Predators gone, small fish get bolder

This article is about little fishes that naturally are scared and timid of predators.
But for the fault of human fishing Tuna and Sharks (the principal predators) shrink. Little fishes become bolder: what means that now they take bigger excursions to feed or to go find mates.
In waters untoched by humans, the researches found that the little fish were spotty in their feeding habits.
Using snorkels, scuba equipment and video cameras, a group of scientists captured the behaviour of more than 600 small fishes.
Some parts of the coral reefs, where fish fed on seaweed, where heavily grazed. In other areas, perhaps where predators lurked, there were large tufts of untouched seaweed.
But where fishing was happening, their grazing formed a more even patter across the reefs.

Questions:
Why if humans know about this, they still fishing where there are no supposed to?
Why are not rules in the counties where this happens?

Global Warming

This article is about how global warming is doing to the earth and what it did in Antarctica, and that the global warming is coming fast, It’s already in all 7 continents, it only take 3 years to get to all seven continents and that Google is now find out a lot more things on global warming.

Also in the picture of the penguins in Antarctica, it’s now too warm there and they couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to live in the environment. And so if they can’t some would die or try to live in the environment.

Questions:

1. If we didn’t/ don’t fix what’s going to happened to the world, what do you think is going to happen?

2. What can we do to prevent this?

3. How can we make other people do the same? Like as in how could we make people prevent this from happening?

Lyanne Carruthers

The Caqueta tiki monkey
The scientific name is callicebus caquetensis. This new species of monkey was discovered in Columbia. This is not the first time they’ve been seen, they where first spotted by a biologist named Martin Moynihan in 1976 in the southern Caqueta part of Colombia. Scientist could not confirm it’s existence until now because of frequent armed conflicts in that region. They estimate that less than 250 still exist because of the cutting of the forests which is their home. This is one of 20 different species of Titi monkeys. Thomas Defler, a primatologist, says that it is possible that there are other species that we don’t know about. The Caqueta Titi monkey has been recommended to be classified as critically endangered.

Questions:
-Can you think of ways that could help save them?
-How many new species do you think scientist discover
each year?

Algae

This article talks about how algae is so hard to classify, because there are so many forms of it. For example it come in green, red, yellow and brown some algae is huge and some you need a micro scope to see also some are made of one cell and some and made of multiple cells but the strangest thing is that some are like animal cells and some like plants, by that i mean the plant cell algae uses photosynthesis to make its food and the animal cell ones eat other organisms. This is why algae is so hard to classify scientist want to stop even using the word algae witch would be really hard because that word has been around for a long time.

Q1: How would you classify algae?
Q2: Why do you think some algae acts like animal cells and some act like plant cells?

THE CYTOPLASM

The Cytoplasm is the part of a cell that is enclosed within the cell membrane.

All the contents of the cells of prokaryote organisms (which lack a cell nucleus) are contained within the cytoplasm. Within the cells of eukaryote organisms the contents of the cell nucleus are separated from the cytoplasm, and are there called the nucleoplasm.

In eukaryotic cells also, the cytoplasm contains organelles, such as mitochondria, which are filled with liquid that is kept separate from the rest of the cytoplasm by biological membranes. It is within the cytoplasm that most cellular activities occur, such as many metabolic pathways including glycolysis, and processes such as cell division. The inner, granular mass is called the endoplasm and the outer, clear and glassy layer is called the cell cortex or the ectoplasm.

The part of the cytoplasm that is not held within organelles is called the cytosol. The cytosol is a complex mixture of cytoskeleton filaments, dissolved molecules, and water that fills much of the volume of a cell. The cytosol is a gel, with a network of fibers dispersed through water. Due to this network of pores and high concentrations of dissolved macromolecules, such as proteins, an effect called macromolecular crowding occurs and the cytosol does not act as an ideal solution. This crowding effect alters how the components of the cytosol interact with each other.

The secret power of youtube.

The secret power of youtube :
Ideas worth spreading.

Everyone thinks or at least almost everyone that youtube is a website for teenagers idiocy, mindless narcisism, watching funny videos making fun of other people.
But not everyone knows that it has now becamed a new form of communicating people news, its called : crowd-accelerated innovation. Which means that like before people have been innovating new types of communication such as printing (books, newpapers, magazines) internet is now one of them, not just youtube. What is really impressing about this new type of communication is that is now allowing the rest of the worlds talents (not just news)to be shared digitally, Justin Bieber is one example. Online video is driving astonishing innovation in thousands of different fields from the ultra-niche to the sharing of truly world-changing ideas.

Questions :
Do you think youtube should be used only for entertainment ?
Can you think of other to come forms of communicating ?

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?

Blogging Assignment 2010

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, TWO designated students 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 responding to or commenting on the questions.

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

Whales may round up squid for dinner

if you were swiming in the ocean, it would be hard for you to miss a sperm whale swimming by. they're no longer than the average of a school bus. males can grow as long as 62 feet and once every or so they come to surface and breath.
sperm whales usually feast for squid, but to catch these animlas the whales sometimes have to dive thousand of feet below the ocean surface.
the whales take turns doing the deep dives because is very difficult to dive that deep.

how do you think whales keep their breath that long?

What is a ipad?

You must all have heard about the new apple machine and think that it was good and you it's was better than a ipod touch but it's almost the same thing it's just that it's bigger and it use more batterie than the ipod touch. The batterie is good only during 10 hours because you need to recharge it after 10 hours. Almost every body are asking there self the same question `How many dollars does it cost ?' the answer is that it cost $499 for each ipad. I think that it's to expansive because we canhave almost the same thing for only $299 or something like that.

QUESTION:

What do you think about the ipad?

When it's going to come out are you going to buy one ?

Dino-bite!

Questions:

1) How do you think that this information about dinosaurs could help scientists?
2) Do you believe that there may have been other kinds of dinosaurs that held pockets of venom in their teeth?

Dino-bite!

A paleontologist called David Burnham and his team were studying a kind of dinosaur called Sinornithosaurs that had feathers and looked like a turkey.After a careful study, his team concluded that the dinosaur was probably poisonous.
They were trying to prove that, so they started examinating the teeth, in the upper jaw. The scienctists observed small pockets in the bone. These pockets probably held special glands that made venom (poison).
They also saw that their teeth were long and narrow. Burnham said that the long teeth were probably used for them to bite and hold their prey (an animal hunted pr caught for food).
By studying the shape and size of the teeth and jaw, the paleontologists were able to learn a lot about how Sinornithosaurs probably ate. Of course, there's no chance this turkey-size dinosaur ever ate a human, since dinosaurs and humans never lived on Earth at the same time. Thank God!

Earthquake has killed in Haiti

On tuesday (the 12th) morning a very bad Earth Quake hit Port au Prince (in Haiti).
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN Wednesday the death toll from the earthquake that rocked his country could be "well over 100,000."

The 7.0-magnitude (accourding to the Rechter Scale) quake struck Tuesday afternoon, and has left Port-au-Prince, the capital city, in dust.


The Haitian President René Préval told the Miami Herald, today (13th), he has been stepping over more than thousand dead bodies prettly much everywhere.


"We have to do an evaluation," Préval said, describing the scene as "unimaginable."

"All of the hospitals are full with people. It is a catastrophe,'' he said.

"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,'' he told the paper. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.''

Shattered communication systems in the Caribbean country made it impossible to immediately determine the number of dead bodies from the Tuesday afternoon quake, but an International Red Cross official estimated that three million people in the impoverished country of nine million may have been affected and could need emergency aid.

Question

1. What could be done to protect people from dying in these aggressive earthquake?

2. Which region do you thing suffer more of earthquake than other and why?

Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered

Krak krak! (Watch out, a leopard!)

Hok hok hok! (Hey, crowned eagle!)

Very good — you have already mastered half the basic vocabulary of the Campbell’s monkey, a fellow primate that lives in the forests of the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast. The adult males have six types of call, each with a specific meaning, but they can string two or more calls together into a message with a different meaning.

Having spent months recording the monkeys’ calls in response to both natural and artificial stimuli, a group led by Klaus Zuberbühler of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland argues that the Campbell’s monkeys have a primitive form of syntax.

This is likely to be a controversial claim because despite extensive efforts to teach chimpanzees language, the subjects showed little or no ability to combine the sounds they learned into a sentence with a larger meaning. Syntax, basic to the structure of language, seemed be a uniquely human faculty.

Still, species like gibbons and whales make complex vocalizations in which the order of the sounds seems to have some effect on their meaning, though it is hard to say what.

“Krak” is a call that warns of leopards in the vicinity. The monkeys gave it in response to real leopards and to model leopards or leopard growls broadcast by the researchers. The monkeys can vary the call by adding the suffix “-oo”: “krak-oo” seems to be a general word for predator, but one given in a special context — when monkeys hear but do not see a predator, or when they hear the alarm calls of another species known as the Diana monkey.

The “boom-boom” call invites other monkeys to come toward the male making the sound. Two booms can be combined with a series of “krak-oos,” with a meaning entirely different to that of either of its components. “Boom boom krak-oo krak-oo krak-oo” is the monkey’s version of “Timber!” — it warns of falling trees.

There is yet another variation on this theme, Dr. Zuberbühler’s team reports. Into the “Timber!” call, the Campbell’s monkeys insert a series of up to seven “hok-oo” calls. The combined call indicates the presence of other monkey groups and is heard most often when the monkeys are on the edge of their home range.

The meaning of monkey calls was first worked out with vervet monkeys, which have distinct alarm calls for each of their three main predators: the martial eagle, leopards and snakes. But the vervets did not combine their alarm calls to generate new meanings, unlike human words that can be combined in an infinite number of different sentences.

If the Zuberbühler team’s observations are correct, the Campbell’s monkeys can both vary the meaning of specific calls by adding suffixes and combine calls to generate a different meaning. Their call system, the researchers write, “may be the most complex example of ‘proto-syntax’ in animal communication known to date.”

Please Laugh

I recently read an article that is posted somewhere on this page.Well this was about people laughing and staying healthy.Younger children could laugh up to 400 times a day however,as people age they will only laugh about 20 times a day. As you have probably heard too much in your life,"laughter is the best medican",this is oh so true. Hospitals across the united states have began to use this a therapy for there patients. Laughing exercises the organs and keeps them very healthy. People who very rarely laugh aren't necessarily at risk,however they will just seem very depressed. So...everyone to put all this into perspective for you, laugh as much as possible. Well unless your Charly.

cholera epidemic in Kenya

A cholera epidemic is sweeping across Kenya, with 4700 cases reported in the past month and 119 deaths. the most stricken areas are the arids swarts of northern Kenya, which were hit this year.
colera is spreadig fast one of the things that is helping the virus to srpead is the rain because it makes the ground wet and then is all dirty so when peolpe walke the dirt goes with them and it might have the ionfection with it.
cholera is a diarrheal illness caused by a bacterial infection in the intestine.
people exposed to cholera germ scan get sick with hours and die within a day if the infection is not treated.
the best treatment is rehydration salts to restore fluids to the body. the best prevention is for people to wash their hands a lot.

what would you do if you lived in Kenya?

what would you do if you were a doctor in Kenya?

they found live in mars

But now there is a lot more new NASA study of a Martian meteorite that made headlines 13 years ago strengthens the original claim that the rock contains evidence of life on ancient Mars.
Researchers at the Johnson Space Center used advanced electron microscopes that weren't available in 1996 to re examine the magnetite crystals on the meteorite.
The meteorite, called ALH84001, was blasted from the surface of Mars 16 million years ago, scientists say, and is thought to have landed on Earth 13,000 years ago. An American scientist found it in Antarctica in 1984.
The original study published in the journal Science in 1996grabbed headlines and sparked a debate among scientists as to the origin of the crystals of magnetite, an iron-bearing, magnetic mineral found in the meteorite.
The study suggested that some of the crystals were likely the result of biological processes because they looked so similar to those created by bacteria on Earth.
Other scientists argued that the magnetite crystals could be produced by chemical and physical processes, and even created similar crystals in the lab by heating carbonates.
In a new study the Johnson Space Center researchers examined the magnetite crystals from the meteorite known microfossil samples from Earth and other crystals created artificially in the lab using high-resolution scanning electron microscopes.
Proof is stronger
They found that the Martian crystals didn't resemble the ones created in the lab, and concluded that biology is still the best explanation for the Martian crystals.
We believe that the biogenic hypothesis is stronger now than when we first proposed it 13 years ago said everett gibson NASA senior scientist.
The evidence supporting the possibility of past life on Mars has been slowly building up during the past decade said David mcKay NASA chief scientist for exploration and astrobiology.
This evidence includes signs of past surface water. Signs of current water near or at the surface water derived deposits of clay minerals and carbonates in old terrain, and the recent release of methane into the Martian atmosphere a finding that may have several explanations including the presence of microbial life the main source of methane on Earth mckay said.
The NASA team published their research in the journal Geochimica ET Cosmochimica Act of The Geochemical Society and The Meteoritic Society.

China and the U.S join the cause

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will attend a major U।N। climate-change summit next in Denmark, Also on Thursday, China’s State Council announced plans "to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit" of gross domestic product in 2020 by 40 percent to 45percent, compared with its 2005 level, state-run media reported. The reductions will be "based on our own national conditions" and "is a major contribution to the global effort in tackling climate change," the State Council said, according to the Xinhua news agency. Next month's climate talks aim to strike a deal on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 pact that has legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The United States never ratified it, though more than 200 nations did.

An Astronauts completed three scheduled spacewalks Saturday And they spend over six hours installing equipment on the International Space Station.
Mission specialists Randolph Bresnik and Michael Foreman put up new antennas, a monitor, set up a spectrometer and installed a wireless video system for spacewalkers with cameras.

The high-pitched beeps — emanating from a new Russian research chamber — triggered a series of smoke alarms, waking up the astronauts and disrupting spacewalk preparations.
As the astronauts carried out their work, Bresnik's wife, Rebecca, was due to give birth to their second child at any moment in Houston. They also have a three-year-old son, adopted from Ukraine.
However, the baby had yet to arrive by the time the spacewalk ended. It had been agreed that Mission Control would hold off on any news if the birth occurred during the spacewalk so that Bresnik would remain focused on his tasks.
Throughout the spacewalk, Foreman, a veteran spacewalker, had trouble hearing inside his helmet. Bresnik's voice was especially faint.
"I can't understand you," Foreman called out. Bresnik spoke louder. "Still can't," Foreman said. An astronaut inside the space station had to intercede.
Foreman also missed hearing some of the praise coming his way after accomplishing all the major chores.
One more spacewalk is planned on Monday. The shuttle will remain at the station until next Wednesday, with a return to Earth scheduled for Friday.

Big Cats

From lions in Kenya to snow leopards in the Himalaya, the big cats of the world need help. Lions, cheetahs, leopards, jaguars, and other top felines are quickly disappearing, all victims of habitat loss and degradation as well as conflicts with humans.
To address this critical situation, the National Geographic Society has launched the Big Cats Initiative, a comprehensive program that supports on-the-ground conservation projects, education, and economic incentive efforts and a global public-awareness campaign. “We no longer have the luxury of time when it comes to big cats,” says National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dereck Joubert. “They are in such a downward spiral that if we hesitate now, we will be responsible for extinctions across the globe. They need help to survive because they can't do something but we can change what's happening not only for them but for all the animals that are killed for nothing.

1) What would you do to help the animals ?

2) Why do you think it's important to help them ?