Migrant Mother - Description

Depressed, hopeless and gazing into space, Florence Owens Thompson depicts the sorrow surrounding her. She is in the center of the photograph, taking up most of the image. Her arm is supporting her head, looking like she is in fear of the future. The long and bony fingers are touching her narrow and dry lips, which have not tasted proper food and clean water for quite some time. Deep wrinkles around her mouth and eyes make her look older than she probably is, as well as revealing her concern for the family's future. The mother is wearing a checked shirt and a vest that look old, torn and itchy, as if they were made out of burlap. Hidden in her arm lies an infant wrapped in a dirty blanket. Next to the mother are her two older children leaning on her shoulders. Both children are not facing the camera but have instead buried their faces in their hands. It seems as though they are trying to hide behind their mother where they feel safe and protected. What can be easily noticed by looking at the children is that they have the same hairstyle, namely a bowl haircut. The light hair color of the child standing on the viewers right side makes a good contrast to the mother’s and other childs dark hair. Last but not least, the pale background illustrates the hopelessness and bleakness of her situation.

(237 words)

CAJ - 55 Cancri e

Hey guys!

This is my second CAJ blog post and it deals with a very interesting planet. I am aware that my main topic is asteroid mining but I read something that is so cool that I could not resist to blog about it.

Imagine a planet that is completely covered with diamonds. Sounds great, doesn’t it? If you discovered this planet and were allowed to mine it what would you do with all the diamonds? Would you start wearing jewellery like this:

Or use it for other purposes:

What would you say if I told you that there is a planet in the universe that consists of one third of pure diamonds? You won’t believe me? Here we go:

The planet 55 Cancri e was discovered in 2004 by scientists and its surface is believed to be covered with graphite and diamonds. 55 Cancri e is 40 light years, which are about 125 091 648 000 kilometres, away from our solar system. Compared to the distance between the earth and the moon, which is “only” 1.3 light seconds, 55 Cancri e is a very remote planet and it would take a long time to get there. For this reason it was not yet possible to land on the planet but scientists managed to compute the size and volume of it. 55 Cacri e is twice the size of the earth and eight times heavier. It is orbiting a sun like star very closely and therefore a year on this planet lasts only 18 hours. Due to its closeness it can get very hot on 55 Cancri e, 2000° Celsius and more are normal temperatures. If scientists were able to mine the planet, diamonds would probably become very cheap on earth and nearly everyone could afford them.

Although this sounds very promising and astronomers are very interested in exploring the diamond planet and taking probes of it, it could take a long time until they finally manage to do so because of the position and the high temperature on 55 Cancri e. 

Narrative article homework

Paul, the young doctor with black hair and ice blue eyes quickly follows a nurse in her 40s through the wide corridors of Saint Peter’s University Hospital in London. The typical smell of disinfectant is in the air. They stop in front of the delivery room’s swing doors through which you can see hospital staff working hectically. Cecilia, the nurse, informs him in brief about the patient whom he should help. “Sophie, a 20 year old woman, came earlier today because of severe back pain. She was sent home with painkillers because the doctor who examined her could not find anything. He thought that she was suffering from menstrual cramps. Now she is back, I did an ultrasound and found out that she is pregnant. The baby will be here any minute.” Paul listens to the nurse in disbelief but knows that there is no time to lose. He pushes against the heavy doors and hears Sophie screaming because of labour pains.

Narrative: Little History of Photography

2^nd Version: History of photography - narrative

Boulevard du Temple, taken in 1839 by painter and chemist Louis Daguerre, is hanging on one of Louvre’s walls and is watching the tourists who pass by. Suddenly it notices a man in his 40s with shorts and a t-shirt who looks very dissatisfied with his camera. The photo can hear him moaning that the camera he bought does not take pictures satisfyingly. Boulevard du Temple laughs to itself and thinks of the time it was taken. The photo is sure that if this man could hear the story of photography, he would appreciate the tiny device he is holding in his hands.

The day the photo was taken was a very special one. Daguerre was the first photographer who managed to depict a person on a photo. Because of the long exposure time it was impossible to photograph moving objects such as passersby. Nevertheless, the man on the photo remained still long enough and so became part of this historic photo. However, it was not the first one that had been taken. In 1825 Joseph Niepce photographed Le Gras in France. Niepce’s idea was to apply bitumen to metal plates. The material hardened in the light and the unhardened rest was washed away. The metal plate was polished, the negative covered with ink and the photographed image would appear. Still, this early technique had its downsides. The plates were very heavy and expensive. Therefore, only rich people could afford being photographed. Secondly, exposure time was very long thus people being photographed needed something to lean on, namely props. This is why oval tables and pillars can often be seen on early photos. Long exposure would also lead to Mezzotint which means that photos have a soft black to grey to white gradation.

 A few years later, Daguerre invented his own technique, the daguerreotype, where the plate would be coated with silver, exposed and then the remaining silver would be removed. Time went by and photography became more popular. In 1840 almost every miniaturist had become a professional photographer because no one was interested in miniatures anymore.

The photo remembers all these events as though they were yesterday. The tourist in the museum should be grateful for all the people who worked on developing photography and cameras which led to what he is holding in his hands right now.

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Comment:
My fellow students had some very useful suggestions for my text. They pointed out that the introduction should be separated from the main text. They also felt that there was no connection between some sentences so I rewrote these parts.

Asteroid mining (CAJ)

Hello and welcome to my first CAJ post!

I decided to write about a relatively unknown project – asteroid mining. I am 99% sure that most people do not know what this project is about and what the aim of it is. Luckily the uncertainty is over and over the next few weeks and months you will learn all important facts, at least what I consider important J, about asteroid mining.
Let’s begin.

•   Who is interested in asteroid mining?
•  The company Planetary Resources was founded in 2010 by Eric Anderson. Its mission is “to expand Earth’s natural resource base by exploring the space and developing technologies for asteroid mining”.
• Anderson is convinced that space mining could be the start of a completely new industry sector.

• Which elements do they think asteroids contain?

o   Scientists have already successfully discovered NEAs, Near-Earth Asteroids, which contain one or more of these elements: iron, nickel, magnesium, water, metal, oxygen, gold, platinum.

• Why do they want to mine for these elements in the universe? All of them can be found on earth.
•  Some of these elements are very expensive on Earth and/or are getting less. Platinum, for example, is very rare on Earth. On an Asteroid with about 30 meters diameter there could be platinum worth to 50 billion US dollars. If it became possible to mine for water in the universe, asteroids could be used as a kind of gas stations. Hydrogen and oxygen could be used for spaceship fuel and would reduce the price drastically because fuel would not have to be transported from the Earth to the universe.

• That sounds really interesting but what are asteroids anyway?
• Asteroids are leftover materials from the early solar system. They are classified into three different categories:
• C-type: More than 75% of all known asteroids are considered to be a C-type. Their structure is similar to that of the sun but do not contain hydrogen and helium.
• S-type: These asteroids contain nickel, iron and magnesium.
• M-type: Only a small number of asteroids fit into this category. Nickel and iron can be found on them.

• Where can I get more information about this topic?
•  In my next post J
• Also, this is a great video to start with:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9cLLNpo2f8

• 
  

PSA: After-death-avatar

A day in the life of ... Katrin

 “Here in the city, the measure is frozen…” Milow is singing on my bedside table. Unfortunately he is not really there, it is just my alarm clock. Still humming his song, my Thursday can begin. I usually get up at 6:50 am to make sure that the day does not start off stressful. After I have dressed myself and packed my backpack, I am ready for the world. I live in a dorm and therefore share a big kitchen with the other residents. One of them is my “breakfast buddy” Benedikt with whom I always have a nice chat before going to university. My breakfast usually looks the same – one yoghurt pot. I do not drink coffee or tea in the morning, so I am rather quick.

My breakfast

After breakfast I head off to university by my bike, Jessy. I do not like to take the bus because every time I have to do it, e.g. when it rains, it comes late and/or is overcrowded. Using Jessy is a great way to exercise and to wake up.

Jessy :)

University starts at 8:15 with English. It is followed by Sign Language and another English class. After all those courses I am really looking forward to cycling home and cooking dinner. While cooking I like to talk to my friends in the dorm about current events. I then do my homework or read a book. Between half past seven and eight the best part of the day begins. We all gather in the kitchen for what we call “cake evening”. Every Thursday one person is in charge of baking a cake. We sit around the table, gossip about university, play “Activity” or watch TV. At the moment we are busily engaged on watching “Germanys next Topmodel”.

This week we had "Peach and Strawberry Crumble"

I usually go to bed around midnight because I have to get up again at 6:50 am on the next day. On Fridays I normally take the train home to Lower Austria, but this is another story…