I have been having a little bit of a problem with my reader. I have subscribed to many news sites but i am not getting the information I want about my topic. By subscribing to sites such as CNN and NY Times my reader account is getting flooded with all different kinds of news updates, and most of them are not related to science technology. To resolve the problem of such clutter I have deleted them from my subscribtions. I still have many other science and technology subscriptions that are strictly for that topic, so i dont think it will deprive me of too many stories. On anote though, i have found some interesting things. It is still a little hard to sift through everything, but after a little looking i can find some interesting things abut my topic. I've subscribed to general science, plant science, solar science, nature, and electronics blogs. It is a good way to find interesting articles. I am enjoying google reader so far and plan on maybe using it in my free time as well. It is different from just going to the site becuase it is all there for you, it saves a lot of time. One thing i found, which caught my eye, was an article about a seed bank in the UK.

They have recently reached their initial goal of collecting 10% of the worlds known wild plant species. This seed bank is the largest in the world for wild plant species. ''The idea is that the seeds can all be accessed in one place to help researchers hunt for potential medicinal species and crops resilient to climate change.'' The Kew Gardens seed bank's next goal is to reach one quarter of the worlds wild plant species by 2020. I have also heard of other instances of seed banks around the world for other reasons being in case of draught, famine, disease or nuclear explosion. The idea behind these is that in case of these events we will still have all of the seeds to bring back any lost plants. The one i have heard of, also mentioned in the article, is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway consealed up high in the snowy mountains, aka the doomsday seedbank.

I think these seedbanks are a great idea becuase in case of a disater it would be a shame to lose some of the worlds plant species forever. It is like an animal becoming extinct, perhaps they will store animal DNA in the future in hopes to be able to clone them in case of disater? That would be interesting.

I recently read a blog about the GE solar panels mentioned in my last post. This guy seems interested in the topic and thinks that GE will be successful in their step to make solar panels, although mostly large buisinesses will be the ones to purchase the product.

New Solar Power by GE

General Electric is planning to boost its solar buisiness within the next two years by providing a solar pannel with thin solar cells that are hte cheapest on the market. ''In 2011, the energy giant expects to produce solar panels made with cadmium telluride, a thin-film solar cell material, said Michael Idelchik, vice president of advanced technologies at GE Global Research at the EmTech conference here on Wednesday. '' This is newsworthy because it is one of the futures more popular energy sources, as the demand for greener energy grows. Teens should be interested as well becuase this may even be what powers their homes and most businesses as they get older.

Science Technology...

I chose the topic of science technology because those are my strong areas and what I love to do. Ive always liked science all my life as well as technology. When they correlate to make one topic it is perfect for me. An example of how i enjoy these topics is my senior exhibition project of growing hydroponic tomatoes. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil. I am also doing mine in an artificial environment with absolutely no natural sunlight, so i have to provide an environment using technology and science to ensure proper growth of my plants. There are all different types of equipment developed especially for this type of gardening, and the technology just keeps getting more and more advanced as scientists research how they work. here is a picture of my tomatoes currently.

I started looking at news sites like CNN and New York Times to see what i could find about my topic. I found some interesting articles and videos including one about a solar city and one about how a farmer uses cow manure to power his farm, saving him up to 200,000 dollars a year!