A Silent Step pp. 36
The Technology of LIFE pp. 12
Don’t Panic, It’s Organic! pp. 20
The Thrill of Discovery pp. 32
The Inquiring Mind
Go Green or Go Home How renewable energy sources are helping prepare for the challenges of the future | pp. 26
CONTENTS 04 Contributors Page
Meet the people behind the magazine
06 Letter From the Editor
Our message to you
08 What Type Of Engineer Are You?
Find out which engineering career to follow
12 The Technology of LIFE
An overview of the field of biotechnology
16 Modern Biotech
Comparing old and new biotechnology methods
18 Technological Timeline
How technology has evolved through history
20 Don’t Panic, It’s Organic!
An overview of the food industry and organic food
24 Your Environmental Footprint
How you can make a difference to help save the planet
26 Go Green or Go Home
How renewable energy is helping people prepare for the future
30 Splendid Senses
How our five senses help us perceive food
32 The Thrill of Discovery
An overview of electrical and computer engineering
36 A Silent Step
The nuances of civil engineering and architecture
20
36
12
32 26
MEET THE
CONTRIBUTORS
Sachin Sachin Allums has lived in Austin his entire life and has lived under the shadow of many skyscrapers that make up the Austin, Texas downtown skyline. Sachin has enjoyed sketching images of different worlds and creating board games in his spare time. Through observing his hobbies and discovering what he enjoys in life, Sachin has come to the realization that he aspires to be an architect. Sachin viewed this electronic magazine as a beautiful opportunity to further his understanding of the field and feed his ever-hungry curiosity for learning more about engineering, architecture, and his surrounding world.
The Inquiring Mind | 4
Mia Mia Ternus is a freshman at LASA High School in Austin, Texas. She aspires to work towards a career in the medical field, and has enjoyed science her entire life. In her free time, she likes to run, play guitar, skateboard, spend time with friends, and cook. She also has a passion for the environment, and spends her time working as an intern at a small farm in East Austin. She loves being outdoors, and her favorite parts of the year are her trips to the Rockies to ski and climb mountains. Being a part of this magazine has helped her learn more about the current state of the world and how people are trying to improve it.
Peyton Peyton Dashiell has lived in Austin her whole life. Her favorite subjects in school are math and science. In her free time, she likes drawing, learning new languages, cooking, and filmmaking. She is currently working on a documentary. She is passionate about the environment, and her article in this magazine taught her a lot about how to build modern buildings that are environmentally friendly. She would like to pursue a career in chemical engineering and develop new, biocompatible materials for things that we use in our everyday lives. This magazine taught her valuable communication and interview skills that she will continue to use throughout her life.
Eli
Shruthi
Eli Kuhn has spent his whole life in Austin, Texas, and has been greatly influenced by the modern technology involved in a high-tech city. Eli enjoys playing soccer, video games, and spending time with friends and family during his free time, but loves food and music as well. Eli excels in subjects such as science and math, and takes a computer programming class at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin, Texas. For the future, Eli hopes to have a career in the Computer Engineering field, and this magazine has only amplified that hope, as he has been able to speak with several successful experts in that field who have informed and interested him further into the growing field.
Shruthi Aravindan was born in Virginia, but she has lived in Florida, California, India, and Texas. She has always had a love for science, especially biology. She has aspired to be a doctor since she was four years old. In her free time, she plays the piano and the violin, swims, and plays tennis. She also loves learning languages, and can speak French, Tamil, and Hindi. She is also a part of her school’s Science Olympiad team where she competes in biology and life sciences events. This electronic magazine has allowed her to discover and research biotechnology and interview professionals in the field.
Meet the Contributors | 5
“Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been.” —Theodore von Karman
Inquiring Mind | 6
Letter from the Editors In creating this magazine, we have enjoyed learning about the many nuances of the engineering field ranging from renewable energy, to organic food, to the history of biotechnology, to the evolution of software, to the background actions of civil engineering and architecture. The Inquiring Mind is for readers who enjoy expanding their brain and are interested in the science and engineering fields. We hope to feed your craving for knowledge by providing you with articles that reflect on insightful issues, graphics that teach you something new, and an entire magazine filled with a semester’s worth of hard work. We hope that you cherish reading this magazine as we have all treasured the experience of working with one another, discovering our individual strengths, and overcoming and improving our weaknesses. Everyone has their role to play in life, and our entire team aspires to participate in the engineering field. While the engineering field may not be for everyone, we believe that there are some unexpected aspects of the field that could change a person’s perspective of life regardless of their interests.
“The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” —Thomas J. Watson
We have utilized this magazine as a method for appealing to our specific tastes. Our team has brought a serious mindset in approaching this magazine, and we have benefited from it by gaining an exclusive opportunity to acquire information about the people in this world that we look up to. All of us have role models that work in the engineering field and create intricate designs and save the planet. This magazine serves as a tribute not just to those people making a difference, but to every single engineer that works for a cause greater than themselves. Through our adventure in designing a final product, we have all had the chance to realize how engineering encompasses every single profession. Getting the chance to look in depth into what defines engineering has given us insight into how we can utilize creativity and originality towards solving everyday problems. As we embark on this exploration, we have recognized that we have only scratched the surface of an evolving field. What you see before your eyes is the final product of five minds working together, but this is not the end of our journey in both graphic design and engineering: It is the beginning of a voyage into our inquiring world.
The Inquiring Mind Team Letter from the Editors | 7
What Type of
Engineer Are You?
Find out which engineering career you should pursue through completing an easy flow chart. By: Sachin Allums
Start Yes
Do you enjoy working with people?
Do you constantly plan ahead?
Yes
No
No
No
Can you easily communicate your thoughts and ideas?
Do you enjoy giving something power?
Yes
Do you enjoy thinking in three dimensions?
Yes
Do you enjoy being a part of new discoveries?
No
Yes
No
No Do you enjoy working with technology?
Yes
Is getting the job done more important than making sure everyone stays happy?
No
Do you enjoy creating or repairing objects?
No
Yes Yes No
Yes
Computer
Do you enjoy conducting experiments?
Aerospace
Yes
Does everything need to be efficient?
Yes
No
Do you value the process over the result?
Yes
Start Over
Mechanical
No
Do you believe that you should actually be an engineer?
Yes No
No
Chemical The Inquiring Mind | 8
Electrical
Industrial Starbucks Barista
Aerospace
Civil
Yes
Yes
When given an empty sheet of paper, do you doodle planes and rocketships?
No
Do You Value Hands-on activities over design?
No
Architecture No Are you fascinated with nature?
Yes No
Do you value protecting the environment over discovering new innovations?
Yes Would you be comfortable with having someone’s life in your hands?
Yes
Environmental
No
BioTechnology Do you believe that you should actually be an engineer?
No Yes
Start Over
Starbucks Barista
Find out which qualities and traits are associated with your engineering profession on the next page.
Engineering Types Aerospace Architecture Biotechnology Chemical Civil Computer Science Electrical Environmental Industrial Mechanical Starbucks Barista And many more!
What Type of Engineer are you? | 9
A Glimpse into the
Engineering field
These descriptions correspond to the results from the previous page. Aerospace engineers design and create different types of aircraft, spacecraft, and missiles. Aerospace engineers excel at collaborating with others and are able to think in unique and creative ways. These types of engineers tackle the everyday problems that arise in their lives with a holistic mindset: They believe that a large variety of systems and their properties are all interconnected with one another. Working tightly with industrial and manufacturing processes, Aerospace engineers utilize their imagination, intuition, and resourcefulness to engineer methods and products that are out of this world.
Architectural engineers draw inspiration from multitudes of biological processes, intricate designs, and aspects of human culture to create layouts for buildings and sculptures. Architectural engineers rely upon their logic and reasoning to identify flaws in their plans and proposals. One could find an architectural engineer pondering over their thoughts as they sketch diagrams or brainstorm different methods to use in solving complex problems. Although efficient at their job, architectural engineers will dedicate an excessive amount of time towards perfecting minuscule aspects in their designs. Architectural engineers combine their critical thinking and attention to detail to develop ideas that tie most brains into knots.
With a mindset that is always open to change, biomedical engineers conquer the field of medicine using their communicative skills, analytical thinking, and persistence. Due to a high demand for medicine and technological products, biomedical engineers work closely with a variety of doctors and engineers to get the job done. The fields of biomedicine and biotechnology are constantly evolving as new innovations are developed and implemented into the professions. Biomedical engineers strive to brainstorm and come up with new ideas to aid them in their mission to help people live easier lives.
Relying on their intuition and ingenuity, chemical engineers are able to conduct experiments to isolate errors in manufacturing processes and safety procedures. Chemical engineers develop many interpersonal relationships as their work and career extends beyond the field of engineering. Chemical engineers work with an abundance of equipment and tools in conjunction with their minds to construct a wide variety of products. Chemical engineers strive to understand systems in the human body and nature on a molecular level in order to gain insight into large problems: Something as small as a molecule can create a major impact on the entirety of the human race.
Civil engineering is considered to be one of the oldest engineering disciplines as it encompasses the ways in which humans interact with their environment. While most people associate civil engineering exclusively with major skyscrapers or buildings, they do not correlate civil engineering with everyday technical systems. Civil engineers work with a perfectionist mindset to ensure that humans can rely upon certain operations to always work in their expected functions. Civil engineers incorporate pragmatism into their creative approach for engineering in order for them to assemble structures that could only have been born from the imagination of the human mind.
The Inquiring Mind | 10
The field of computer science and software engineering is comprised of independent strategists that all endeavor to generate original codes and software products. The field of software is extremely competitive which helps all of the programmers learn new processes and ways of thinking. Software engineers need to be patient throughout their whole career as it may take a while for a product idea to find its way into their minds. However, once an idea inserts itself into the consciousness of a software engineer, these computer programmers will call upon their passion for adventuring into the world of codes and their determination to make things right to change the world.
Electrical engineers approach everyday problems with a systematic, logical thought process. Electrical engineering pertains to a broad collection of engineering subsets including electromagnetism, telecommunications, robotics, and digital technologies. Utilizing their abilities of troubleshooting, electrical engineers can isolate problems and errors when they install or replace different technological equipment. Through analyzing their own methods and criticizing the ways in which they think, electrical engineers can pull different wires and connect a multitude of circuits to shine a light on the problem at hand.
Out of all the engineering fields, environmental engineering places the greatest emphasis on one’s reading and writing skills. Environmental engineers call upon their powers of persuasion to bring attention to environmental problems. Environmental engineers propose solutions to current dilemmas and problematic situations through observing the natural processes that occur in the area of their study and recommending the ways in which humans should or should not get involved. Environmental engineers design projects that encourage humans to help the natural world as protecting the environment serves to be its own reward.
Industrial engineers have an incessant need for processes to be efficient and orderly. Industrial engineers have a logical mindset that enables them to think in a way that transforms them into a team player: always thinking about how they can help to paint the big picture. With regards to a plethora of mechanisms, industrial engineers continually monitor and assess the functionality of devices, workers, and themselves. Industrial engineers contain a certain way of thinking that labels them as natural leaders in the workforce and in life- their abilities to quickly communicate what needs to be done to a group of workers enables them to industrialize our present day world into one of modernized innovation.
Mechanical engineers view the world from a pragmatic and realistic perspective that enables them to repair broken products. Mechanical engineers have a strong willed persona that casts them as being stubborn figures, but they have the strength to accept defeat. Mechanical engineers motivate themselves to try and solve problems that face their everyday lives and to provide others with clarifications to get everyone on the same page. Without the ingenuity, sensibility, and ambition of mechanical engineers, the world would be broken in every corner.
Not everyone is an engineer! Hundreds of other professions exist in our ever evolving world, but engineering can find its way into nearly all of them. While a Starbucks barista may not be behind the scenes designing a mind-blowing idea, solving problems in an unusually creative manner, or tackling situations with a hands on method, they make everyone’s lives that they interact with better, and what more could any human possibly ask of that?
A Glimpse into the Engineering Field | 11
The Technology of
LIFE An overview of the field of Biotechnology, and how the field has changed over time
By: Shruthi Aravindan
The Inquiring Mind | 10
Image of a bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae)- a Gram negative bacterium that causes nosocomial infections. Diseases like these are often ones that biotechnicians develop drugs for, especially those that are resistant to most drugs like this one. Photo credit: Flickr
The Technology of Life | 13
Biotechnology ranges from early civilizations fermenting alcohol to the modern methods used by biotechnologists today to combat epidemics and create medications for emerging diseases. Biotechnology is a growing and innovative field that has existed since the time of ancient civilizations. From the simplest forms of making beer and wine to the antibiotics that save people from deadly diseases, biotechnology has come a long way. The technology used in this field help biotechnologists create products and carry out functions that were not possible before. Biotechnology carries importance because it is a field geared towards human health and improving it.
Biotechnology is not a newly created field, and it has been around for thousands of years. The earliest forms of biotechnology were simple and born out of people’s needs. “People have used the biological processes of microorganisms for more than 6,000 years to make food products, such as bread and cheese, and wine and beer,” said San-Francisco Laboratory apparatus often used in labs. Photo credit: Pexels
“Modern biotechnology provides products and technologies to combat disease, reduce our environmental footprint, increase crop yield, use less and cleaner energy, and have more efficient industrial manufacturing processes,” said San-Francisco.
Biotechnology uses different fields of science and biology together to create products, technologies, and functions to help the planet and the human body maintain a healthful condition. “Biotechnology is a natural merging of several of my favorite scientific fields,” said Susan San-Francisco, a professor of biotechnology at Texas Tech.
Biotechnology is a field in a changing world. Therefore, it must adapt to new circumstances, environments, and different conditions of human health.
An image of a bacteria- one of the major goals of biotechnologists today is to find cures and medications against emerging bacterial diseases. Photo credit: Flickr
One of the main goals of the scientists in this field is to keep humans and their surroundings clean and healthy. “There are several challenges facing human health care,” University of Texas at Austin professor Roger T. Bonnecaze said. “One of them, of course, is keeping people healthy and active and living a full life for as long as possible and as people live longer and age there is more need for that kind of a thing.” The change in people’s work and environment leads to a change in their health conditions as well. Biotechnologists have to keep up with these changes and come up with new ways to curb the difficulties that the people face.
A picture from inside a lab, with a professional lab worker testing something; testing in labs would be difficult without biotechnology. Photo credit: Pexels
“The technology changes very rapidly; analysis has become faster, more sensitive, more accurate and more complex with major technological advances,” said SanFrancisco. “There is now a necessity for computational tools to handle the enormous and complex data sets we can now generate.”
With the world, environment, and condition of human health changing, the field that caters to all of these will change as well. Biotechnology as a field has come a long way. The tools and techniques used have seen a drastic change from 20 years ago.
“The new technologies allow us to ask questions at biological levels (ie. single-cell genomics),” said San-Francisco. “It has allowed us to realize how complex everything is. It has encouraged us to be more interdisciplinary and collaborative in our approach, and to think more innovatively.”
biotechnology, there would be no medicine, no vaccines, and no way of treating cancer. There would be no way of cleaning oil spills, no biofuel production, or no way of giving blood in impoverished countries.
Although the new technology improved the quality and the type of research done, it proved to be difficult and expensive to keep up with the changing field. Nevertheless, biotechnologists still strive for ways to improve modern medicine.
The Hemospot from Spot on Sciences in Austin, Texas- an example of a biotech innovation; this device can safely store blood for testing over years, and the blood can be taken from home. Photo by Shruthi Aravindan
“I think biotechnology will continue to become more clinical in its application - ‘personalized’ or ‘precision’ medicine, tailored to the individual... There will continue to be an explosion in bioinformatics and the handling of big data, targeted gene engineering (e.g., CRISPR), and the ability to analyze the molecular response of single cells,” said SanFrancisco. Biotechnology will continue to strive and change to cater to people and help them live an easier life. “One big thing is the organ and tissue replacement for people and, I think that what people would really like to do is take stem cells and basically get those cells to differentiate into specific tissue you want it could be cartilage for your knee or for your liver if you have liver disease or something… People are also working toward noninvasive or minimally invasive of treating illnesses or disease or different surgical techniques that are not so harmful for the patient,” said Bonnecaze.
An example of how much biotechnology has changed over time can be seen just by looking at how much even simple lab equipment like microscopes have changed- the microscope on the top is one of the older designs of a microscopes, and the one on the bottom is a newer model. Photos credits: both images are from Pexels.
“One of the biggest challenges is the constant change in technology. It requires new, often costly equipment to stay current. This requires constantly learning new things as well as finding sources of funds for this equipment.” -Susan San-Francisco
Biotechnologists are trying to refine things that enhance the quality of human life so that there are close to none side effects of surgery and the people can live easier lives. Biotechnology is a growing and innovative field, and it will continue to change and become more modernized with time. Without
The Technology of Life | 15
Modern
By: Shruthi Aravindan
Tissue Culture
Agricultural Methods
MODERN BIOTECH
Natural Breeding
The Inquiring Mind | 16
Biotech Cell fusion Conjugation Blood Transport and Storage Transformations Transfections
Biotechnology is a field that uses biological processes for different industrial purposes. Biotech has evolved as a field over time. The different advancements and innovations in this growing field make certain tasks such as storing blood for numerous years and modifying genes possible. These action would not be possible a few years ago without the advancements of modern biotechnology.
Technological Timeline A brief chain of events showing how technology has progressed throughout time. By: Eli Kuhn
~2400 BCE Although the Abacus might not be considered a computer, this ancient device was used by Babylonians to simplify calculations that were too difficult to preform on just ten fingers. Using some stones to represent the number five, and the others representing the number one, this allowed the users to count, add, subtract, multiply, and divide at an incredible speed compared to what existed before. This machine originally constructed of sand and stone led to the design of calculators thousands of years later, and created a desire for quick calculations.
1937
The Inquiring Mind | 18
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer, referred to as The ABC, was created by professors at Iowa State College. The ABC completed linear equations, and the storage system was not successful, so the ABC was not continued. However, many parts of the ABC are still used in computer technology today. Binary Arithmetic and electric switching, which is why The ABC is more well known now than it was at the time, as this computer is now considered to be the first electronic computer.
2007
1948 The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, known as the Manchester Baby, was invented in the 1940s and first used in 1948. Like many of the other computers that were created during this time period, the Baby only completed simple tasks. However, this computer, created at the Victoria University of Manchester, had a memory of 32 words, and is the simplest possible stored program computer. Even though this computer only completed small and simple equations, it is known as the world’s first stored program computer.
The first ever iPhone was released in 2007. two years after Steve Jobs came up with the idea. The iPhone turned out to be revolutionary in the world of computers and technology, as it ditched a keyboard for a touch sensing screen, and could complete many of the same tasks as a computer. Since 2007, the iPhone has improved, and with the release of the iPhone X, a new feature has been introduced, facial recognition, which identifies and recognizes the user by their facial features.
1981 In 1981, the Osborne 1 was first released. This “laptop� weighed 25 lbs, cost $1,800, and had a screen smaller than most mobile phones nowadays. This computer was the first portable computer. From the time that the Osborne 1 was released, portable computers, or laptops, have grown exponentially, especially with the release of the Macbook by Apple Inc. in 2005, which now only weighs 2 lbs and is just over 13 mm thin.
Technological Timeline | 19
Don’t Panic, It’s Organic! By: Mia Ternus
A Review on the Sustainable Food Industry
Sustainable farming is a movement based on environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. (dosomething.org) Photo free from Pixabay.com
According to the Worldwatch Institute, Americans alone compose less than 5% of Earth’s population, but consume over 30% of its resources. Additionally, the world has already lost about 80% of its forests, and continues to lose 375 square kilometers daily. The world is changing, yet people are confronting it head-on. The emergence of organic farming stemmed from a rejection of industrial agriculture in the 1960s, and kick-started the commencement of the sustainable agriculture movement. Beginning in the 1990s, organic food sales increased by 20% each year until the economic recession in 2008, according to the UCDavis Agricultural Sustainability Institute. Although the sustainable movement itself has grown exponentially in the past years, sales of organic foods only account for about 5% of food sold in the United States. Realizing the benefits of using and producing sustainable agriculture, people from all kinds of backgrounds have joined the movement. This includes farmers, restaurateurs, producers, and manufacturers wanting to change their impact on the environment.
The Inquiring Mind | 20
“We expect everyone to shop locally and sustainably, like the gas station on the corner. Why not? Why not get your kids real food from a real farm and not buy junk from somewhere else?” Todd Duplechan, chef and owner of Lenoir, said.
Lenoir is a romantic, vintage-style eatery located in South Austin, inspired by ideas of sustainable eating and building the community. “We wanted to open a sustainable restaurant, like a tangibly sustainable restaurant where people go ‘Well, how’s your restaurant sustainable?’
“We expect everyone to shop locally and sustainably, like the gas station on the corner. Why not?” -Todd Duplechan and we can really point to things like these tables and chairs here,” Duplechan said. Eating and buying food sustainably is not only beneficial to the environment, it also benefits personal and public health, saves small farms, and grows the economy. “The freshness or the quality of product and the diversity of being able to work directly with the producer is great because I’m able to tell exactly what they’re doing. Then, because I’m spending my money here in Austin, it is growing that part of the central Texas economy,” Duplechan said. Following the sustainability movement is a different story for manufacturers. Ensuring that a product stays natural from growth through development can be a major struggle for companies trying to develop a product with sufficient margins for sale. Applied Food Sciences is a botanical ingredients supplier that makes functional extracts out of natural ingredients with particular focuses on water solubility and bioavailability. “There is a huge list of things that would be allowed in the natural category that wouldn’t be allowed in organic. Anything could be considered natural as long as it’s derived from nature. It’s a pretty vague term, and it’s not as well-defined, whereas organic is certified. It’s a pretty robust certiLenoir, owned by Todd Duplechan, sits at the growing hub of Austin’s night life and restaurant community on South fication to get that,” 1st St. Organic Butter Lettuce is featured at Urban Roots Farm. Photo credit (both): Mia Ternus
Urban Roots, a small, sustainable farm in East Austin, grows 40,000 pounds of produce yearly, lettuce being their most recently harvested product. Photo Credit: Mia Ternus
“We needed to create a sustainable sourcing initiative, and we needed to make sure that we had some non-negotiable ethical aspects” - Brian Zapp said Brian Zapp, Director of Marketing at Applied Food Sciences. Products that are certified organic are produced, stored, marketed, processed, and handled in a way that is deemed ecologically sound. Another aspect of farming that is commonly overlooked is how
initiative and we need to make sure that we have some non-negotiable ethical aspects. For example, is this sustainable? Is it good for the environment?” said Zapp. When creating a marketable product, it is important to be sure people are being treated ethically each step of the way, from the farmers, to the workers, to the customers buying the product. “The trust between people is built over time. That includes making sure that you’re distinctively bringing in ingredients to scale without this process affects the world diminishing the environment and ethically. “You know there’s a tremaking sure that it’s able to continue mendous amount of forced labor and child labor in the world and it’s for future generations,” Zapp said. really a shame. So you know that was something that Applied Food Sciences saw, and we said we needed to create a sustainable sourcing
Following an increase in environmental awareness in the past 50 years, pollution in the United States has seen a significant decline, with about 205,000 early deaths prevented in 1990 alone, according to a 1997 EPA Report to Congress. With the sustained efforts of trying to improve the environment, these trends can continue to grow and expand over the coming years. A world of sustainable agriculture is blooming and spreading all around the globe, from farmers, to manufacturers, to restaurateurs, and of course, to the consumers.
“The trust between people is built over time. That includes making sure that you’re distinctively bringing in ingredients to scale without diminishing the environment” -Brian Zapp
Lenoir is owned and operated by the Duplechans, a couple from New York who aspired to improve the culinary community and experience in Austin, Texas. Photo Credit: Mia Ternus
Don’t Panic, It’s Organic | 23
Your Environmental Footprint What can you do to help save the planet? By: Peyton Dashiell
Throws away 254 pounds of edible food
Uses
18242 gallons of water
Sends 1828 pounds of trash to a landfill
Uses 912 million BTU of energy Throws away
619 cans
Drives 11000 miles a year, using 627 gallons of gasoline
Swapping a 20 minute round trip car journey for public transportation, like a train or a bus, can reduce your carbon footprint by 4600 lbs a year.
Pay attention to water usage. Turn off the water while you brush your teeth and get any leaky faucets fixed as soon as you can. Drink tap water instead of bottled water so you aren’t wasting all that packaging.
If possible, use a laptop instead of a desktop computer. They use only half of th energy. You can also choose a device with the government’ Energy Star rating, which is guaranteed to use 70% less energy than a non certified model.
HOW CAN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE? Be conscious of food packaging! Swap tea bags for loose leaf tea and buy in bulk when you can (as long as you will use all the food before it goes bad).
Choose locally grown food. Your last meal may have traveled thousands of miles to reach your kitchen, using many gallons of gas in the process. Next time, you can save food and reduce pollution at the same time.
In the winter, think of putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat. You’ll stay warm and keep your energy bills down at the same time.
Citizens of the United States have the 5th largest ecological footprint in the world, only trailing Luxembourg, Aruba, Qatar, and Australia. With almost 330 million people, this really adds up. Since we use more resources than we produce, we have an “ecological deficit”. If every person lived like the average American, we’d need 6.8 Earths to have enough resources.
This HEB in the Mueller development in north-east Austin contains enough solar panels on its roof to power 16 homes at any given time. Photo by Peyton Dashiell.
Go Green or go home By: Peyton Dashiell
How renewable energy sources are helping prepare for the challenges of the future The Inquiring Mind | 26
Austin , Texas is the fastest growing large city in the United States, which creates many challenges when it comes to sourcing energy for houses, apartments, and government buildings.. In February 2018, the city council for a 65% renewable energy goal by 2027. Photo courtesy of Pixabay
“Some other great renewable energy sources are hydroelectric power and wind power, but solar power is much cheaper and more accessible to your average person” - Ebba Larssen If everybody in the world lived the lifestyle of the average American, it would take an estimated six earths to sustain the global population, according to a 2011 BBC study. Architects and designers from Texas and Norway and beyond, face the same struggles in the design process, such as finding sources of renewable energy, and finding usable environmentally conscious building materials. Ebba Larsson and Meghan Skornia face similar challenges, even living in two different countries.
With the changing physical landscape of the world, and rising temperatures and sea levels, architects and designers are becoming more concerned with the eco-friendliness of the buildings and cities they design.
Solar energy has emerged as one of the most common and accessible sources of renewable energy that is pollution and noise free. In the past 20 years, its usage has surged by 20% in the United States.
Ebba Larsson and Meghan Skornia face similar challenges, even living in two different countries. With the changing physical landscape of the world, and rising temperatures and sea levels, it is important to build using environmentally-friendly materials and energy sources.
“Myself and my coworkers use a lot of solar panels on the buildings we design. The sun, it’ll always be there for us,” Ebba Larssen, a self employed environmental engineer and architect from Oslo Norway, said. While solar panels are widely used in individual homes and buildings, there are also other options.
Wind turbines provide relatively low cost renewable energy for many buildings and businesses in Austin. Large arrays of wind turbines known as “wind farms” are located all across rural Texas, and wind turbines are recognized as having the fewest greenhouse gas emissions out of all energy sources and the most favorable social impacts. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.
”Some other great renewable energy sources are hydroelectric power and wind power, but solar power is much cheaper and more accessible to your average person,” said Larssen.
In addition to finding renewable and affordable sources of energy, architects and builders face other challenges, including making sure their buildings maximize water usage.
According to CleanTechnica, the price of solar energy is predicted to drop by 67 percent in the next 20 years. With tax breaks prices falling, solar energy will likely become an even more mainstream source of energy in the future.
“We need to be saving all of the water we can,” said Larssen. “Desalination efforts aren’t advancing as fast as we are building our cities. Cape Town is going to run out of water very soon, and soon it won’t just be Cape Town; I can see many other countries and cities following.”
Hydroelectric power and wind power are typically used on the larger scale, in environmentally-conscious cities or factories. However, according to AltEnergy, its home usage will triple by 2050.
The Inquiring Mind | 28
To ensure a positive environmental future for the city of Austin, urban planner Meghan Skornia, with the Austin-based firm Asakura Robinson, says that government officials could continue to support and expand green building programs for developers and private owners, as well as stopping their support of urban sprawl through zoning policies.
In addition to having negative effects on quality of life, urban sprawl can result in increased car dependency, higher water and air pollution, and more runoff into local rivers and lakes, all of which have negative consequences for the environment. Environmental urban planning is a field that has become increasingly important in recent years. According to the United States Green Building Council, the number of accredited professionals in the country has grown from 527 in 2001 to more than 43,000 today. Skornia said she has had a positive experience working as an urban planner. “It’s always different! That’s why I love working in this field, we always have different clients with different goals, so it’s never the same!” she said.
“The evidence is there, Earth’s temperatures are rising rapidly, and by the end of my lifetime I wouldn’t be surprised to see some major cities near me, such as Amsterdam, be underwater” - Ebba Larssen An issue that will affect billions of people in cities across the world in the future is climate change. According to the World Health Organization, 250,000 additional people are projected to die every year between 2030 and 2050 due to rising global temperatures. Hundreds of cities, especially on the gulf coast of the United States, coastal Europe, and east Asia, can expect to be partially or completely submerged due to melting ice and rising sea levels.
In addition to rising sea levels, a changing climate can lead to increased air pollution, more extreme tornadoes and hurricanes, and changing ecosystems. To mitigate the damage from these changes, cities will have to build water runoff systems and flood withstanding buildings.
If cities work to reduce their environmental footprint, the earth could have lower pollution levels and the threat of global warming could be reduced. Taking care of the earth is vital for the well-being of future generations.
“The evidence is there, Earth’s temperatures are rising rapidly, and by the end of my lifetime I wouldn’t be surprised to see some major cities near me such as Amsterdam, be underwater,” Larssen said. According the the United Nations, in 2050, over 70 percent of people in the world will live in cities, up from 55 percent today. Environmental engineers will likely face new challenges, with an increasing amount of people moving to cities and global warming. The Norman Hackerman building on the UT Austin campus has achieved LEED gold certification through its innovative renewable energy usage with solar panels. Photo by Peyton Dashiell.
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Splendid Senses Food and the Body By: Mia Ternus
When people think of food, they rarely ever think about the other senses used when eating. The other four senses affect the taste of food much more than some would think.For example, would a chip be as enjoyable without the satisfying crunch? Would coffee still be as delicious without the earthy aroma? Keep reading to figure out how other senses can unexpectedly change the way you experience food.
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Taste is a very dynamic sense, contributed to by almost all other senses. Taste would be nothing without smell and feel, and even sound. The old model of the tongue had suggested the presence of only four tastes: sweet, salt, sour, and bitter. Experts now widely accept this model as incorrect, stating many other flavors are responsible for the multi-faceted experience that is taste.
The texture and feel of foods in the mouth can also shape the way we experience taste. There are several different theories on how much texture influences the overall aromas in food. It is possible that a food’s texture doesn’t affect perception at all, and people are mainly influenced by psychological factors. On the contrary, it is widely accepted that as a food’s hardness increases, flavor sensitivity decreases.
Much of the connection of sight to taste has to do with connotations, whether positive or negative. For example, from the way a certain food is presented, one may remember the similarities to a food they previously disliked, and not be able to remove this bias when trying the food. Color also plays a huge role in taste, with clear colors having a fresher connotation, and redder colors being associated with sweetness.
Sound can also not be forgotten when discussing taste. Many interesting connotations can be made with sights and sounds, for example people generally tend to associate bitter tastes with lower pitches and sweeter tastes with higher pitches. Another factor of sound is the noise a food makes while in the mouth. For example, crunchier foods are commonly associated with crisper, fresher foods.
Smell is a deely ingrained aspect of taste, and taste would be nothing without smell. We smell through both our nostrils and through a retronasal pathway found in the throat, which then send signals to the brain. The area for sense in the brain is also deeply tied to the area responsible for emotions, showing how an emotional response is possible when tasting certain foods. Information from: The Tasting Experience: Our Five Senses and Some of the Ways They Influence Each Other, by Emma Sage Food And The Senses | 31
The Thrill of Discovery
An overview of Electrical and Computer Engineering, how the field has progressed, and hopes for the future. By: Eli Kuhn
According to the Pew Research Center, 84% of United State’s households have a computer ijn 2017. Photo by Kevin Ku, from Pexels.com
According to the United Nations, around 43 million tons of electronic waste was thrown out in 2016, which is equal to the weight of about 9 Pyramids of Gyza. The University of Texas at Austin is one of 115 universities across the United States which are classified as Research One Institutions, the highest level on the Carnegie Classification for Institutions of Higher Education.
“I’m one person doing research, but the more students I can teach to do it, the research grows exponentially.” - Christine Julien
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This classification groups certain colleges together based on how much research they complete outside of teaching. As a student in one of these institutions, the field of electrical and computer engineering is learned through testing and first hand experience in a lab. “We’re expected that research is one of our primary jobs and we’re expected to generate new ideas, inventions, discoveries,” Dr. Christine Julien, a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said. “I supervise PhD students, also undergrad students in the lab, we write papers about what we do, and travel to present those papers.” Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT is a very large spectrum which stretches from majors such as physics to software engineering, but can generally be described as an interdisciplinary study of the analysis and design of electronic systems and information. According to Julien, computer engineering is more about the devices that everyone has.
The United Nations reported that in 2015, 3.2 billion people have access to the internet around the world., picture from Pexels.com
Those devices are constructed out of a multitude of miniscule pieces, and computer engineering focuses heavily on how those pieces work together to function properly and create the working devices that are used everyday. On the other side of the department electrical engineering deals with the different chips that are inside devices, and how they are passing electrons. This field studies and researches all of the physics that goes into how to move the different information to and from the electronics. While the two parts of this field work on different parts of electronics, they both go hand in hand in creating the devices used daily. “For teachers in universities, our greatest accomplishments is training students to be the future leaders of technology,” Dr. Deji Akinwande, Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor at the University of Texas said. “We spend most of our time working with students and are most delighted when their work is successful and they graduate with many job offers.”
Google Chromebook recently produced by Google, recently distributed around high schools in Austin, Tx, photo taken by Eli Kuhn
“It is an excellent discipline because it is the marriage of many areas including the physical sciences, the biosciences, information science, prototyping and commercialization.” - Deji Akinwande
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A Capacitor Chip Circuitboard connects the different features of an electronic device, photo from Pexels.com
Although professors spend large amounts of time in labs doing research, they also teach students to complete and conduct their own research, which increases all studies and research in the field.
“The languages are different, we have new and different languages, but the process of developing the program and writing code and making sure that it all works correctly is still pretty much the same.”
Electrical and Computer Engineering is a growing field, which will continue to develop as technology does. Yet some things in the field have remained constant. “The languages are always changing, when I first started out, we used mainframe computer which were at the time, really big computers that lots of people accessed, but over time there’s been a really big change in the hardware side of it, but the programming side is really fairly consistent”, said Scott Jones, a Software Engineer in Austin, Texas.
“Over the years I’ve learned lots of different languages, and certainly don’t use the ones that I started off with, but really the process is very similar,” said Jones.
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Recently though, companies have been doing more and more research on their own, bettering the field. “Companies like Google and Apple are doing all the same things that we traditionally had been responsible for doing, kind of a more basic research environment,” said Julien.
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1. Dr. Christine Julien smiles while at the campus of the University of Texas. Julien teaches software engineering courses at the Univeristy and completes individual research in addition. Photo provided by Christine Julien. 2. An innovative, high-speed train zooms by, photo from Pexels.com 3. The latest model in Apple Inc.’s iPhone series, the iPhone X, released on November 3, 2017, photo from Pexels.com 4. Dr. Deji Akinwande shakes the hand of former President Barack Obama, before he recieved a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Photo courtesy of Deji AKinwande.
With all these new inventions and innovations that are being tested and perfected, there are also some projects which are not as successful as expected. “In fact many of our work is not successful at all. Failure is a frequent experience and often the most common outcome,” Akinwande said. The electrical and computer engineering field has grown at an exponential rate, developing life-changing technology which has bettered the Earth and made different tasks much easier. The engineers in this field have revolutionized communication, health, entertainment, and transportation. With the advancements of Electrical Engineers, the technological life of everyone in the world will improve.
We are fully aware that failure is an option, but at the same time we are driven by the thrill of discovery.” - Deji Akinwande
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A Silent Step The work that takes place behind the scenes of civil engineering and architecture. By: Sachin Allums Between the years of 1912 and 1948, the International Olympic Committee awarded medals to contestants competing in architecture. The angle for viewing architecture as a sport has shined a light on not just how the evolving field has become increasingly competitive, but on how an architect’s work is constantly judged and critiqued by others. The clients of architects and civil engineers praise a final product filled Buildings such as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates stand over 2,722 feet tall. Image credit by Pexels. with creative angles and symbols, but the creativity invest into every project often “To be a civil engineer means architects and civil engineers goes unnoticed. to solve problems that allow According to a 2016 study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 2.5 million engineers were employed in the United States. The engineering field is projected to grow at a rate of 4% from now until 2024.
The Eiffel tower is one of the seven wonders of the world at 1,063 feet tall. Image credit by Pexels.
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Engineers and architects are playing a more integral part in the work environment due to a higher demand for people willing to help those in need through the use of creative solutions. As the world becomes more industrialized, it will fall back onto the shoulders of architects and civil engineers to design and develop its tomorrow.
people to live lives that are safe, that can be focused on things that are productive, things that make your life better, to create framework that people live in where they don’t have to worry about whether or not they have a safe house, or clean water, or
“Architecture is the practice of making spaces as habitable as possible for human beings.” - Doug Keating
The average person has between 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts every single day and 35 to 48 thoughts per minute. Image credit by Pexels.
a safe road to drive on,” Lizan Gilbert, Design Manager for Aftkinson Civil Underground, said.
According to Gilbert, civil engineering is creating all of that infrastructure so that, essentially, you can live and not even know that there was anything that was done. Civil engineers and architects work closely with one another because both professions manipulate spaces to enable people to lead better lives in a wordless manner. “Architecture is the practice of making spaces as habitable
The water supply in Cape Town, South Africa has been predicted to run out in several years. Civil engineers will be responsible for managing this problem. Image credit by Sachin Allums.
as possible for human beings,” Doug Keating, Design Principal for Structural Environments L.L.C., said. “That encompasses making a building habitable also means making it visually appealing in addition to being functional.” Architects and engineers need to observe their clients’ behaviors to present a product that appeals to their desires. “They have to maintain that sort of get along, convince,
“The culture part is something that is really intangible, is something that defines a firm and is something to look for.”
- Jim Susman A Silent Step | 37
The word engineer stems from the Latin word ingenium which means cleverness. Image credit by Pexels.
collaborate, and take ideas, synthesize,” Jim Susman, Principal at STG Design, said. “So much of it is being a good listener and hearing what people have to say.” Through listening and taking one’s ideas into account, architects can create not just a space that is visually appealing, but they can construct a culture that welcomes all people into the field.
“It’s fulfilling to watch people gain their feet, understand what it is they’re doing and feel confident in themselves and then be able to be successful.” - Lizan Gilbert
“People work where they work for three reasons: one is how much they get paid, one is are they growing professionally, are they having challenges given to them so that they can feel as if everyday when they go home they have accomplished something, The Inquiring Mind | 38
and the last is the culture of the place that we work,” Susman said. “The culture part is something that is really intangible, is something that defines a firm and is something to look for.”
Just as the practices of architecture and civil engineering have changed,
the culture of these fields has evolved into a workplace of open arms. “I would say that the culture of architecture is probably more open than it has been,” Keating said. “I hope that it continues to get more open and people are more open to sharing their ideas.” Architecture began as a method for humans to worship their gods, and it has evolved into a system for unifying art, mathematics, and technology. “I hope that architecture focuses on in the future becoming more sustainable, holding on to that piece, while looking back at past architects and past work and keeping some of those old details and design styles: bringing them back in different ways,” Keating said.
“In the future, civil engineering is what it is that’s going to make the biggest difference in how it is that we expand as a people. Not as Americans or Texans, but truly as a people.” - Lizan Gilbert Incorporating past ideas in the engineering field can be echoed by inspiring a new generation of inquiring minds. “It’s fulfilling to watch people gain their feet, understand what it is they’re doing and feel confident in themselves and then be able to be successful,” Gilbert said. Aiding a new generation of individuals constructs an everlasting legacy that cannot be torn down. “Another thing is just the legacy that we create in this firm for everybody else,” Susman said. “We’re impacting all the people and all the families of the people that work in this office.”
Engineers better the lives of their customers by improving one another. “One of the things that I like about what I do is that almost every day there’s something that I’m doing that I have never done before,” said Susman. Engineers and architects take enjoyment in different aspects of their lives that contrasts from person to person.
The engineering and architectural fields have evolved from exclusive, small areas into voyages of meaning, impact, and legacy. As problems and issues arise, engineers will be the ones that aid others in making the world a better, safer place. As humans learn from the teachings of others, create a legacy that will stand forever tall, and take enjoyment in their work, the human race can take one step closer toward living in an inquiring world of innovation.
“For me, it’s been a journey,” said Keating. “There are architects that design amazing high-rises and commercial buildings and there are architects that design smaller homes like me, but no matter what level you’re at we all get to enjoy it. I enjoy it every day.” Engineers and architects need to take pride in their work as they are the ones that will bring a person’s imagination into reality.
The construction of the UT tower in Austin, Texas was inspired by an owl. Image credit by the Wikimedia Commons
“Civil engineering is probably one of the most important engineering areas because it truly, absolutely, every single day impacts people’s lives,” said Gilbert. “In the future, civil engineering is what it is that’s going to make the biggest difference in how it is that we expand as a people. Not as Americans or Texans, but truly as a people.”
Engineers have utilized geometry and higher level math to design and create the slippery part of a water slide. Image credit by Pexels.
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