Science is a method of learning about the physical universe. There is applied the scientific method, which involves asking a question, performing an experiment, gathering observations and coming to a conclusions. It is practiced at universities and other scientific institutes.
Technology is the development and application of tools, machines, materials and processes that help to solve human problems. (Science is the study of natural facts. Engineering is the application of the knowledge learned scientifically to develop products. Technology is the use of the engineered product.)
Science and technology are being developed still faster and faster and products of this development help people in many areas: in medicine, transportation, communication, space research, nuclear power, computers, agriculture and industry.
In the past it was very hard to examine the human body, find out the reason of disease and cure it, because people didn’t have any special apparatuses and also drugs. They were helpless and suffered from “incurable” diseases, because they didn’t know any medicines. The development in this area has caused, that now there is a huge range of drugs that are used to treat different kinds of diseases, people are vaccinated to protect against some diseases like jaundice (žltačka) and flu.
Every year many pharmaceutical companies produce new drugs, which are better and more effective than the previous. There are being used new apparatuses like mammography, tomography, CT, EKG and ultra sound to examine human body. They help doctors to find, where the problem is. For example the mammography is used for examination of breasts, CT for examination of brain, different kinds of small probes for examination of bowels (črevá).
Now when you have to be operated, you usually stay in hospital only for several days because there are used new technologies based on work with ultra-sound and laser (for eye operation or when specialists have to displace blood clot in your brain). They don’t leave scars because they operate without opening your body. Medicine helps people who have problems with kidney, heart, marrow (kostná dreň) live longer, because surgeons manage to transplant these organs.
It helps people to live a normal life, especially people after amputation of leg or another part of their body – they can use different artificial limbs (protézy), which make their life easier and better and also people, who don’t hear very well – they can use hearing aid. If your face is full of scars or you aren’t satisfied with your nose or you think you are old and fat, medicine can solve your problems by plastic operation (liposuction, face-lifting).
Today scientists are able to
create human by cloning, but many people from different countries don’t agree with it, because it can be misused for genetic experiments, but on
the other hand it has one big advantage: now many people who have incurably ill heart or liver, have to wait too long for the right donor of organ,
but it isn’t essential, because we manage to clone new healthy organ from one healthy cell of this ill organ.
In the past it was difficult to get from one place to another, traveling was uncomfortable, too long and really boring and there were only two means of transport to choose, but now it isn’t problem to get from one continent to another in a couple of hours and you can choose if you travel by car, bus, motorbike, ship, train or plane. Traveling now in generally is more comfortable and faster. Development in this area is really quick.
Cars are safer and use a new system of airbags and automatic controls,
trains are faster and faster and in the towns there is a special way how to get from one place to another – underground, which is faster and
safer, make less noise and pollution and there are used special technologies to build all these lines under the ground. But on the other hand these
new means of transport produce a lot of exhaust fumes, which pollute air a lot.
Now there isn’t problem to communicate with people from all over the world. You can talk with your friend whenever you want by using very popular mobile phone. Mobiles phones have a lot of different functions: you can take photographs, write short messages, connect to internet and also listen to music or radio. But some scientists claim that mobile phones can cause cancer.
Then there are also classic phones and fax machines, which
are very advantageous and used especially in offices for sending different kinds of text to other people, and very popular way of communication –
internet. It’s a source of unlimited information, so you don’t have to go to library if you need some information and it can be used in many
ways, there can be organized international conferences, and you can chat with people, send email and buy things. But internet can be misused by
hackers and people can become addicted to it.
To the new forms of communication belongs also TV not only for entertainment, but also for
getting new information and education. It’s a combination of picture and sound and good way how you can learn what happened during the day around
the world. There belongs radio too. We can hear only sound, but news in radio are fresher than in the TV and you can take small transistor whenever
you want.
If you told your great-great-grandfather that in several years a man will be standing on the Moon he wouldn’t believe in you, but it’s true. People provide flights to the Moon and Mars and their aim is research of our universe from the point of looking for new civilizations, materials and natural resources. They build big spaceships and space stations, which are in orbit around the Earth.
There are also a lot of satellites with different functions. Some of them help people predict the weather and disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, eruption of volcanoes and they provide information about how the Earth is changing. Other are used for transmission of signals (TV, radio and phones), navigation of ships and planes, what can be misused for spying and navigation of weapons in the wars.
New source of energy, which is very effective but on the other hand it produces radioactive waste and
can be misused in the war for making nuclear bomb.
In the past people had to do all things manually, but now there is a “new” machine called computer, which save labour, work for us and make life easier and better. We use several types of computers: industrial and personal computers, microchips, computers in medicine and in transport and space research. Personal computers are used for different kinds of work (for counting, running company, listing supplies, registration of people in factories and making a list of patients and so on) and for entertainment (listening to music, playing games, watching films and chatting with friends on the internet).
Microchips are used in every electronical machines because they contain the control functions of these machines like washing machine, dishwasher, microwave oven, fridge, watches, cameras and mobile phones. Industrial computers control work of big industrial machines. Computers in medicine are used for examination of the human body.
Its main role is to feed people. In the past everything was done manually, but now people use specialized machines for digging, seeding, planting, watering and harvesting and pesticides for protection of plants against different diseases and fertilizers, which help plants grow.
Very popular and useful is crossbreeding – new plants and animals are
more resistant to changes of weather (plants have bigger fruits). Then some chemicals are added into animals’ food so that they would be bigger,
stronger and healthier. In agriculture there are used special automatic links for feeding and animals are kept usually only for some special thing
(cows for milk, hens for eggs …). On the other hand chemicals used there pollute soil and underground water.
New technologies are used in different kinds of industries: for example in food industry, where people use new chemicals in processing and for preservation (instant, dried, frozen food) so that we can store food for longer time. But these preservatives can be dangerous for human body. In textile industry new artificial materials replace natural ones like cotton, silk and linen. They are in some cases very advantageous for example clothes made from them get dry quicker than natural but they can cause different skin allergies and diseases.
New materials are used also in the building industry. In the past houses were built from wood and stone now we use different
materials like steel, glass, plastic and concrete, then the chemical industry which supplies other industries with different chemicals and other
products. Mining industry uses new technologies in mining and processing of oil, engineering industry supports all the others with different
machines which are ran by computers or are fully automatic.
And electro technical industry, where development is really quickly and
brings us better and better things every year and supplies our homes with different things from home appliances to TV sets, videos and so on, which
make our life easier and better. Our life is better and easier, we don’t have to do a lot of things, but this lifestyle causes overweight for
example: people move less, eat junk and fast food, they don’t walk, but travel by car or use public transport.