Bu-Bu-Bu-Buoyancy!

I've always wondered how the titanic sank... well scratch that. I actually do know how and when? It involves an iceberg and water filling in the boat, therefore causing the boat to sink. 

You've got the right idea, but to be more specific and more scien-ti-fic-E, what those people have witnessed is called buoyancy. The titanic was HUGE, yeah, but it had enough room for enough air to keep it afloat. UNTIL that iceberg came and it sank the ship (sad face). All this explains "density" and "buoyancy".

So you ask "WAHHHHHHHHH?" George Bush... Well let me explain to you and to others what density is. Well, density is the physical property of matter that can be found by dividing the matter's mass by its volume. 

For example : A boat full of air is way less dense than a boat with water inside. Although water isn't all that dense, air molocules are less compact then water molocules. So now The Titanic makes since! Not only did it sink because the water weighted the boat down to the surface of the ocean, but also because it was way more dense with water then it was with air.

NEXT UP IS...

Buoyancy is the upward force that keeps thing afloat. For example, whenever we are in a pool or in water period we appear to float (kind of). Of course when you stop swimming you are somewhat sinking, but for the most part your being forced up to the surface of the water. But wait there's more! Buoyancy can't be buoyancy unless there's negative, positive, and neutral.

 this is typically whenever a object floats.

this is typically whenever a object sinks.

this is when the object neither floats nor sinks.

So I think that's about it for Buoyancy, so now you may enjoy watching / listening to the following video and / or click the following links underneath.

wisegeek (talks about buoyancy and Archimedes) AND Density Chart of Different Materials AND BrainPOP wants to help !





Remember These 3 Laws

There was once a guy named Sir Isaac Newton. Pretty intelligent guy actually. He worked on developing calculus (the branch of mathematics that is concerned with limits and with the differentiation and integration of functions) and physics (how things work) at the same time. The ideas that he had came up with had then been tested and verified so many times over the years, and are now known as Newton's Three Laws of Motion.

An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. If nothing is happening to you, and nothing does happen, you will never go anywhere. Like if you were going in any specific direction, unless something happens to you, you will always go in that direction... FOREVER...

For example the sun will orbit the sun forever and a box will not move unless some force is pushing or pulling it.

An object with a larger mass needs more force to accelerate as eposed to an item with a small mass. So basically the larger a object is the more force you'll need to accelerate to make the object move or...

For every action/force there is always an opposite reaction/force. Meaning if I was to push open a swinging door it would come back at me probably twice as fast. (I would think)

Well that's it for this blog topic hope yall enjoyed it and please check the lengths below as a reference. ( : Also watch the video ( :

http://teachertech.rice.edu/Participants/louviere/Newton/

http://www.physics4kids.com/files/motion_laws.html

9/11

Today this blog post is not going to be about science, but for the first time it's about Social Studies. This blog post is in rememberance of the 9/11 terrorist attack. September 11th, the most lives the United States had gotten taken away from them in the shortest span of time. In a short, brief way, 9/11 was the day Islamic terrorist had been sent in to destroy important pieces of the US Government, two of which were the north and south tours in New York that had been hit by two planes that were high-jacked by the Islamic terrorist, the Pentagon in Washington where another plane had been high-jacked and crashed purposely, and the feild in Pennsylvania, where the forth plane had crashed. Now this plane crash is known as flight 93 in remeberance to those who died on that flight due to the fact it had been high-jacked and for the bravery they showed being on the flight before it had crashed.

Flight 93 had been on its origanal way to crash into the White House, when at that time George W. Bush had been the president. People on that flight were shocked and scared, while others were calling relatives and loved ones telling them about the situation and to never forget them. But due to bravery of those people they knew soon they were going to end up crashing somewhere and they were all going to pass away. So they decided the best way to pass is to pass for something worthwhile and they took over the plane and crashed it into the feilds which were origanally supposed to be the White House.

Laws !

Yes, laws, but more specifically Newton's First Law of Motion! No, I wasn't talking about government laws or that AMAZING show Law and Order, I was actually talking about Inertia. Inertia, the First Law of Motion.

         What is Inertia? Inertia is when an object in motion/rest stays in motion/rest unless acted upon by an unbanalced force. As you can see in the picture above the coin could would into the bottle if the unbalanced force (the hand) flicked the piece of paper/cardboard/ or glass.

Back to school already ?

             Yes, yes, yes, the Shreiner family is back in school and believe me I'm excited, but I'm still on my summer schedule of going to bed late and sleeping in till 12... yeahhhh, good times, good times. Oh well, time to move on.

                 So what did I do over the summer??? I've almost forgot because it flew by so quick and I really didn't do all that much. Oh yeah, I went on a cruise to the Nassau, Bahamas, Saint Matrin, Saint Thomas, and some other place that I really cannot think of the name at the moment, but I can tell you this...

             ...but after I came back from my cruise my summer was basically over. I didn't do anything but come to camp, it wasn't all that bad, but then again it wasn't all that EPIC, but I love being at Shreiner, it's like my second home...

            ...I feel bad for dogs at the moment, the heat must be killing them (and me)! Anyways, I hope everyones summer was fun, I know mine was, but of course over the summer every student always looses some proportion of what they have learned over the school year. So my goal this year, my last year in middle school, YAYY, I'm going to try to keep all my assignments together, stay organized, and learn, learn, learn. This being my last year I'm defiantly going to try my best to make the past few years worth while. I've enjoyed being able to work with all my classmates and learn what I've learned from my teachers and I hope 8th grade isn't as hard as all my friends say it is...



Last Post of the Year ): Sighhhh...

               Yes be vewy vewy quiet, the bunnies might run away and we don't want that. I'm thinking maybe bunnies could be a very nice pet. Plus they're cute, fluffy, different colors, and just so fat and cuddly. But you should know I never had a bunny before and I honestly wouldn't know how to take care of one. So today I am here to talk to you about bunnies. Since this is my last blog of the school year I'm going to try to make this as fun as possible.WAIT WHERE DID THE WABBIT GO! LOOK WHAT YOU DID, YOU HAD ME TALKING TO LOUD! Katie calm down, it's not our fault the audience is very loud. Anyways lets take a trip to the meadows and look for a new rabbit.

First thing you should know about rabbits is that they're not rodents they are lagomorphs. Also a male rabbit is a buck, a female is a doe, and a baby is a kit. When the doe gives birth her babies are collectively refered to as a litter, just like dogs. Don't start thinking you can have rabbits and dogs as pets together cause I'm sure that dog will kill your rabbit ): 

But did you know that there are twelve different species of rabbits in the United States. YEAH that's alot to me. Mother rabbits take care of there babies for about 5 minutes a day, not as much time as my mom takes care of me, pooh. The milk is very rich and the babies fill up with capacity within minutes. And the young aren't sat upon to gain wormth, they are actually born covered in the mothers fur [that's kinda nasty]. Did you know rabbits shed? Well yeah they do. Whats if they could spit hair balls, wait that's cats. Back to rabbits, well actually thats about it for rabbits except for they're vegetarians, they don't eat meat. They tend to just eat carrots, cabbage, and any other freshly grown vegi. Other than that, thats its. The only other websites I could find were pet adoption or stories about rabbits and that doesn't halp at all. Thank you and I'll be back next year (: 

Back in the days..

        You could say that people back then were freaks. You could also say they were scary, but they are no different from us. I mean sometimes I scare myself, goshh I hate mirrors. I'm here today to talk to you about four different scientist and there studies on genetics.

        The first person I will be talking about is Francis Harry Compton Crick. He was born on June 8th, 1916 in Northamton, England and went to Mill High School (North London). He had an occupation as a scientist and started his work at University College of London when he was younger, but was eventually interrupted by service in WWII. When he returned he continued his studies in Caius College in Cambridge. At Cambridge he met an American named James Watson [who I will also be talking about] and together with there colleague Maurice Wilkins they tried to make the structure of DNA clearer. It was a competion against those three and a man named Linus Paulding to figure out the riddle to DNA. Linus Paulding was a famous scientist who had already came close to solving the riddle but Cricks, Watson, and Wilkins were the first to figure out DNA looked like to twisted spiral ladders. However stories tell that they were not the only three helping out during the process. A lady named Rosalind Franklin helped correct all the flaws in some of there early theorys. She felt she deserved more credit toward the project, but others say different. She died in 1958, four years before Cricks and his two friends recieved their Nobel Prize. After finishing up a few other experiments with DNA and different genetics he started working at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. He died July 18, 2004 in San Diego, CA. He died of Colon Cancer and was cremated and his ashes remain in the Pacific Ocean. RIP (:

The next person im going to talk about is James Dewey Watson. He was born on April 6th, 1928 in Chicogo and is still alive right now. He worked on genetics as did Francis Cricks. In fact they worked together as partners, you should know from the paragraph before this. During his younger years he spent his elementary years in Chicago where he attended for eight years Horace Mann Grammar School and for two years South Shore High School. After finished high school he recieved a tuition scholarship to the University of Chicago, and in the summer of 1943 attended their experimental 4-year college. He had alot of intrest on birds and eventually received a Fellowship for graduate study in Zoology at Indiana University in Bloomington, and he then got his Ph.D. degree in Zoology in 1950. Soon after October in 1951 he met Francis Cricks and together found out how much they found out how much they enjoy genetics and became partners on experiments just as partners in crime. He continued his studies and recieved the Nobel Prize with Cricks and ever since the fall of 1956, he has been a member of the Harvard Biology Department, as a assistant professor, then in 1958 as an associate professor, and as professor since 1961. -LIVE LONG, STAY STRONG (:

 

Here we go class...!

Genetic mutations. Have you herd of that? I haven't either..
NOO im kidding. Take a look at this video so you can get a clear perspective on what im talking about...
http://sciencestage.com/v/1299/dna-mutation.html

Genetic mutations are changes in the nucleotide sequence of the genetic material which are usually caused by copying errors during replication that lead to base substitution, insertion, or deletion of one or more base pairs. Genetic mutations may be triggered by exposure to ultraviolet or ionizing radiation, chemical mutagens, or can occur deliberately under cellular control during processes such as hypermutation. Did you know drug resistance can be part of a genetic mutation?

Below you will see the different types of mutations...

Substitution: A type of point mutation where a single nucleotide is substituted with a different nucleotide that may result in an altered sequence of amino acid during translation.

Insertion: A type of mutation resulting from the adding of extra nucleotides in a DNA sequence or chromosome.

Deletion: Pretty much the same thing except its deleting nucleotides causing the DNA sequence to shift.

An example for mutations please meet the Elephant Man...

       When he was two years old, his mother just started to notice the changes to his body. Joseph Merrick started forming darker skin spots, lighter skin spots that began to look bumpy and rough. Those bumps began to grow and spread throughout his body [chest, neck, and the back of his head]. While he was growing up his mom continued worrying, the other boys started making fun of him, and he kept looking stranger. His arm was at the point where it was un-useful and the right side of his head was about 4 times the size it should have been. Over the next years he tried to work in a factory, but the workers abused him and he ended up being in a freak show [circus]. Joseph Merrick was just like any other human being, but with many more flaws in life. Like everyone else, he wanted to be ordinary. He also wished he could be like everyone else and lay down to sleep, but due to his over sized head he had to sleep sitting up. One morning in 1890 he was found lying down dead. The weight of his head had crushed his windpipe and he suffocated. He was then but 28 years old.


         So as you can see genetic mutations aren't good and we should be thankful enough that we are who we are. Thank you for your time and a will be back soon.

Heredity

 Okay so last week I talked about twins, I hope you enjoyed that, by the way. Today I will be talking to you about Heredity. Heredity's the process which parents pass charateristics/traits on to their children. For example: you and your parents probably have come same characteristics. This isn't anything weird, it's natural. Even though I know some you brothers and sisters don't claim eachother, your looks still give it away [Cough, Fatima] (: You and your family might share the same hair type/color, eye color, skin tone; these are things you might inherate. All characteristics that you share with your family isn't always good though. Maybe your mother or father is [not in a mean way] fat. You might end up the same way like you see in the picture on the right. Or maybe heyy, you might get lucky and turn out the total opposite. But same goes for skinny families, you'll probably be skinny.

         In order to inherate theres traits you need to have genes, whch are segements f DNA that carry instructions to our offsprings and then thier offsprngs and so on.. But how do we know all this information about characteristics? Well we found out from the "Father of Genetics", real name Gregor Mandel. He wasn't a scientist, but he was the first person to keep track of how traits pass down one generation to another.

        Gregor Mandel did all his experiments with pea plants which he shared with others in 1865. He first noticed that some traits from the parent plant were passed down to some of its many offspring. Some of the plants were tall some were short, he kept track of all of this information by setting up a chart like this..

Although he found out about the passing of traits to thier offsprings, he didn't know much about DNA or chromosomes, so he couldn't explain how these traits were passed down. Alot of his work was ignored, but still Mendel's work became the basis for the fields of genetics [the study of heredity].

OMG I Want A Twin!

So today will be my first blog post at my new school, that I absolutley love! I will be talking about twins, but not just twins and how they are made or thier process of birth, but the different types of twins. Im so excited! There are indentical twins, fraternal twins, and also conjoined twins, which is something I find quite disterbing. A while ago I used to wonder, how does one person have a duplicate of themselfs? I finally found out a while later from my mom that they're called twins, but that was a while ago, she probably told me way more discriptive imformation then just saying twins. Once I think about it.. yeah she definantly told me way more information then that! Gosh I love my mom. Anyways, I'm getting off topic, let me move on to the leason..

[COUGH, COUGH, COUGH]

"Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, I give you IDENTICAL TWINS"!!! 

                                                            [the Olsen Twins]

    The picture you see above are two well known celebraties, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. They are also [as you can see] identical twins [correct term monozygotic]. Identical twins are developted when the fertilized egg splits. They then turn into individual embryos. Since the embryos formed from one single egg/sperm combination, each embryo share the same genetic orgins. In other words, the have the same DNA. Oh, wow doesn't this just make you want to be re-born and identical to yourself? I don't know about you, but im fasinated.

Have you ever wondered maybe Heyy, I want a twin? Well maybe you do. Sometimes two eggs are fertilized by two seperate sperm. Usually women only realese one egg in an ovulation cycle but ocationally some women realese two eggs. This whole process is the making of fraternal twins [also known as Dizygotic]. 

          The two men you see above are what we call fraternal twins. They share some similar characteristics and have some different. For example: the brothers you see here have the same skin tone, and hair, plus they both look good in collared shirts. But if you look at them they don't look identical like the Olsen Twins. If you observe the one on the our left has a smaller chin, while the one on our right has a bigger chin. Also [now im just being very observent] but the one on the left has a bigger forhead. No affence toward that guy I'm just stating the obvious. This is how you determine weather or not they are identical or similar. But remember they'll always be the same age. But not exactly, maybe by a minute or two. Oh the race is one! I was just thinking, what if i had a unknown or longlost sister or brother that's my twin? Which reminds me. Your fraternal twin doesn't nesseccaraly have to be the exact same gender, you could be a girl and your twin could be a boy [and the other way around]. Ummmmm, I'm starting to not want a twin anymore.

        And last but not least conjoined twins.

This is when you are born with either and extra body part or even a head. This doesn't happen very often, 1 once every 200,000 live births. They develop from the same fertilized egg and genetically share the same characteristics. Ewwwwieee, I can't do this no more! BYEEEE (: I'll be back soon

And if you want to be really amazed. Below you will find a video of two amazing twin Dancers..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XLGYxeL1iQ

1st day!

Today is my first day using blogger, this should be fun and interesting. Loving science at my new school!