by Fred Migneault

                                                               Superpredator

Scientists have compared the hunting habits of wild mammals, birds and fishes with those of people. Their new study shows that humans are strange predators. Unlike other animals, we target adult prey in large numbers. That is a practice that can push populations of those prey into decline, the researchers warn.

People mainly target at least among wild mammals and fishes prey that are old enough to reproduce. Those are the animals that have babies and keep their populations going, explains Chris Darimont. He is a conservation scientist at the University of Victoria in Canada. Many baby animals don't live long enough to become adults. Killing too many of the few that do can shrink groups of wild animals over time.

To avoid that, Darimont and his colleagues want people to switch to the hunting patterns of other mammals or fishes. That would mean targeting young prey, not adults. Also, we would have to take smaller percentages of animal populations than we currently do.

A shift toward younger individuals would be more sustainable, says Thomas Reimchen. Also at the University of Victoria, he worked on the study, too. Being sustainable means that resources are used in a way that allows them to continue to be available long into the future. Reimchen acknowledges, though, that changing human habits would not be easy.
He has been itching to analyze people as a predator since 1976. At that time, he was studying populations of small fish. Called three-spine sticklebacks, these fish were living in a Canadian lake where 22 kinds of predators feasted on them, including trouts and loons. But the stickleback population didn’t change much in number from year to year. All those predators were eating less than 5 percent of the stickleback mass in the lake. Mostly, they ate the youngsters.
 In the ocean nearby, he saw commercial fishing. These fishermen were catching 40 to 80 percent of all of the nearby adults among the species they were targeting. Reimchen recalled thinking that it seemed such targeting of adults would not allow fish populations to remain stable.
Humans are primates without fangs, claws, horns, much running speed or a great sense of smell. But people have guns, nets, vehicles, refrigeration and other technologies. The technologies are used on hunts, Darimont explains. And that has given people predatory superpowers.

http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2015/08/superpredator-humans-are-hunting-other-animals-out-existence


 

1-     Do you think it’s a good idea to make people switch to the hunting patters of other mammals or fish?

2-     they said that technologies are used on hunts in the article. Give example.

Air pollutions enter body through skin.

For some toxic air pullutants, more can get into the body through the skin than breathing. Also the skin can push toxins out of the body. Example when we playing sport we always get sweat. Sweat is also come from our skin. It is same phenomenon. Our skin has many small holes that can breath. We take air from mouth and skin. That means that we also take air pollutions. Air pollution goes into your body when you inhale. When you breathe the pollution goes to your blood and it also goes into your lungs tiniest airways. The skin is like a sponge because it sucks all the pollution and chemicals. 

1. Air pollutions enter body through skin this means that it is necessary to clean the air in order to avoid air pollutions enter body. How do we keep clean air? For example don’t cut too much tree. Find your idea to keep clean air and explain your idea.

2. Explain why is skin like a sponge?                                                                           

Space agencies making moon suitable for human life

Could the lunar south pole support a human base?

European space agencies are to send the first aircrafts to an unexplored region of the south pole of the moon with the purpose of expanding human life and to prevent overpopulation in earth.
It will be a series of missions trying to make that part of the moon suitable for human life. They will send a probe that will dig deep into the moon's surface to try to find raw materials and water to make oxygen and fuel for human consumption.
The European lead scientist for the mission, Dr James Carpenter of the European Space Agency, explains why it is important to move human population and what they will try to do in the moon's surface.

1. Why do you think we should try to expand human life to other planets?

2. Do you think its a good idea for scientists to spend so much time and money to try to expand human life?

Read more at http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34516898

Why What You Learned in Preschool Is Crucial at Work

Today a machine can perform all types of jobs, occupations that require more social skills have grown much more than others. The skills that schools teach may need to change, our education system is supposes to educate in our skills, now computers help students in every subject. Children move from art projects to science experiments to the playground in small groups, and their most important skills are sharing and negotiating with others.

Jobs that require both socializing and thinking, especially mathematically, have fared best in employment and pay. The jobs that require social skills but not math skills have also grown; lawyers and child-care workers. The jobs that have been rapidly disappearing are those that require neither social nor math skills, like manual labor.

Learning math and science is not enough, character, dependability and perseverance are as important as computers in this days.  

Women seem to have taken particular advantage of the demand for social skills routine jobs has hit women harder than men. Yet women have more successfully transitioned into collaborative jobs like managers, doctors and professors. In the past, females traditionally excel at things like social perceptiveness, emotional intelligence and working with others.

In many universities, students are assigned to small groups to complete their work. So-called flipped classrooms assign video lectures before class and reserve class for discussion or group work. The idea is that traditional lectures involve too little interaction and can be done just as well online.

Students should be prepared for the actual world of work. Maybe high schools and colleges should evaluate students the way preschools do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/how-the-modern-workplace-has-become-more-like-preschool.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront

1. Why do you think that involve social skills are more prestige than others that are helped by machines?

2.Woman are more successful in social skills than man, give to examples of why is this?

by  Ana GALLARDO SANDERS

New Limit for Smog-Causing Emissions Isn’t as Strict as Many Had Expected

The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a major new regulation on smog-causing emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency set the new national standard for ozone, a smog-causing gas, sunny days when chemical emissions from power plants, 70 parts per billion, tightening the standard of 75 parts per billion set in 2008. Smog has been linked to asthma, heart and lung disease, and premature death.

The new rule is Clean Air Act pollution.
They propose climate change at greenhouse gas pollution. But with the new rule, Obama administrations appears to have tempered environmental ambitions because it would sit better with business. They estimated that the annual cost of economy would be $1.4 billion, economic benefits of $2.9 billion to$5.9 billion to  because of fewer premature deaths, missed days of school and work, asthma attacks and emergency room visits.

American Petroleum Institute, have waged an all-fronts campaign to persuade the Obama administration to make the new standard as weak as possible. The groups were joined by dozens of mayors and locals.
The new rule, set at the weakest standard in the range recommended by the E.P.A.’s scientists, suggests that the industry groups were influential.

The new rules will still require the owners of factories and power plants to install costly “scrubber” technology on their smokestacks, designed to clean out the polluting chemicals. Each scrubber can cost tens of millions of dollars.At the time, Mr. Obama said the regulation would impose too severe a burden on industry and local governments at a time of economic distress. Ms. Jackson nearly resigned over the issue.

Questions:

1) Which are gone the be the positive effects of the new regulation, and the negative ones?

2) The owners of factories and other industrial companies will have to change some things for regulation for the environment, give some examples and the reason.

A cloud of Microbes surrounds a person

The bacteria that live in and on a human body create  a  microbial cloud around a person, that is different for each person.
This could be used to  identify not only the way to be  of a person, but sometimes also the persons identity.

Of three volunteers the researches found that human  bacteria,  had been from different dishes in the room. These bacteria have species like Staphylococcus epidermis, normally found on human skin, and Streptococcus oralis that enters in the mouth.

Each person's cloud contains different  types of bacteria with different  amounts  so that each human could be identified by their own different microbes.

In a upcoming experiment five of eight participants  could be identified by airbone bacteria.
Two of five people produce so much microbial material that they could be identify by the cloud bacteria that stayed  in the air ventilation.

Questions-

1-Explain why you think bacteria are good in anyways for people? And in which ways?

2- The researches found that human associated bacteria had gathered on collection dishes in the room.
These bacteria included species like Staphylococcus epidermis, often found on human skin.
Which other places or in which other ways you think bacteria are showed? Explain your answer.

Article:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cloud-microbes-surrounds-person

By: Andrei Bucatel

A moon with seas and lakes

 

A photograph by NASA in Arizona had found 2 island on the moon of Saturn called titan. Soo really Titan is a big seas made of mainly methane and other natural gases. In 2004 Cassini took pictures of the planet and they saw many lakes, rivers and seas. While taking pictures there was a island that popped out of a lake and quickly vanished. Then they saw waves that where discovered on Saturn.

 

Titan is the only body besides the Earth that has rain carved geography that is possible to study. This explains the presences of lakes, rivers and a icy crust on the surface.

 

On august 21 there was a flyby passing 964 km above the moon Titan and it made it possible to calculate the depth of the Kraken Mare which is the largest sea on titan that was discovered. That flyby found that the sea was 200 meters deep that is a lot of methane it is estimate that is 3 times more volume than the lake superior.

 

Titan is the only known body in this solar system that holds seas and lakes. The seas on Titan are very different than the seas on earth the surface temperatures on titan is around -290 to -179

 

Marco Mastrogiuseppe of the university of Rome has found out how to measure the depth of titan using Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory. He found  out that the island that wee see are under methane icebergs

 

In spring you will see more islands showing up on the Mare Kraken.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141111-titan-lake-island-space-science/

1: On titan there’s waves, lakes, rivers islands but maybe it’s a start of a new planet because that how our earth started “it was all started buy earth having a big seas and it developed to bee what it is now. Give some similarities on why can it turn to a planet or why it can’t turn in to a planet. Explain your answer.

 

2: Do you think that titan can have other living species judging by the climate, the size, the amount of water, or even the island that appear for couple seconds. Can this bee earth #2. Explain your answer.  

clay houses, the new way to build

building houses has been a problem for a will, but today there is a machine called the Big Delta that literally makes a house out of anything. Big Delta uses straw, dirt, mud and water to create a super cheap clay. This machine will 3D print an igloo looking house. This incredible structure stands over 40 feet tall.

The first model was the size of your hand, it made Lego size houses

Earth isn't the only place were people want to 3D print houses from local materials, there are architects who want to the same on the moon.

http://www.popsci.com/this-towering-3-d-printer-makes-clay-homes

1.Why would building houses out of clay be a good idea?

2. Architects want to build this same machine up in space would you think that this is a good idea or a bad idea? why?

Can New Food Sources save Polar Bears from Extinction?

By:  Andrew Bouchard 


  Polar bears are often the animal that represents global warming because they are largely at risk. They are at risk of extinction due to climate change. The season where the water is covered with ice is getting shorter and it is decreasing the availability of their main food source, the ringed seal. Since they cannot get food for a longer part of the year, they are beginning to starve.  
  Researchers Linda Gormezano and Robert Rockwell from the American Museum of Natural History have done research that shows that polar bears have found new food sources and have been feeding off of geese and caribou. Polar bears are adapting to their new climate. 
  During summer and spring, the ice starts to come back in.  During this time, they have to live on land and are living off of their accumulated weight. The ice free season (the season when there is no ice on the water) has gone from 120 to 180 days and 28 to 48 percent of adult polar bears starve unless they can find food.
  Caribou is a great source of food for polar bears because an adult caribou can hold a polar bear off for 27 days and a baby can hold them off for 8 days. Geese eggs are much less filling than caribou but they are also much easier to get. Polar bears are master opportunists. They are known for snacking on anything from berries to whale carcasses. In some places across the world, they have even recorded polar bears going after small bull walruses.
  This may mean in the years to come that we will be seeing a decrease in the populations of geese and caribou but this remains to be seen. But, polar bears have to do what they need to do to survive. Like Charles Darwin said, this is survival of the fittest.  

http://www.popsci.com/polar-bears-might-survive-ice-melting-by-hunting-new-prey

1. Polar bears food sources are becoming less available. What are some similar ways in which human’s food sources and production have to adapt to climate change? Explain your answer.

2. Polar bears are losing their territory due to climate change. In what other ways are humans influencing the loss of animal territories? Explain your answer.