014 Worlds, 45,000 tickets were sold in no time; plus there was a peak of 32 million people watching online. A hefty amount of people watched as Imagine Dragons opened up the show for the finals, followed by the final game to decide the 2014 World Champion. Samsung White ultimately took home the trophy and the $1 million prize. On September 1, 2015, tickets sold out in seconds for the 2015 Worlds Tournament.

Much like regular sports, there are many big names in the League of Legends. There is Lebron James for basketball, Tom Brady for football, and Faker for League of Legends. With so many viewers online, the loud rambunctious crowd, and so many expectations from analysts and the player's home region to perform well, eSports players have to train hard, some playing 14 hours everyday in preparations for tournaments. Playing online for 14 hours everyday takes a toll, so players are often put on diets and exercise routines by their coaches to keep a healthy lifestyle while still honing their skills. The top players, almost all hailing from Korea, make an average of $300,000 per year. Players who play League of Legends for a living must make sacrifices and train non stop.

As League of Legends and professional eSports are being recognized as legitimate careers, many young players dream of becoming eSports players. Two universities, Robert Morris University and the University of Pikeville in Kentucky offer scholarships to players. Players form teams to represent and compete in tournaments all across North America.

Once a tiny game in 2009 with almost no players, League of Legends has dramatically caught on over the years to become a household name in the gaming world and attract millions of players seamlessly to further increase their fan/player base.

                                               Works Cited

Tassi, Paul. "Riot's 'League of Legends' Reveals Astonishing 27 Million Daily

          Players, 67 Million Monthly." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 27 Jan. 2014.

          Web. 24 http://tinyurl.com/muh9oxc

[thefourjacobs]

“Large Hadron Collider” by Solomon M.

The world's largest machine is the Large Hadron Collider, a nearly 20 mile steel tube that atoms speed through in less than a second.  The collider is still being improved upon by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), the organization that has built this collider. Designed by over 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries, as well as hundreds of universities and colleges, the collider has a 17 mile circumference and is about 570 feet deep.

The collider works by sending electricity through water to release hydrogen atoms that are then stripped of their electrons. These atoms are then pushed at a tremendous speed, accelerated even more within the accelerator and collide at nearly the speed of light. Sensors are laid out across the collider to test the atoms when they collide at such high speeds. This data is then sent to a system that collects about 6 gigabytes of data per second. With recent scientific research, scientists are expecting an increase of 10 times the data input that they are currently receiving.

This machine is going to be very important for the scientists so they can understand particle theories. With this engineering feat, we could learn more about basic fundamentals to particle physics. Using this complex machine, we could understand how the universe functions.

                                                   Works Cited

"CERN Accelerating Science." The Large Hadron Collider. CERN, n.d. Web.

              24 Nov. 2015.  <http://home.cern/topics/large-hadron-collider>.                          

[thefourjacobs]

“The Zumwalt” by Jacob S.

A super stealthy design, electromagnetic rail guns, and over 78 megawatts of power are all a part of the U.S.'s newest sea destroyer, the Zumwalt. Because it’s made with few right angles, radar signals are unable to bounce directly off the ship, which makes the Zumwalt fifty times harder to spot on radar compared to a traditional war ship. If the Zumwalt was picked up on radar, it would show it to be a fishing boat above water and a submarine below. With these cutting edge stealth modifications, the Zumwalt will be the start of a new breed of sea destroyers.

The biggest weapons the Zumwalt offers are the futuristic rail guns. Thanks to its four gas turbines, the Zumwalt is the only ship able to produce the 25 megawatts needed to power the brand new railgun, an extremely high-powered weapon. While every destroyer uses gunpowder to shoot bullets, the Zumwalt uses electricity to fire the railgun. A 4 million amp current runs throughout the barrel. Then a 35 pound shell is placed into a conductive sealing which completes the electric current and instantly fires the shell at 5000 miles per hour.

Due to the high cost to build, the Zumwalt is a controversial ship. Some politicians argue that all of the new technology won't work. But most can agree that the Zumwalt is what the U.S. Navy needs to stay ahead of the other navies. With the newest innovations in naval technology, the U.S. will continue to  have an edge with the Zumwalt over its international enemies.

[thefourjacobs]

“Are Pit Bulls Aggressive?” by Jacob L.

Why is it that pit bulls are the cause of 62% of dog related injuries? Many people believe that this breed is naturally aggressive and should be eradicated; however, these people are missing the real cause - people who get pit bulls without understanding the breed are the cause of pit bull attacks.

Owners must spend time and effort to understand their dog's personality. Due to the nature of dog breeding, pit bulls can't be put into one category.  Dog breeds have been combined in so many different ways that purebreds are rarely seen anymore. Every dog has specific needs that must be met for the dog and owner to have a successful relationship. Each dog must be treated as an individual with their own personality, similar to how one would treat humans. Some dogs may be more physically capable of causing damage due to genetics, but genetics don’t make them more dangerous to humans than other dogs. Pit bulls and other dogs that often attack humans need to be raised so they won't want to attack humans.

         So why do pit bull attacks get pointed out by the media so much? To answer this question it's important to look at both the origin and treatment of pit bulls. The pit bull's descendant was the original English bull-baiting dog. This dog was bred to be able to hold big animals like bulls and bears for hunting. Once baiting large animals was made illegal, people made these dogs fight each other. They were then bred to become faster and more lethal. This gave the dogs their physical ability to hurt people, but genetics isn't the reason that pit bulls attack people. Pit bulls attack people because of the way they're raised.

The sad truth is that dog fighting still exists today; when dogs are forced to fight each other, they're probably not being taught the social skills required to maintain healthy relationships with humans and other dogs. Obviously not all pit bulls that attack people were raised to fight other dogs; however, it's doubtful they were raised in a way that exposes them to the proper amount of human socialization. All of these factors contribute to pit bulls having a bad reputation. Humans place this negative stereotype on a breed of dog that doesn't deserve it so they can pretend that they're not the cause of the problem. No one can be blamed for dog attacks but the irresponsible owners who don't properly train and socialize their dogs.

[thefourjacobs]

The R9 Nano by Isaac K.

Bigger is always better, right? Maybe not in the world of computers. The Radeon R9 Nano, the most powerful small form factor graphics card in the world, is only 6" long and is power-efficient compared to other AMD GPUs. Using only 175 watts, it is the most efficient mini-ITX enthusiast grade graphics card in the world. It is also capable of 4K, which is ultra HD, and because of its size, it can be used for small home theatre machines or substitutes for consoles. This GPU could accelerate the trend of building very small but powerful computers.

Custom PC builders have started building smaller and more efficient computers because they're easier to carry around to LAN events (gatherings of gamers using one network), use less power, and are easier to store. Before this trend started, most gamers wanted the biggest and baddest looking computer with many fans and custom lighting, which didn't actually increase the performance. That trend has been swapped out with more versatility and power in exchange for less flash, which is mainly due to the huge performance and technology increases of the mini-ITX form factor over the last few years. Small form factor computer components now have most if not all the features of full size computers. Almost no performance drop is seen in testing full size graphics cards against their smaller counterparts, such as the Nvidia GTX 970, which is full size, vs the 970 ITX, which is several inches smaller.

In a world of everything getting bigger, something small is packing a big punch.

                                                           Works Cited

Hruska, Joel. "AMD R9 Nano Review: Stellar Performance in a Pint-sized 

              Graphics Card| ExtremeTech." ExtremeTech. Extreme Tech, 10 Sept.

              2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.<http://tinyurl.com/pflqjrk>.