The Dead & the Gone

The Dead & the Gone is about the incidents that occur when an asteroid collides with the moon and alters reality. Food and water become scarce, the weather turns exceedingly cold, the sky is forever covered with volcanic ash, all coastal areas are flooded, and nothing but survival and family is important. This is a story of how Alex, a guy alone in New York City, who has to take care of his sisters since there is no sign of his parents. He goes to extremes to feed his sisters and himself and to find them warmth to live in. This book connects to food webs, food chains, and energy pyramids in every aspect.

Since the moon provoked volcanoes to erupt, the sun was blocked by the ash. Without the sun the plants, or the producers, weren't able to grow. Hence, all the first-level consumers died due to lack of food and sunlight. Next, all the second-level consumers died because they weren't able to prey on first-level consumers. This kept going on until all the animals were gone, eaten by humans (omnivores) or dead because of lack of food, water, sunlight, etc. This explains how important sunlight is. Without it, planet Earth would be a graveyard. This also explain how important every animal in the world is. Without one animal the ecosystem would be unbalanced and eventually tip over and make everything thing chaotic. Furthermore, producers are extremely substantial to the biosphere. The lack of producers also means that every animal (including humans) would perish. This book shows why all animals (and plants) are important to have on this Earth.

Picture: http://karinlibrarian.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/the-dead-and-the-gone.jpg

Symbiosis

Now you might be wonder why someone would post a picture of a hand on their science blog. What's a hand got to do with science? However odd this might seem, this hand has everything to do with science. For example: it happens to represent one of the three relationships of symbiosis. Symbiosis is a close relationship between two species that benefits at least one of the species. Furthermore, the three relationships of symbiosis are mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Mutualism is when two species benefit from each other because of their relationship. Commensalism is when one of the species benefits from the relationship while the other is neither helped or harmed. Lastly, parasitism is when one organism lives in or on another organism and harms it.

This hand represents mutualism. I claim that there are mites that live on this hand that clean all the dead skin cells away. This process occurs over the whole human body. While the "owner" of the hand receives cleanliness, the mites also benefit. Moreover, the mites have food to eat (dead skin cells), a place to live (the hand), and a purpose to serve (free the hand of dead skin cells). Since both the organisms seem to benefit, this exemplifies that this is a mutualistic relationship.

Picture: Orangemath96.blogspot.com

Source: Classroom

Abiotic and Biotic

These are just a couple of trees in my back yard. They are also a biotic factors. What that simply means is that this is a living factor in the environment that alters the ecosystem. These trees are limiting factors because if they were eliminated: birds, squirrels, and numerous other animals would lose their homes, there would be less carbon dioxide intake, less fruit would be produced, and all animals that live there would lose their food supply (including humans). These, as you can see, limit our environment very much. As you can see these trees are more than just towering statues of green. They serve a valuable place in our ecosystem.

Picture by: Orangemath96.blogspot.com

Source: Classroom!

Website Link

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From Space To Sea

Lately, some of NASA's missions have been underwater instead of space. NASA is experimenting, or recreating, some of the same experiences, from space, underwater. It is called NEEMO. The latest mission was launched on May 10th. A group of 6 scientists, lab technicians, and astronauts will "live" in Aquarius Underwater Laboratory for 14 days. This Lab is located near Largo, Florida and is 62 feet below the ocean's surface.

Aquarius will give the squad a chance to test low-gravity surroundings, just like the moon and the planets. Furthermore, another experiment is what it feels like to live in a tiny, detached environment for a lengthy period of time. The most important idea is to learn to work as a team. This will help the astronauts when they go on space missions to the ISS or the moon. Lastly, they crew is also studying a the marine life.

"Even though we are working on stimlating a space mission, we are also
evaluating the underwater envioronment and looking at the health of the coral
reef," says engineer Heather Paul, who is part of the shore-based crew.

Wearing special equipment, the squad will perform 24 "spacewalks" underwater. They will treat the equipment and the drive the vehicals as if they were on the moon. Wearing special diving suits the team will adjust the gravity just like it is in space. These experiments will help NASA design better spacesuits for the future. NASA hopes to learn very much by this experience.

www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,1988927,00.html
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/technology/diving/aquarius/media/aquarius_port_side_600.jpg
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2006/images/p092-0109_img_20.jpg

Air Pressure (Read About It)

Answers

1a. Air pressure is the result of the weight of a column of air pushing down on an area.

1b. Increasing the density of a gas affects its pressure because the mass of the air is its density, so when they density is increased the mas increases. When the mass increases so the pressure.

2a. Two instrument used to measure air pressure are Mercury Barometers and Aneroid Barometers.

2b. The units commonly used to measure air pressure are millibars and inches.

2c. About 922 millibars equal 27.23 inches of mercury.

3a. Altitude, or elevation, is the distance above sea level, the average level of the surface of the oceans

3b. As altitude increases, air pressure decreases and so does density. The air has less weight pressing on it as the altitude increases. The density decreases because the molecules are farther apart at higher altitude.

3c. If I carried a barometer down a mine shaft, I would expect the air pressure to increase because the lower the altitude the higher the air pressure and density. The mine shaft is a book on the bottom of the pile, so it has to carry the weight of the other books on top of it. Air pressure is just like that, it increases when the elevation is lower and decreases when the elevation is higher. A mine shaft is below sea level, so I would expect the density and air pressure to be higher.

Heat Transfer Activity (Interactive)

When I learned about conduction, convection, and radiation in class I wasn't sure I understood what they were. This activity helped me understand the terms and their meanings more clearly. To begin with, I learned that convection is when heat is transferred by a liquid/fluid such as water. Furthermore, conduction, I learned, is when heat is passed by touching a substance. Lastly, I learned that radiation is when heat moves without having to touch or transfer through an object. An example is Space, heat travels in outer space without having to touch an object. Like when UV rays travel from the Sun to the Earth they don't have to transfer through a fluid or touch an object. They just come, this is probably called radiation. This activity was funny and enjoyable to do. That is what I learned from doing this activity.