Page 3
Wednesday,Juk
idnesday, June 14,2000
_ scicnc
TECHN
THE BATTALION
Getting Burned
dangers posed by ultraviolet radiation damage sun worshippers' skin
Cyra Gatling and Stuart Hutson
The Battalion
With summer days approaching, college stu
nts are daydreaming about lazy days of bask-
|g in the sun at the closest pool, but if they are
careful, those dreams may turn into night-
[ares. The villain of the nightmare: ultraviolet
V) light.
Ultraviolet light is a form of electromagnet-
The Oakland Athletics also
:M outfielder Daylan Hoi
yers were part of the 1998rect
is, and Scarcella said it is ago
•tunity for both be able tojc
ne team.
Scarcella and his parentsmr
kland Athletics representat?
te 9 to begin the negot
>cess. During the meeting,!!
vas told by a scout for the
ion he had been following!!
ince his junior year of high
? Athletics also told him the:
make Scarcella a starter fo
ikie-league team based inVd
■ and will pay for two more a
3 of school so he can gethisi
speech communications.
Scarcella said getting his do
aortant to him and his parent
"A degree from TexasA&Mt
1 " Iv. giiid'i ijradiation — a term physicists use to defineen-
not, 1 still plan to get my Aji ^ at travels in such forms as light, radio
Waves and microwaves — that lies just beyond
1 he season starts June 20 forJ e v j s ibl^ color spectrum,
scarcella said he hopes to miH This means that UV light cannot be seen by
the human eye, but it carries more energy than
any color of light that can be seen.
■ Because of its intense energy, UV light is ca-
able of damaging genetic material within cells
and disinfecting foods.
A result more commonly known to the av-
aest for the team. That's it eroge college student is the damage UV light
inflicts when encountering a person's skin: a
re 1 akers seemed to need v. sunburn.
veen Rice and Jackson,a feJ Unlike the large-scale effects of a thermal
e airing of grievances, orpr burn (such as what is received from touching a
natherapy (Don't laugh. ]; hot skillet or catching an arm on fire), a sunburn
;affects individual skin cells, causing damage to
d the relationship betoeenh the cell walls and interior.
,n was not a "bad" one, while# This can release toxins into the body from
e two have had a good relatir the individually damaged cells, possibly re
sulting in a fever.
I and 5 will be Wednesdayrel uv ra y s ma y also lead to cancer by damag-
in Indianapolis before the e ing the genetic material of the cells that produce
. to I os Angeles, it nea«n;B dd hional skin cells.
i Monday night and Gie/I The skin is made U P of three layers, the
y night.
on bv the week's end.
nGame
epidermis, the dermis and the subcutis.
The epidermis is the top, thinnest layer of
skin that protects the deeper layers of the skin
and organs from the environment. It also re
ceives the most damage from sunburns.
The epidermis is composed of the stratum
corneum, which is the outermost layer of skin
and is composed of dead skin cells. The lowest
part of the epidermis is a layer of cells called
basal cells which produce new skin cells —
these are the cells that commonly become can
cerous when damaged by UV rays.
Sandwiched between these two layers is an
intermediary level where living skin cells
formed from the basal cells replace the upper
level of dead cells.
The dermis is the middle layer of the skin.
It is thicker than the epidermis and is made up
of hair follicles, sweat glands, blood vessels
and nerves.
The subcutis is the deepest layer of skin. It
conserves heat and protects the body's organs
from injury.
Each of these layers provide protection from
UV rays by absorbing them before they can dam
age the body's internal cells. But, when it comes
to protecting skin and other organs, they cannot
handle the power of die UV rays of the sun alone.
The American Cancer Society recommends
wearing a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and a shirt
when out in the sun.
Fabrics that have a tight weave provide the
best protection against the sun.
Margaret Griffith, the health education co
ordinator at Texas A&M offered additional
valuable tips for tackling UV rays.
"When choosing a sunscreen,
you should get an SPF (sun-protec
tion factor) of at least 15 and re-ap-
ply it often," Griffith said. "Even if
it is waterproof, that doesn't mean
that it stays on all day long. Sun
screen can rub off by sweating or
swimming."
One should also wear sunscreen
on hazy days because UV light can
penetrate cloud cover, even though
visible light cannot, Griffith said.
The effect of the sun on skin de
pends on the way its light contacts
it, said Dennis Driscoll, associate
professor of meteorology at A&M.
"The sun is harshest when it is
in right-angle contact with the
skin," Driscoll said. "The degree of
harshness depends whether or not
the sun is vertical or horizontal and
whether or not your body is verti
cal or horizontal to the sun."
The UV rays from the sun must
go through more layers of the at
mosphere when the sun is closer
to the horizon (or "more horizon
tal"), so less of the UV light pene
trates the atmosphere and reaches
the skin.
The sun is most dangerous when it is di
rectly above head, because the UV rays have
less atmosphere to penetrate.
There are three different types of UV rays.
dead cells
basal cells
hair
epidermis
-dermis
aneous
layer
nerve fiber
UV-A rays are almost harmless. They cause
aging and wrinkling. These rays can increase
the damage of UV-B rays.
UV-B rays are more harmful. They play a
larger role in the development of skin cancer
hair follicle
sweat gland
than UV-A rays. UV-C rays are deadly to any
living thing. They are commonly absorbed by
the ozone. However, these rays penetrate the
earth's atmosphere when ozone layers are
damaged.
!Off
f Deposi
Hurricanes predicted for Texas
cold
- 6 Sun 1 * 5
mmate?? fiskam
Stuart Hutson
The Battalion
Farmers in central and west Texas may find relief from
5 year's drought in an ironic source — a hurricane.
William Gray, head of Colorado State's hurricane fore-
ast team, is predicting an above-average number of hur-
Icanes for the 2000 hurricane season —12 named storms,
ight hurricanes and four
hajor hurricanes.
Texas State Climatolo-
pst John Nielsen-Gam-
mon said that one out of
Iree hurricanes will gen-
pally strike the Texas
|oastline, causing rain.
"Certain parts of Texas
ire experiencing a worse
Ifought than they are
iSed to seeing," Nielsen-
femmon said. "So, there
a strong possibility that,
th increased chances of
lirricanes and tropical
irms, there will be rain
at will help alleviate
iat situation."
He said central Texas,
luding the Brazos
unty through Waco
d Tyler will experience a fair amount of rainfall.
However, Nielsen-Gammon said coastal areas and the
untain area stretching northward from Temple are
likely to experience severe flooding problems.
"The coastal areas are always in danger of flooding
because of storm surges where the ocean rises up and
floods the shore," he said.
The areas farther west receive higher levels of rain be
cause moisture in the air from the storm encounters the
mountains and is pushetj up into the colder air in high-
Cold A i r
cold
Coriolis Force
Area
of
Moisture
Area
of
Moisture
er elevations. There, it cools and condenses into rainfall.
Nielsen-Gammon said there is also an increased
chance of tornadoes associated with hurricanes.
"No one really knows all the reasons why tornadoes
result from some hurricanes and not others," he said.
"Some hurricanes don't produce any, while others can
produce dozens. Generally, a hurricane that hits the shore
will cause at least a few tornadoes."
A hurricane forms when a pocket of warm, moist air
becomes trapped between an area of ocean with above
level surface temperatures (around 80 degrees Fahren
heit) and an area of cold air.
The ocean acts as a heat engine, driving the moist air
upward, where it condenses into rain in the cold air
above. This rain then adds moisture to the middle area.
The additional moisture causes more moisture to be
driven upward, resulting in more rain.
This cycle, called cyclogenesis, continues until a trop
ical storm results.
If the storm is more than 300 miles away from the
equator, the Coriolis force (the same force, caused by the
spin of the earth, that makes water going down a drain
spin counterclockwise) causes the storm to spin, and a
hurricane forms.
Gray said that this year, the Atlantic Ocean's surface
temperature is higher than normal, resulting in the high
er probability of a hurricane.
Nielsen-Gammon said hurricanes are usually pre
vented from starting by strong, high-level winds that tear
the storm apart before it can evolve into a hurricane.
These winds usually come from air currents over the
Pacific Ocean. Gray said the presence of La Nina, a large
area of cold water in the Pacific Ocean, is preventing
these winds from developing, thus leading to an even
greater probability of hurricanes.
A snowball’s
chance...
Stuart Hutson
its matching sen!
Black box technology‘within reach’ for autos
| SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A
par rolls on the highway in the
daf (jnad through 6//0 1 middle of the night and a signal
||sent to the nearest 911 center.
||thin seconds, emergency
workers know how fast the car
/\ (il s g° in g, w h ere h crashed,
U(\ur l\0(VW' 0 was i ns i de ahd Whether
tj they were wearing seat belts.
I The technology is within
reach, according to experts who
fcsented a prototype of the
f £ f £ § # XV/ij^ u t oma ti c Crash Notification
f \ § $ £Jl t| S y stem at the National Emer-
1 gency Number Association con
ference Monday.
It's not here today, but it's
tight around the corner," said
Stephen Meer of SCC Commu-
hitations Corp., a 911 routing
:oinpany that was part of the
demonstration.
r
0/Y/ad
J;
7M
The system is based on a so-
called "blackbox" — nicknamed
after the devices that record alti
tude and other flight data on
planes — built by Veridian.
The box uses sensors to
record the speed a car is travel
ing and the point of impact, and
then radios that information into
a central communication system
when a crash occurs.
A global positioning system
embedded in the box tells the
network how to relay the call to
a local 911 number, transmitting
the crash information to the dis
patcher on the ground.
That data can then be relayed
to a hospital or trauma center to
feed information about the crash
to doctors or paramedics on their
way to the accident.
The idea of crash notification
is not new; General Motors and
other car companies already in
stall systems such as OnStar in
some models. Proponents of the
new technology call those sys
tems basic.
"That says there was a frontal
crash, yes or no," said Doug
Funke, transportation sector pro
gram manager for Veridian. "But
we know was it side impact, was
it the left side, did the car roll
over, what was the car's final
resting position — on the side or
the roof — as well as the car's ac
tual location."
The new system also meshes
with traditional 911 operations,
said Meer, who helped design a
routing network for calls. That
means emergency systems will
not have to be overhauled each
time another company invents a
new black box.
The system was tested earli
er this month, when Veridian
wired two cars and crashed
them near Niagara Falls, N.Y.
The emergency services depart
ment in Harris County, Texas,
which covers Houston and its
suburbs, signed on in advance
to take the call.
When the cars slammed to
gether, the black box data was
instantly transmitted to SCC's
home base in Boulder, Colo,
and relayed to Houston's 911
number.
In less than a minute, dis
patchers at the Houston Fire De
partment read the crash data
and decided how many engines
and paramedics to send (be
cause the crash was in New
York, no crews were actually
dispatched). Within five min
utes, the crash data was trans
lated into a computer model that
could be read by doctors.
That final step — which will
eventually include information
about the ages of passengers and
crumple zones of specific makes
of car — is not yet ready for the
mass market.
But it will be soon. Response
Services Center, a subsidiary of
AAA, has paired up with SCC
and plans to offer an emergency
notification system to con
sumers in 2001. Experts predict
the technology will become as
standard as seat belts and air
bags in just a few years.
The Battalion
Scientists believe that life on earth began 3.8 billion years ago.
But until now, they had trouble believing that it has survived.
An ice age that blanketed the earth 600 million years ago
(called the "snowball period") was previously believed to have
covered the entire earth— from poles to equator — in a layer
of ice that should have prevented the single-cell organisms of
the day from surviving.
"Life at this time existed in the oceans, but if those oceans
were covered in a thick layer of ice, light from the sun could
n't have made it through," said William Hyde, professor of
oceanography at Texas A&M. "These organisms depended
on a process called photosynthesis for energy. So, no light
meant no life."
Photosynthesis is the process by which organisms absorb
light from the sun and then use the energy from that light to
make sugar for the organ
isms to feed on.
Hyde, along with
A&M oceanographers
Thomas Crowley and
Steven Baum, and Uni
versity of Toronto physi
cist W. Richard Peltier,
has constructed a com
puter model of the earth
at that time, which indi
cates that life may have
survived in ice-free pools
of ocean surrounding the
earth's equator.
"We were constructing
different models of what
the earth may have looked
like at this time under cer
tain conditions and came along this set up which seems a very
probable possibility," Hyde said. "This is isn't the definite way
that things went, but it would answer some questions."
Hyde said the snowball period, which predates the latest ice
age — known for its cave men and woolly mammoths — by
hundreds of millions of years, was caused by low levels of car
bon dioxide in the atmosphere and a sun that was 6 percent
dimmer than today's.
The sun is believed to have been dimpier because a star
grows brighter as it grows older due to a nuclear chain reaction
which gradually consumes more fuel in the star's core.
Carbon dioxide is one of the main contributors to a process
known as the "greenhouse effect." The clear carbon dioxide gas
allows the sun's energy, in the form of light, to penetrate the at
mosphere.
The light warms the earth which in turn radiates the energy
in as heat into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide then acts as
an insulating blanket, keeping that heat in.
Life may
have sur
vived in ice-
free pools
of ocean
surrounding
the Earth's
equator