Current Event Blog #2

Scientists have found a creature that there has not been a live sighting of in over eighty years. Some people thought that the wide eyed primate had gone extinct. The scientists found this creature called pygmy tarsiers or Tarsius pumilus at the Lore Lindu National Park on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Pygmy tarsiers have a huge resemblance to the electronic toy called Furby. They have dense fur, large protruding eyes, and they weigh about fifty kilograms or one point seven ounces. The pygmy tarsier has claws instead of fingernails which is unusual for a primate. The pygmy tarsiers features are similar to the Philippines tarsiers features except that the pygmy tarsier is only half the size of the Philippines tarsier. All in all, the pygmy tarsier is a very interesting creature.

Right now in class we are learning about symbiotic relationships. Symbiosis is a close relationship between two organism where one organism lives near, on, or even inside another organism. In symbiosis at least one organism has to benefit from the relationship. There are three types of symbiotic relationships: Mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Mutualism is when both organisms benefit from their symbiotic relationship. Commensalism is when one organism benefits from the symbiotic relationship and the other organism is not harmed. Parasitism is when one organism benefits from the symbiotic relationship and the other organism is not harmed. An example of mutualism would be honey bees and flowers because both the honey bees and the flower benefit in this relationship. An example of commensalism would be humans and the mites that live at the base of your eyebrows because the mites are helped by this relationship and the human is not harmed or helped. An example of parasitism would be a dog and a flea because the flea is helped but the dog is harmed. All in all, I think that symbiosis is a very interesting topic to learn about.

Is scotch tape also an x-ray?

Scientists have discovered that scotch tape can make x-rays. Fifty years ago Russian scientists found that you can get evidence of x-rays from peeling tape off of glass. Now scientists have found that you can get a lot of x-rays if you peel scotch tape in a vacuum; in fact some researchers even made an x-ray of their fingers using that method. The tape did not make any x-rays where there was air though. In a new study the scotch tape was peeled off the roll at about one point two inches per second and pulses of x-rays, that were about one billionth of a second long each, came from very close to where the tape was being peeled. Then the electrons jumped from the top of the tape to the sticky part which was about two thousandths of an inch apart and slowed down. When they slowed down it caused x-rays to come off the tape. People are thinking about how this new discovery could be used to make an inexpensive x-ray machine for where electricity is to expensive or to hard to get. Jamies Hevezi says that this new discovery is "a very interesting idea, and I think it should be carried further in research."

Class Response Blog- Ecology

In science class we are learning about ecology. Here are a couple of important terms we are learning about:
environment- all of the living and nonliving things that an organism may interact with
ecology- the study of the relationships of living things with one another and of living things with their environment
ecosystem- a unit that consists of all the living and nonliving that interact with one another in a given area
community- the part of an ecosystem that is living
population- a group of organisms that are in the same species and that live in the same area
habitat- the place where an organism lives and gets the resources it needs to survive
producer- an organism that can make its own food by using a source of energy to turn raw materials into food
consumer- an organism that is not able to make its own food
decomposer- an an organism that breaks down dead organisms bodies into simpler substances
food chain- a representation of a series of events when food energy and matter are transferred from one organism to another
food web- a diagram that has many overlapping food cahins in it

Conduction, Convection, and Radiation

The three types of heat transfer in the atmosphere are conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction is when heat energy directly transfers from one substance to another. An example of conduction would be when air comes into contact with the warm ground the air is heated. Soil, water, and air and poor conductors of heat, however, so conduction has a minimal effect in heating the land, ocean, and atmosphere. Another type of heat transfer is convection. Convection is when heat is transferred through a liquid (gas or liquid) such as air. An example of convection would be the air near the earths surface is heated is gets less dense and rises while cooler air from above sinks. The last type of heat transfer is radiation. Radiation is when heat energy is transferred through empty space. Radiation does not need a solid, liquid or gas to go through so it can travel through a vacuum. An example of radiation would be when heat from the sun travels to the earth. These are the three ways for heat to be transferred.

Wind

Recently in Science we have been learning about wind. Wind is caused by changes of temperature in the atmosphere; land heats up faster than water but water holds temperature better than land. The two major types of wind are global winds and local winds. Global winds go in a particular direction while local winds can blow any way. One type of global winds are trade winds. Trade winds are warm, steady breezes that occur between 0-30 degrees latitude. When the trade winds coming from the north and the south meet they create an area of calm around the equator called the doldrums. Between 30-60 degrees latitude are the prevailing westerlies that cause most of the weather in the United States and Canada. At around 60 degrees latitude are the polar easterlies where the atmosphere cools causing cold winds. The directions of the global winds are often determined by the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect is caused by the earths rotations and makes things in the northern hemisphere veer to the right and things in the southern hemisphere to veer to the left. However, local winds are caused when the atmosphere is heated unequally and can go in any direction not just one. Land breezes cause sea breezes and land breezes. Either way, wind is a big part of our everyday lives.

Social Studies: Imacpts from Technolgy

I think that the piece of technology that has made the biggest impact on our lives is the computer. Without the computer you could not email or IM so it would be harder to contact people from all over the world. Also, without the computer you could not type things so you would have to write them or use the much more inconvenient typewriter. Another reason the computer is very important in our daily lives is that the computer is the only way to get the Internet to look up information. Without it you would have to buy a set of encyclopedias or go through other inconvenient measures to find out what you need to know. Because of this and other reasons the computer is one of the most important pieces of technology in our lives.

Elements

Lately in science we have been learning about atoms and the periodic table of elements.

Here are some of the elements symbols that we should know:
O=oxygen
H=hydrogen
He=helium
C=carbon
N=nitrogen
Ne=neon
Na=sodium
Mg=magnesium
Al=aluminum
S=sulfur
K=potassium
Ca=calcium
Fe=iron
Ni=nickel
Cu=copper
Zn=zinc
Ag=silver
Sn=tin
I=iodine
Au=gold
Hg=mercury
Pb=lead
Cl=chlorine

Also, we have been learning about atoms. Atoms contain protons and neutrons in its nucleus. Around the edge of the nucleus are electrons zooming around the in the orbit. A nucleus compared to an entire atom has been compared to a bee and a football field, the bee being the nucleus and the football field being the atom. There are always the same amount of protons in a nucleus but the amount of neutrons can differ slightly. For example, oxygen will always have 8 protons but it can have 16, 17, or 18 neutrons. Usually oxygen has 16 neutrons though so if you subtract the number of protons (8) by the number of neutrons (16) you get the number of electrons (which would be 16-8 or 8). That is what we have been learning about in science lately.

Mercury space probe

A space probe went past Mercury with cameras on Monday January 14, 2008 for the first time in over 33 years. At 2:04:39 p.m. the space probe flew 124 feet over the planet. Researchers hope that this $446 million mission will answer questions about Mercury's oddly high density, magnetic field and thin atmosphere. It may also help us figure out how the planets formed during the solar systems beginning. We have only seen about 45% of mercury but the space probe should be sending over 1,200 new images of mercury. Other data soon will help us find new information. "They are imaging, basically, the largest single unexplored piece of real estate in the inner solar system," Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, told reporters today. This probe is so much better than past probes and could be a huge part in finding out more information about mercury.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080114-messenger-flyby-wrap.html