CLEAR SOIL COULD IMPROVE CROPS

Can crops actually improve with just adding artificial clear soil?

If you answered with yes, your correct! 

Artificial soil-like materials have beed developed to help scientists image the secret world of the plants roots. The view could help biologists, chemists and physicists improve crops and identify ways to prevent the outbreak of plant based diseases. 

The clear soil was developed by theoretical biologist Lionel Dupuy, the the James Hutton Institution in Dundee Scotland. It's made of a synthetic material know as 'Nafion'. This material can be modified to mimic (to copy) the chemistry of the natural soil. Its not see through first, but when water is added, the particles bend light, making it clear.

Portable Solar Desalination 'Plant' That May Aid In Third World Water Woes

Water can be found anywhere. But there is not a lot that can be drank. That, unfortunately, is the situation faced by millions of residents in developing countries who are surrounded by oceans, but have no access to fresh drinking water. Now thanks to this ingenious portable ceramic desalination 'plant' created by Milan-based designer Gabriele Diamanti, there may be a viable solution.

What this "plant" does is it takes the salt water in the top and makes it into fresh water. It kind of works like an upside down coffee maker, during the day, the hear of the sun raises up the steam pressure into the black watertight boiler. The steam is forces down through the expansion nozzle, and then it condenses against the lid to create fresh drinking water. 

GRAPH ABOUT SOME ELEMENTS

In this graph, it shows more clearly what the Atomic Number and the Radius are in comparison but  what it doesn't show is the Elements so it is a little bit confusing in a way.

In this one it makes a little more sense because it has a graph and Table. My reasoning for this conclusion, is because first, you have the elements on the bottom of the table to symbolize the Elements for it to make more sense rather than just to have the numbers alone.

Mercury Hg. (on the periodic table of elements)

Brief description: mercury is the only common metal liquid at room temperatures. Mercury is sometimes called quicksilver. It rarely occurs free in nature and is found mainly in cinnabar ore (HgS) in Spain and Italy. It is a heavy, silvery-white liquid metal. It is not that good of a conductor of heat other than other metals but is a good conductor of electricity.

Organic mercury compounds are both important and dangerous. Methyl mercury is a lethal pollutant found in rivers and lakes. The main source of pollution is industrial wastes settling to the river and lake bottoms which is hurting the environment badly. Mercury melts at room temperature, so that's why it is mostly in liquid form. Mercury, when poorer on to any surfaces, tends to form into a ball. When something is put on it, it acts like a covering, like for an example, when you put your fingers in water they get wet, but if you put your fingers in mercury, they don't get mercury all over your fingers because it is much more dense and has a higher surface tension than water. 

Some cool facts about MERCURY: 

• The Romans modified the Greek name slightly, referring to mercury as Hydragyrum, from which we get mercury’s modern chemical symbol Hg.

• Almost any small but heavy object can float on mercury because it is so dense.

• Mercury has high surface tension,  therefor when it gets spilled, it splits up into tiny little beads. 

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO :D its cool ;) but if u want to see just how she handles the mercury, then go to 1:40 in the video :)

This is also a great video, where the person is experimenting with mercury in lots of different ways!

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

http://www.ptable.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

Self driving Cars

http://news.discovery.com/autos/volvo-self-driving-car-120530.html


SELF DRIVING CARS

The first SARTRE (SAfe Road TRains for the Environment) road train on a public highway among other road users was performed successfully in May 2012. The road train was comprised of a Volvo XC60, a Volvo V60 and a Volvo S60 plus one truck automatically driving in convoy behind a lead vehicle. 

A convoy of self-driving cars has taken to a public motorway in Spain in normal traffic, a world first, according to Swedish car maker Volvo.
A professional driver took the lead of the convoy in a truck, and was followed by four self-driven Volvo vehicles: a second truck and three cars, Volvo said in a statement.





I chose this article because it thought it would be interesting to learn about how they could actually make cars drive by them selfs. What grabbed my attention was the title of the post, "SELF DRIVING CARS". I thought to myself, how could that be possible? Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to read the article. I found it while looking at the Discovery News website 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!!!!!!!!!

RESURRECTING ELVIS PRESLEY DIGITALLY

http://news.discovery.com/tech/digital-elvis-presley-120608.html

RESURRECTING ELVIS PRESLEY DIGITALLY

In this current even that i read, it talked about how they would remake a digital copy of Elvis Presley for live shows and other things like online media, and TV Broadcasts. 

Elvis Presley, who died in 1977 aged 42, will be brought back in a virtual performance by Digital Domain Media Group (DDMG) - the same group who stunned nearly 90,000 fans with a life-like performing Tupac hologram at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April.

"This is a new and exciting way to bring the magic and music of Elvis Presley to life," said Jack Soden, head of the Elvis Presley Project, a division of "CORE" Media Group which signed the deal for making the hologram.

"His lifelong fans will be thrilled all over again and new audiences will discover the electric experience of Elvis the performer," Jack Soden added in a statement about the Presley Project.

The King of Rock 'n' Roll remains one of the most popular figures in music despite his death in 1977.

No word on when hologram Elvis will make its official debut. Digital Domain is linking with Core Media Group, which handles various brands, personalities and properties.

I chose this article because it thought it would be interesting to learn about how people can make such creations like holograms of a long dead person. What grabbed my attention were 2 words, digitally, and resurrected. I thought to myself, how could that be possible? Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to read the article. I found it while looking at the Discovery News website 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!!!!!!!!!

Water Drop Lab

Science WATER DROP WAVE LAB

Guiding questions: 

1. When water is dropped from a pipette int oa pan of water, how does the wave behave?
2. What properties does a mechanical have have? 
3. How do waves interact with each other and with solid objects in their paths? 

Hypothesis: Every action, has an opposite or equal reaction. 

DATA ANALYSIS:

Every time there is a light object in front of where I dropped a drop of water, it either moved slightly or the waves went underneath it. If there was an obstacle like clay or some kind of solid object, the water waves would bounce off and go in different directions depending on the shape of the object. The reason it would depend on the shape of the object is because if you have an object that is like a stick of clay, it would bounce strait, on the other hand, if it’s a rounded off object, then the waves would go off in a more circular motion. It all depends on what the amplitude of the water drop is, if it is high amplitude, that means that the water drop is huge, if the amplitude is lower, then that means that the water drop is smaller. And it also depends on the frequency. If it is high frequency, then there will be much more waves than there would be in low frequency.

CONCLUSION:

The properties of mechanical waves are:

• ·       waves have wavelengths: The wavelength is the distance from one peak to the next, or from one trough to the next.
• ·        Amplitudes: The amplitude is the maximum height of a wave from its rest position
• ·        frequency’s: The frequency is the number of waves per second.
• Periods: The period and the frequency are related by the equation: f = 1/T. The period of a wave is the time between one crest and the next appearing, this is also true for troughs.

FURTHER INQUIRY:

The only possible thing that I would change is having a more accurate way to see my waves, because I had to really look hard at the little ripples in the water to see where they were going, and it was also hard because the little ripples faded away very fast so I couldn’t really keep track of where they went, so I had to kind of guess at it.