Current Events 3

Animals without oxygen, underwater
Stephen Ornes
Monday, April 26th, 2010

Animals without oxygen, underwater
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100428/a1963_1823.jpg

This article is about the animals that live deep, deep underwater in the Mediterrian sea, called Loriciferan. These small, tiny, grain sized species, live two miles below the surface of the Mediterrian sea. The amazing thing about them is that they do not need oxygen to live, which is incredible, because, all organisms, besides the simplest one, needs oxygen to survive. But, the scientists were shocked, because these ones don’t. They live in L’Atalante Basin which has no oxygen in it- it is super salty, so salty that it cannot mix with the seawater above it. Seawater has oxygen in it, making fishes and underwater animals stay alive. When they were found, scientists thought they were cadavers at first. But, when they researched more about them, they figured out that they were animals and that they were alive! They did experiments, putting the samples from the bottom of the lake in containers including nitrogen which is getting oxygen away. They observed them, and saw that some animals had eggs, which led scientists to know that they were reproducing. They have also found some traces about their metabolism, old skin for example. The scientists tested everything, except HOW animals live without oxygen. This means that scientists need to study more, to find out what actually do we know about animal’s life.
I found this article interesting because it describes a new finding about living things, and it shows that science has no border. This is for sure connected with the topic that we are studying- ecosystems, and adaptations to its conditions. And I’m sure that scientists will figure out how these animals are adapted to living conditions without oxygen- what has happened in their cells? But I’m actually asking myself: How many things are there to find out, and is everything as it is?

Current Events 2

The Oily Gulf
Stephen Ornes
Monday.May.31st.2010
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/59809/title/FOR_KIDS_The_oily_Gulf
This article describes one of the most devastating environmental happenings in recent American history- The oily Gulf disaster. It takes place in the Golf coast of Mexico, at one of the offshore platforms whose owner is the British Petroleum. It happened on April. The 22 this year, but I’m sure that its’ consequences still remain. This disaster started at an offshore oil platform when one of the riser pipes are disconnected and started leaking on the depth of 5.000 ft. Most of the people from this facility escaped. But, unfortunately 11 of them died. On the picture below, you can see how this oily spill spread out- The spill is marked in Cyan Blue. This oil spilling causes huge environmental disaster- Whole water ecosystem has been interrupted. The American government has chosen 25% of the US portion of the Gulf for fishing- this means that they wanted to stop people eating contaminated fish. A lot of actions were taken out to stop this leaking but none gave serious results (Even 2 months later when this article was written)
The fact that has really concerned me was the different reports that the owner and the scientists gave about the limits of the pollution!!! The BP said that the leak was only 1,000 to 5,000 barrels per day, while the scientists from Perdue University, mechanical engineer Steve Wereley claimed that this leak was much bigger (76,000 and 109,000 barrels of oil per day) This article has really impressed me, but in a negative way. Number one, because of big environmental consequences that are presented not only on Gulf Coasts, but all over the sea world- I’m sure that this oil pollution is spread all over the world. This as well has really concerned me because I‘m asking how many years and actions will be necessary to clean all the oily mess that some other responsible oil facility owners deal with? What will happen if another oil drill is starting to leak, but in much less capacity- will the public be informed about the consequences? I’m very concerned with what is happening with all the other environmental disasters which are as huge as this one, but are occurring every day? I have connected this article with the things that we are learning now and one sea world ecosystem which needs to be balanced, which has its’ own rules and ratios, but which is interrupted with an Abiotic factor oily spill. This Abiotic factor has a biotic nature- unfortunately human nature.

Venn diagram

Current Event 1

When plants cry for help, predator bugs answer
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Aug.26th.2010
http://www.eurekalert.org/features/kids/2010-08/aaft-wpc082010.php
This article describes amazing relations between the plants, pests and predators. It describes how the plants (In this case a tobacco plant) can save themselves by making changes in the smell of their compounds. These plant smell changes (caterpillar) are caused by the pest's saliva. The grassy smell then attracts the bugs (Predators) which eat the pests (In this case hornwarm).
This is very interesting to me because who would say that the plant can fight with something- its a living thing, and I thought it was powerless! This article has shown the opposite, from what I read. I can see how the interesting relations between biotic factors in some ecosystems can be.

Saving Marshes- Saving the planet (Reflection)

I think that this article was interesting, although it was a little bit hard to understand (It includes a lot of unknown words/terms, so I had to use a sort of dictionary).
This article talks about how the marshes can help saving the planet, if they wouldn't disappear. The marsh plants, and marsh grass capture the carbon dioxide and store it in the marsh, helping the planet in it's global warming problems. The scientists analyzed the marsh soil and found out that the level of carbon in it is rising, but, the number of marshes is decreasing. So the scientists think that we should increase the number of marshes all around the world. Marshes are an important part of our ecosystem and they can help us survive by capturing the carbon dioxide (taking it away).
This article also gives some useful information about the carbon cycle and about global warming.

Movie Notes- Paragraph

I learned that camouflage is a method of hiding itself for by making itself appear as part of its natural surroundings. These are the tactics that animals use to survive: Good eyesight, good smell, fast runners, and most importantly, play dead! For example, humans play dead when a bear is near them. If a person is screaming and saying: ''HELP!!'' Then the bear will kill the person.
The three forms of beaning young are: Living young, pouches-Marsupial, and eggs. What I found interesting about the movie is that a bird could fly 600 miles just to get the food that it had to eat.

Cell