The Earth!!!

In science class, we are now learning and studying about Earth Science. The subject we are talking about now is layers of the Earth. Some of the key words we had to define were: seismic waves, pressure, crust, basalt, granite, mantle, lithosphere, asthenosphere, outer core, and inner core.

Definitions:

seismic waves- Waves that are produced when earthquakes occur.

pressure- Results from a force pressing on an area.

crust- The layer of rock that forms Earth's outer skin.

basalt- Dark rock with a fine texture.

granite- A rock that usually is a light color and has a coarse texture.

mantle- A layer of hot rock.

lithosphere- The uppermost part of the mantle and the crust together.

asthenosphere- Part of the mantle that is soft.

outer core- A layer of molten metal that surrounds the inner core.

inner core- A dense ball of solid metal.

These are a few of the most important words you should know about the Earth.

A theory that many scientists are working on right now has to do with Pangaea. When volcanoes erupt, the lava and magma spread, causing the land to expand. So, when the lava reaches sea, it extends the borders of Hawaii into the Pacific Ocean.

Three main layers of Earth:

* Crust

* Mantle

* Core

Temperature:

* For every 40 meters down into the Earth's core, the temp. rises 1 Celsius degree.
* When you first start off, the temp. is cool, but then it begins to get warmer.


Crust= 5-70 km thick
Mantle= 2,867 km thick
Outer Core= 2,266 km thick
Inner Core= 1,216

In my opinion, I think learning about the Earth and its layers is very interesting. Before I learned all of these facts, I didn't really understand the Earth's layers. Now I know that they are the Mantle, Crust, and Core. Those are the three main important layers. I would really like to learn more about the Earth and all of its amazing details.


Here are a few sites you can visit to learn more about the Earth and its features:

Roller coasters, Kinetic Energy, and Potential Energy!

In science class, we are learning about kinetic and potential energy. To help us understand about speed and velocity, we were assigned to build a roller coaster out of cardboard, plastic, and more materials. A marble has to be able to travel through the coaster. It has to have four hills and either a bend or a loop. After we finished creating The Extreme Bender, we had to time the marble while it rolled down the Bender. Then, we had to figure out the highest point of the Roller coaster. When we finished recording our data, we had to gather all of the information, and label the coaster with the speed, velocity, highest point, and lowest point.

The Extreme Bender relates to Newton's Laws because it has to do with energy and movement. Potential energy is energy that is stored in an object. If you stretch a rubber band, you will give it potential energy. As the rubber band is released, potential energy is changed to motion. Kinetic energy is energy of motion. A rubber band flying through the air has kinetic energy. When you are walking or running your body is exhibiting kinetic energy. Potential energy can also be converted into kinetic energy. Before a yo-yo begins its fall, it has stored energy due to its position. At the top it has its maximum potential energy. As it starts to fall the potential energy begins to be changed into kinetic energy. At the bottom its potential energy has been converted into kinetic energy so that it now has its maximum kinetic energy. A waterfall has both potential and kinetic energy too. The water at the top of a fall stores potential energy. When the water begins to fall, its potential energy is changed into kinetic energy.

This project relates to science because it is about speed, velocity, and energy. It definitely helped me understand about energy more. I really enjoyed creating the coaster, and in the future, I would like to experiment more with building and creating structures.

If you would like to learn more about building roller coasters, visit these sites:

Learn how to build a successful roller coaster here:

http://www.learner.org/exhibits/parkphysics/coaster/

How Newton's Laws relate to roller coasters:

http://library.thinkquest.org/2745/data/ke.htm

Star Death Creates Red Square Nebula?

The newly discovered Red Square nebula is one of the most beautiful objects in the universe.
The nebula is similar to a giant, glowing red box in the sky, with a bright white inner core. A dying star called MWC 922 is located at the system’s center and spewing its innards from opposite poles into space.

“This spectacular event is the death of a star,” said study team member James Lloyd of Cornell University.


After MWC 922 ejects most of its material into space, it will contract into a dense stellar corpse known as a white dwarf, shrouded by clouds of its own remains.

In my opinion, this is an amazing creation. A death of a star has created a Red Square Nebula. This relates to science because it has to do with space and the making of a Nebula.


This article can be found at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18082430/

DANGEROUS Animal Food?

More than 95 pet owners have been complaining about Menu Foods Inc., saying that it might be extremely dangerous and possibly deadly, to many animals.
From Winsconsin, Jacqueline Johnson complained about her pet cat Gumbie, for becoming seriously sick after eating food from Iams Select Bites. Later on, Jacqueline realized that Gumbie wasn't eating any food. The cat was then "pet-hospitalized" and had to take many fluids.

"Thankfully we got her to the vet in time. My cat was very ill, but there are lots of people around the country whose pets have died or been euthanized," Jacqueline stated.
After the vet, Gumbie needed special attention for almost every second. She is most likely to require medical tests every few months.

Finally, Menu Foods announced the recall on March 16. The recall affects dog and cat food manufactured between December 3 and March 6, and is limited to "cuts and gravy" style pet food in cans and pouches produced at its plants in Kansas and New Jersey. The food is packaged under a wide variety of brand names.

Both the Food and Drug Administration and Menu Foods have been unable to identify the terrible cause of the problem, but the FDA said that on Tuesday, officials were focusing on a recent supply of wheat gluten, which could be the cause of all the animal sickness.

In my opinion, I think that this is a major problem. Many animals, such as cats, are becoming seriously ill from the "cuts and gravy" that many food companies are selling. For example, Gumbie became very sick after eating Iams cat food. This relates to science because the cause of this cat food problem could be wheat gluten. I strongly belive that this situation should be taken care of immediately.

This article can be found at:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/22/pet.food.recall/index.html

An Astronaut Sets the Record!

In Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams spent more time in space than any other woman, setting an amazing record. On Sunday, Sunita broke the previous female spacewalking record of more than 21 hours! Now isn't that amazing? She and her partner completed three spacewalks in nine days!

The new record is 22 hours and 27 minutes! That is almost a whole day! Can you imagine going up to space and accomplishing that? Sunita must have had a lot of paitence and courage.
During the spacewalk, small amounts of toxic ammonia leaked from a fluid line. The liquid ammonia, which freezes when it hits the vacuum of space, luckily did not touch either astronaut.

The Mission Control told them to continue their task of hooking up ammonia fluid lines from a cooling system to a permanent one.
Once they were back in the space station's airlock, Mission Control made the astronauts test for any serious contamination. Fortunetly, there was no sign of contamination.

Lopez-Alegria (her partner) and Sunita Williams hooked up the permanent cooling system sucessfully, and covered a radiator that was retracted by remote control from the ground and stowed a fluid line that was connected to an ammonia reservoir.
Then, they continued to work. Some of the jobs that they still had to finish were: removing the sun shade, taking a picture of a solar array, and making electrical connections.

Lopez-Alegria planned a fourth spacewalk with Mikhail Tyurin, a flight engineer, on February 22. After Sunday's spacewalk, Lopez-Alegria moved up to third on the list of the most time spacewalking!
It is expected for him to surpass Jerry Ross' U.S. record of more than 58 hours over nine spacewalks by the end of February.

In my opinion, I think this article is very interesting! I would definitly not be brave enough to stay in space that long. First of all, I'm not even planning to go to space! Sunita and Lopez-Alegria must have a lot of courage to never give up and to incite their wonderful goals.

This article could be found at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/02/04/spacewalk.ap/index.html

Reading Punnett Squares!

At first, I thought Punnett Squares were extremely confusing and hard to understand. Little by little, I finally understood the concept. For example, In class, we made a Punnett Square for the possibilities of varieties of colors for an egg.

Example:

B: blue-dominant
b: green-recessive

~If there was a combination of B+b, then it would be dominant (blue) because upper case is dominant.

~It there was a combination of b+b, then it would be recessive (green) because lower case plus lower case stays the same.

~If there was a combination of B+B, then it would be dominant (blue) because upper case plus upper case stays the same.

Lets say there was a Punnett Square that came to a conclusion of PP, PP, PP, and PP.

P: pink
p: purple


The Phenotype would be: A 100% pink egg

The Genotype would be: 100% PP

In my opinion, I think that Punnett Squares are very useful, especially if you want to become a scientist or are a scientist. They really work! You can even predict the color hair your baby will have! They take you step by step, and you will finally recieve a conclusion.


*Punnett Square: A chart which predicts all possible gene combinations in a cross of parent genes.

*Reginald Punnett was the creator of the Punnett Square.

*Each trait is controlled by two genes


If you want to learn more about Punnett Squares, go to:

http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/CURR/Science/sciber00/7th/genetics/sciber/punnett.htm

Want to calculate your own Punnett Square? Here's the site:

http://www.changbioscience.com/genetics/punnett.html

Meiosis Square Dance

In science class, we are learning about Meiosis and Chromosomes, and how they work. Last week, our teacher showed us a video called "Meiosis Square Dance" to help us understand the process better. It turned out to be funny, but it really helped me understand the concept of the Chromosomes splitting and separating into two different ends. Later, half the cells moved to the middle, then both of the cells they took from the parents, move to the center and create a totally different cell. I my opinion, I think the video helped me understand the process in a fun and easy way.

Meiosis: The process that allows one diploid cell to divide in a special way to generate haploid cells in eukaryotes.

The word "meiosis" comes from the Greek meioun, meaning "to make smaller."

Meiosis consists of two nuclear divisions, meiosis I and meiosis II. Each division consists of four important stages: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase.


If you want to take a look at the video, check out this website:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaf4j19_3Zg


Want to learn more about the process of Meiosis? Check this out!:

http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/tutorials/meiosis/page3.htm

Dolphins

In east Hampton, NY on Jan. 14, a very strange inccident occured. A school of dolphins, feeding in the local bays last week, four of them died over the weekend and the others became tired and showed signs of severe pain.

On Sunday, thirty dolphins first entered the bays and rescuers slowly began to try to save a group of them who were located in a small cove.
The rescuers tried three times, but the attempt was unsuccessfull. Later, some boats decided to give it another shot, and try to save the dolphins once more. They used small devices called pingers to get their attention. Each time they neared the harbor, they got afraid and went back to the cove. They went back because they realized that the water was gettin more shallow as they became closer to the harbor.

A supervisor, Chuck Hamilton, called the next few days critical for the dolphins’ survival, because he expected that cold weather might make them more nervous and rough seas would make it harder to reach the dolphins. More than 80 dolphin rescuers, including a crew with a dolphin ambulance, were in the harbor on Sunday.

Unfortunately, the rescuers didnt find any evidence of the dolphins’ not eating on Saturday or Sunday. The team is still working on rescuing the dolphins, and I will try to let you know when they get rescued. In my opinion, this article is very interesting. I really hope that the rescuers find a way to rescue the dolphins.

This article could be found at: Check it out! Its very interesting!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/nyregion/15dolphins.html?n=Top%2fNews%2fScience%2fTopics%2fAnimals

Drinking too much water is bad?!

Drinking too much water can lead to a condition known as water intoxication. In fact, a while ago, a woman named Jennifer Strange, 28, died from drinking way too much water. She competed in a Sacramento radio station contest to win a Wii for her three kids. To win one, she had to see how much eight ounce bottles of water she could drink without going to the bathroom. The size of the bottle even got bigger moment by moment. The event managers had warned her and had said: "If you don't feel like you can do this, don't put your health at risk." It was also found out that she had drunk two gallons of water before the radio event. Hours after the competition, Jennifer Strange's head started to ache, and sadly, she was found dead.

In my opinion, I think that Jennifer should have listened to the judges and stopped when she started to feel dizzy and uncomfortable. Well, If she had known that drinking too much water could lead to water intoxication, I don't think that she would have taken that risk.
This article relates to science because water intoxication is a serious and science related disease. From this article, I learned to be extremely careful with how much water I drink. By the way, twenty people who worked at the radio station were fired!


This article can be found at: check it out! Its interesting!

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/01/13/water.intox.ap/index.html