Awareness Article #5 has now been assigned. It will be due Friday, May 22nd, 2009.
Due to time constraints (i.e. the time it takes to mark ~150 Awareness Articles) and Final Exams quickly approaching, any Awareness Articles posted after June 1st, 2009 will not be marked.
If you are still having trouble posting your articles it is extremely important that you see me ASAP.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
22 comments:
May 19, 2009—Meet "Ida," the small "missing link" found in Germany that's created a big media splash and will likely continue to make waves among those who study human origins.
In a new book, documentary, and promotional Web site, paleontologist Jorn Hurum, who led the team that analyzed the 47-million-year-old fossil seen above, suggests Ida is a critical missing-link species in primate evolution (interactive guide to human evolution from National Geographic magazine).
(Among the team members was University of Michigan paleontologist Philip Gingerich, a member of the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)
The fossil, he says, bridges the evolutionary split between higher primates such as monkeys, apes, and humans and their more distant relatives such as lemurs.
"This is the first link to all humans," Hurum, of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, said in a statement. Ida represents "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor."
Ida, properly known as Darwinius masillae, has a unique anatomy. The lemur-like skeleton features primate-like characteristics, including grasping hands, opposable thumbs, clawless digits with nails, and relatively short limbs.
Are Plastic Water Bottles Safe?
by:Bonnie Penner
This article is about the use of plastic water bottles and how safe they really are for you. You need to make sure that you’re not reusing water bottles that leach too much and you should always check the recycling number on the bottom of the bottle to make sure it is safe. You should also consider switching to stainless steel or glass bottles because there is no leaching and will not release any unwanted chemicals into your water.
http://pattycake.ca/submissions/plasticwaterbottles
http://www.greenlivingonline.com/article/get-rid-plastic-water-bottles
Michelle
Are Plastic Water Bottles Safe?
by:Bonnie Penner
This article is about the use of plastic water bottles and how safe they really are for you. You need to make sure that you’re not reusing water bottles that leach too much and you should always check the recycling number on the bottom of the bottle to make sure it is safe. You should also consider switching to stainless steel or glass bottles because there is no leaching and will not release any unwanted chemicals into your water.
http://pattycake.ca/submissions/plasticwaterbottles
http://www.greenlivingonline.com/article/get-rid-plastic-water-bottles
Michelle
Music Reduces Stress in Heart Disease Patients
By. Bradt J, Dileo C
Stress can increase blood pressure, leading to increased risk of complications. However, music listening may help to alleviate stress and reduce this risk because listening to music could decrease blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of anxiety in heart patients. There was also some indication that music listening improved mood, although no improvement was seen for patients suffering from depression due to the disease. Theoretically, music can impact on our emotions, physiological responses, as well as our outlook on life, and the research shows that it is well worth finding out more about how it could help heart disease patients.
Date: 09 April 2009
References:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145782.php
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/the-power-of-music-to-reduce-stress/
The Hidden Hunger
By:Nicholas D. Kristof
Most of us in the western world believe that malnutrition is caused by not having enough food, while it’s really caused by lack of the right micronutrients. One of the sad things about this is that when a child suffers from malnutrition all their none-essential movements, such as smiling or crying, are shut down by the body to preserve calories. A study has found that when food prices are raised 50% in poor countries, it leads to a 30% drop in iron intake. Fortifying their flour with iron, folic acid, and vitamin B costs virtually nothing and help reduce anemia, maternal mortality, and cognitive impairments.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24kristof.html?_r=2&emc=eta1
http://www.slideshare.net/HETN/hetn-hidden-hunger
Grey Water Recycling Pilot Project Under Way
By Ehud Zion Waldoks
A new project is being tested in Israel to see if we can save water. Grey water, leftover water from your showers, sinks and washing machines, can be treated and reused for toilet water or to water your lawn. This has been tried in previous years in Israel, but because of the high bacteria count, it was unsuccessful. The grey water system would greatly reduce the amount of water a household or an office uses in a year.
Extra: In New Zealand some of their toilets have a sink over the toilet, and the water used to wash hands is reused in the toilet.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243346482187&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
http://missionzero.org/users/1531-ckmapawatt/blogs/173-Greywater-Recycling-Why-waste-usable-H20-
Clone and Cloning
Petechuk, David. Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Online. Detroit: Gale Group, 2008.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SciRC?locID=winn39111&bi=SU&bt=%2522Cloning%2522&c=3&t=1&ste=21&docNum=CV2644030504&st=b&tc=63&tf=0
There are three main types of cloning. One type, gene cloning, utilizes copying fragments of DNA for easier manipulation and study. Another type of cloning involves producing genetically identical animals through process called twinning. The final cloning method involves producing an organism through a nuclear transfer of genetic material from adult cell into an egg. Cloning is very ancient. Modern-day cloning involving molecular techniques is a relatively recent scientific advance that sprang from the demonstration in the mid-1970s that targeted genetic material could be retrieved from one organism and inserted into another organism to become practical. Now, cloning is at the front of modern biology. Cloning has many hopeful applications in medicine, industry, conservation, and basic research.
http://bioethics.net/topics.php?catId=4
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/
Jarrell
Title: Winter health warning: there’s no D in darkness
Author: Peta Bee
Date of article: November 18, 2005
Source: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rch&AN=7EH1631494788&site=ehost-live
Lack of vitamin D could be the cause of your tiredness. Few foods contain vitamin D, so between 80 – 100% of your daily intake comes from the sun. Just 30 minutes of exposure to the sunlight in the summer, and you would have all the vitamin D to reduce your chance of getting any cancers by 30%, prevent MS and prevent calcification of the arteries. However vitamin D deficiency is very common especially in young adults.
You don’t want to go overboard however because you can get skin cancer, frequent ten minute exposures to the sun is ideal.
Additional sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090203080730.htm
http://www.skincancer.org/Vitamin-D/?gclid=CN6OteiT8ZoCFQHyDAod8j7gKA
Submitted by: Ashley
Futuristic Food
Using ink-jet printers and lasers in the kitchen may seem like a futuristic vision but at Moto restaurant in Chicago, it's already a reality. Its chefs, who are also engineers, are transforming the traditional dining experience by using inventive technology to create their food and to provide diners with an interactive, multi-sensory experience. Tired of steak and a plate of vegetables? The philosophy of the restaurant is to push the boundaries of known taste, texture and technique and to change the way that people perceive and eat food.
http://www.firstscience.com/home/articles/technology/futuristic-food_1734.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmWKbh10vXA
Teddy
Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests
By Leslie Kaufman
The oh-so-soft toilet paper we love, uses millions of trees because recycled paper doesn’t feel as nice. This so-called Charmin effect is less in Europe and the environmentalists would like to make it the same in North America. They have been targeting toilet paper companies and getting high-profile groups to use the recycled brands. The environmentalists aren’t only angry about the high number of trees being chopped down, just to be flushed down, but they are also concerned about the large amount of water needed to turn the trees into pulp.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/science/earth/26charmin.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,502444,00.html
Cigarette Butts: Tiny Trash That Piles Up
By Leslie Kaufman
The cigarette butts tossed on the street everyday by smokers are extremely harmful to the environment. People think of them as biodegradable, but there are plastic filters inside them that get swept into storm drain, then washed into rivers and out to sea. These filters release harmful chemicals including nicotine, benzene and cadmium. Cigarette butts account for at least 25% of the items tossed on streets. Cigarette companies are working on making their products more biodegradable, but finding it hard because consumers don’t like the more environmentally friendly products.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/us/29cigarettes.html?scp=1&sq=cigarette%20butts&st=cse
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/30/business/fi-lazarus30
Different genes cause loss of body parts in similar fish http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/06/04/different.genes.cause.loss.body.parts.similar.fish
http://www.biotechinstitute.org/resources/YWarticles/7.2/7.2.4.pdf
http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/reprint/78/1/113.pdf
BY:Mike Shapiro
When two species of stickleback fish evolved and lost their pelvises, the changes were because of different genes in each species. The same gene that is used over again, meaning also in different species, result in the same anatomy. Evolution produces diversity in nature including limb loss, like snakes, whales and some amphibians. Scientists know of cases of the same gene causing two different species to evolve the same trait. That study also showed that different genes also could be responsible for evolution of the same traits in the two types of stickleback fish.
Laila
Carbon Payments Help Protect Threatened Tropical Mammals
1. Venter et al. Carbon payments as a safeguard for threatened tropical mammals. Conservation Letters, 2009; 2 (3): 123 DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00059.x
Adapted from materials provided by University of Queensland.
This article focuses on 3.3 hectares of tropical forest in Kalimantan, which is home to animals such as elephants, orangutans and other endagered species. Carbon Payments have to compete with palm oil at carbon prices of $10 to $33 per tonne of CO2. If CO2 credits were sold for a much cheaper price, conserving the rain forest would be much more profitable than clearing the land for oil palm. Also, forest conservation would prevent 2.1 billion tonnes of carbon from entering our atmosphere and preserve the habitat and the most threatened animals living in these forests. They have determined that 40 out of 46 threatened mammals occur within areas slated for oil palm. Further, planned oil palm plantations in peat forest areas, where carbon is most abundant contain almost twice the mammal species density as more expensive areas. So, there is a synergy between areas with high levels of biodiversity and areas with and abundance of forest carbon. Therefore, if they used REDD, which will protect the forests much more, the price of CO2 would drop dramatically, down to as low of $2 per tonne.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090604181251.htm
Kayla M
What Are Friends For? A Longer Life
By Tara Parker-Pope
Researchers have found a strong connection between people who have many close friends and how long they live. In fact friends have a higher impact on your lifespan than other relationships, such as immediate family. They also have a higher impact on your psychological well-being. Friendships are also a factor in helping fight disease or illness. In a study it was found that women with breast cancer without close friends were four times as likely to die than the ones with 10 or more friends.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21well.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/friends-with-benefits-friends-keep-you-healthy.html
News Bytes of the Week—Genetics of Childhood Trauma
By JR Minkel, Lisa Stein and Larry Greenemeier
February 8, 2008
When people go through traumatic experiences, it can effect every one in different ways Stress and abuse early on in life is a great factor for adult depression. There is more of a chance of an adult who was abused or mistreated as a child to become depressed then some one who was not but now researchers have now found that genes may also have something to do with depression. With this discovery, therapist have now another thing to work with and medication producers can now make a more productive and effective drug. Other things that lead to adult depression are obesity, video game obsessions, war, and not getting the help they need. More research is being done and they think this will hopefully help a lot of people deal with and get over depression.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetics-of-childhood-trauma
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/65/2/190
Titles
- What is a Tsunami?
- Tsunami – What is it?
Authors
- Lisa Gardiner
- Young People’s Trust for the Environment
Date of Articles
- January 5, 2005
Sources
- http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/tsunami1.html
- http://www.ypte.org.uk/environmental/tsunami-what-it-is-/105
Summary
Tsunamis, a series of huge walls of water that destroy almost everything in their path. Tsunamis are usually created by underwater earthquakes,but can also be created by landslides, volcanic eruptions and even meteorite impacts. They can move up 500 miles per hour and are very small until they reach shallow water, they then grow in size and begin to slow down.
How The Telephone Works
http://www.antiquetelephonehistory.com/telworks.html
When you talk, you create sound waves. And when you talk into a telephone the sound waves enter the mouthpiece and are transited through an electric current to the other phone, the receiver.
The telephone is made up of two main parts: #1 The transmitter and #2 the receiver.
#1
The transmitter of a telephone can be compared to a human ear, it has a "ear drum" which in the phone is a thin, round metal disk called a diaphragm. When a person talks into the phone, the sound waves hit the diaphragm and make it vibrate. The diaphragm vibrates at different speeds depending on how much air pressure you cause by your tone of voice.
Laying behind the diaphragm there is a small cup filled with really small grains made of carbon. So when you talk into the speaker, the diaphragm presses against the grains and When the grains touch the diaphragm, a low voltage eclectic current flows through the grains. The louder the sound, the harder the diaphragm is pushing on the grains. And the harder it pushes, the closer and tighter the grains get together.
#2
The Receiver of a telephone can be compared to a human mouth, it has vocal cords. The diaphragm has two large magnets that are located on the edge which cause it to vibrate.
One of the magnets (#1) keeps the diaphragm firm in place while the other magnet (#2) is a 'electromagnet'. Its made up of a piece of iron with a coil of wire that wraps around it. The coil becomes magnetized as the electric current from the transmitter passes through the coil. And because of this magnetization, the diaphragm is pulled toward the iron core and away from the first stationary magnet (#1). The diaphragm vibrates accordingly to the sound waves that are being sent through the transmitter, and by vibrating in and out it pulls and pushes the air in front of it which sets up the sound that goes into the ear piece. And what we hear from the earpiece is the voice of the other person from the other phone. That’s' how a phone works.
Mike Skop
Pollution
Awarness Article
sources:
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SciRC?locID=winn39111&bi=SU&bt=%2522Pollution%2522&c=4&t=1&ste=21&docNum=CV2432500581&st=b&tc=63&tf=32
Pollution can be described as unwanted material in a natural atmosphere. Usually, pollution is associated with the presence of toxic substances in a large quantity.
One example of air pollution is the case at the Smoking Hills located in the arctic virtually uninfluenced by humans. But 30 km’s away along the sea coast bituminous shale’s in sea cliffs have spontaneously ignited, causing a fumigation of the tundra with sulfur dioxide and other pollutants. At the smoking hills the toxicity from the sulfur dioxide among other things has caused great damage to ecological communities.
by: Nick
Longer Lives for Wild Elephants
Author: Cynthia Moss/ATE
Links: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20090107/Note3.asp
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081211-zoo-elephants.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/11/elephants-zoo-wild.html
It may be more safe for the most part for Animals such as elephants to live in a zoo, but a recent study has shown that elephants can live up to 3 times longer on there own out in their natural habitat.
To learn about how captivity affects elephants a team of international scientists did research and compared female elephants living in their habitat outdoors, in the wild to female elephants born in zoos.
The scientists analyzed 40 years of data of 800 African and Asian elephants in zoos across Europe. A biologist named Georgia Mason from Canada led the study and she thinks stress and obesity may be to blame for this problem.
These problems need to be solved or else the authors are calling for a halt to importing wild elephants and breeding them in facilities. The elephants will live much longer if they are left alone.
By: Nick
Title: Childhood eating habits affect health later: study
Author: Staff Writer
Date of article: 15/01/2009
Source: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/childhood_eating_habits_affect_health_later_study.html
Children who eat more goodies instead of their fruits and vegetables can get type 2 diabetes. Researchers at the university of Calgary used rats for experiment and they found out diet in childhood and adolescence can change in hormones that make you feel full. The researchers fed three baby rats one with high protein, one with high fiber and one with balanced (normal) meal. And when rats reached adult hood they were fed as much junk food as they wanted such as high sugar, high fat, etc foods. What happened later was one with high protein rat’s body weight was strikingly more than fiber rat or balanced rat.
Science Awareness Articles
By Laura Loconte
Science Awareness Article #1: Cancer
Cancer is a group of many diseases that has to do with cells, such as when cells lose their ability to regulate. Cancer happens when abnormal cells divide without control and start invading other tissues. Cancer cells can spread to any parts of your body through the blood. There are many types of ways you could get cancer, and they are still looking for a true cure. Scientists are assuming that cancer is linked to changes in the genetic material of the cell and that the chromosomes of cancer cells show that they include point mutations, deletions, or translocations of certain genes.
World of Anatomy and Physiology. Online. Detroit: Gale, 2009.
http://www.cancer.gov/
Science Awareness Article #2: The Hydrologic Cycle
The hydrologic cycle is also known as the water cycle. This is the movement of water between air, land, and bodies of water. About 98% of water on earth is in liquid form, the rest of the water is in ice, in the soil, in living organisms, or in the atmosphere. The hydrologic cycle has to do with the transition of water from one state to another. Evaporation is when the changing of water from liquid to a gas state. The heat coming from the sun evaporates water from things such as oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and glaciers. Once water evaporates it enters the atmosphere as a gas water vapor.
World of Biology. Ed. Kimberley A. McGrath. Online. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006.
http://www.iwr.msu.edu/edmodule/water/cycle.htm
Science Awareness Article #3: Pollution
Pollution is when a harmful change in the natural environment happens, usually caused by toxic substances, fertilization with nutrients and/or from quantities of heat. Anything that corrupts degrades, or makes something dirty can be considered as pollution. There are two possibilities of what causes pollutions, one it’s caused by human actions such as, humans throwing any kind of garbage on the ground. Two it’s caused by environmental changes such as, smoke from lightening forest fires, ash and toxic fumes from volcanoes, or algae growing naturally in a lake.
Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Online. Detroit: Gale Group, 2008.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/468070/pollution
Science Awareness Article #4: Color (Light)
Color is a phenomenon that interests scientists, artists, and humans. Colors help people appreciate the beauty of all kinds of things such as, the sunset and paintings. Light is typically considered to be known as white, as in the light coming from light bulbs, candles, and the sun. When white light passes through a prism it disperses into seven bands of color. The bands of color are called a spectrum. When a second prism is placed in front of the bands, the seven bands merge to form invisible white light again. The seven colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
World of Physics. Ed. Kimberley A. McGrath. Online. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007.
http://www.colorlight.com/
Science Awareness Article #5: Endangered Species
Endangered species is when a species becomes so reduced that it may soon become extinct. When any kind of species are in danger of becoming extinct, they are classified by the World Concervation Union, as critically endangered, which is when a species won’t be able to survive without a human protecting it. Threatened, which is when the population of the species is rapidly declining. Rare species, which is when the species is considered at risk because of low over all population numbers. Most species get endangered by having their habitat disturbed or eliminated, sometimes due to human activities.
World of Biology. Ed. Kimberley A. McGrath. Online. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2008.
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/
Title:
Date of article: June 2, 2009
Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2219533/
Do car washes use up less water than washing at home? Maybe not because most people tend to spray down their cars and use up a lot of water in the process while professional car washers use up a smaller amount because of their machinery. A common garden hose spews out 11 gallons of water per minute or 660 gallons an hour. Car washes come in three types: There is the in-bay automatics, in which your car stays stationary, this uses up 17 to 69 gallons of water per vehicle, the conveyors in which your car moves through a conveyor belt through the car wash, this usually takes up around 19 to 45 gallons of fresh water, and there’s the self serve which is a coin operated car wash in which you wash your own car, these can use up to 18 gallons of fresh water. All of these can be beat, however, if you use a simple bucket of clean water and a sponge.
Written by Nina Shen Rastogi
Submitted by Miko
Post a Comment