Research Practice Questions for practicing annotated bibliographies

How are black holes formed?

Do states that allow citizens to carry guns have higher or lower crime rates?

What is Nuclear Power and what are the dangers and hazards of using nuclear power?

What was the Manhattan Project and what impact did it have on the world?

What causes tornadoes?

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Chernobyl and Fukushima: side by sideBlogpost by Rashid Alimov - 9 March, 2016 at 7:02 http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/chernobyl-and-fukushima-side-by-side/blog/55795/

30 years after Chernobyl and 5 years after Fukushima, the towns ruined forever by nuclear.The town is now a guarded area and entry is via checkpoint. Pripyat in northern Ukraine was a young and promising town. Established in 1970 it had all the markers of a great place to raise a family by Soviet standards - schools, recreation center, swimming pool, hospital and gainful employment at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

There was even an amusement park that was due to open. Already a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, and merry go round were in place causing a giddy feeling of anticipation for the thousands of children and families.But on 26 April 1986 disaster struck, and in the following days the entire city of about 50,000 was evacuated.Fast-forward 25 years and to the other side of the world is the town of Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. A population of almost 20,000. On March 11 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami

rocked the entire prefecture, causing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Three reactors at the power plant went into meltdown, contaminating everything within at least a 20km radius and beyond.Like Pripyat, Namie was immediately abandoned after the nuclear disaster. An abandoned convenience

store in Namie and Japan’s famed vending machines with sake and other products, blocked off by tape.The lives of the people living in those towns, and all around Chernobyl and Fukushima, have been changed forever. Both of these nuclear accidents have put populations at both physical and mental harm, permanently displaced large populations, torn apart community relationships, and left survivors stressed by their chronic exposure to radiation.Decontamination efforts have yielded fruitless results. Almost 30

years after the Chernobyl accident, 10,000 square kilometres are still unusable and 5 million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia still live in contaminated areas. Similarly, tests by Greenpeace Japan show that radiation in the restricted areas of Fukushima is still high. Decontamination doesn’t get rid of radioactive contamination; it simply moves it to another location and community.

A nuclear disaster is a disaster that never ends. Contamination touches every aspect of their lives – it’s in what they eat and what they drink, in the wood they use for construction and burn to keep warm. Every day they must make decisions on how to limit their exposure to radiation. This contamination will be with them for decades to come, and so will the related impacts on their health.

Can a nuclear disaster like this ever happen again? In countries like the United States, South Korea and France, it is a real and deadly possibility.

There is no “cure” for nuclear. Thirty years later and Chernobyl victims are still suffering: death rates are higher, birth rates are lower, incidence of cancer has increased and mental health effects are widespread.

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The world does not need another incident like Fukushima or Chernobyl. This nuclear nightmare must end.

Text 2Nuclear Power: The Good, the Bad, and the BeautifulBy Sam GoodDec 26, 2014http://greeningforward.org/nuclear-power-the-good-the-bad-and-the-beautiful/

Ah nuclear power… The controversial energy giant that gave birth to

the glorious stereotypes of mutated super-monsters, extra limbs, and

deformed, glowing reptiles. For decades atomic energy has been

shrouded in a deep mist of misconceptions held together by a hodge-

podge of Soviet-era horror films.

This nearly exclusively negative publicity has certainly taken a toll on

the nuclear industry, prompting many anti-nuclear groups to voice their

concerns to company executives and the government. But are they effectively “protecting their innocent children

from cancer-causing pollutants” by protesting the advancement of nuclear energy? I would argue no, and here are

the reasons why:

How Nuclear Power Helps Us

1 in 5 households and businesses in the U.S. receive their electricity from nuclear energy.

Nuclear power facilities can produce energy at a 91% efficiency rate 24/7, with virtually zero carbon

emissions.

13% of the world’s electricity comes from nuclear power plants that emit little to no greenhouse gases.

Nuclear power plants run on uranium; an element so energy-rich that a single fuel pellet the size of a

fingertip contains as much energy as 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal or 149

gallons of oil. 

The U.S. saves $12 billion dollars each year for energy costs because of nuclear power.

Nuclear power plants actually emit fewer radioactive materials into the environment than a traditional

coal-burning plant.

It is estimated that nuclear facilities have saved 1.84 million lives since their inception by preventing the

release of countless amounts of harmful pollutants/emissions.

Modern nuclear plants can produce electricity for just four cents per kilowatt hour (including capital

construction costs!), a good competitor compared to solar energy’s 16 cents per kilowatt hour and coal’s 9

cents/kWh.

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The New York TimesState Gun Laws Enacted in the Year After NewtownBy KAREN YOURISH, WILSON ANDREWS, LARRY BUCHANAN and ALAN McLEANDecember 10, 2013

In the 12 months after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., almost every state enacted at least one new gun law, according to a database compiled by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Nearly two-thirds of the new laws ease restrictions and expand the rights of gun owners. Most of those bills were approved in states controlled by Republicans. Those who support stricter regulations won some victories — mostly in states where the legislature and governorship are controlled by Democrats — to increase restrictions on gun use and ownership. Select categories from the table below to see all gun bills that passed at least one chamber of a state legislature.

Text 2ABC NEWSGuns in America: A Statistical LookBy Jack Date, Pierre Thomas, Jason RyanWashington Dec. 11, 2012

2012 has been a record setting year for gun sales. As of November, the FBI recorded 16,808,538 instant background checks for gun purchases for 2012.

Even without counting December, which has historically been the busiest month, this beats last year's record by more than 350,000. If history is a guide, we can anticipate nearly 2 million additional gun checks to be added to the 2012 total when the December numbers come in, obliterating any previous total.

There are more than 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States, according to the latest Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives numbers (as of Aug. 1). Of those, 51,438 are retail gun stores, 7,356 are pawn shops and 61,562 are collectors, with the balance of the licenses belonging mostly to manufacturers and importers of firearms and destructive devices. For comparison, here are some numbers of other ubiquitous elements of American life:

• Gas Stations in the U.S. (2011): 143,839 (source TD LINX/Nielsen via National Associations of Convenience Stores, Association for Convenience for Convenience and Fuel Retailing) • Grocery Stores in the U.S. (2011) 36,569 (source: Food Marketing Institute) • McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. (2011): 14,098 (Source: McDonald's Corporation Annual Report 2011)

Yes, there are more stores selling guns than groceries.

But unlike burgers, gas and groceries, firearms are not a perishable or consumable product. They don't go away. A rifle used in the 2009 Holocaust Museum shooting was nearly 100 years old, but was still an effective murder weapon.

According to ATF reports, in 2010 there were 5,459,240 new firearms manufactured in the United States, nearly all (95 percent) for the U.S. market. An additional 3,252,404 firearms were imported to the United States. That's nearly 8.5 million new firearms on the street in one year.

Right now if you don't have a criminal record and you have not been adjudicated as mentally incompetent, you can buy guns. In 2011 the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) ran 16,454,951 background checks for firearms purchases. Only a small number of these purchases (78,211 or 0.48 percent) were denied.

Violent crime rates have been falling in recent years, but the number of people killed by firearms in the United States remains high. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, between 2006 and 2010 47,856 people were murdered in the U.S. with firearms, more than twice as many as were killed by all other means combined.

Text 1Black hole mysteriesStephen OrnesMay 29, 2013 — 1:00 pm ESThttps://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/black-hole-mysteries

The first rule for anyone dealing with a black hole is, of course, don’t get too close. But say you do. Then you’re in for quite a trip — a one-way trip — because there is no coming back once you fall into a black hole.

A black hole isn't actually a hole. If anything, it's the opposite. A black hole is a place in space containing a lot of stuff packed very closely together. It has accumulated so much mass — and therefore gravity — that nothing can escape it, not even light.

And if light cannot escape a black hole, then neither can you.

This illustration shows a black hole pulling in gas from a star that has wandered too close. Credit: NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University, Aurore SimonnetThis illustration shows a black hole pulling in gas from a star that has wandered too close.NASA E/PO, Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonnet

As you approach a black hole, its gravitational pull gets stronger. That's true of anything with gravity, including the Earth and sun.

Before long, you pass a point called the event horizon. Every black hole has one. That's true whether the black hole has the mass of a single star or as much as the collective mass of millions (and sometimes billions) of stars. An event horizon surrounds each black hole like an imaginary sphere. It acts like a boundary of no return.

What happens next isn’t pretty — but if you go in feet-first, you might be able to watch. Since your feet are closer to the black hole's center, its gravity pulls stronger on your lower body than on your upper body.

Look down: You will see your feet being drawn away from the rest of your body. As a result, your body gets stretched, like chewing gum. Astronomers refer to this as “spaghettification.” Eventually, your whole body gets stretched into one long human noodle. Then things really start to get interesting.

For instance, at the center of the black hole, everything — including your shredded self — collapses to a single point.

Congratulations: Once there, you really have arrived! You also are on your own. Scientists have no idea what to expect once you get there.

Luckily, you don’t have to fall into a black hole to learn about this cosmic phenomenon. Decades of study from a safe distance have taught scientists quite a lot. Those observations, including startling discoveries made in recent months, continue to add to our understanding of how black holes help shape the universe.

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Black hole mysteriesStephen OrnesMay 29, 2013 — 1:00 pm ESThttps://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/black-hole-mysteries

The heart of a galaxy called NGC 1277 contains a black hole recently discovered to be far larger than expected. If this black hole were at the center of our solar system, its event horizon would extend 11 times farther than Neptune's orbit. Supermassive black holes are connected, through gravity, to hundreds of billions of stars.

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The Manhattan Project USHISTORY.ORG AUTHOR: UNKNOWN, DATE WRITTEN: UNKNOWN

This once classified photograph features the first atomic bomb — a weapon that atomic scientists had nicknamed "Gadget." The nuclear age began on July 16, 1945, when it was detonated in the New Mexico desert.

Early in 1939, the world's scientific community discovered that German physicists had learned the secrets of splitting a uranium atom. Fears soon spread over the possibility of Nazi scientists utilizing that

energy to produce a bomb capable of unspeakable destruction.

Einstein penned a letter to President Roosevelt urging the development of an atomic research program later that year. Roosevelt saw neither the necessity nor the utility for such a project, but agreed to proceed slowly. In late 1941, the American effort to design and build an atomic bomb received its code name — the Manhattan Project.

Nuclear facilities were built at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington. The main assembly plant was built at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Robert Oppenheimer was put in charge of putting the pieces together at Los Alamos. After the final bill was tallied, nearly $2 billion had been spent on research and development of the atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project employed over 120,000 Americans.

Secrecy was paramount. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese could learn of the project. Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed that the Stalin would be kept in the dark. Consequently, there was no public awareness or debate. Keeping 120,000 people quiet would be impossible; therefore only a small privileged cadre of inner scientists and officials knew about the atomic bomb's development. In fact, Vice-President Truman had never heard of the Manhattan Project until he became President Truman.

Although the Axis powers remained unaware of the efforts at Los Alamos, American leaders later learned that a Soviet spy named Klaus Fuchs had penetrated the inner circle of scientists.

By the summer of 1945, Oppenheimer was ready to test the first bomb. On July 16, 1945, at Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, scientists of the Manhattan Project readied themselves to watch the

detonation of the world's first atomic bomb. The device was affixed to a 100-foot tower and discharged just before dawn. No one was properly prepared for the result.

A blinding flash visible for 200 miles lit up the morning sky. A mushroom cloud reached 40,000 feet, blowing out windows of civilian homes up to 100 miles away. When the cloud returned to earth it created a half-mile wide crater change sand into glass. A bogus cover-up story was quickly released, explaining that a huge ammunition dump had just exploded in the desert. Soon word reached President Truman in Germany that the project was successful. The world had entered the nuclear age.

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Business InsiderMAP: All 17,000 of The World's NukesBy Amanda Macias, Skye Gould and Michael B Kelley Jul. 2, 2014, 5:50 AM

Text 1http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/f-scale.html Fujita Tornado Damage ScaleDeveloped in 1971 by T. Theodore Fujita of the University of Chicago

SCALE WIND ESTIMATE *** (MPH) TYPICAL DAMAGE

F0 < 73Light damage. Some damage to chimneys; branches broken off trees; shallow-rooted trees pushed over; sign boards damaged.

F1 73-112Moderate damage. Peels surface off roofs; mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned; moving autos blown off roads.

F2 113-157

Considerable damage. Roofs torn off frame houses; mobile homes demolished; boxcars overturned; large trees snapped or uprooted; light-object missiles generated; cars lifted off ground.

F3 158-206

Severe damage. Roofs and some walls torn off well-constructed houses; trains overturned; most trees in forest uprooted; heavy cars lifted off the ground and thrown.

F4 207-260

Devastating damage. Well-constructed houses leveled; structures with weak foundations blown away some distance; cars thrown and large missiles generated.

F5 261-318

Incredible damage. Strong frame houses leveled off foundations and swept away; automobile-sized missiles fly through the air in excess of 100 meters (109 yds); trees debarked; incredible phenomena will occur.

*** IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT F-SCALE WINDS: Do not use F-scale winds literally. These precise wind speed numbers are actually guesses and have never been scientifically verified. Different wind

speeds may cause similar-looking damage from place to place -- even from building to building. Without a thorough engineering analysis of tornado damage in any event, the actual wind speeds needed to cause

that damage are unknown. The Enhanced F-scale will be implemented February 2007.

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Severe Weather 101Tornado BasicsWhat we do: Read more about NSSL's tornado research here.

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/

What is a tornado?A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to the ground. Because wind is invisible, it is hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris. Tornadoes are the most violent of all atmospheric storms.

Where do tornadoes occur?Tornadoes occur in many parts of the world, including Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Even New Zealand reports about 20 tornadoes each year. Two of the highest concentrations of tornadoes outside the U.S. are Argentina and Bangladesh.

How many tornadoes occur in the U.S. each year?About 1,200 tornadoes hit the U.S. yearly. Since official tornado records only date back to 1950, we do not know the actual average number of tornadoes that occur each year. Plus, tornado spotting and reporting methods have changed a lot over the last several decades.

When are tornadoes most likely?Tornado season usually refers to the time of year the U.S. sees the most tornadoes. The peak “tornado season” for the Southern Plains is during May into early June. On the Gulf coast, it is earlier during the spring. In the northern plains and upper Midwest, tornado season is in June or July. But, remember, tornadoes can happen at any time of year. Tornadoes can also happen at any time of day or night, but most tornadoes occur between 4–9 p.m.

What is the difference between a Tornado WATCH and a Tornado WARNING?A Tornado WATCH is issued by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center meteorologists who watch the weather 24/7 across the entire U.S. for weather conditions that are favorable for tornadoes. A watch can cover parts of a state or several states. Watch and prepare for severe weather and stay tuned to NOAA Weather Radio to know when warnings are issued.

A Tornado WARNING is issued by your local NOAA National Weather Service Forecast Office meteorologists who watch the weather 24/7 over a designated area. This means a tornado has been reported by spotters or indicated by radar and there is a serious threat to life and property to those in the path of the tornado. ACT now to find safe shelter! A warning can cover parts of counties or several counties in the path of danger.

How do tornadoes form? The truth is that we don't fully understand. The most destructive and deadly tornadoes occur from supercells, which are rotating thunderstorms with a well-defined radar circulation called a mesocyclone. (Supercells can also produce damaging hail, severe non-tornadic winds, unusually frequent lightning, and flash floods.) Tornado formation is believed to be dictated mainly by things which happen on the storm scale, in and around the mesocyclone.