niki science final

8/3/2019 Niki Science Final

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Name : Nikhat Mehmood

Class : B.S 2nd

year

Subject : Everyday Science

Course no. : 400.2

Submitted to: Maam Aneela

Date: 20th October 2011

Assignment topic:

Involvement of science ineveryday life

Sulpher Cycle and PhosphorusCycle


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Impact Of Science In

Everyday Life

Science affects us all, every day of the year, from the moment we

wake up, all day long, and through the night. Your digital alarm clock, the

weather report, the asphalt you drive on, the bus you ride in, your decision

to eat a baked potato instead of fries, your cell phone, the antibiotics that

treat your sore throat, the clean water that comes from your faucet, and the

light that you turn off at the end of the day have all been brought to you

courtesy of science. The modern world would not be modern at all withoutthe understandings and technology enabled by science.

Positive Impact Of Science:

Science has been a boon and a bane to our daily lives just as, thetwo sides of a coin. Just as two sides of a coin cannot be separated, theadvantages and disadvantages of Science also cannot be separated, for, theeffects of Science, on our daily lives have been both good and bad, andcannot be looked at separately.

It is Science and its knowledge that has given us the gifts for our


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comforts and luxuries, and these gifts are uncountable. They have made lifea very interesting and comfortable journey. Starting from the home, Sciencehas made the chores of a housewife very easy, fast and neat. We have thegas stoves, the Frigidaire, the vacuum cleaner, the washing machine and theair conditioner.

There are several other smaller gadgets which also contribute tomaking work easier and faster, the mixie, the grinder, the juicer and manyother smaller electrical appliances make for convenient and fast work by thehousewife.

Using all these gadgets in the kitchen makes the daily chores of thehousewife very easy, fast and neat. After all the housework finished faster,she can now indulge in other assignments outside the home and keep herselfoccupied according to her tastes and capacities. Thus now the housewife,

once totally occupied with the never ending house work can apply her timeand energy to other pursuits of her choice, which is turn, may give her moresatisfaction and inner happiness.

So much for the gifts of science for the housewife now once out ofthe home, the magic of fast transport is at our beck and call. There arescooters, three wheelers, cars, taxies, and buses to take us to anydestination that we may be heading to. With so many fast moving vehiclesavailable to us, we become more mobile.

This helps us to do our work at far off places fast and also helps us inbecoming friendly with the outside world. These movements out of the hometeach us, at least the women to be more independent and teach us to domany odd jobs which we were earlier not able to do due to the constraints ofmovement.

So much for a fast movement, let us now consider the position of thenetwork of communications. For this, Science has provided for us, a largespectrum of communication. We have the media in print and on the screen.

In print, we have the newspapers, magazines of all sorts, and on thescreen we have the small screen on the television and the big screen of thecinema. All these media give us the news of all that is happening around the

world, while we are seated in our drawing rooms.

On the telephone, another medium of communication we can speakto friends and relatives, make programmes finalise deals and a lot more, allthis also sitting at home, or inside the office. Oh! What a fast moving andsure network of communication this Science has gifted to us. To add to allthis, now, the computer has come, a wonder of wonders of the scientific agethe entry of the computer in the homes and offices has made work still


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easier and faster.

With so much of science and scientific knowledge the impact of all thison our daily lives has been tremendous. Routine works have become easierand faster and so, we can make ourselves available for more and more ofother works away and different from the routine.

The world has become smaller and a single family in which we can atany time, talk to anybody anywhere in the world; send messages to anyoneanywhere in the world. Thus, Science has completely revolutionised man'slife and life style. It has given man more exposure to knowledge which hegets at his doorstep.

With all these gifts of Science there is the other side of the coin. Theother side is of course not very encouraging. For, if it were not for Scienceand scientific knowledge, we would not have had dreadful things like theatom bomb, sophisticated weapons all that are the media of wholesale

destruction. If all these things are allowed to develop like the blessings ofScience, there may come one day when there will be no human being toenjoy the fruits of science.

This side of the coin of science brings awe into the minds of millions ofinnocent people who live in the fear of annihilation at any time. Just likespeed is there in good works, speed will be there also in its different mediaof destruction also.

Thus, Science has given us a lot, but since it has a lot of capacity oftaking the very essence of life from us, it is not to be considered as a verywholesome gift to mankind. Though science has revolutionised man's life, ithas given man the fear of destruction also as never before.

Negative Impacts of Science:

Much has been said and talked about the importance of scienceand technology. However, as the saying goes, every rose has its thorns, herewe have a comprehensive review of the adversities this revolution hasbrought about. Take a look at exactly what are the negative impacts ofscience on mankind.

Environmental ImpactsThey're obvious. They're ubiquitous. They can be witnessed by one and all.They are a matter of mourning over. Environmental issues are the biggestconcern that planet Earth is facing. Depleting ozone layer, increased globalwarming, reduced vegetation, climate change, animal extinction and thelist goes on and on! It is the development of industries and establishment ofplants that has harmed everyone on the planet. Industrial areas,


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urbanization, etc. are some areas of scientific advancements, but the price istoo high to be waved off.

Health Impacts:

Medical science is no less than a blessing to mankind. Medicines producedall over the world are perceived to be a foolproof cure to a person's illness.However, there are some negatives associated with medical science too.Today, excessive consumption of drugs or drug addiction can lead to death.Moreover, incorrect consumption of any dosage may lead to fatal maladies,cure of which is next to impossible. Where medical science has advanced toan unbelievable extent, it entangles with itself perils of all kinds, and just aslight ignorance may prove to be a matter of life and death.

Technological Impacts:

Well, this is, perhaps, one of the most common negative impacts ofscience. Technology has provided ease of all kinds to the human race.However, it has made us too busy to even see our loved ones in person.Technology might have made our daily life easier, but it has rendered healthissues as well. Tremendous reliance and dependence on electronic gadgets,appliances, and most importantly, computer technology has made humanlife so lethargic that people are witnessing old age much before they areactually supposed to. With zero physical activity, science might have provenits mettle as an amazingly efficient service to its users, but has got the worldadversely hooked to it!

Imagine Life Without S cience:To make it clear how deeply science is interwoven with our lives, just

try imagining a day without scientific progress. Just for starters, withoutmodern science, there would be:

no way to use electricity. From Ben Franklin's studies of staticand lightning in the 1700s, to Alessandro Volta's first battery, to the keydiscovery of the relationship between electricity and magnetism, sciencehas steadily built up our understanding of electricity, which today carriesour voices over telephone lines, brings entertainment to our televisions,and keeps the lights on.


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no plastic. The first completely synthetic plastic was made by achemist in the early 1900s, and since then, chemistry has developed awide variety of plastics suited for all sorts of jobs, from blocking bullets tomaking slicker dental floss.

These are just two examples, we have many more examples in thisargument so now it's impossible to live withot science and its inventions. Nomatter how, as a human being, we have active brain power. We will always

developing new way to make our living better and easier. Way back to theolden days, when all people have no appropriate clothes, no producing food,and no warm home, we can imagine how was people living at that time. If wehave no dynamic minds, how can we all live in modern world today? So thatperhaps human races were ruined if we have ano science and technology inour races. How can people controlling floods, predicting natural diseases,finding medicines ingredients for curing diseases, and many more which allneed science and technology to finding them out. That's why if human haveno science and technology, possibly there's no more human races on thisearth.

Conclusion:

There are no qualms in accepting the fact that science is thebiggest revolution ever to planet Earth. However, a normal human being hasno idea to what extent has this field advanced today. The negative impactsof science and technology are nothing but an indication to the verity that


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even if one wants, it is impossible to slump down to the ground from theheights this field has touched.

Scientific knowledge can improve the quality of life at many differentlevels from the routine workings of our everyday lives to global issues.

Science informs public policy and personal decisions on energy,conservation, agriculture, health, transportation, communication, defense,economics, leisure, and exploration. It's almost impossible to overstate howmany aspects of modern life are impacted by scientific knowledge.

Sulphur Cycle

Sulphur:

Sulphur is one of the components that make up proteins and vitamins.

Proteins consist of amino acids that contain sulphur atoms. Sulphur is

important for the functioning of proteins and enzymes in plants, and in


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animals that depend upon plants for sulphur. Plants absorb sulphur when it is

dissolved in water. Animals consume these plants, so that they take up

enough sulphur to maintain their health.

Sulphur Cycle:Most of the earth's sulphur is tied up in rocks and salts or buried deep

in the ocean in oceanic sediments. Sulphur can also be found in the

atmosphere. It enters the atmosphere through both natural and human

sources. Natural recourses can be for instance volcanic eruptions, bacterial

processes, evaporation from water, or decaying organisms. When sulphur

enters the atmosphere through human activity, this is mainly a consequence

of industrial processes where sulphur dioxide (SO2) and hydrogen sulphide

(H2S) gases are emitted on a wide scale.

When sulphur dioxide enters the atmosphere it will react with oxygen

to produce sulphur trioxide gas (SO3), or with other chemicals in the

atmosphere, to produce sulphur salts. Sulphur dioxide may also react with

water to produce sulphuric acid (H2SO4). Sulphuric acid may also be

produced from demethylsulphide, which is emitted to the atmosphere by

plankton species.

Oxidation and reduction:

In chemical cycles, sulphur is usually oxidised in the air from organicsulphur or elemental sulphur to sulphur oxides like SO2 and SO3 ending up as

sulphate in sulphate salts M(II)SO4, M(I)2SO4 or sulphuric acid H2SO4. The

sulphate compounds dissolve very well in water and come down again with

the rain, either as salts or as acid rain.

In chemical cycles oxidised compounds must also be reduced again.

This process does not take place in the atmosphere but on the ground and in

the oceans and is carried out in complicated chemical reactions by bacteria.

The most important products are elemental sulphur, hydrogen sulphide

(H2S), which smells awful and is very unhealthy, and organic sulphurcompounds.

Sulphur and climate

Sulphur compounds play a big role for our environment and theclimate system. On the one hand they contribute to acid rain. But they are


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also important for the formation of. Finally, a lot of sulphur is brought into

the air by volcanic eruptions. If it was a strong eruption, the emitted particles

can go up to the stratosphere (9 - 12 km of altitude) and cool down half our

planet by 1-2C.

In the following scheme you can see factors which contribute to the sulphur

cycle and how they are related to the climate system.

Human Interferance In Sulphur Cycle: Human activities have had a major effect on the global sulfur cycle.The burning of coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels has greatly increasedthe amount of S in the atmosphere and ocean and depleted the sedimentaryrock sink. Without human impact sulfur would stay tied up in rocks formillions of years until it was uplifted through tectonic events and then


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released through erosion and weathering processes. Instead it is beingdrilled, pumped and burned at a steadily increasing rate. Over the mostpolluted areas there has been a 30-fold increase in sulfate deposition.

Although the sulfur curve shows shifts between net sulfur oxidationand net sulfur reduction in the geologic past, the magnitude of the currenthuman impact is probably unprecedented in the geologic record. Humanactivities greatly increase the flux of sulfur to the atmosphere, some of whichis transported globally. Humans are mining coal and extracting petroleumfrom the Earths crust. The result of human impact on these processes is toincrease the pool of oxidized sulfur (SO4) in the global cycle, at the expenseof the storage of reduced sulfur in the Earths crust. Therefore, humanactivities do not cause a major change in the global pools of S, but they doproduce massive changes in the annual flux of S through the atmosphere.

When SO2 is emitted as an air pollutant, it forms sulfuric acidthrough reactions with water in the atmosphere. Once the acid is completely

dissociated in water the pH can drop to 4.3 or lower causing damage to bothman-made and natural systems. According to the EPA acid rain is a broadterm referring to a mixture of wet and dry deposition (deposited material)from the atmosphere containing higher than normal amounts of nitric andsulfuric acids. Distilled water (water without any dissolved constituents),which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Rain naturally has aslightly acidic pH of 5.6, because carbon dioxide and water in the air reacttogether to form carbonic acid, a very weak acid.. Since pH is on a log scaledropping by 1 (the difference between normal rain water and acid rain) has a

dramatic effect on the strength of the acid.

PHOSPHOROUS CYCLE

Phosphorous:

Phosphorus is an important element for all forms of life. As

phosphate (PO4), it makes up an important part of the structural frameworkthat holds DNA and RNA together. Phosphates are also a critical component

of ATP the cellular energy carrier as they serve as an energy release for

organisms to use in building proteins or contacting muscles. Like calcium,

phosphorus is important to vertebrates; in the human body, 80% of

phosphorous is found in teeth and bones.


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Phosphorous cycle:

The phosphorus cycle differs from the other major biogeochemical

cycles in that it does not include a gas phase; although small amounts of

phosphoric acid (H3PO4) may make their way into the atmosphere,contributing in some cases to acid rain. The water, carbon, nitrogen and

sulfur cycles all include at least one phase in which the element is in its

gaseous state. Very little phosphorus circulates in the atmosphere because

at Earth's normal temperatures and pressures, phosphorus and its various

compounds are not gases. The largest reservoir of phosphorus is in

sedimentary rock.

EXPLANATION:

It is in the rocks where the phosphorus cycle begins. When it rains,phosphates are removed from the rocks via weathering (weathering is the

breaking down of rocks, soils and minerals as well as artificial materials

through contact with the Earth's atmosphere, biota and waters) and are

distributed throughout both soils and water. Plants take up the phosphate

ions from the soil. The phosphates then moves from plants to animals when

herbivores eat plants and carnivores eat plants or herbivores. The

phosphates absorbed by animal tissue through consumption eventually

returns to the soil through the excretion of urine and feaces, as well as from

the final decomposition of plants and animals after death.

Phosphate is incorporated into many molecules essential for life such

as ATP, adenosine triphosphate, which is important in the storage and use of

energy. It is also in the backbone of DNA and RNA which is involved with

coding for genetics.


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Much of the phosphate eventually is washed into the water from

erosion and leaching thus the same process occurs within the aquatic

ecosystem. Phosphorus is not highly soluble, binding tightly to molecules in

soil, therefore it mostly reaches waters by traveling with runoff soil particles.

Phosphates also enter waterways through fertilizer runoff, sewage seepage,

natural mineral deposits, and wastes from other industrial processes. These

phosphates tend to settle on ocean floors and lake bottoms. Again water

plants and algae utilize the phosphate as a nutrient. Phosphate is the limiting

agent in the growth of plants and algae. If not enough is present, the plants

are slow growing or stunted. If too much phosphate is present excess growth

may occur, particularly in algae. As sediments are stirred up, phosphates

may reenter the phosphorus cycle, but they are more commonly made

available to aquatic organisms by being exposed through erosion. Water

plants take up the waterborne phosphate which then travels up throughsuccessive stages of the aquatic food chain.

While obviously beneficial for many biological processes, in surface

waters an excessive concentration of phosphorus is considered a pollutant.

Phosphate stimulates the growth of plankton and plants, favoring weedy

species over others. Excess growth of these plants tend to consume large


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amounts of dissolved oxygen, potentially suffocating fish and other marine

animals, while also blocking available sunlight to bottom dwelling species.

This is known as eutrophication.

A large percentage of the phosphate in water is precipitated from

the water as iron phosphate which is insoluble. If the phosphate is in shallowsediments, it may be readily recycled back into the water for further reuse.

In deeper sediments in water, it is available for use only as part of a general

uplifting of rock formations for the cycle to repeat itself.

Human Interferance In Phosphorus

Cycle:

Humans alter the phosphorus cycle in many ways, including in thecutting of tropical rain forests and through the use of agricultural

fertilizers.Rainforest ecosystems are supported primarily through the

recycling of nutrients, with little or no nutrient reserves in their soils. As the

forest is cut and/or burned, nutrients originally stored in plants and rocks are

quickly washed away by heavy rains, causing the land to become

unproductive.

Human also influences on the phosphorous cycle by the introduction

and use of commercial synthetic fertilizers. The phosphate is obtained

through mining of certain deposits of calcium phosphate called apatite. Huge

quantities of sulfuric acid are used in the conversion of the phosphate rock

into a fertilizer product called "super phosphate".

Agricultural runoff provides much of the phosphate found in

waterways. Crops often cannot absorb all of the fertilizer in the soils, causing

excess fertilizer runoff and increasing phosphate levels in rivers and other

bodies of water. Plants may not be able to utilize all of the phosphatefertilizer applied, as a consequence, much of it is lost form the land through

the water run-off. The phosphate in the water is eventually precipitated as

sediments at the bottom of the body of water. In certain lakes and ponds this

may be redissolved and recyled as a problem nutrient.

Animal wastes or manure may also be applied to the land as

fertilizer. If misapplied on frozen ground during the winter, much of it may


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lost as run-off during the spring thaw. In certain area very large feed lots of

animals, may result in excessive run-off of phosphate and nitrate into

streams.

At one time the use of laundry detergents contributed to significant

concentrations of phosphates in rivers, lakes, and streams, but mostdetergents no longer include phosphorus as an ingredient. Other human

sources of phosphate are in the out flows from municipal sewage treatment

plants. Without an expensive tertiary treatment, the phosphate in sewage is

not removed during various treatment operations. Again an extra amount of

phosphate enters the water.

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