Plasticity Lab Reflection

In science class, we did a lab to demonstrate the plasticity of Earth's mantle. We did this by putting cornstarch and water in a beaker and mixing them. After mixing it for a while, it started to become very hard to mix. After mixing it more the outcome was a substance that was both a solid and liquid. When heat and pressure were applied the mixture behaved like a solid. However, if you let it sit in your hand it will slip and slide, like a liquid. This was very interesting to see and was very fun to play with as well. I think that it is cool to know that the mantle of our planet is similar to what we were playing with in science class. The combination acts like the Earth's mantle because the mantle is forced between the crust and the outer core which is very hot and those two layers apply extreme pressure upon the mantle. This is also the reason why the crust is able to sit on top of the mantle. This has been my favortie lab yet and I would love to try it at home.

October Sky Blog

I recently watched the movie October Sky in class. This movie is about a boy named Homer who becomes inspired to create rockets after seeing Sputnik in the sky at night. When Homer begins creating rockets his father becomes disappointed because he believes that Homer is playing around and that the rockets aren't important. Homers father wants Homer to work in the mines just like he does as his job. Homer refuses to work in the mines and he continues to make rockets and set them off. Homer and his partners get arrested later on because the police think that one of his rockets set off a fire. Homer uses mathematical equations to prove to the police and the principal that it is not possible for one of his rockets to land where the fire started. Everyone soon finds out that the fire was started by a flare coming from a nearby airport. Homer goes to a Science fair later in the story where he wins for his fantastic explanation of how he got his rockets to work. In October Sky, Homer was lacking the respect that he deserved. Especially the respect that he needed to be appreciated by his father. His father didn't respect Homer because he didn't believe that the rockets would get Homer anywhere in life and that since Homer was not good at football, he should go work in the mines. Homer's dad never went to any of Homers rocket launches until the one at then end. I enjoyed this movie as it showed how a boy can get to excellence from determination.

Down Syndrome Response

Today, I have been looking around Blogger and I have come across an article about Down Syndrome. Down Syndrome is a common genetic disorder as one in seven hundred forty newborns get this disease. Sadly, this disease includes the symptoms of slow growth, weak muscles, short wide neck with excess fat and skin, stocky short arms and legs, a single crease across the center of the palm, a pushed up nasal bridge, mental retardation and heart defects. Right now there is no cure for down syndrome but there a special classes for people with Down Syndrome and they help the people who have that disease. I hope that the cure for this disease is found soon as I cannot stand how lucky everyone who doesn't have a genetic disease is. Why do we have to live with all this luck and all these exclusive opportunities that these people do not have? I wish that these people never got these diseases and the same goes with the people who have Down Syndrome. One day I hope a cure is found for most of these diseases. As mooselover189 said, "The DNA for someone with Down Syndrome is three copies of Trisomy 21. To develop a treatment for Down Syndrome, we would need to know what really causes it and can than come up with a treatment from there." So if one day we find out what causes this disease then maybe one day we can cure this horrible disease.
I got this information from mooselover189 from the blog url:
http://mooselover1892.blogspot.com/

Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease

The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease. Have you ever heard of it? No it doesn't have anything to do with teeth. The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease is a horrible genetic disorder which is one of the most common inherited neurological disorders which was discovered in the year 1886. The symptoms of this disease are foot drop which can cause hammer toe, which is the raising of the foot arch and lowering of the toes, hip sockets can become malformed, weakness in the hands and forearms and scoliosis is also a symptom shown in some cases. I have learned that some people with this disease can't even stand up because of the weakness in their muscles and such. It makes me sad to think that some people have to live with this. The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease is known for its cause of loss of muscle tissue and touch sensation, mainly in the feet and legs but also in the hands and arms in the advanced stages of disease. The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease affects the peripheral nerves which are a nervous system that resides or extends outside the central nervous system that consists of the brain and spinal cord. At the molecular level, some molecules are gone which are essential for normal function of nerves due to deficiencies in the structure of the genes coding these molecules. Right now, there are no cures for this disease. The use of ascorbic acid has been proposed though. Ascorbic acid is a sugar acid with antioxidant properties. Ascorbic acid is also deeply known for its link with vitamin C which treats scurvy. The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease is obtained through heredity, so if your ancestors had it then it is possible for you to get it too. The disease affects one in two thousand five hundred people and is a hard genetic disease to live with. People are looking for a cure and I think that we have to find a way to supply the molecules needed for the normal function of the nerves. I hope we find a cure for this disease soon so that everyone can be cured.

DNA Extraction Conclusion

Just the other day in science class we all did a DNA extraction. Sounds cool doesn't it? Well you and your partner had to choose between extracting DNA from animal cells or plant cells. I chose plant cells. I started with a vial filled with strawberry juice and then I needed to fill it with different things to make the DNA come out into the alcohol we put in later. I then looked closely at the alcohol and I saw DNA floating around inside of it. We added ingredients like enzymes and more. This somehow made the DNA extract from the cells. This was very interesting and I thought this was a very fun experiment.

Florida lab growing new life?

Scientists in a flordia lab are creating new lifeforms. How is this possible? Will this soon lead to humans creating whole new anime species or even sentient lifeforms capable of living among us? Well that's going a bit too out of hand for todays current technology. At the rate we're going, which is pretty fast, that may be possible in the next few centuries. Right now in this florida lab they are creating the first synthetic life form capable of Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evoluton is the theory of evolution using natural selection. Charles Darwin created one of the basic concepts for the modern theory of evolution. The scientists at the florida lab say that the experiment, named AEGIS, is evolving like it was expected to do. This is a monumental achievment and will surely lead onto greater things.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29430688/

State Department doesn't like todays Chinese human rights

The State Department has said that they are not satisfied with the condition of Chinas current human rights. They say that human rights have even gotten worse then before in some areas and before was not very pleasing. They say that problems sky rocketed at huge events such as the Beijing Olympics. Human rights are rights against torture, forced labor, killings and more of that bad stuff. They also say that China is being cruel to some of its areas with different religious and cultural standards. Hillary Clinton took a trip to China last week and she brought up the human rights problems in China. She does not want to put on too much critisizm for we need China as a powerful ally to the United States. As this all goes on in China we also need to focus on the human rights of the United States. The United States human rights is a concern around the world, it is better then Chinas but it is not the best it could be. Hopefully Obama could fix this problem with the human rights in China and here at home.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/25/china.state/index.html

My Roller Coaster Website

Eruption

Earthquake in Morris County

On Monday, February 3rd, 2008, an earthquake shook the grounds of Morris County, New Jersey. The earthquake had a magnitude of 3.0 which may sound like nothing but in the state of New Jersey it is very unusual. The earthquake was at 10:34pm and the center of the quake was not far from Morristown. No one around where the quake occured expected or even thought that what shook them was actually an earthquake.

As stated above, no one suspected that there was an earthquake. The article states, "Many who heard a boom and felt the ground shake thought their furnace had blown up. Others feared a truck or plane had crashed. Still others surmised there had been an explosion at Picatinny Arsenal, an Army base in Morris County that tests weapons." This shows how unusual an earthquake of that magnitude is in New Jersey. The article also says that, "The last serious earthquake in New Jersey -- with a magnitude of 5.5 -- happened in 1884 off of Sandy Hook, Gates said. That quake toppled church steeples and yanked homes from their foundations, he said." I hope there aren't anymore 5.5 magnitude earthquakes. That would be dangerous because New Jersey is not used to earthquakes.

Since New Jersey is not used to earthquakes of a magnitude of 3.0 the article states, "Randolph police alone received about 500 calls, Lt. Donald Smith said. Dover police said they had two staff members taking calls continuously for more than a half-hour." I would call too; who would have thought it was an earthquake? As I said above the article said that the last serious earthquake in New Jersey was a magnitude of 5.5. Well the article has some other bad news. The article says "Scientists believe a 5.5-magnitude earthquake could happen every 120 years and a 7.0-magnitude quake every 3,400 years, Gates said." A 7.0 is close to the magnitude of the earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco! That earthquake was a disastrous event and if that were to happen here I would be extremely scared. 

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/it_sounded_like_an_explosion.html

Newton's Laws

For a while now we have been learning about Newton's laws within the Omega unit! These laws cover gravity, motion and more. I learned that Newton’s law of gravity, the first law, says that an object will not move forever; it needs momentum to continue moving. It also states that movement will eventually stop if there is friction.  The Second Law of Motion states that the force required to accelerate an object with a large mass is greater than the force required to accelerate an object of smaller mass. Newton’s Third Law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction occuring. Along with learning about Sir Isaac Newton's laws, we have started to build roller coasters and skate parks that will be examples of Newton's laws.  I think that the project is very fun and I find Sir Isaac Newton's laws to be a great discovery. 

The Inauguration of Barack Obama

On Tuesday, January 20, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama was sworn into office as the first African-American president. I found two articles about Barack Obama' Inauguration speech and what it was like to be there on that day. The first article talks about how this Inauguration is supposedly the most green one in the history of the United States but is not really what it seems. 

As I said above, the first article I found talks about how this Inauguration is supposed to be the greenest in the history of the United States but is actually one of the most CO2 producing Inauguration. This is because of all the cars and private jets flying down to Washington for this historical event. The article states that "the millions of people coming to the inauguration will generate a half-billion pounds of carbon dioxide — 260 million pounds from the 600 private jets that will come to Washington, and another 260 million pounds from personal vehicles." It also says "the pollution amounts to more than 575 million pounds of CO2, which would take the average U.S. household 57,598 years to produce." Now that's a lot of CO2 produced. If this is supposed to be the greenest inauguration in history shouldn't there be no CO2 produced?

The second article I found talks about how Obama's Inauguration was the second most watched out of all the other presidents. The one with the most people tuned in on their televisions was Ronald Reagan' with 41.8 million people tuned in. Obama had 37.8 million people watching his Inauguration. The article states that "viewers for Obama's inauguration is 27% higher than that of Bill Clinton's in 1993 and 30% more than George Bush's in 2001. Right under Obama's inauguration rating is that of Jimmy Carter in 1977 with 34.1 million viewers, followed by Richard Nixon in 1973 with 33 million. Meanwhile, the least watched inauguration would be George W. Bush's second one in 2005 that withdrew only 15.5 million." I think that second place is an amazing achievement.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480470,00.html

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00021428.html

Hydrogen in the making!

Hydrogen? What is hydrogen? What are its uses? Well I'll tell you all about that. Hydrogen is in fact one of the simplest elements known to man! With hydrogen we can power cars instead of using gas. Already, cars have been shown to be able to run on hydrogen and some have been created! With hydrogen there will be no pollution and since we can now make more of it we will never run out. The scientists at Penn State University have found a way to make hydrogen. I have learned from the article that when aluminum clusters are synthesized, they can generate hydrogen on demand without the need to store it! That means that whenever you need hydrogen it can be made in just an instant but with the right equipment of course. This would help in global warming and pollution. There is one problem here though. Hydrogen explosions are extremely dangerous and if a car crashed with another the explosion can be disastrous! This is why hydrogen cars are not being put on sale yet.

My sources are: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090122141230.htm

The Melting of the Artic!

As we all know in recent years the Artic has been suffering because of global warming. Global warming is causing the ice to melt in the Artic. The heat from global warming is caused by greenhouse gases that come out of  power plants and other man made gas emitters around the world. Others think it is caused by natural occurences. In fact, the Artic has been heating up much faster then the rest of the world! Why should we care about what happens to the Artic? Well the reason is because the Artic distributes heat around the world because of ocean currents. Since the Artic is melting the water around it is becoming less salty and dense which weakens the distribution of heat. If this were to happen some areas on the Earth may get colder even though it is called Global Warming.

http://green.yahoo.com/global-warming/ed-28/the-arctic-losing-its-cool.html