Plate Tectonics

Plate tectonics is the theory of the plates on the surface of the Earth moving. This theory was developed in the 1960's and explained many previously unexplained geological phenomenon such as mountain ranges, earthquakes, and volcanoes. There is also a theory for the cause of the movement. It states that this movement is caused by the convection zones inside the Earth's convection zone. The first animation shows the original supercontinent called Pangea. This supercontinent was formed about 225 million years ago. Since then it has broken apart and moved all the way to where they are located today due to plate tectonics. This may seem like a long way for the continents to move, especially because they only move about 2 centimeters per year. This is about the speed at which your fingernails grow. However, as you can see in the second animation, even though the continents are moving at this slow speed they will still one day long from now collide again. This collision will form another supercontinent known as Pagea Ultima. Scientist have calculated and theorized that this continental collide within the next 250 million years.

Sources:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast06oct_1/

http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tectonics/index.html

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/earth/Continents.shtml

http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/msese/earthsysflr/plates1.html

Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and is about 142 miles from the Sun. Its diameter is about 2,960 km in diameter. Mars was named after the Roman god of war. This is because of its red color which is due to its soil which is composed of iron. Mars soil is also composed of basalt and its core consists of iron and some sulfur. Mars exemplifies the accretion theory because of its solid, rocky composition. The accretion theory says that Mars was composed of small pieces of rocks and other things found in the solar system known as planetesimals. The accretion theory's explanation for the relatively small size of Mars is that only a small planet was able to form before the rapidly growing Jupiter pulled all of the planetesimals away from Mars. This theory provides a sufficient explanation about the forming of the planets including Mars.
http://www.scribd.com/ioana_cn/d/55912234/26-The-Accretion-Theory#page=304
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/what-is-mars-58.html

Aliens?
The idea of aliens is usually associated with science fiction but scientists have begun studying this more and more. They have been studying planets that could possibly be home to extra-terrestrial life forms, but these planets need to have very specific conditions in order to support this type of life. The planet would need to be a terrestrial planet which means that it has a solid surface. It would need to have a water source. It would also need to have an atmosphere and gravitational force much like that of the Earth.

Science Fair

For my science fair project I will be building a Leyden jar and Electrophorus capacitor which can be used to store static charge. I will use these items to the test the conductivity of different materials. The materials I will be testing are wax, water, and aluminum foil. I chose this project because I find electricity very interesting and enjoy making things.

Sources:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/capacitor.htm
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Elec_p049.shtml

Dark Matter and Energy

Long ago people thought the world was flat, then they realized that the Earth revolved around the Sun and discovered that the Earth is part of the Milky Way galaxy. Later people discovered the universe and that it was made up of many galaxies. All of these discoveries  were all due to scientific observations and theories. Science is constantly updating our thinking about things. To this day we are still making observations about the universe, for example the discovery of dark matter and energy. Dark matter is a type of matter that is invisible. It can be detected by the strong gravitational force. Dark matter has a large mass and the Hubble study showed areas where dark matter has become so dense that it totals 100 trillion times the sun's mass. Dark energy is a repulsive force. It is like the counter force of gravity and the equivalent of the Einstein's cosmological constant. It is the force that keeps the universe expanding and keeps it from collapsing.http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/03/full/http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/08/full/

Paper.li

World's Deepest Land Animal Discovered

I read an article entitled "World's Deepest Land Animal Discovered."  It was about an insect called the springtail. The springtail is an insect without eyes but has long antennae. It has a grayish color body. The springtail had recently been found in Krubera- Voronja a cave in a remote area near the Black Sea that reaches a depth of 7,188 ft below the surface. This is the deepest in the Earth that an insect has ever been found. Scientist have speculated that these insect only recently began to live at such deep depths because of the fact that they have not lost their pigments like other organisms that live deep within the Earth. This brings a few questions to mind and that is if the springtail has begun to live deep within the Earth will other animals also begin to live deeper and deeper in the Earth and what do springtails eat since they live so deep within the Earth.  I found this article on Devine's paper.li and the link to this article is http://paper.li/238devink4/1327459028#!environment

Researchers Discovered That Fear Smells Like Sugar to Fish

Another article I read on Devine's paper.li was the article entitled "Researchers Discovered That Fear Smells Like Sugar to Fish." It is about the research done by the Duke/National University of Singapore about how when a fish is injured the rest off the school swims off in fear. The conclusion to this research was that when a fish is injured it releases chondroitin sulfate which is a type of sugar which scientist call Schreckstoff which means sweet stuff in German. This sugar works as a warning sign for the other fish by triggering fear in the other fish. This is scent is processed by sensory neurons known as crypt cells and scientist believe that these neurons are the key to understanding more fully this process.

The link to this article is http://paper.li/238devink4/1327459028#!health

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
A Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is a place where radioactive waste is disposed. Transuranic (TRU) waste is a type of radioactive waste that can be very dangerous if not disposed of correctly. This where the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant  (WIPP) comes into play. The WIPP is a plant designed to isolate different types of radioactive waste. TRU from old weapons used during the cold war is sent to Carlsbad, NM from all around the United States. At the WIPP in Carlsbad waste is isolate in buried in ancient salt formations deep beneath the surface at about 2,150 feet below the Earth's surface.
http://www.aboutnuclear.org/view.cgi?fC=Waste,Waste_Storage_and_Disposal,Deep_Repository_Disposal

Light Speed

The speed of light is a scientific law of the universe discovered by many scientists. It was not always something excepted by scientist and in fact before the 17th century most scientists thought that light could travel infinitely in no time at all. Throughout the years scientist have discovered that light travels at a constant speed (299,792,458 meters per second) and is used to measure distance in space. Theoretical Physicist and other science believe that nothing can travel faster than light but this leads to one question . . . the neutrino that traveled faster than light. Neutrinos are nearly massless particles. In an experiment done by the OPERA team results showed that the neutrino traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than light and if the results of this experiment are proven true this could change all that we know about cause-and-effect relationships.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/110923-neutrinos-speed-of-light-particles-cern-physics-einstein-science/

Science Blog
In Science we have been reading the blogs of people from your class and Ms. Englebrecht.  I have learned about what would happen if the world stopped spinning and I also got the opinions of others on topics like the big bang. The blogs that I commented on were http://jamrenjonz.blogspot.com/ Big bang, http://www.quintinm15.blogspot.com/ Mars orbiter mishap, http://maritzag15.blogspot.com/ Would the earth come to an end if earth stopped for a whole minute?, http://amberly1096.blogspot.com/ The True Meaning of Science and I thought that they were all very good blogs that I found very interesting to read.

The Big Bang
This week in science we have been learning about the big bang. It is a theory about the beginning of the universe. It has been something that has been pondered by many scientists and astronomers starting long ago, but until recently our ability to comprehend this was limited due to our lack of technology. Astronomers have found much evidence to prove the big bang, for example the expanding of the universe which we can see through red and blue shifts, Hubble's constant, COBE discoveries, the theory of inflation, and the ideas of the open or closed universe. The concept of the big bang and just the universe in general can definitely be slightly confusion but one thing that might be able to make things a little less confusing is http://www.sentience.tv/pdfs/1.%20The%20beginning.pdf  which goes into some detail about the beginning of the universe along with the explanation of the expansion of the universe and even quarks and the idea of the multiverse.

Scientific Method
I think that "Asteroids and Dinosaurs" is an example of science because it helps us to learn about the history of the natural world. Another thing that is necessary in scientific experiment is the use the scientific method. The  scientific method is not used as a series of set procedures but is instead a system for scientific experiments and can be done in any order and repeated as many times as necessary until substantial evidence has been found to either back up or disprove the hypothesis. Specific example of the use of the scientific method in "Asteroids and Dinosaurs" are that from the beginning Walter Alverez made a hypothesis (they constructed hypotheses) that the dinosaurs extinction was due to the KT boundary. Then he sets up an investigation (they designed an experiment to test their hypothesis) to test the amount of beryllium in the rock but he realizes that the beryllium in the clay would have decayed already. Alverez and the other scientists working with him then decide to test (just because they first idea didn't work doesn't mean that they should give up) the amount of iridium in the clay. Then they hypothesize (They constructed hypotheses for their next experiment) about how much iridium will be in the clay. Then they conducted the analysis (they test their hypothesis about the amount of iridium in the clay) and find three parts iridium per billion which was much larger than any of then what any of them hypothesized. Then Alverez does research (its important to do research) in order to find another site to do a test (they conduct another test to see if the iridium is present elsewhere and test the validity of their first experiment) on. At this site the results are the same and Alverez and his team conclude (drawing conclusions is part of the scientific method) that whatever happen was very widespread. After he finds this he ponders (they ask questions in order to form a solid hypothesis) what caused the high levels of iridium, and he finds that his discovery goes with the existing hypothesis (this time they connect their results with an existing hypothesis) of Wallace Tucker and Dale Russel. Building off of their hypothesis Walter Alverez's bother Luis realizes that in order to prove that a supernova had led to the extiction of the dinosaurs they must test (they conduct another experiment this time to test the supernova idea) for plutonium. The results from the experiment show that there was plutonium (thats the end of that . . . right?) but when they retest (gotta make sure the first one was legit) for the plutonium the results are negative and they realize that the first sample must have gotten contaminated. (back to the drawing board) They realize that this proves (they proved the hypothesis to be false) the supernova hypothesis incorrect. After proving that hypothesis false they form another hypothesis. (another hypothesis) Their hypothesis was that there could have been an asteroid that hit the Earth. They then ask questions (they asks question in order to form a solid hypothesis) about how this could have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. After pondering this question Luis comes up with a new hypothesis (Luis to the rescue): the asteroid hitting the earth may have cause enough dust to encircle the Earth to cause the sun to be virtually invisible. The lack of sun would have also not allowed the plants to undergo photosynthesis and killing the plants and working its way up the food web. They publish thier hypothesis (publishing their finding and hypotheses can lead to the experimentation of other scientists) about the link between the asteroid and the dinosaur extinction which leads to an increase in the exploration of these fields. Scientists thought of ways to test if these to things were related. Some of ways they tested (now other scientists can have a turn) were to check the fossil record, record of debris, glass, shockwaves, and a crater. Scientists found many of these thing including a giant crater which was found off the Yucatan Peninsula. Science is an ongoing process and many other hypotheses (everyone can have different hypotheses and no hypothesis is wrong) about how the dinosaurs became extinct have been formed. Even though the hypothesis of the giant asteroid has been substantially backed by the results of scientific experiments, scientists are still unable to make a direct connection between the asteroid and the extinction of dinosaurs.The Scientific MethodOriginal "Asteroids and dinosaurs: Unexpected twists and an unfinished story"
Sources:
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/alvarez_01
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_scientific_method.shtml