Current Events

Dreaming makes perfect

Stephen Ornes

May 12, 2010

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100512/Note2.asp

A new study has shown scientist a reason why people dream, why people have adventures in their sleep. Because lets say you drive a car for a long time and all you think about is driving that car. That will be your dream and you can improve the skill in your dream! Scientists tested this by getting a bunch of volunteers, they all did a very difficult maze but every time they finished they would do it again from a different position. After doing the maze half of them went to take a quick nap. After they woke up the people who slept and the people who didn't did the same maze again, and those who dreamed about the maze were much better than other because after working on the maze the picture was already in their head and while unconscious their brains took over and searched for possible solutions for them.

I choose this article because I always wanted to believe that if a test was coming and I'd studied, I would dream about it and while sleeping I'd study even more. Or that if I wanted to learn a new sport imagining it would help me play it. I think in the future if scientists could control what someone dreams it will help the average person learn something much faster.

Current Events

People Blind from Birth use Visual Brain area to Improve Other Senses

October 6, 2010

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101006131203.htm

Author Unknown

People who have been blind since birth have the ability to use the part of their brain that isn't being used to improve their hearing and their touch, therefore being able to navigate roads like a normal person with a walking stick. Scientists found that the certain modules used for sight in the brain have gone with the modules that control touch and hearing therefore enhancing them. Scientist got 12 blind and not blind volunteers and put them in a room, where the made soft noises from different directions and asked them to tell the scientists where the sound was coming from. Then they put little vibrators on their fingers and asked them which ones were vibrating. At the end of the test scientists proved that blind people can feel and hear much better than the average person.

I choose this article because when I was little my dad showed me a kind of book the had bumps where the letters were and he said that it was for blind people to read. I tried and I tried but i couldn't make out the letters without looking at them but then I saw a blind person do it and I thought that he wasn't actually blind and it was a prank until i saw him looking away and reading out loud.

Antarctic Food Web

Antarctic Presentation Reflection

I think Mr. Watts thought me a lot about Antarctica and how animals need each other like in the whale poo story. I also learned many interesting facts like how cows are the 2nd most successful animal on the planet because we like our burgers. I also learned that Polar bears don't exist in Antarctica and that there are many more kinds of penguins than I ever knew. I think the only drawback is we had to do this reflection.

Survival Video Reflection

I think to survive you need shelter, a food source(animals, crops) a water source(river, stream, or now days tap.) You need to know what to stay away form or you'll be like a Dodo bird, not encountering predators and forgetting their survival skills and how to fly so they were extincted within months after they were discovered by humans who they treated as friends. Dogs at all their eggs with were lying around in the open and that was that. You need to know how to treat wounds or stay hygienic(dog walk around on 3 legs if one is injured looking for help from humans and cats lick their fur.) All in all if you have all these things you could survive alone.

Current Events

The Memory of a Material

March 31, 2010

www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100331/Note1.asp

Author Unknown

Nafion is a material that has been around since the sixties, and don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of it or you would have a bigger vocabulary than Microsoft Word 2007.It was creates by a chemist at DuPont and it is commonly used in fuel cells. And now, half a century after it was made, a scientist in Michigan has discovered a new quality, its Nafion’s memory. You see Tao Xie, the scientist behind the experiment has found that if you heat Nafion up, it will stay exactly the same size and shape. But if you heat it up again and this time twist it into a weird shape and you let it cool until it’s the shape you started with, then heat it up to the temperature of the last try it will become the shape that you twisted the last time. You can make shapes at different temperatures, heat it up, and as you let it cool down and it reaches each temperature, it will bend into the exact some shape that you made last time at that temperature. This shows that Nafion is a smart material which have special properties like generating electricity when pressure is applied or changing color according to the pressure of the room. Nafion isn’t the first of its kind, but is special because it’s the first of its kind that hasn’t been specially made for this unlike the other of its kind.

Current Events

Charged Cars that Would Charge

March 10, 2010

www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100310/Note2.asp

Author Unknown

The title is pretty confusing, isn’t it? Well, the idea came from both the demand for electric cars and the problem from not being able to send enough electricity to a household fast enough. The problems were that one day we are going to run out of petrol, and when we do we’ll have to resort to electric cars, and since more and more people have more and more electric devices in their house they need electricity faster. So AC Propulsion (a company that works on electric cars) came up with a solution that could solve both problems. Basically, this electric car was like most electric cars, you plug it in to a power supply and when it’s got enough electricity, you take it for a drive. But that’s not very convenient since gas stations aren’t called electricity stations for a reason, so the only place you could refuel was your own house, limiting the places you could go. But with this version you could just plug it into the nearest pole that hold power cables and while you’re doing your shopping or watching a movie your car would recharge, for FREE! Now you might not believe in free electricity, you might not see how this explains the title, and you might not see how this helps other households. So here is how, while you’re charging your car, a part of the electricity that goes into your car goes out of it again, giving the power cables a boost and sending electricity faster, so it helps you, the environment, and the guy who need more electricity for his computer and plasma TV.