A bird that keeps the beat

Aniruddh Patel is a neuroscientist who studies how the brain and the nervous system contribute to learning, seeing and other mental abilities. After seeing a YouTube video of a cockatoo dancing named Snowball he decides to visit this dancing bird. Mr. Patel works at the “The Neurosciences Institute” in San Diego, visits Snowball at a bird rescue facility which Snowball calls home. Patel plays the cockatoo’s favourite song “Everybody” and other versions of this song were sped up or slowed down, Snowball danced too fast or too slow sometimes. When the tempo was changed Snowball had to adjust the speed of his dancing to match the rhythm, other scientist observed the same abilities with preschool children in other experiments.

Mr. Patel isn’t the only one who studied Snowball’s moves, Adena Schachner, who studies psychology at Harvard University, also wanted to learn more about this amazing cockatoo, so Schachner’s team played different musical pieces for Snowball and a parrot named Alex, as well as eight volunteers. Both scientist observed the bird’s and the eight volunteer’s moves and conclude they both kept time to the music with about the same accuracy. Schachner and her team didn’t stop there, she and some of her colleagues watched thousands of YouTube videos of different animals moving to the music, and not all animals could dance, however.

1) Do you think other animals have this ability to dance and keep a beat?

2) Do you think that animal have other human ability example: like talking, writing?

Thank you and enjoy!

the immortal fish

The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish maybe the only animal in the world to be "immortal"Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life . Scientists say this jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its original (baby ) state

The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can regenerate. this jellyfish, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.

Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking. They're now found in oceans around the earth rather than just in their native Caribbean waters. "we are looking for a world wide silent invasion" says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute.

1)If you could regenerate like them would you continue to live for ever or just try to limit your "kids"

2) How can we stop these jelly fish to spread "to much" around the world

i hope you enjoy reading :)(:

First brain image of a dream made

The contents of a man's dreams have been revealed in the Nov. 8 Current Biology. By recording the brain of a man who, unlike most people, has somewhat control over his dreams. The accomplishment brings scientists closer to understanding the functioning of the human brain's dream capacities.

“It’s really exciting that people have done this,” says sleep researcher Edward Pace-Schott at Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. “And it also brings back lucid dreaming as a very powerful scientific tool.”

Lucid dreaming is the rare power to control movements and behaviors while asleep. For the most part, the body is dead to the world. Most muscles are paralyzed and the eyes jitter. But also, at the same time, the lucid dreamer control his dreams and can change the scenes of his dreaming.

Czisch and his team were in for an experiment. They set out to catch a lucid's dreamer brain activities with an fMRI machine. Six lucid dreamers were asked to squeeze their hands during a dream (recorded with the fMRI machine) repeatedly. Czisch says it's rather an easy thing to do for a lucid dreamer if they're told what to do. If it's a random dream, he says, it's much harder.

Out of the 6, only 1 dreamer was able to succeed. The fMRI indicated increased activity in a region of the brain important for movement called the sensorimotor cortex when the dreamer squeezed his hands during the dream. When the dreamer squeezed his right hand, the left side of the brain's sensorimotor cortex showed an increase in activity. When he squeezed his left hand, it showed increased activity in the right side of the cortex.

The work is preliminary says Czisch. Because the results of the experiment come from a single dreamer, doing a predetermined task, they're not sure how a person having a self-generated dream would react. “To get real insight into a complete dream plot is a bit science fiction,” he says. But improving methods and experiments might eventually lead to a better understanding of the human brain's emotions, feelings, movements, thoughts and memories during dreams.

Discussion Questions:
1. Would you like your dreams to be viewed/explored by other people, or would you like to be able to see other people's dreams? Why?

2. Do you think trying to learn more about the subject (the way the brain works during dreaming) is worth it? Why or why not?

Space Station Worries Ease as Russian Rocket Sent

A Russian cargo ship was launched successfully to the International Space Station on Sunday, clearing the way for the next manned mission and easing concerns about the station's future after a previous failed launch.

The unmanned Progress M-13M blasted off as scheduled at 2:11 p.m. Moscow time from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A launch failure in August, which was blamed on an "accidental" manufacturing flaw, cast doubts about future missions to the station, because the upper stage of the Soyuz booster rocket carrying the cargo ship to orbit is similar to that used to launch astronauts.The next Soyuz launches were delayed pending the outcome of the probe. NASA said the space station continuously manned for nearly 11 years will need to be abandoned temporarily if a new crew cannot be launched by mid-November.

The August crash was the latest in a string of spectacular launch failures that have raised concerns about the condition of the nation's space industries. The Russian space agency said it will establish its own quality inspection teams at rocket factories to tighten oversight over production quality.

1. What would you do to prevent future fails?
2. Do you think NASA would have made the right decision if they abandon the space station?

Is the technology going too fast?

Is the technology going too fast for us?

For 10 years, the Apple iPod has evolved. It is now smaller, thinner and lighter. But, if we look 10 years from now, was is the same? Was the shape, the colour the same? Were the people buying it the same? No. Now, it is rare that someone doesn't have an Ipod, any other music reader of that kind. Apple is a huge company, and a huge producer.


Scientists of today are now wondering if it is going too fast. Every months\two months a new product is on sale. With new applications, new possibilities. This is way too fast. Why? Because if, for example, you buy an Ipod in October. It is the fourth generation, there is a camera, and you get the Wi-Fi on it. The price is starting from 200$ to 400$. But, who knows if there is going to be another I pod, in two weeks? 200 $ for something that you will use, but that will cost 100$ in a month. 


This is why people are now confused with those big companies like Apple, Sony, Windows. Every time they buy a product, something new is coming directly after.


Also, technology is a problem because we cannot do without it, and our use of it clearly makes us both better and worse.

When was the last time you looked into a book or a dictionary to research information, for a project at school?How many times, in a day, do you go on Google or Yahoo or any other research program?

How many times in a day do you use your I pod, or your cellphone?
As I am talking, you are on a computer. The technology is in front of your eyes, the future is too. What is this gonna be like in 30 years or 50 years?

1- What is the future of technology?
2-What are the things you  use everyday(I pod, Cellphone, Computer, Laptop,Etc.)

Chlorine Accidents Take a Big Human Toll

Five workers were fatally injured and two others were seriously injured when an explosion occurred in a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production unit at Formosa Plastics in Illiopolis, Illinois, east of Springfield. Image: U.S. Chemical Safety Board

Beverly Martinez was sitting at her desk in the office of a California scrap metal recycling plant when she felt the blast rattle her window.

One of her co-workers, Leonardo Morales Zavala, rushed through her door, struggling to breathe. “Run!” he yelled. He had just cut into a one-ton tank to recycle it in the yard – a football field away – and out poured a noxious substance. He didn't know what it was.

The workers ran as fast as they could toward the street. But they couldn't escape the giant, greenish-yellow cloud. A couple dozen people – workers and customers – dropped to the ground, gasping for air. Martinez fell, too.

"I couldn't get up. I felt like I was being strangled. I thought, 'I'm going to die. I'll never see my granddaughter grow up,’ ” Martinez said.

As she struggled to reach the building across the street, she heard a voice. "Bev, Bev, help!" It was Ricky Mejia, a 23-year-old inspector, calling to her from the ground.

"Ricky couldn't breathe, he couldn't walk. I'm stocky, and I told him to grab my side. Myrna Navarro was already hanging on my shoulder. She was praying enough for everyone. In my head, I was getting to the Firestone tire warehouse across the street. It seemed like an eternity,” she said.

“Then, I couldn't do it anymore. I said to Ricky, 'Your wife is pregnant. You've got a baby coming. Get up!' " They finally made it to the warehouse, where Mejia collapsed.

More than a year later, the ghost of a chlorine cloud lingers like a vivid nightmare at Tulare Iron and Metal Inc., located in the heart of California’s Central Valley.

On that June afternoon in 2010, 23 people were taken to hospitals and six were kept for treatment, including Mejia, who was hospitalized for 11 days, two of them on life support. Sixteen months later, the workers are still beset with health problems, including lung, stomach and Post Traumatic Stress Disorders.

Over the past 10 years, chlorine has been involved in hundreds of accidents nationwide, injuring thousands of workers and townspeople, and killing some, according to federal databases. It is second only to carbon monoxide when it comes to the percentage of accidents that cause injuries, according to the newest federal data.

Chlorine is one of the most widely used industrial chemicals in the world today, with 13 million tons produced annually in the United States alone.

An element that is abundant in the Earth’s crust and oceans, the powerful, corrosive substance is considered essential to an array of products. It is used in manufacturing plastics, synthesizing other chemicals, purifying water supplies, treating sewage and making refrigerants, varnishes, pesticides, drugs, disinfectants, bleaches and other consumer products.

In recent years, accidents have occurred when chlorine leaked or spilled, pressurized tanks were punctured, train cars derailed or when other chemicals were improperly – and often unknowingly – mixed with it. In some cases, thousands of people have been evacuated after an accident at a factory or during transport of liquefied chlorine. Janitors, housekeepers and others also have been exposed when they mix acidic household chemicals with bleach or swimming pool chemicals.

The worst chlorine gas accident in the country occurred in 2005, when 18 freight train cars derailed and released 120,000 pounds of chlorine gas in the mill town of Graniteville, S.C. Nine people were killed and at least 1,400 people were exposed, resulting in more than 550 people treated at hospitals, including some with serious lung injuries. More than 5,000 people were evacuated from their homes.

Chlorine gas is particularly insidious. Even small exposures can trigger coughing, choking and wheezing, and burn the eyes, skin and throat. Inhaling large amounts constricts the airways by inflaming the lining of the throat and lungs. At the same time, fluid accumulates in the lungs, making it doubly hard to breathe. People can literally drown in their own body fluids. At high exposures, a few deep breaths are lethal.

1. Why do chlorine is dangerous for human people?

2. How can we control the management of this gas so we can avoid the risks?

No shortage of dangerous DNA

MONTREAL — A Dutch woman who lived to 115 years old credited her longevity to pickled herring, refraining from smoking and limiting alcohol. But scientists are looking to the woman’s genetic blueprints, hoping to uncover the secrets of successful aging.

Any genetic secrets are still buried in the DNA that makes up the woman’s genome, but it has become clear that she did not lack genetic variants that may predispose other people to heart disease, Alzheimer’s and other aging-related illnesses, geneticist Henne Holstege of the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam said October 14 at the International Congress of Human Genetics. Instead, the woman may have carried variants that protected her from the ravages of age.

What those protective variants might be remain a mystery. “We cannot say anything about the genome pieces that have to do with longevity,” Holstege said. The researchers will have to compare the woman’s genetic makeup with that of other extremely long-lived people, as well as average Joes and Janes, to find potential keys to long life.

The woman, Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, agreed to donate her body to science at age 112. At that time, Holstege’s father, neuroscientist Gert Holstege of the University of Groningen, performed mental tests and found van Andel-Schipper to be at least as mentally sharp as a person nearly half her age.

After van Andel-Schipper’s death from a stomach tumor in 2005, researchers examined her brain and blood vessels for signs of disease that often accompany aging. They found nothing: She had no sign of the plaques or other degenerative proteins that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and her arteries were clog-free.

Holstege and her colleagues hope to finish the complete genetic blueprint from van Andel-Schipper by the end of the year and make the data available to other researchers.

Groups Sue After E.P.A. Fails to Shift Ozone Rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/science/earth/12epa.html?partner=rss&emc=rss


Five health and environmental groups sued the Obama administration on Tuesday over its rejection of a proposed stricter new standard for ozone pollution, saying the decision was driven by politics and ignored public health concerns.

The groups said that President Obama’s refusal to adopt the new standard was illegal and left in place an inadequate air quality rule from the Bush administration. Near the end of his presidency, George W. Bush overruled the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisory panel and set the permissible ozone exposure at 75 parts per billion.

The current E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, wanted to set the standard at 70 parts per billion, near the maximum level recommended by the advisory panel. But President Obama rejected the proposal on Sept. 2, saying that compliance would be too costly and create too much regulatory uncertainty for industry. He ordered the E.P.A. to conduct further scientific studies and come up with a new proposal in 2013.

The decision infuriated environmental groups, who called it a betrayal, but cheered business leaders, who said that the ozone rule was one of the most onerous of the administration’s proposed environmental regulations.


Ground-level ozone is the main ingredient in smog, which is linked to premature deaths, heart attacks and lung ailments, including childhood asthma.

The standard rejected by Mr. Obama would have thrown hundreds of counties out of compliance with air quality regulations and imposed costs of $19 billion to $25 billion, according to E.P.A estimates. But the resulting health benefits would have been $13 billion to $37 billion, the agency calculated.

1. If you were one of the lawyers sueing the Obama Administration, what would be some of the reasons to do so, and why?

2. Do you think that this proposal, had it been passed, would have helped or worsened Americas Health care crisis? Why ?

Thanks, Matt

Afghanistan Holds Enormous Bounty of Rare Earths, Minerals

Geologists have found a huge deposit of rare earth elements in Afghanistan. There is enough there to supply the earth's needs for 10 years says Robert Tucker, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist who is the lead author on a report about the findings released on September 14.
There are many chemicals such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium 1 million metric tons are known of at this point, these chemicals can be used to make explosives.

This discovery ranks Afghanistan in the top ten of the countries that have these elements. China is first and has the biggest export in this area in the world, currently holding 97% of the worlds supply. U.S. reserves are around 12 million metric tons.

Mr. Tucker was flown in, with a team of geologists, he arrived in black hawk helicopters with high security soldiers. He said that it was quite an experience looking for these elements in 14 pounds of protective gear. The deposit was near the border of Pakistan in a war zone.

This discovery is the most important part of the USGS's 2000 page report of the mineral deposit in Afghanistan. the deposit is valued at $420 million dollars, the report will be was delivered on September 29, 2011 to the Afghanistan embassy in Washington D.C.

On the second excursion to the site they learned that one of the minerals was ore, a canary yellow very rare element. The value of this element alone is thought to be 7.4 billion dollars.

The geologists will unfortunately not be able to make any more investigations because the USGS's funds have run out, so the deposit will remain untouched.

1. Do you think that the elements should be tapped, considering that they could be used for violence?
2. Would you go to the site, even if it was in a war zone?

Super Power Spiders!

Summary

We have all seen spider webs – on the trails we walk on or in the corner of our bedrooms catching flies and other insects. Author Rachel Ehrenberg writes about the other known and possible uses of animal silk. The material insects use to spin webs or create cocoons is called silk.

Silk from insects like spider or silkworms is extremely strong and natural. Researchers are looking into ways to use natural silk for additional uses. Bulletproof vests and parachute cords are two possible ways. But the silk could also be used inside our body – to protect cells, like bone or nerve cells while they regrow and repair themselves.

Spider silk is so valuable that scientists are trying to find additional ways to produce it – like altering the DNA of a goad so that it produces silk proteins in it’s milk. I suppose that this would make it a lot easier to harvest than getting it from the spiders.

I think this is a really interesting topic – but I think I would be nervous to let them plant silk producing spider genes into my body no matter what the possible positives are!

Read the article and see what you think for yourself.

Discussion Questions:
1. Can you think of additional ways that strong and stretchy fibers could be used to help us on the outside of our body?
2. If the science was mastered – do you think you would use silk fibres to help your body from the inside? Say it could help repair a broken bone?

Science 8 Blogging Assignment

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY – GRADE 8
SCIENCE BLOG ASSIGNMENT

The purpose of this assignment is two-fold: to have students research current scientific topics occurring in the media and, to create an environment wherein students can engage in a healthy discussion related to science.

Please Note – Participation in this assignment occurs on two levels.

Level One: Each week, ONE designated student will be responsible for choosing a scientific issue currently covered in the media (a list will be provided indicating each students designated date). After reading the article, the student will create a summary of the information presented and create TWO thought-provoking questions for the rest of the class.

On the blog, you will find links to numerous media sources for scientific information. You can use these sources, or identify your own, for your respective article.

Due Date: Your summary and questions are due on the Sunday, at 8:00pm of your specified week (please consult the schedule for details).

Level Two: Once the designated student has read the article, summarized the information, and posted the two questions, each remaining student in the class will be responsible for commenting upon the questions.

You MUST comment at minimum ONCE each week. However, bonus marks may be given if you discuss and respond more frequently.