Ancient Chocolate -- Current Event-- Blog #1

PEOPLE WERE EATING CHOCOLATE OVER 3,000 YEARS AGO!

Scientists had before believed chocolate was consumed a half millennium (500 years) LATER than that. They found theobromine (a substance also found in the cocoa plant which is what produces chocolate) in the ancient pottery! This just shows how the appreciation for chocolate has been there for so long and maybe is the reason for our love for it. They also had served it as a desert at weddings and other special occasions, just like us! Our ancestors sure had a great taste for food!

SOURCE

CNN Article

Free Rice For The Poor!

This is a great website!
Basically, it's a word game that gives you a word and it gives you an option of a few possible defenitions of it. If you get it right, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice to starving people! You get smarter, and help charity without leaving your computer! Just click here and start helping starving people everywhere: FreeRice.com

Droopy's Double Trouble

This is our word study project!
No stealing our idea please!

The Omega Meme

I’ve tagged students for the Omega Meme!
The rules are as follows:
Each player answers the six questions posted on this blog. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those answers are listed.At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their blog names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Then follow the instructions about adding a page element at omegascience.blogspot.com.

1. My favorite TV show is House because it's challenging to see if you can guess what the patient's illness is, and it's entertaining

2. My favorite meal is Chicken with Mashed Potatos

3. My favorite nonschool activity is drawing

4. Someone I look up to is all of my friends because they are all unique and they have special qualities

5. My goal for the future is to be an artist

6. In the first hour after school I usually watch TV or go on my computer

I have tagged Raynebow, Simply Bf 16, OmegaPeep, Teardropsonroses5, Hollisterluvr, ILuvShockey, Omega Classes/Ashanima, and Xodancer14

You may not tag someone who has already been tagged.

New Year

All posts below are from 2006-2007

Tupperware Landforms

In class we recently did a really cool activity with Tupperware. We actually created the illusion of a landform!

TUPPERWARE LANDFORM ACTIVITY

Here is what you need for the activity:

At least 5-10 Tupperware plastic transparent containers
1 Eraseable marker
a paper towel (or anything to erase with)
A sheet of landform levels

The activity is very easy but very cool as well. You start out putting one container on the bottom (biggest) level of the mountain or landform. you trace that level then put another container on top of it and trace the next level through the containers. As it gets smaller, you can see a landform forming up. To make different ones, just erase the marker and you can even make your own 3-D landform! Try it!

Wiki Introduction

Here is my Wiki Intro for now;

Wiki Introduction

Mark Twain and earthquakes. Already, you may be thinking that they don’t mix. At least that you know of. In 1865, an earthquake shook the city of San Francisco, California. Mark Twain was there and as he says, “enjoyed his first earthquake”. Also known as Samuel Clemens, this famous and later classic, author had been inspired by earthquakes and wrote a book describing the event. This book was called “Roughing It”. What was in the book? What happened to the people? All these questions and more will be answered further on and you will soon be an expert on Mark Twain and the Great Earthquake of 1865. You will also learn a slight amount about the earthquake in 1905 as well. “Is this paying proper respect to earthquakes? I think not. If I were an earthquake, I would never stand for such insolence from Popper. I am confident that I would shake that shell down, even if it took my last shake.” That is a quote from Mark Twain expressing his feelings towards earthquakes. He felt that lightning should not be feared because it will not always hurt you, but earthquakes can’t miss you. Mark Twain feels that earthquakes are under appreciated. He also says “Who is Ajax to Popper, and what is lightning to an earthquake? It is taking no chances to speak of to defy the lightning, for it might pelt away at you for a year and miss you every time - but I don't care what corner you hide in, if the earthquake comes it will shake you; and if you will build your house weak enough to give it a fair show, it will melt it down like butter.” As you can see earthquakes didn’t horrify Mark Twain, they motivated him. Some of Mr. Twain’s writing from the earthquake helped his writing career and even changed his life. All of this is because it’s what planet Earth does.

Website Advertising Krest Kingdom

This is the link to the website that I made to Advertise our Rollercoaster: Krest Kingdom

Rollercoaster Class Response

Recently we have been doing a pretty cool project. It is:

BUILDING ROLLERCOASTERS

Our latest assignment is supposed to teach us about Kinetic Energey, Potential Energy, along with Mass, Momentum, Speed, and force. If you are confused right now, I'll help out. Our assignment was to create a rollercoaster out of supplies using our knowledge about the terms that I gave above. But we can't just get the supplies whenever or whatever we need. Over the past few weeks, the Omega teachers have been rewarding good behavior on tests and in class with "Omega Money". We use this to buy our supplies so we can also learn the value of money while participating a littl more in class. We were put into groups and we cobined our money to buy the supplies. A group needs about $1,000 in Omega Money to get the top quality supplies to ensure that the rollercoaster will work. Our supplies consisted of: Toilet Paper and Paper Towel Rolls, Boxes, Straws, Cups, Cans, and anything that Omega Students donated to the "Omega Store". The Rollercoaster can't just look nice, it has to work too. We use a marble to go fluently through the ride. We also must have at least 4 hills and 1 rollercoaster aspect. When finished we must label parts of the ride. Then comes in the Tic Tac Toe project which also lets you advertise your rollercoaster. You can name and price your coaster. This project has many lessons.

Oldest tree on Earth tell scientists more about the prehistoric Ecosystems

Scientists realized that the Oldest tree know to man on Earth had Fronds not leaves. It is:

"OLDEST TREE HAD FRONDS, NOT LEAVES"

So many of you may be thinking "What are fronds and why are they so important?" Well to start off, fronds are the green leaves you see on palm trees. They are very thick and sturdy and large. The exact defenitions are:
1.
an often large, finely divided leaf, esp. as applied to the ferns and certain palms.
2.
a leaflike expansion not differentiated into stem and foliage, as in lichens.

So now that we know what fronds are, why are they so important to scientists? CNN states that "The stumps in Gilboa were unearthed in 1870 when workers were blasting a quarry. Until now, scientists had never seen the tops of those trees." The fronds explained some questions about bugs and the ecosystem. CNN also says that it was " a tree that looked like modern-day palm with a crown of fronds that grew up to 30 feet high and reproduced through spores." The trees are said to be about 23-million years old. Also the tree branches fell on the floor which had created shelter and food for bug and other forest creatures. This helps scientists recreate early ecosystems and it might surprise them with even more untold tales.

SOURCES

CNN Article

A Chicken's Cousin is a T-REX??

This is the new discovery shocking people around the globe.

CHICKENS ARE RELATED TO T-REX'S

Yes, you are seeing right. The chicken, the symbol of being scared is found to be a distant cousin of one of the feircest dinosaurs that was said to roam the Earth. The T-Rex. Scientists had discovered this by studying protiens from a 68-million year old dinosaur bone. This is the first known Bird to Dinosaur relation with molecular proof. This new study might help scientists a lot more with learning about evolving. I think that everyday as we uncover more history we learn SO much more about the past. Keep an eye out for even more discoverys. You never know what might happen.

SOURCES

CNN Article

Stopping to smell the roses really does help!

This is a new theory that is intriguing scientists across the globe. The topic of this blog is:

SMELLS CAN HELP YOUR MEMORY

"German researchers found they could use odors to re-activate new memories in the brains of people while they slept -- and the volunteers remembered better later." Is what CNN reported. Also noted is that most memories are made during sleep. Jan Born, a scientist studying this recrutied 74 volunteers to play a game similar to "Concentration". Born then wafted the scent of roses. The next day the volunteers had remebered 97.2 percent of the cards they had flipped over the day before! Some may think that it had nothing to do with the roses. Born's team had figured that and tested the same volunteers without the rose smell. They had only remebered 86 percent of the cards from the previous day! Thus proving that the roses had made a great difference in the memory. The team concluded that we may "learn" in our sleep such as animals do. I believe that this is a new breakthrough. From just remembering where you put your car keys, to remembering exact information, its just as simple as stopping to smell the roses.

SOURCES

CNN Article

What can it Bee?

This is an interesting topic that are leaving scientists confused and in a quandary. The topic is:

"MYSTERIOUS AILMENT WIPING OUT BEES"

There seems to be a mysterious disease in Pennsylvania that is wiping out tons of the U.S.'s Honey bees. This is a very serious issue because if the bees are all gone, the flowers will not be pollinated which means that plants will die and many animals will die from the chain reaction making a big change in the food chain. When the disease hits the hive, it leaves no trace of the bees ever being there or any trace of exatcly what had killed it off. CNN says that this same problem occured in the 1960's and some have not reported that they had seen it a few years back from now. This is obviously a very big issue that the scientists have to work hard to fix. I feel that the disease might spread throughout the country, making this a much bigger story and scaring many more people.

SOURCES

CNN Article on Mysterious Ailment

Cool Pictures From CNN

Heres some cool pictures from CNN to look at. I really like some of them, and they are intresting pictures from around the world. Click this link right here.

BMI

I found a really cool, free program that calculates whether or not you are healthy person due to wieght and height. BMI stands for Body Mass Index. You can click on the link right here that I got from CNN. You have to try this! Make sure you look at the exeptions and the chart though!

Toothpick Fish

This is my other class response to an activity we did in class today (1/19/07) it was called:

TOOTHPICK FISH

Basically, we did a experiment with toothpicks that had little colors at the top. The lesson was supposed to represent the genotypes and phenotypes of the alleles. We filled in a chart which helped us remember which gene combonation wouls turn out a certain color. This is what it basically looked like:

FISH COLOR GENE COMBONATIONS
Green / GG, Gr, Gy
Red / rr
Yellow / yy
Orange / yr or ry

Then, we answered some questions such as:

a."Can two red fish mate and have green offsring? Why or why not?"

No, this is not possible because the fish would be a purebred red which makes the chance of having a green one %0 and a chance of having a red one %100

b."Can two orange fish mate and have red offsring? Why or why not?"

Yes, because if you do a punnett square, there is a %25 chance of red offsring.

Next we moved on to the activity with parteners, which in my opinion, I thought was a good example of how a fishes gene pool comes out the way it does.
We randomly picked the toothpicks out of a cup (genepool) and put them in pairs. We then charted what out combonations were. (For example: A green toothpick and a yellow toothpick made gren scales because green is dominent to everything). We repeated that process 4 times and ended up with survivors. For my last generation, the green disappeared from the gene pool. After the activity, I decided to research an interesting "Fish Fact". I found on a website that deep-sea fishing actually demolishes some types of fish from the gene pool. It says that it removes the "Older Fish" from the gene pool, possibly demolishing a species.

SOURCES

Science Magazine Website

Cloning Animals

Here is yet another amazing clone done recently by scientists. The topic is:

CLONING A PIG

Earlier in time, there was a point in science when cloning animals was obsurd, and too technilogically advanced. Everyone imagined us wearing space suits and flying around in hovercars by the time we reached the year 2000. People thought cloning was never going to happen. It is now 2007 and cloning is being more experimented with than ever. Everyone knows Dolly, the famous cloned sheep. Scientists are currently experimenting cloning more than ever now. Recently, a pig was cloned by a group of scientists. Her name is Xenga, named after the type of field of research they used to clone her in; xenotransplantation. That may seem like a big word but it just means that it is " any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation, or infusion into a human recipient of either (a) live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source, or (b) human body fluids, cells, tissues or organs that have had ex vivo contact with live nonhuman animal cells, tissues or organs" Xena is not the only or first piglet cloned into the world by science however, she is one of the most recent. I feel the same about cloning as I do with Designer Babies (See article down). I feel that nature should not be tampered with this way. When an organism is cloned, it is usually born with disorders or is not healthy in a certain way. I think that this is torture to make any animal live with that condition.

SOURCES

ABC News Website

Xenotransplantation Defenition

Hamster Genetics

We did an activity on hamsters today and I decided to do my Class response blog on them. So, my topic is:

HAMSTER GENETICS

So, we all know that you can tell an organisms genetics by using a punnet square. For example, a hybrid brown hamster (Bb) and a purebred white hamster (bb) would have a %50-%50 chance of becoming a hybrid brown (Bb) or becoming a purebred white (bb). Just incase you forgot how a punnet square works, click here for a good explanation of how to make one. Now that we have that covered, we can move on. But if you are still having trouble with punnet squares, here is one that I made for this particular example. After the activity I researched hamster genetics and I found some odd facts about them. For example, Syrian Hamsters look different form each other and no one can really tell what their phenotypes and sometimes even genotypes will be. I also found out that there are even a variety of eleven basic colors! They are; Black, Black Eyed Cream, Cinnamon, Dark Eared White, Dark Grey, Extreme Dilute, Golden, Light Grey, Rust, Silver Grey, and Yellow. Don't forget, those are only the basic colors! I, personally, believe that hamsters are adorable, even though I'm not a fan of rodents.

SOURCES

Wikipedia: Punnet Square Article

River Road Hamstery Website

Designer Babies

Ok, so I heard this on the news, and I had an intrest in it. I have also seen this horrifying proccess in the papers, but many don't know what it is.

I am talking about:

DESIGNER BABIES

Basically, Designer Babies are babies that can be phisically altered depending on what the parents image of a perfect Son/Daughter would look like. So, if you and your mate have Truebreeding brown eyes, but always dream of having a blue eyed child, you can make that possible. On the news it said that you can go online and actually Order your baby as you would with a shirt or a piece of clothing. All you have to do is go to the section and choose what color eyes, hair, and other physical traits your child can have. Scientists are in the process of working on being able to change personalitys of the child too. I feel that this is not fair. For example, if a designer baby is born with a stronger IQ than a regular born baby, then there would be certain advantages that aren't fair. I am not the only one who opposes this. There are many laws currently in other countries that state that familys may not have a designer baby. A couple in the UK desperatley wanted a daughter but their only one was killed at a young age." They are now suing under an EU human rights law recently passed in the EU." says a website on the topic. I very strongley disagree with this subject.

SOURCES

Designer Babies Article

6 ABC News

Introduction

Hello, welcome to my blog. I hope that blogging will be fun for school and home projects. I am really excited about doing this new type of school work and I think it will really help us on our projects that we use our blogs for. Please send me any comments if you need to. Thanks ^.^