Essays on Isotopes

Is Climate Change Caused by Human Action

Introduction Are humans responsible for climate change? While it is evident that climate change is a result of different factors which when combined produce a hazardous effect, human action is considered to be the main cause of global warming. Numerous studies show that various human activities produce gas that traps heat which results in most of the increase in globally averaged temperatures. Clearly, atmospheric warming and cooling did not begin with people. It used to occur long before the rise of humankind through natural activities, such as volcanic eruptions, changes in the sun’s intensity and the already existing ...

Introduction

Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has gained significant popularity as well as extreme attention over the last couple of years due to its benefits and positive attributes. LA-ICP-MS has been extensively used in the analysis of biological samples, chemical samples and gemology. The technique of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry is a significant technique for quantitative chemical analysis (Becker, 2013). Due to its numerous advantages such as rapid and direct analysis of samples, high sensitivity and high spatial resolution, it has been applied in numerous applications in different fields apart from chemistry. The use ...

The Fukushima Daichi is a technological disaster triggered by natural calamities on March 11th, 2011, when a massive earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale hit Japan. The earthquake originated from Honshu Island, and it created a tsunami. Following the tremor, reactors one, two and three automatically shut down. Reactors 4, 5 and 6 had been previously shut down for maintenance and repairs. Due to felled power supply lines, the Fukushima Daichi reactor complex was cut off from the electricity grid. As the operating reactors had shut down, they could not generate power for them to cool down, and ...

Question 1

Radioactivity is the process by which unstable isotopes of elements disintegrate in the nucleus to release energy in form of gamma rays, beta radiation and alpha radiation. The disintegration occurs as a result of the stability within the cell nucleus. Some isotopes of elements have non-balancing number of the protons as compared to the neutrons, as a result of the lack of balance between the negative and the positive charges in the nucleus; the nucleus becomes unstable and disintegrates. Radioactive radiation was first discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896 as he was working on X-ray. By then the X-ray ...