Science- Ask a Genteticist

Out of all the responses that I read, I learned many new things. However, the most fascinating fact I discovered was how close humans are to chimps and apes. To begin with, I already knew that humans and chimps were cousins and that humans started out as chimp like creatures called homo sapiens. But when I read the information by the Stanford University students, I found out that we have a similar amount of chromosomes; humans have 46 and chimps have 48. In addition, it was surprising to me that our genomes were only 1.2 % different. Moreover, another thing I learned was that a human chromosome is made up of two chimp chromosomes. This shows that sometime, 5 million years ago that humans and chimps were the same organisms. But as time went on, both organisms started to drift apart and that was the process of evolution. All in all, these responses taught me many facts about chromosomes and DNA, including how much humans and chimps/apes are alike.

Literature- Wooden Bowls Response

After reading the story the Wooden Bowls, I think the lesson it teaches is to always respect show homage towards your family. In addition, you should always think before you act. What you do can really hurt someone, just like when the grandfathers' feelings were hurt when his family isolated him from the dinner table. To support, when the father asked the son what was he doing with the scraps of wood, the son said that he is making a wooden bowl for him when he gets old. As a result, the father was speechless and immediately let grandfather sit with them again.

Moreover, this moral relates to C.A.R.E.S in many ways. First of all, you need to show empathy to your peers and understand how they feel when you say something rude. In addition, self control is defiantly an important trait to this story. You need to be able to show respect to your elders and to your family for all that they have done for you. Each and every day you should think about all the things that you have and who/how you received it. No matter how upset or annoyed you are with them, just remember that you are here because of them.

Science- Current Event Article (2nd post)

This article is called Hammerhead Sharks Have "Human" Vision. In this article, students from Florida Atlantic University discover that Hammerhead sharks have three times better eye sight than Blacknose and Lemon sharks. To begin with, these students take three different species of sharks from three different parts of the world. A scalloped hammerhead from Hawaii, a bonnethead from Florida, and a winghead shark from Australia. When they took these hammerheads to the lab, they recorded the electric activity happening in their eyes. The results were that their vision was three times higher that other sharks. However, hammerheads did have a blind spot. Since their eyes are so far apart, they cannot see something directly in front of them; therefore it is hard to catch their prey.



Moreover, when I read this article, it fascinated me to know that hammerheads have vision similar to humans. In addition, I thought that it was something out of the blue that these students discovered. I never really thought that there would be any marine animal that had a vision close to humans. All in all, I strongly believe that this was a very interesting article and I learned many suprising new facts because of it.

Science- Class Reponse

During the first trimester, our science class has done many interesting labs and activities. However, my favorite one would be dissecting the owl pellets. To begin with, this is the first lab that I have done that involves with dissecting an animal. This was a great experience dealing with bones and fur of other animals. Even though it was gross taking apart throw-up, I was fascinated by the unique feature of owls.

In addition, I have learning many facts about owls and the way they survive. First off, I learned what and owl pellet was. Referring back to the reading passage on owl pellets, a pellet is a mass of bone, teeth, hair, and feathers of the animals the owl ate. Owls eat in the evening and produce a pellet about 20 hours after their meal. Another thing that I learned about owls is that they have no teeth. All this time, I thought that owls have teeth. But during this activity, I discovered they make pellets instead. A third fact that I uncovered is how the owls' body works. Specifically, since the owl cannot chew its food, the stomachs work very hard from separating waste from meat. There are two main stomachs in an owls body, the glandular stomach and the gizzard. To support, in the glandular stomach, it produces acids that begging the digestion process. In the gizzard, it serves as a filter, holding back all bones, teeth, and fur.

In conclusion, doing the owl pellet activity was a great experience for me. I was able to perform my first dissection and see what it was like. In addition, I learned many new things about owls and the safety rules of dissecting. All in all, I hope that I do something similar to this activity in the future trimesters.

Science thought for the weekend 11/13

I think that this quote means that a man who tries the most to make people believe him has more courage and character than a man who came up with something and did not try to put it out into the world. Basically, trying is the main point in science, because if you are afraid to try something new, chances are you will not be successful. In addition, a good scientist needs to have the courage to fail at least on time. They need to know that their discoveries and inventions may not result the way they wanted it to. Since no one is perfect, a scientist has to work hard towards their goal, not just give up when a problem interferes. All in all, in a situation like this, anyone who wants to achieve a goal has to struggle to succeed and may face many hardships; however, that should never stop them from chasing their dreams.

Science Current Event Blog (1st post)

Article Title: Are wolves the pronghorn's best friend?

In this article, the writer is describing the interaction between the wolves and the pronghorns. It is about the Wild Conservation Society's' research on the decline of the species of the pronghorns. What they found was that the wolves in Yellowstone National Park actually helped the pronghorns by killing the coyotes (the coyotes are the main animals that feed on the pronghorn). This research was done over a three-year period and the results were that 10 percent of the pronghorn fawns survived without the wolves and 34 percent of the fawns survived with the wolves. However, now that the wolves population increased since 1995, so has the population of the pronghorn. As a result, Yellowstone has less than 200 animals now.

In my opinion, I believe that the wolves are similar to the pronghorns best friend. However, this does effect the balance in the entire ecosystem. Basically, with more pronghorns around, the other animals that eat the same food as them have a less source of energy since the pronghorns are feasting on them. In addition, I believe that it is injustice of the Conservation Society to reduce the population of the other animals. Instead, they should be reducing the amount of pronghorns in the national park. But this also means to eliminate the amount of wolves in the environment as well. In conclusion, I srongly belive that the population of the pronghorns and wolves should decrease.

Literature- Bullying (Man's inhumanity to Man)

Our society or our Crossroads South community can't put an end to bullying because people and students feel that bullying is the only way to get respect from their peers. To support, people get afraid of bullies and listen to them when they are speaking because they are scared of getting hurt by the bully. This statement is also true in the book the Lord of the Flies. In this novel, Jack bullies Piggy any chance that he can get; as a result, people respect Jack and don't even bother correcting him. If a boy on the island does correct or insult him, than Jack can turn everyone on the island against the boy who offended him. In addition, no one stands up for Piggy because they all fear Jack and do not want to get in his way.