Evolution

Ever since we know of people, things and our world have changed. They have evolved. Evolution is the process in which something develops and perfects. A very known example is the picture of the apes, a picture of how apes started off small, walking on 4 feet and slowly started to straighten up and walk on only 2 feet. Along with the physical change came the mental change.

Basically this picture is a demonstration that in time humans evolved into smarter and more technological creatures. Then of course there are other fun evolution pictures :

However evolution is not only referred to humans, plants have evolved etc. Another example are phones:

From big and old phones these phones evolved into touch smartphones. These developments made phones easier to use, have more options and possibilities etc. however also made limits such as that they can be easily broken. 

Through evolution species have adapted to new forms so they can survive and reproduced with the same species. these new adaptions can include features to animals such as: different sized beaks, camouflage etc. 

Every evolution has its pros and cons, due to man kind evolution we are now a more knowledgeable species even though we do at times use that knowledge to harm the planet. After all, we can see what evolution looks like and how it has changed our surroundings due to history.

In class we looked at the woman's menstrual cycle, and make graphs about the hormone levels in a woman during that time. The hormones were LH, FSH, Progesterone, Estrogen, Body Temperature, these were the graphs:

Science

In class we looked at the woman's menstrual cycle, and make graphs about the hormone levels in a woman during that time. The hormones were LH, FSH, Progesterone, Estrogen, Body Temperature, these were the graphs:

By Stephen Ornes
Published : January 27, 2013 
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2013/01/volunteers-face-problems-on-a-make-believe-mission-to-mars/
 
People have always wanted to travel to Mars, the estimated amount it would take is around 8 moths, this study was meant to test how the astronauts would take it. One may think that the men have a lot of time for sleep, but do they really? The test goes like this:

1. 6 men stay in a small capsule in Moscow for 520 days
2. They will then exit pretending to be doing samples on Mars
3. During that period scientists will take notes on the behaviors and changes of these men 

The test was meant to show how people would manage this flight to Mars if we ever are to send people to the Red Planet. As the scientists observed, tests showed that the men slept more during the last 18.5 weeks rather than the first 18.5 weeks. After this test 4/6 men developed sleep disorders which is very usual when having such a change. 'Messing with sleep can have serious consequences, says Jeffrey Sutton'. So basically after all the testing scientists have figured out that if they were to send people to Mars they could be faced with sleeping problems with many lead to worse consequences.

I chose to read this article because it was about space which seemed interesting. The article was short and there for it wasn't boring! I didn't know people never went to Mars, but now I do:) 

 Science 8B

Dr.G

Alex Lysicanova

                                                      You Can't Destroy Me

    There was only one thing I was programmed for… running. I was born on February 14^th, at 15:08, just 5 minutes later I was injected with genes, but not any normal growth genes, I was injected with the genes of a Cheetah. These cells have changed many features within me, including my speed, reflexes, nail growth and unfortunately hair growth as well. My only goal in life is to be the fastest runner the world has ever seen, I’ve never been taught different, there for I train daily however don’t have to put as much effort into trying as much as an average person would have to. There are ups and downs to my specialty to which I had to adapt from my birth, for example, since my androgens are high, I grow more facial and body hair than an average person, I have to shave every day if not more (unless I want to look like a hairy beast), I gained enlarged lungs and nostrils, allowing me a fast and deep air-intake while running, I have an enlarged heart to pump a huge amount of blood around the body and lastly they say I have an outstanding power-to-weight ratio. Then my muscle comes in question, I work out 4 times a day, but my muscles grow as if I would train non-stop. I didn’t gain muscle genetics from my parents. I run 100-200m, just like a cheetah I can only maintain a sprint for a matter of seconds; a long chase leaves a Cheetah dangerously close to oxygen deprivation. I am lucky to be who I am.

Chapter 2- I’m used to Competition

                “3..2…1..” BOOM!

We all start sprinting, im running in lane 4 to my right I see an American, average height, wearing a red running suit, to my left a German man, around the age of 24 and just a little taller than me. I am the youngest man running; at only the age of 18 I am holding the record of the 100m with a time of 8.98 beating Bolts record. I won 15 races in a row now, and of course I won this one too. March 7^th, the first day I lost by 0.02 milliseconds. I lost against an Italian, Lorenzo Zampa. That was impossible, he was not inserted with anything, I was really amazed… and so was my father.

“What the heck was that? How could you let him beat you? I thought you were better than that! This could ruin your whole career.”

My father would get mad at anything I would do wrong, he wanted me to be perfect, but he had a weird way of showing it.

Chapter 3- It used to be

That’s the way life used to be. Now I’m retired. The story I tell people isn’t long, only the ones that were there known the whole truth.  The last time I raced was on August 29^th, right after I passed the finish line I couldn’t breathe, it felt as if my neck was closing in but the bigger problem was about to come. I never mentioned it, but when the doctors injected the cheetah genes into my blood, they also checked on what problems may emerged during my life period. The results were: 15% of chance to get cancer, 26% of chance for high blood pressure however 76% chance of heart failure. I never knew that until I actually suffered from a heart failure. My whole life I should have taken pills, I did but not the ones I needed, there for my heart stopped working because of too much pressure. Right after the race they bought me to the hospital where they operated me, since then I was never again aloud nor able to run. The only thing I could do got taken away from me.

Chapter 4- My future in You

I was walking my dogs on a sunny Monday, when I passed a fence, there was a young boy running. He looked so tired, all sweaty but he was forcing himself to do more. That was something new for me, I never saw anyone putting so much effort into something they wanted, but I saw something within him, there was... there was will. From that day on I’ve been spending every single day with him, if it is to bring him to school or to train him. I’ve coached him for as long as I can remember, sometimes I even think he is better than I ever was. It’s his 18^th birthday next week, he has made me realize many things I hadn’t, such as it doesn’t matter what you were made for, if you have a dream you can make it happen. He was programmed to be an average boy, and he ended up following my footsteps as if he were programmed to be the best runner. Now I watch him on tv, I remember myself t his age, but I have no regrets, I believe he can make it further than me, and my life is not over yet, as Walt Disney once said, “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

Egg Baby

Today we got our baby, my partner and I will have to take care of him for 1 week. We have to blog at 9.00AM, 12.00PM, 3:00PM, and 6:00AM. Our goal is to keep the baby alive for the whole week and not break it. The thing is that this is a science project, so it has nothing to do with relathionships, we will be switching the person that keeps him, but I will have him most of the time. Our baby has a six pack, and now is the first time we need to feed him.

In the background the clock says 11.25, about 12.

To keep our baby safe we are keeping it in:

For now he is doing good.

Radiations: Bad.. Or Maybe Good?

Article Found:
Author: Stephen Ornes
November 29, 2012 
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/11/healthier-mice-through-x-rays/ 

   If Life were a video game, vitamins would be considered the "good" guys while radiations the enemies. Scientists experimenting on variable yellow agouti mice (mice containing DNA problems from birth making them more vulnerable to diseases), found that low dose of radiation actually improved the health of these laboratory mice.
 Radiations are "the transmissions of energy"-from website, for example x-rays or microwaves. As the article states, '“Nobody wants to think that low-dose radiation could be advantageous and the stuff you put in your vitamin pill would be bad,” said Randy Jirtle of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This is why Jirtle, who led the new study, was initially not excited about his new findings.'
Large doses of radiations lead to cancer due to the disturbance of cells. When scientists first began this experiment, they were expecting  low dose of radiation to cause small problems if no, but it runs out that low dose of radiation is better for health than having no radiation at all.

"The scientists suspect that the X-rays caused a change to the DNA that blocked the genetic condition that makes the pups sickly. That change was probably a type called epigenetic. In such changes, a molecule attaches to a gene, a sequence of DNA that contains instructions for building proteins. This attachment can alter the gene activity — in some instances stopping the gene from doing anything. Especially interesting, when Jirtle’s group gave vitamins to the mother mice, that molecule didn’t attach to the gene and turn it off in their offspring. Those baby mice, born with yellowish coats, did not have the epigenetic alteration."
However this positive change in health only happened to the mice born with harmful genes.
I think this is a good start to find a new cure and it shows that we,humans, don't yet know about all that is out there waiting for us to discover. Who would think something harmful could turn out to do good? I found this article interesting for a few reasons: it explained everything and gave us definitions, it was about something new and special and most of all it could be the beginning of a miracle.

Human Impact

By Stephen Ornes
November 8, 2012 
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/11/pumping-water-from-the-ground-in-southeastern-spain-may-have-triggered-a-deadly-2011-earthquake-there/

    Some earthquakes can be unpredictable while others are cased by us and our actions. In Spain, just like in many places, the people pump water from the ground for daily use, some suggest this might have been the cause of the 2011 quake that killed 9 people. This study was also known to be the first study to show that 'removing water can trigger earthquakes.'

"Geologists like Pablo González study connections among human activities, groundwater and earthquakes. When a dam is built, for example, water piles up in one place. Previous studies have shown that such an accumulation may set off a quake in the region. Some scientists suspect that’s what happened in 2008, when a powerful earthquake killed 80,000 people in Sichuan, China. Other studies have indicated that water pumped into the ground during fracking — a process that releases deep, natural supplies of oil and gas — can trigger earthquakes as well."-I found this very interesting.

However Pablo predicts the Earthquake would have happened anyways, since it was a region where many occur, still the pumping of the water made it happen sooner. After looking through satellites, scientists discovered the ground shook the most where the aquifers had been drained. Throughout the discovery it is also says that ground level drops 10cm every year due to the pumping of the ground water.

I personally never knew this could be true, I had no idea water pumping and earthquakes could have something in common. It is a short but good article, it talks about everything one has to know and the most important news.:)

 http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/10/curiositys-watery-find/

 By Stephen Ornes

October 18, 2012

 -pic from website

As I was reading through the articles on a page, I came across one, read the title, and realized it was relating to something I had already written. The robot curiosity, was sent to Mars in August, to search for any organisms or signs of there being once a life. This robot seems to have landed right in the middle of a former stream. Having found evidence of water is no surprise, it has been found already, however how the water got there is still unclear, could there have been ice? canyon?

“Curiosity had been analyzing nearby rocks. These supplied the new evidence that water once flowed through the crater. The rover found rocks called conglomerates, which form when pebbles and sand get stuck together with wet sediment. That sediment is the solid material that settles at the bottom of a river or stream. Curiosity has found conglomerates at two sites so far. At the second site, the conglomerate rocks were about the size of plain M&M’s.”

It is impressive that Curiosity has already found this evidence in such time, however this is only the beginning, hopefully more evidence might come up.

I didn’t find this article special or anything, I just thought it would be cool to read what curiosity had found.

Water Magic

You are hurrying to school on your bike, and suddenly your homework falls out of your backpack. Last night was raining so there are puddles everywhere. OH NO! You drop your bike, try to save your paper but you're too late, your paper has colors where your writing was, now you will have to think of an excuse.

In class we were putting papers into a little of water and observing what would happen. However on the papers we put a drawing or a mark in different colors and then take pictures.

Here are some design that came out of my designs:

We had to experiment with water and alcohol, the design I used was 2 dots of red pen and 1 of gray just a little above of the red dots. When I put it into the glass with water, after a few minutes the design I saw was:

Most polar: pink

Most non-polar or least polar : purple/gray (because it is not sticking to the paper so the water is dragging it up) 

Chemical compounds: water : 8

WE KNOW THAT POLAR THINGS ATTRACT TO POLAR AND NON-POLAR TO NON-POLAR. So the higher on the paper, the more non-polar.

Then I did the exact same drawing in a second paper and placed it in alcohol, however I noticed it took much longer for the alcohol to travel up the paper.

Alcohol is less polar than water, so the colors went up slower. However the polar and non-polar colors where the same as for the water. I find it pretty interesting that water can drag colors with itself just like that. 

And, I know that what we did was a chemical reaction, because when we placed some above a special lamp, they glowed (luminescence!).