Ashley Henneman

How to Spot a Catfish Online

About Willis Tower

The Willis tower was formerly named and still commonly called Sears Tower. This building is a 108-story, 1,451-foot skyscraper that was built in 1973. It was formerly the tallest building in the world and it held this rank for almost 25 years. At this point in time, the Willis Tower is currently the second-tallest building in the United States and the eighth-tallest freestanding structure in the world. Over one million people each year visit this enormous skyscraper, which makes it one of the most popular tourist destinations in Chicago. Due to a lease on a portion of the space, Sears Tower was renamed Willis Tower in 2009. Even though it was renamed, people often still refer to it as Sears Tower (Wikimedia Foundation).

With about 350,000 employees, Sears, Roebuck & Co. was the largest retailer in the world in 1969. Sears executives agreed they wanted to consolidate all of their employees that had offices all throughout the Chicago area into one building; Sears Tower. Sears wasn't sure where to put it, so they asked an outside council to suggest a location. After the firm met with authorities and the applicable law, Sears was advised that the proposed structure could be built in an area known as Goose Island (Wikimedia Foundation).

After the site was decided upon, the preliminary inquiries determined that the necessary permits would be able to be obtained. The next thing that needed to be done in this process was to gain the property and a team of attorneys from the Arnstein law firm headed by Andrew Adsit. The attorneys began buying the property parcel by parcel. Sears bought fifteen buildings with character and paid $2.7 million to the City of Chicago for the part of Quincy Street which divided the property (Wikimedia Foundation).

Demanding 3,000,000 square feet of space, and predictions that they will grow in the future, Sears found amazing architects by the names of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) to come up with a structure that was predicted to be one of the largest buildings in the world. SOM’s team of architect, Bruce Graham and Fazlur Rahman Khan, a structural engineer, designed the building as nine square "tubes" squished into a 3×3 matrix producing a square base with 225-foot sides. The nine tubes would go up to the 50th floor of the building. Once the tubes hit the 50th floor, the northwest and southeast tubes end, and the remaining seven continue up. When they reach the 66th floor, the southwest and northeast tubes end. At the 90th floor, the south, east, and north tubes end. Finally, the center and west tubes continue until the 108th floor (Wikimedia Foundation).

The Willis Tower was the very first building to use Khan's tube structure. This amazing design was structurally efficient and economic. It effectively provided more space and became higher than the Empire State Building, although the cost was much less per unit area. This, in turn, highly influenced the skyscraper construction. It is usually used in extremely tall buildings today, including the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. To honor Khan's contributions to the skyscraper, the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois made a sculpture of him for the lobby of the Willis Tower (Wikimedia Foundation).

Sears executives came together and agreed that the space they are going to occupy will be designed to house their Merchandise Group, and that floor space for future growth would be rented out to smaller firms and businesses until Sears could take it back. The latter floor areas had to be drawn up to a smaller plate to be attractive and marketable to prospective lessees. It also had a high window-space to floor-space ratio. On the other hand, smaller floor plates needed to have a taller structure to yield sufficient square footage. Skidmore architects proposed a tower with large floors in the lower part of the building, which would give the Sears Tower its distinctive look (Wikimedia Foundation).

As you can tell just from the reading, the Willis Tower is an extremely extravagant building that took a very long time to build. If you are interested in touring Willis Tower, it is located in Chicago, IL and is very easy to schedule. Even if you are afraid of heights, on the main floor you can learn more about the history and see pictures of the skyscraper dating back to when they were building it.

“Cracks Appear on Ledge at Chicago's Willis Tower." NBC15 RSS. N.p., 29 May 2014. Web. 08 Oct. 2014.

< http://www.nbc15.com/news/headlines/Cracks-appear-on-ledge-at-Chicagos-Willis-Tower-261135771.html>.

"Willis Tower." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Oct. 2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Tower>

The Ice Bucket Challenge is done by people all over the world trying to raise awareness for ALS; some even donate money towards the cause. The Ice Bucket Challenge consists of people all ages dumping a bucket of ice water on themselves while another person videotapes. The person getting ice water poured on them says who nominated them to participate and who they would like to nominate. If you would like to participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge, here is more about ALS:

ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. ALS is a disease that attacks the brain and the nerves that send signals to the spinal cord. The scary part is that those nerves from the spinal cord send signals to the muscles all throughout one’s body. This disease can also be called Lou Gehrig’s disease, after a baseball player who was diagnosed with ALS in 1939. If you have ALS, your nerve cells have a harder time doing their job or “go bad”, and they eventually end up dying. They become incapable of sending signals to your voluntary muscles and it causes those unused muscles to become weak and die, much like the nerve cells. This obviously affects the chest muscles and it becomes extremely hard, or even impossible to breathe. ALS is a deadly disease, in which doctors will give someone about 3-5 years to live. Some people aren’t able to hold on for the full three years and die sooner, while others will exceed the 5 year mark; it just depends on the person. Some say the disease affects the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, but that accusation is false (Doctor MDx.).

The Symptoms and Diagnosis of ALS

In the beginning of ALS, symptoms may not be obvious and they are often overlooked. Early symptoms can very between weakness in the hands and arms, legs and feet, or the muscles for speaking and swallowing. Clumsiness, slurred speech, muscle cramps and twitching, or outbursts of laughing or crying that you can’t control are also symptoms. One may notice they are having a hard time doing every day activities, such as brushing their teeth or getting dressed. In most cases people think it’s something other than ALS, for example, someone who has difficulty breathing might think its asthma. Even though early symptoms aren’t something people usually fuss over, in all cases muscle weakness progresses to paralysis. In the end, a ventilator must be used to live.

ALS is hard to diagnose because the early stages make it seem as though it could be a couple other diseases that target the nervous system, but blood tests may be done to rule them out. Swallowing tests, breathing tests, a muscle biopsy and an MRI of the brain are an option to help rule out the other diseases. Also, special tests are done by electrodes measuring a person’s muscle response and how quickly their nerves are able to send signals to the muscle. Even though all these tests can be done, we still don’t know if ALs affects thinking, memory or judgment. The average age to be diagnosed is 55 (Doctor MDx.).

A person is able to inherit ALS. In fact, in up to 95% of ALS victims, 10% of them more than likely inherited it. A disturbing fact shows that veterans, especially those who have been in the Golf War, have twice the incidence of the disease. ALS targets all races and ethnicities. There are still no other proven risk factors, although environmental factors that may affect an individual’s risk for getting this disease are under investigation. Some of the environmental factors of interest include smoking, exposure to lead in the workplace, and military service (Doctor MDx.).

How to prevent it?

A person can not prevent ALS, but eating healthy and maintaining good physical health will reduce the risk factor. It’s a good idea to check your family tree to see if anyone has had ALS, or any other life threatening disease. If so, you may want to contact your genetic counselor.

Consider doing the Ice Bucket Challenge or donating money because, as you now know, it is a painful disease and it’s not easy to watch someone you love go through it. Up to 5/100,000 people are affected by ALS worldwide. ALS is not reversible, so doctors focus more on slowing it down for the families who want to spend more time with their loved one. A little fact is that someone with ALS can still donate their organs once they pass if they choose to do so. Even if you choose not to participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge you can still donate money, but please think about and help these families in need.

“ALS / Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis / Lou Gehrig’s Disease” Doctor MDx. 1 Oct. 2014.

 <http://doctormdx.com/als-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis-lou-gehrigs-disease/>