Red Panda

The red panda is dwarfed by the black-and-white giant that shares its name. These pandas typically grow to the size of a house cat, though their big, bushy tails add an additional 18 inches (46 centimeters). The pandas use their ringed tails as wraparound blankets in the chilly mountain heights. The red panda shares the giant panda's rainy, high-altitude forest habitat, but has a wider range. Red pandas live in the mountains of Nepal and northern Myanmar (Burma), as well as in central China. These animals spend most of their lives in trees and even sleep aloft. When foraging, they are most active at night as well as in the gloaming hours of dusk and dawn.Red pandas have a taste for bamboo but, unlike their larger relatives, they eat many other foods as well—fruit, acorns, roots, and eggs. Like giant pandas, they have an extended wrist bone that functions almost like a thumb and greatly aids their grip. They are shy and solitary except when mating. Females give birth in the spring and summer, typically to one to four young. Young red pandas remain in their nests for about 90 days, during which time their mother cares for them. (Males take little or no interest in their babies.) The red panda has given scientists taxonomic fits. It has been classified as a relative of the giant panda, and also of the raccoon, with which it shares a ringed tail. Currently, red pandas are considered members of their own unique family—the Ailuridae. Red pandas are endangered, victims of deforestation. Their natural space is shrinking as more and more forests are destroyed by logging and the spread of agriculture.

Keep your eyes peeled A taste of what's to come on Scienceline's first-ever iPad app

Author: Scienceline editors

Source: Website, Video:

What the heck is beer anyway? from Scienceline on Vimeo.

Date: October 7, 2011

In this video, it talked about how to make beer. This is what it said: It starts with barley, the seeds from the plant are filed with starch, witch isn't good. So, to brake it down, they put the seeds in hot water, so that they start to sprout. Then, they dry the seeds to stop them from growing. Now, the baby plants have started to eat the starch, that's good! Then the seeds are smashed up into something called mash. Mash can be two things, Malt extract or wart. Malt extract, goes into things like whoppers(type of beer), while the wart, actually makes your beer. Then they add yest to the wart and extract all of the sugar, and poop out CO2 and Ethanol. Depending on what type of beer you want, you can add the Humulus Lupulus that's is bitter, or the one that is more aromatic(you have to add this before you add the starch!). That's it! And there you have beer!

Rabbit Population Growth Graph + Chart

Conclusion:

At the top of the post, the picture is a graph, that shows the population of rabbits increasing each year, + it has for year 15 and for year 20. It also has the Powers of 2 for each year, for the population increasing, and to the far left of the graph, it has each year. The second picture shows a chart. The chart shows how the population of rabbits increases each year, up to ten years. What i can conclude from this mini project is that this graph doesn't go for any animal, some animals have the oposit. Some animals start out with a large number, and depleat very rapidly.

7 Billion, National Geographic Magazine

7 Billion, National Geographic Magazine

Author: National Geographic

Source: Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc4HxPxNrZ0

Date Video Made: December 27, 2010

In this video it talked about how we are going to be one of 7 billion people on earth now in 2011. They say, that in 2045, the population could be 9 billion. It would take over 200 years just to count to 7 billion out loud and that 7 billion steps would take you around the world 133 times. About every second, 5 people are born and 2 people die. Nearly everywhere, we are starting to live longer. In 2010, the average person lived up to 96 years old. but in the 1960's, the average person lived up to 23 years old. In 2008, for the firs time ever, more of us lived in cities than in rural areas, for example, country side. In megacity's the population is around 10,000,000. In 1975, there were 3 megacities, Mexico city, Tokyo and New York. Right now, there are 21 megacities. By 2050, 70% of us in the world, will live in urban areas. But we don't take up as much space as you think we would. Standing shoulder to shoulder, all 7,000,000,000 of us, would will fill the city of Los Angeles. So basically, we don't need space, we need balance between us and the planet. Only 5% of us, consme 23% of the world's energy, 13% of us don;t have clean drinking water, 38% of us lack in Adequate Sanitation.

Population of Seals in Maine!

In Maine, one of the most common problems fishermen have, is seals. The reason seals are disliked so much in Maine, is because, the lobstermens traps, are like their jackpots for food. Because they can get into the traps and eat all of the bate and Lobsters. They are keeping the seal population down by counting the seals in one area, and tagging them, going to another place, and then tagging them to, so that they can closely monitor their population!

Cooling 6-Pack Myth Busters

Author: Myth Busters

Date: July 17, 2011

Site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N354fChhjV0&feature=related

(Just Part 1)

In this episode of Myth Busters, Jamie and Adam test out the theory of, if you put a 6-pack of bear underground, put ground over in, and then light the ground on fire. This is supposed cool down the 6-pack of bear. The story behind the myth: When the vietnams were at war, they burred a 6-pack into the ground covered it up and then poured a Quart of gas on in and then set it on fire. That was supposed to cool their drink. For the first test they tried it out, they figured out that the beer actual warmed up 2 degrees. When they tried cooling the beer with a fire extinguisher. It worked. The temperature cooled down a full almost 10 degrees.When they tested what cools faster, they found out that ice water cools bear faster that just plain ice water in just 5 minutes.

Conclusion:

I chose this article because it thought it would be interesting to learn about howthey made the robots move like real boxers. What grabbed my attention was the picture of the 2 robots in the boxing ring. I thought to myself, how could that be possible? Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to watch the video find out. I found it while looking at the Discovery site and was just skimming through the videos when I came to this one that seamed interesting and was screaming, READ ME, READ ME, READ ME!!!!!!!!!

Tech: Real Steel: Are Robots the future of boxing?

BY: Discovery Chanel

Source: Video

Date: September 30, 2011

In this video it talked about the movie called "Real Steel". If you have watched the video in my blog post, you will know how they made the robots move. If you haven't, then I will guyed you through it. First of all, what they had to do was that they had to get some professional boxers to mimic the moves that the robots will be making. Then when they have the footage of the boxers, then they can make their movie MAGIC, which is technically making the animations of the Robots replace the boxers making it look like the robots are actually fighting. The “trainers” make the robot move by using their body parts, or using a futuristic gaming controller.

Reflection:

I chose this article because it thought it would be interesting to learn about howthey made the robots move like real boxers. What grabbed my attention was the picture of the 2 robots in the boxing ring. I thought to myself, how could that be possible? Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to watch the video find out. I found it while looking at the Discovery site and was just skimming through the videos when I came to this one that seamed interesting and was screaming, READ ME, READ ME, READ ME!!!!!!!!!

Notes on Abiotic Factors

Water:

1. All living thing need water to survive.
2. water makes up most of our body.
3. Our body is 65% water.
4. Plants and algae need water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight.
5. They use those components in a process to make their own food called photosynthesis.
6. Other living thing depend on plants and algae for food.

Sunlight:

1. sunlight is needed for most living things and for photosynthesis
2. were it is dark plants and algae cant grow.
3. only a few organisms can live in a cave.

Oxygen:

1. Most living thing need air to live.
2. You can live only a few minutes without air.
3. Organisms that live on land obtain oxygen in air, which is about 20% oxygen.
4. Fish obtain oxygen that dissolves in the water around them.

Temperature:

1. Some animals alter their enviroments so that they can survive in very hot, or very cold climates.
2. Like a prairie Dog.
3. The temperature determines the organisms that live in the surroundings.

Soil:

1. Soil is: rock fragments, nutrients, air, water, and the decaying remains of living things.
2. The type of soil depends on the type of plant that grow there.
3. Billions of little organisms live in soil.

How do speakers recreate sound?

BY: Jane McGrath

Site: http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/articles/speakers-recreate-sound.html

Date: June 22, 2011

In this article that read on the Mythbusters website, it was about speakers and how they recreate sound. In the article they talked about how sound is just the disturbance of the air molecules, that travel in waves. They also said that like in a guitar, when you strum a string against the air molecules around it, which disturb the molecules around them and so on and so on until it travels across the entire area. The 2 most important parts to making sound out of the speakers are the voice coils that the cones connect to and the permanent magnet that attaches to the voice coil. When the electrical current flow through it, the coil turns into an electromagnet.

Reflection:

I chose this article because it thought it would be interesting to learn about how electromagnetic waves work.What grabbed my attention was the picture of the waves comming from the picture. I thought to myself, why are there waves coming out of the speaker. Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to read the article and find out. I found it while looking at the MythBusters site and was just skimming through the articles when I came to this one that seamed interesting and was screaming, READ ME, READ ME, READ ME!!!

Notes on the Movie: Dirt

1. 1. Dirt might be more alive than we are.

   2. Life began in water.

   3. Dirt transformed the earth.

   4. Dirt helps up live and stay alive.

   5. Dirt its self is not living, but all of the organisms in it are living.

   6. Dirt is made up of bare rock + all of the organisms in it.

   7. Horse manure and dirt is better insulator and is better than cement.

   8. Nearly 200,000 farmers killed themselves by drinking the pest asides because they had nothing else left in their lives that brought them joy.

   9. 100,000,000 trees were cut down to make 200,000 mail catalogues.

   10.They made cookies out of white dry dirt.

   11. In Maine they use fish for compost.

   Message:

   Everyone should help. Dirt is dying and the world is polluting. It shows how much dirt is important.

   3 supporting details:

   1. Dirt is the main material for farming and agriculture.

   2. If people continue to cut down trees, everyone will die because there will be less and less oxygen.

   3. We should stop shipping paint or ship it more carefully so it doesn't spill and pollute the marine life but not jelly fish. Also the toxins go in the dirt.

   Summary:

   Today in science class, we watched a movie about dirt. That movie, changed my perspective about dirt. Before I watched this video I thought of dirt as one of the things that is nothing special or important to survive. But now that I know that people who don’t have food, or people that are in need of help and food, make cookies out of white dry dirt to survive because dir has nutrients. Dirt is also the main material for farming and agriculture, if it is not usable, then farmers can’t grow their crops. Nearly 200,000 farmers killed themselves by drinking the pesticides because they had nothing else left in their lives that brought them joy. Imagine how much dirt was left behind when cement is put over the top to build cities. All of the tiny organisms die in the dirt and the nutrients can’t be used. So many people don’t care and never will think about dirt and what it does for them, they just forget.

   A lot of people are trying to make a change. People are coming out trying to rebuild what we have destroyed. I think that we should make a change as well. Organize something with your school, with your family, with your naborhood to help rebuild what we have destroyed. Take action in what you believe in. Make a change in the world.

Monkeys' brain waves offer paraplegics hope

By Matt McGrath

Site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15197124

Time Written: 6 October 2011

Summary:

To sum up this article, it talked about how monkeys can transmit electromagnetic waves from their brain to control a virtual arm. This technology could help quadriplegic patients not only regain movement but a sense of touch as well. The monkeys were able to touch and feel objects on the screen to. This is what the Prof Miguel Nicolelis from Duke University said: "It provides us with the demonstration that we can establish a bi-directional link between the brain and an artificial device without any interference from the subject's body," The researchers trained the monkeys to play a video game were they had a joystick to move the arm with and brake a box open. In each box there was a vibration. A lot of electrodes were implanted in the brains of the monkeys and connected to the computer screen. The joystick was removed and motor signals from the monkey's brains then controlled the arm. At the same time the things that they touched with the virtual hand on the computer transmits to the brain.

Reflection:

I chose this article because it was unusual to me. What grabbed my attention was the picture of the monkey. I thought to myself, why are there things coming out of his brain going to his hands? Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to read it and find out. I found it while looking at the National Geographic site and was just skimming through the articles when I came to this one that seamed interesting. I kind of connected with what we are doing in DT, we are doing brain control so I thought that it would be fun to do something that we are doing in DT.

Glow kitties

Author: Stephen Ornes

Source: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2011/09/glow-kitties/ (website)

Time written: September 28, 2011

Glowing cat! Who could have ever thought that it could ever be possible! The Poeschla and his colleagues found out that FIV(Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) can be cured and has bean, but only in the rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys can fight off the infection because their cells contain a special protein that cats don’t have. Proteins are the workers inside a cell, and each protein has its own to-do list. One of the jobs of the special monkey protein is to stop viruses from infecting it. The scientists said that if cats had this protein, FIV wouldn’t be able to infect cats. FIV is very similar to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). If they can find acure for FIVthey can find a cure for AIDS. A virus (like FIV and HIV (Human Immune Deficiency)) is a tiny particle that finds and attacks cells in the body. It has a set of instructions, called genes, for how to reproduce and attack the virus. A virus’s only job is to make more of itself so that it can shut down the body faster, and it can reproduce only if it attacks and invades cells. When a virus attacks a cell, it injects its genes inside the nucleus, and it hijacks the cell, and then creates new viruses. The new viruses then go attack other cells in the body. When they started testing the gene modified eggs into the cat, three baby kittens were born, and they glowed in the dark, that for them, was a success.

Reflection:

I chose this article because it was very funny and unusual to me. What grabbed my attention was the picture of the glowing cat. I thought to myself, why is that cat glowing? Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to read the article and find out. I found it while looking at the Science News for kids site and was just skimming through the articles when I came to this one that seamed interesting and was screaming, READ ME, READ ME, READ ME!!!!!!!!! I also thought that this was very interesting because it was a glowing CAT! How many times do you get to see a glowing cat!?!?!

Winter's New tail!

Animals: Dolphin Tale: Building Winter's Prosthetic Tail

Discovery News

Site (Video) http://news.discovery.com/videos/animals-dolphin-tale-building-winters-prosthetic-tail.html

September 21, 2011

In this video, there wasn't an article it was just a video. In the video it basically talked about Winter the dolphin and how she had amputated her tail and how they were trying many different ideas on the ‘bionic tail’. Here is the story: Winter the dolphin, stared in the movie “The Dolphin Tail”. She was just 3 months old when she was found on a beach in Florida with a fishing line wrapped around her tail witch cut off all of her circulation in her tail(in 2005). She adapted to not having a tail so she had started moving her tail left and right to move around, but the problem was that those movements didn’t suet dolphins (they caused pressure on the vertebra). That movement was suited more for sharks than for dolphins. This also added extra risk for the spinal cord. When they put extra body parts on humans, they would put ell liner because of our sensitive skin. They came up with a very flexible, durable material that can be in salt water and that doesn’t harm Winters skin. It is also being used on humans patients now. They Made 16 different versions (prototypes) of the ‘bionic tail’. Now every day trainers do stretching and workouts with Winter to regain the muscles that were once there and for her to have the ability swim like a normal dolphin.

Back To The Future: Nike MAG

The Nike Mags that Mike McFly wore in Back to the Future were a glowing pair of self-lacing Nike Mag shoos that transported from 1989 to 2015. They released an exact replica of the fictional sneakers after 20 years.

The Nike Mag shoos that Mike McFly wore in Back to the Future, are not the same as the Nike Mags they made this year. The replicas they made don't self-lace, and they don't fit snug around your foot, but they do however glow for a full 4 hours before you

knead to charge them again.

Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's is a disorder of the central nervous system that results from the loss of cells in different parts of the brain. At least one million people in the United States, and more than five million people worldwide, are diagnosed with Parkinson's.

Things i Know and want to know about living things

Things i know:

1. All living things have the circle of life.
2. Have cells(the cell is the basic building block of all living things).
3. Living things grow and develop.
   
4. Living things reproduce.
   
5. Living things respond to their environment.
   
6. Living things adapt to their environment.
7. Living things use energy.
8. Living things excrete waste.

Things i want to know:

1. How do plants reproduce?
2. What is a Plant cell made up of?
3. What is an animal cell made up of?
4. How do cells work?
5. How do animals/plants adapt to there environments?

Me and Alex making a motor work (Almost!)Part 2!

Every Week or so me and Alex will be posting a video of us doing something Scientific!

Me and Alex making a Moter work! (Almost) Part 1

Every Week or so me and Alex will be posting a video of us doing something Scientific!

Electric curents

Scientific summer!

1.This summer me and my family went to Spring Field Massachusetts! My favorite part of the trip was when we went to 6 Flags! It was so cool! There were so many cool roller coasters and rides! Me and my sister got flash passes! Flash passes are basically passes that you can go on the rides a bunch of times without having to wait in the gigantic line which takes like 30 minutes. We also got a bracelet that said Platinum Flash Pass on them, they allowed me and my sister to go on a ride 2 times in a row without going back in line!

2./3.This summer one of the things i did scientific was that i went on roller coasters in 6 Flags in Massachusetts. I think that roller coasters are scientific because they have to do with forces and motions, friction, and + and - G's. I think that the one that is the most scientific about all of the 3 are forces and motion. I think this because there is a lot o force being put on you as you are riding the roller coaster, for an example, when you go slowly up, and you stop at the top and then you shoot down to the ground you feel like you are flying, but all of a sudden when you go straight up you are being pushed down and you can feel your face sagging, thees things are also known as + and - G's.

Goals For this year in Science!

My goals in Science this year are:

1. To become a more attentive listener.
2. Be more involved in class work.
3. Be more advanced in me Scientific language and in my Labs.
4. I also want to turn in my homework on time.
5. I want to work to the best of my abilities and put 100% into all of my Projects, assignments, homework, and class work.
6. I also want to talk less in class.