Exam 3 Flashcards
- (1) What is really old-fashioned about nuclear power? (2) What is really cutting-edge and innovative about nuclear power? (3) What is really scary about nuclear power?
a. (1) it’s just heating water to rotate a turbine. (2) It can provide power for extremely long periods of time. (3) There is a possibility of a meltdown that harms humans and the environment.
- What is the approximate half-life of U-235?
700 million yrs
- The concentration of U-235 needed to generate nuclear power is approximately
(1) ___, but the concentration of U-235 needed to generate nuclear weapons is approximately (2)___.
a. (1) 4%, (2) 85%
???3. What is the difference between carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14? (Read carefully.) **this question was posted twice with 2 different answers, they are below**
D. Carbon-12 has an atomic mass of 12; carbon-13 has an atomic mass of 13; carbon-14 has an atomic mass of 14.
D. Carbon-12 has 6 protons and 6 neutrons; carbon-13 has 6 protons and 7 neutrons; carbon-14 has 6 protons and 8 neutrons.
???4. What is nuclear fission? ***this question was posted twice with 2 different answers, they are below.
D. The splitting of an unstable atom into 2 or more stable atoms, often resulting in the release of free neutrons.
B. the splitting of an atom into two new atoms.
- Answer the 3 following questions regarding isotopes: (1) Does changing the number of neutrons change the number of protons? (2) Does changing the number of neutrons change the atomic number? (3) Does changing the number of neutrons change the atomic mass?
b. no, no, yes
- What is the approximate half-life of U-235
d. 700,000,000 years
- The atomic number of oxygen is 8; this means:
c. Oxygen has 8 protons in its nucleus
- Which statement is NOT true about nuclear fission?
b. The energy from fission cannot be harvested by humans at the moment.
- Isotopes have:
B. The same atomic number but different atomic mass
1.Radon is an odorless radioactive gas that you cannot taste or see. Exposure to this naturally occurring gas can be dangerously high in any home in North America. Homes must be specially tested for exposure levels for residents to understand their risks. If risks are high, venting systems can be installed to significantly lower indoor levels of exposure. The most likely health problem associated with long-term exposure to this radioactive gas is →
Lung cancer
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. This disease primarily affects
a. the respiratory passageways and alveoli of the lungs
- Atmospheric scientists often measure gases in parts per million by weight (ppm). If CO2 is currently 0.04% of the atmosphere, the level expressed in ppm is
a. 400 ppm
- Which one of the following generally increases natural sources of the pollution of the air?
b. gases released by a volcanic eruption
- How might the 2011 Fukushima have potentially impacted seafood in the United States?
a. Organisms in the water could have migrated and entered the food chain in animals that migrate long distances
- A nuclear power plant:
D. Harness the energy produced fission reactions.
- What is NOT a problem that must be taken into account when operating a nuclear power plant?
c. Production of acidic particles
- What is nuclear fission
D. The splitting of an unstable atom into 2 or more stable atoms, often resulting in the release of free neutrons
- Air pollutants most often lead to human health problems of the:
b. circulatory and respiratory systems.
- From the events discussed in class, the most recent nuclear disaster took place in:
b. Fukushima, Japan
- Your sister is a screenwriter. She has been tasked with writing a story in which the human race has run out of fossil fuels. In the U.S., which one of the following sources will most likely pick up the slack, and why?
a.Nuclear power because it is the next largest usage of energy consumption in the U.S. following the fossil fuels
- The air you breathe into your lungs on a daily basis mostly consists of
a. Nitrogen
- This is NOT true about a nuclear power plant
C. Produces acid pollutants or particulates
- Which one of the following would be the most practical way to reduce levels of smog in a city that frequently experiences this problem?
b. reducing the number of automobiles that burn gasoline and the amount of evaporated gasoline
- Which of the following is a secondary pollutant in the troposphere but a beneficial component in the stratosphere?
B. ozone
- In the Chernobyl area, several organisms are rebounding, and their populations are expanding. (1) Why might this be the case, and (2) why might scientists be interested in testing these organisms?
b. (1) Absence of natural predators, (2) studying their DNA will shed light on how they
have survived in this area.
- What country is leading the way in building new nuclear reactors?
D. China
- Carbon-12 and carbon-14 are isotopes of carbon. These isotopes differ in the number of
C. neutrons
- What event occurred in 1986 that caused a general public shift in interest in nuclear energy?
C. the Chernobyl nuclear accident
- Unlike naturally occurring sources of acid precipitation, anthropogenic sources of acid precipitation
C. are more concentrated in industrial and agricultural areas
- NIMBY is:
D. a publicly perceived risk of siting a toxic or nuclear waste disposal facility near their homes
- In Japan today, the greatest risk associated with the use of nuclear power is:
C. an earthquake and/or tsunami
- This is not an example of a climate proxy found in sediment or ice cores
a. tree rings
- Where were the sediment core samples collected in the Sediment Cores video?
Coldfoot, AK
- Scientists do not use sediment cores to:
B. Understand how weather patterns have evolved over time
- In the sediment core videos there were ___ bottles in the sediment traps deployed to collect sediment.
D. 25
- There were ___ bottles in the sediment traps deployed to collect sediment.
a. 25
Risk in environmental health is most related to
hazards multiplied by vulnerability
- Which is an example of cultural ecological control for pests affecting plants?
a. keep grass at least 3 inches high
- In the winter in North America, the common cold often shows
a. high morbidity but low mortality
- Rachel Carson’s scientific credibility was due in major part to her
a. Meticulous documentation of the findings reported in her book.
- Which is NOT true about “Silent Spring”?
C. Contributed to the movement against genetically engineering crops
- Studying environmental biology has got you thinking about what you do with your kitchen wastes, the discarded egg shells, orange and banana peels, coffee grounds, etc. Living at the edge of town, you have several options. Which of the following would be the least efficient (or slowest) way to allow natural decay of your kitchen wastes?
d. collecting your kitchen garbage in small plastic bags and disposing of it in a large city landfill
- Which of the following natural threats to human health is least predictable, providing the least amount of lead time before the disaster strikes?
C. earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes
- Questions about the danger of a particular chemical hazard will relate to that chemical’s…
a. Toxicity, exposure, and dose
- Which of the following is true or accurate about malaria?
b. Mosquito saliva transmits tiny sporozoites to the victim when they are bitten.
- A person who dies of a heart attack at the age of 93 is more likely to have lived in a
b. developed country.
- The H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 2009-2010 resulted in the immunization of millions of people. When the immunizations were first available, people under 25 or over 65 were given priority. This was done because
b. these age groups were most vulnerable to the hazard, putting them at greatest risk.
- Industrial pollution from this oil refinery best represents a type of
b. chemical environmental hazard.
12.Which is not a problem related to chemical pesticides?
a. Embrittlement
- What book by Rachel Carson, published in 1962, first alerted the general public to the problems posed by pesticides
a. Silent Spring
- Smoking is attributed to all of the following, except ___
A. Malaria and tuberculosis
- Which of the following is a good example of a cultural hazard to public health?
c. Eating a high-sugar diet and engaging in little exercise, a man increasingly becomes
obese
- Which one of the following is NOT a problem associated with chemical pesticides?
a. it reduces crop yields and leads to decreased fruit sizes.
- Which of the following is a good example of a chemical hazard to public health?
a. Before the switch to unleaded gas, children living near highways had high lead exposure.
- Which of the following is a good example of a physical hazard to public health?
a. An earthquake kills more than 200,000 people in Haiti and destroys countless homes, roads and buildings.
- Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring showed that ___.
C.scientific expertise can help shape positive environmental policies
- Which one of the following is NOT a way that pesticide use may positively impact human health?
B. Use can minimize the production of ozone, which leads to less leaf loss in plants.
- Lyme disease is a serious bacterial infection of humans caused by the bite of infected deer ticks. Therefore, the vector of lyme disease is –
B. ticks.
- The infectious diseases that cause the greatest mortality in the world today are?
B. acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, and HIV/AIDS.
- Carcinogens’ danger lies in their effect on
B. DNA molecules inside cell
- People suffering from AIDS have a weakened immune system. Because of their disease, AIDS patients are
a. more vulnerable to bacteria, which are less of a risk to healthy people
- You are tired of watching your crops die in the field from several pest species. You decide that next year you are going to use every type of ecological pest control you can find to address your problem. Over the winter you get ready, ordering pheromones that interfere with the reproduction of the pests, sterile male flies that will try to reproduce with some of the pest flies that you have, and wasps that lay their eggs in the larvae of another of your pests. It is expensive, but you think this should work well. Which of the following forms of control are you not using?
D. cultural control
- Which one of the following best illustrates a nonpoint source of pollution?
a. storm-water drainage from the parking lot around a football stadium
- Which of the following holds the highest levels of oxygen?
a. cold flowing water in a stream in Ontario in April
- The best way to reduce the pollution of agricultural fertilizer runoff from farm fields is to
C. reduce the amount fertilizer leaving the farm fields through such techniques as no-till cultivation.
- Which of the following processes requires an oxygen-free environment and produces large volumes of methane that can be used for fuel?
a. Anaerobic sludge digestion
- (1)___ and (2)___ are examples of renewable energy sources. (3)___ and (4) are examples of non-renewable energy sources.
d. (1) Wind energy (2), solar energy (3) Coal, (4) natural gas
- Noticing large amounts of algal growth in her small farm pond, a farmer adds about 20 grass carp to feed on the abundant algae and plants. After several years, the carp grow large, exceeding 20 pounds each in size. Late one summer, the farmer notices that the carp and most of the other fish are dead. The water also smells very bad. Which one of the following is the most likely explanation for the death of these fish?
C. bacteria feeding on the large volume of carp feces depleted the oxygen
- Dams:
a. Impede or prevent migration of fish
- A small neighborhood pond averaging about 3 meters in depth reveals all the signs of cultural eutrophication, most likely from runoff of lawn fertilizers used by the residents. The water is very cloudy and oxygen levels remain very low, resulting in few fish that can survive. To provide some opportunities for the neighborhood kids to regularly catch fish, the neighborhood association decides to purchase, install, and run a large water fountain in the middle of the pond. How could this water fountain help address the eutrophication of this pond? The water fountain will
a. Increase the oxygen levels of the pond
9.During a spring flood, a small lake receives a large influx of nutrients. We would expect that in this lake, the growth of phytoplankton will
a. increase and the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation will decrease.
- Which one of the following is NOT considered a renewable resource?
D. Coal
- In the regions of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico just west of the Mississippi River delta, oxygen levels are
c. highest at the ocean surface, away from oxygen depleting bacteria.
- Good health in the modern world, with few cases of bacterial infection, is largely the result of
sewage
D. clean water supplies and proper treatment of
- Which is not true about solar energy?
a. Changes the biosphere’s energy balance
- Homeowners living in a heavily forested region surrounding a small 3-acre pond in Missouri decided to reduce air pollution in their neighborhood. In the fall, after the oak and maple leaves had fallen, the homeowners blew all of the dead leaves into the pond. About 8 months later, in July, they noticed a large number of dead fish in the pond. What is the most likely cause of the fish kill?
a. the bacteria decomposing the leaves depleted the levels of oxygen
- In 2007, heavy rains accompanied an outbreak of cholera in children living in war-torn Iraq. What was the likely cause of the spread of this disease?
C. pollution of waterways by raw sewage
- Water that comes up positive after fecal coliform testing indicates health risks most commonly associated with
B. a variety of pathogens in human sewage
- Which is NOT an energy source to develop a low carbon future?
C. natural gas