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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 2000)
Wednesday, August 2, 2000 Page 3 tnot team il choice to replaceD® e Shaquille O'Neal,fe nwavering in hisstani not wish to play forilt n this summer, agent, Leonard Armato, nediately be reachedfe: esday. ;sible choices—assii’ ion committee would® after another bi' man — include Ar,- tonio McDyess o: Denver, Datid Robinson of SanAa tonio and Karl Mal one of Utah. The Olympic® •ter does not havet be finalized unit Sept. 15, two davsb fore the United State plays its first gamt against China, al though the selectior committee wouldr- place Duncan wel before that date ilk 'lay. I know, he hasn't madt ion yet," Granik said ive to wait and see." is expected to re-sign i Antonio Spurs in the s. Duncan, a free agent, i an offer from the Or- ■ in favor of signing a ■al with the Spurs, rar-old forward led the r only NBA title in 1999, st season's playoffs with : t knee. M 2818 stridge ries: i FACILITIES DENTS ) A&M OM CAMPUS) IEE iitor )r Editor Editor aster 1 University in the 3 are in 014 Reed Thebattalion@hof lorsement by The )r classified advet j hours are 8 a.m tdent to pick up 2 ations are $60 pe' month. To cha^ | luring the fall ept University ho! College Station,?' srsity, 1111 TAM? -J l f Martian... A&M scientists work to develop Mars station agriculture Patrice Pages The Battalion The world population is expected to grow by 20 percent in the next 20 years according to the U.S. Census Bu reau. More animal and plant species are placed on the endangered species list every year, and Earth's atmosphere is getting more and more polluted. "The earth has a finite number of resources and a finite land area," said Robert Spanarkel, a postdoctoral re search associate in horticulture at Texas A&M. "We are using up those resources and that fA land area very quickly. This is not something that we will have to think about next year or 10 years from now, but maybe 100 years from now. "We know that there are resources in space that we can use here on the earth Spanarkel said. "To get to those resources, and to get those resources back to the earth, you have to have ... colonies in space." A group of A&M scientists is working with NASA's John son Space Center to develop life support systems for a Mar tian base that will use plants and other physical chemical systems for air and water recy cling and for food production. Low-atmosphere plant growth Plants from Earth will be shipped to Mars to grow there in specially de signed greenhouses. To determine how plants will grow under the extreme Martian conditions, A&M scientists have set up an experi ment in which they control plant growth conditions in each of two clear chambers. "In each chamber, we are able to control the total pressure, so that we can monitor the relative humidity, the wa ter loss of plants, how fast plants grow, how much food they produce, how much oxygen they give off and how much carbon dioxide they consume," said Ron Lacey, associate professor of agricul tural engineering at A&M. By reducing the air pressure to 70 percent of the at mospheric pressure, A&M scientists have shown that plants grow faster under Mart- j ian conditions than un der nqrmal conditions. "Besides showing that the plants would grow and develop well, we saw no differences in photosynthesis and the amount of oxygen pro duced by the plants," Spanarkel said. "We also found some thing very interesting. At nighttime, plants take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. For some rea son, under lower atmospheric pres sure, at nighttime, plants give off more carbon dioxide. So we can grow plants under continuous light, they can con tinuously be giving off oxygen, and you actually get the plants to produce more food in a shorter period of time." A&M scientists are now setting up a larger experiment, made of six cham bers, to study plant growth in six dif ferent atmospheres. The plants used in these chambers are selected by NASA based on their nutritional values, the percentage of the plant that is edible and their photosynthesis rates. Based on previous missions to Mars, scientists have found that Mart ian soil, in large part, is of volcanic ori gin. Spanarkel tried to grow plants us ing an artificial reproduction of the soil. "Interestingly enough, plants grow quite well," he said. Humans and plants on Mars During the mid-1990s, humans par ticipated in two tests simulating life conditions in a greenhouse at NASA's Johnson Space Center. In the first test, a person was placed with plants for 30 days at a normal at mospheric pressure. During a second test, performed two years ago, four people stayed in side a chamber connected to an inde pendent plant-growth chamber, shar ing the atmosphere for three months. Within their own habitat, they also grew lettuce. "NASA discovered, to their sur prise, that there was a large psycholog ical benefit to having these green plants growing in their habitat and providing them fresh food," Spanarkel said. "Nearly all the components re quired for human life support were being recycled," said Malcolm Drew, a professor of horticulture at A&M. "There was regeneration of oxygen, human waste was recycled, and wa ter was recycled and resupplied as drinking water to the people in volved in the test." This experiment also tested the abil ity of humans to psychologically with stand confinement in an artificial at mosphere for a long periods. Drew said. Though the four people could not leave the chambers for three months, they had computer connections with the outside world and access to televi sion and books. NASA is planning a 425-day test by 2005. The new setup will use five cylin ders, each about 45 feet long and 30 feet in diameter. "The aim is to have a test running for more than a year to prove that the whole system is robust," said Drew. "Also, from the viewpoint of human psychology, it is important for people to withstand these conditions." NASA is extending the duration of each new experiment because the first crew on Mars might stay there for as long as 18 months. Water on Mars A recent discovery of possible liquid water underneath the Martian surface has been important to the scientists working on future missions to Mars. Planetary geologists Michael C. Malin and Kenneth S. Edgett, both of the Malin Space Science Systems in San See Mars on Page 4. Above: Three possible de signs for Mars stations and greenhouses, Left: Low atmosphere simulation chamber con taining a 30-day-old head of lettuce grown at 70 kilopascals (30 kilopas- cals below ambient room pressure). Web registration poses technological challenge Stuart Hutson The Battalion For Texas A&M students who are tired of dialing in their class selections and being denied by the choppy electronic voice of the computerized telephone registration system, an easy-to-read Web page may seem a better method of adding or dropping classes. But for A&M Computing and Information Services (CIS), mak ing that method a possibility is far from easy. "Frankly, I would like to see Web-based registration initiated, but there are a lot of problems that have to be dealt with before that can happen," said Tom Putnam, director of CIS. Putnam said the first and most significant step toward de veloping Web-based registration is getting money from the administration. Universities Ulith Web Registration Auburn Florida Florida State Georgia Tech Iowa State Kansas State UC - Berkeley • iHinnesota • north Carolina • Ohio State • Penn State • Texas • Texas Tech • ucm • UC - San Diego tjt "We currently have a proposal for a plan that would cost $1 million that is up for review by the administration," he said. "But it is hard to convince someone to give $1 million for one thing when it could just as easily go to any one of a dozen worthwhile projects." Under the current phone registration system, a student dials into a computerized telephone registration terminal. The ter minal then exchanges the entered information (i.e. adds, drops and fee options) with the central mainframe computer that houses the student information management system (SIMS). SIMS is a database that contains all student records, such as course schedules, transcripts and fiscal records. See Registration on Page 4. Question-. If clouds are made of water, then why do they ap pear white or even black at times? — Rudy Sali nas, junior envi ronmental design major Answer: As you may know, light can be red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When all of these are combined, you get white light. Take all these away, or block out all light completely, and you get black light. This is best demonstrated by a prism scattering light into a rainbow. According to the state climatol ogist, John Nielson-Gammon, wa ter is really good at scattering aiad bouncing around all of the elements of light. Therefore, white clouds are thinner clouds that have just blend ed the colors coming through the at mosphere like a nice daiquiri — thus, white light. As for dark clouds, I personally used to believe that since dark clouds usually mean rain, their color came from the dust particles which water collects around to form raindrops. Of course, I was just plain wrong. Nielson-Gammon said the clouds appear gray or black'because they are so thick that the light that usual ly passes through gets blocked off. Rain usually occurs when a mass of cold air hits a mass of warm air. Clouds carried with the cold air mass are usually more dense be cause the clouds' water is condensed by the cold temperature. These dense clouds block out more light. This is why dark clouds are as sociated with rain. ■ It's that simple. If you have a question about why, when, or how things happen, just email me at scifyi@hotmail.com with your question, name, classifi cation and major, and I'll see if I can serve up an answer. A SM'yf IH Watch your mailbox! OPAS Season 28 small ticket packages and priority individual tickets will be available soon! You'll want to hurry before the best seats are gone. Call 845-1661 • • r 2000-2001 Season Media Partners #| KBTX WDUtr tM-Ofie. PneqnatuM GenteSiA. ' " *OF BRAZOS VALLEY I CANT POSSIBLY BE PREGNANT, BUT WHAT IF I AM? 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