MAGIC SHOW

MAGIC SHOW
Today we had a matter magic show in science. Its was great, there was so many kids, so many interesting experiments for the kids and for us to see, it turned out to be great. My partner was Elena, and we had a very great and interesting trick. What we did is put a little water in a bowl, and then we put a candle on it and lit it. Then we would put a glass over the candle and what would happen is that the water would be sucked up in the glass cup because of the air pressure. The height would decrease and so the air pressure would suck the water in the cup.  Our trick worked very well, but at one point the candle would not light because it was wet, so we had to dry it. All the little kids thought it was cool and amazing. And so did my class mates.

Changing Phases

While I was doing this I realize that if you put the lid at the same level for each of them, they are all going to explode, but only if you add pressure, or you can add molecules, and by that, you are adding pressure between the molecules. I also realized that the lower i put the lid down there will be less volume, but more pressure, and if you put the lid higher, then there will be more volume, but less pressure because the particles are moving slower.  I also realized that the less pressure something has, the slower it will explode.

If you also add a lot of height it can explode. I also realized that once the particles are spread out, then when you take away heat, you are taking away energy, so they start forming one or little group. But once they are as a solid, and then I add height od add energy, then the particles will be moving faster and they will go everywhere because I am adding energy and pressure, so it will have more volume.

Hot, freezing and room temperature water. Whats the difference???????

Today we did an experiment. We had cold, hot, and room temperature water. In each one we put some food coloring. In the hot one the color spread the most because it has less density, so it could not go all the way down. Also the particles in it filled as much space as it can. In room temperature it kind of fell down because it has a little kinetic energy. And for the cold one, it just fell to the bottom because it has more density.

Could Gold Particles Turn Trees Into Streetlights? Posted by Meera Dolasia on 11/15/2010

 Did you know that gold particles could turn trees into street lights? A Taiwanese scientist found that is true.

The team of scientists led by "Yen-Hsun Su" from the Research Center for Applied Sciences Academia "Sinica" in Taiwan, were researching a way to create a substitute for LED (Light emitting diode) that is commonly used for street lights. While LED is very efficient it uses "phosphor" powder to emit lights at different wavelengths - which is not only expensive, but also, highly toxic.

For his research, Dr. "Yen-Hsun Su" infused sea urchin shaped "nanoparticles" of gold inside the leaves of a "Bacopa Caroliniana" plant. The gold reacted with the chlorophyll, causing the leaves to emit a red glow, essentially creating a bio-LED. The luminescence also acts as an energy source that enables the leaves to conduct photosynthesis at night, which in turn absorbs Carbon Dioxide and emits Oxygen, making our air even healthier.

The research is still in its infancy and there are many issues that need to be ironed out, not the least of which is the high price of gold, which makes infusing even tiny amounts quite an expensive proposition.

 Another issue is the trees - The "Bacopa Caroliniana", commonly known as aquarium plant is perennial with a unique quality - Its leaves change color, turning from bronze to almost red, depending on the amount of light they are exposed to. The scientists will not only have to find other plants with similar characteristics, but also, ones that keep their plants year round - And then, since trees are constantly shedding old leaves and growing new ones, there is the question of how often the gold "nanoparticles" have to be replaced.

Reflection 
I think that this is really amazing. It can also save electricity. I choose to write about this because when i saw the title that gold particles can turn trees into street lights, it caught my aye. and as said, it can save a lot of electricity.    

I posted this on  the 22/11/2010 at 9:32

Site: Dogo news

Paper Airplane Captures Stunning Images From Space ( posted on 15/11)

It was not too long ago when taken images from Space were thought to be the specialty of expert astronauts. Lately however, unpaid space fan have become confidant enough to do the same, using clever house gadgets, like Teddy Bears and now, a paper airplane!

Though it was made completely out of stiff paper and straws, the scavenger 1 was not a “plain vanilla fold-up paper plane”, but a rather difficult design, complete with framework, fuselage and even a toy plastic pilot. Attached to the airplane was a Styrofoam payload box that contained a video, a miniature camera, a GPS tracking unit, a back-up beacon transmitter and, a release mechanism.

The idea of three British Space buffs, the Project Paris (Paper Aircraft released into Space) airplane was launched from a field outside Madrid, Spain on October 28th, and transported up to just over 89,000 feet, by a helium balloon. At this point, thanks to the low-pressure environment, the balloon burst and the airplane and its goods fell down slowly to Pelayos Dam, about 40 miles away from the original launch site. Along the way, the tiny airplane took some incredible pictures of the view.

The three men were happy to find the airplane and its pilot intact and quite pleased to see the quality of images it captured, during its short, 90-minute time to Space.

Posted by Meera Dolasia on 11/14/2010
Site: Dogo News

Here is a video if you like to watch it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K76Cfbq_5hY&feature=player_embedded

Wish To Improve Your Math Skills? (Posted on the 19/11)

Want to improve your Math skills without working hard? Just zap the brain with a little of electricity and voila, all your math problems will be solved! At least that's what a group of people from a  British scientists from London's Oxford University say.
The main aim of the experiment, that was done on a group of student from Oxford University and University College London, was to test if parts of the brain could be shocked into getting it to work better with numbers.

To test this, 15 students, divided into three groups were asked to solve the same two mathematical problems every day for a week. The problems, which involved identifying the larger of two numbers and plotting one on a number line, were made a little more challenging by replacing the numbers 1-9 with symbols.
However, before starting the test, two of the groups were subjected to a 20-minute session of a light electric current to the “parietal lobes”, which the scientists believe is the brain's number. For the first group the current flow was passed right to left, while for the second it was transmitted left to right. The third group received no help at all.
The group that got zapped right to left seemed to show a great improvement in their math skills. However, the ones that got zapped left to right move back to the level of almost six-year olds! The results for the people who got no help were somewhere in between.
While scientists are not sure why direction of the current would make such a difference, they believe that zapping it from the right side, seemed to turn up the activity of the brain cells to math, while going the other way turned or closed them down. Luckily, the impact was limited to the wavy line not numerals and, is expected to last for only six months!
While this is great news, do not toss out your “Kumon” supplements or fire your math tutor yet. That's because the research, no matter how successful is not being done to aid lazy students, but to help people who suffer from “dyscalculia”, a disease where people can't cope with simple day-to-day, like counting change or figuring out their expenses.

MY reflection
I think that this is so amazing and very helpful for math tests and if you dont get math all the time you can use this.

Posted by Meera Dolasia on 11/08/2010
Site: Dogo news

Our lab today

I think that the lab today went very well. We stayed on task, and we cleaned everything up when the teacher said so, we also helped each other during the cleaning up time. But lets get back to the experiment. Well our experiment went very well. I thought that it was very weird that first you think it’s a solid, but then it turns into a liquid, so you don’t know if that is a solid or liquid. Also when you hit it quickly it is like a solid, but if you put your hand slowly inside, it is like a liquid.  In my opinion I thought that this mixture is a homogenous mixture because you can really see what it is made of. Also what we used was water and corn starch to make it. During our experiments I think that at some points it was too hard and at some points it was too liquidy. So if you have too much water then it is not good, and if you put too much corn starch it is too hard. After a wile of touching it, your hands get wrinkles on them. But this might be an absolute material, not solid, not liquid, but something ells???  

Here is a video so you can see it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw4qklgNIxI&feature=player_embedded

Flamingos Wear Makeup too!!!!!!!!

Hey, not only humans wear makeup flamingos also wear makeup but of course pink.

The surprise was made by scientists from Spains Donan, Biological station. They have been observing the tall birds for three years now. The fact that the hopeless birds are always trimming their feathers was observed for many years. This makes them look more conspicuous, but also spread waterproof oil which gets rid of waist from a gland at the base of their tail. This oil also has reddish-orange pigments called carotenoids.

Smart birds know that if they put this oil on their bodies for long amounts of time it increases their pink color even more, making them look better. They appear to be purposely rubbing their cheeks against the glands, and then spread the oil into their breasts and back feathers. Because the caroteniods lighten quickly, because of the sun, the birds are always doing this. Even more amazing is that they rais their speed clearly during buddy seasons.

Because of their amazing pink color, long legs and hooks, flamingos are one of the most familiar birds in the world. They get typical color from the carotenoid pigments.   

Opinion:

I think that it is very amazing and also weird that flamingos have makeup too just like humans, not really the same but simillar.

Date: 2/11/2010

Posted by Meera Dolasia on 10/30/2010

http://www.dogonews.com/2010/10/31/omg-flamingoes-wear-makeup-too

My Mixture

My mixture is a homogenous mixture because you can’t really see all the substances it is made of. The way I made it was well first it is made of 1 mandarin, ½ of a banana and some milk. What I did was I put all of those things in a mixer and mixed them together. When I was mixing, it slowly started turning into a homogenous mixture from heterogeneous mixture. My other observation was that we had to mix it for a bit longer time until they were really mixed together, in other words until it was a homogenous mixture. I choose to do this mixture because I wanted to find out which, the milk or the fruits, smelled and tasted more at the end. Also how long it would take for the fruit to become a homogenous mixture, it took about 2 minutes with high speed mixer.

Mixtures and Solutions

Homogenous and Heterogeneous Solutions

Homogenous: Homogenous mixture is described using one set of properties. For example water, you would just say water, not this half of the water is brown and this half is green. So the whole quantity of water of one container has the same properties.

Heterogeneous: Heterogeneous mixture is described using more than one set of properties. For example a chocolate chip cocky has the cocky and the chocolate chips, and you can see both of them.

What are they

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WlAFh8pz8w

What is the difference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLqCRvcVosA


I think that these two videos really helped me because it thought me by giveing me examples of both of them. It also helped me understad how a set of properties can defin a mixture.

Three main types of mixtures

Solutions are mixtures made by mixing a solute and a solvent. The solute is the substance that dissolves. The solvent is the substance that does the dissolving.

Suspensions are heterogeneous mixtures of a solid and a liquid in which the solid does not dissolve. Suspensions will settle when left standing undisturbed.

Colloidal Dispersions are mixtures with characteristics part way between a solution and a suspension. Colloidal dispersions may appear homogeneous but are actually heterogeneous. Colloidal dispersions do not settle when left standing undisturbed for a period of time.

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ROWXs3jtQU

This really helped because he is actually writing everything he is saying.

Desalination Reflection

I really think that it is nice that we can do that because if some people only have salt water in their country with no fresh water, the only thing they could use to actually survive is desalination. Not all people would do that because desalinating water is very expensive. It was fun learning about how you, yourself can desalinate water by only eight steps. It is weird that they have positive and negative effects. I really liked the three ways to desalinate water because they were all different, but all three of them actually cost a lot of money.

Desalination of water

Dolphin Teaches Others To 'Tail Walk' ( writen in the 27.Oct)

Have you ever seen an animal try to show there tail, a trick that were thought by their traners. But its too late, this event has already been seen in other places, Until now and, you will be amazed to know how the skill was found.

It was found by Dr. Mike Bossley who is a researcher at the "Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society", who has been looking at the playful happy "Adelaide Port River" dolphins for a lot of years, he said it all started with Billie who is a 23 year-old adult dolphin.

About five years ago he had saw the dolphin tail walking. When he saw that happen only once or twice in his whole 22-year career, he started to watch her more often, and also he was examening her more carefully. To his surprise, she soon was joined by wave that is another female adult dolphin. However, Wave seemed to enjoy it so much that she started doing it too about once a day. And now it even gets better, five years later, four other dolphins have learned to walk backwards on their tails.

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk6KC_i7l2A&feature=player_embedded

Reflection:
I think that this is really amazing and interesting. I actually never thought that animals can sometimes be really smart, Even though sometimes they are not as much. But I can't believe that a dolphin actually learned to do that just by watching their trainer teach another dolphin, and then it tries to teach other dolphins to. 

Author: Meera Dolasia on 10/25/2010

New mind reading machine

A group of scientists at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, said that they may be really close to making a machine that helps translate brain signals into words, an important get through that will allow severely paralyzed people to be able to communicate their thoughts clearly.

The scientists than took the experiment one step further by playing all ten brain patterns at the same time. In this case they were able to pick out the correct word between 28-48 percent of the time - An extremely encouraging result and a huge improvement over the current way of communicating that call for either the blinking of eyes or movement of hands. Now that they have proof of concept, the team is going to work on getting the technology better - by probably rising the size of the electrodes, so that they can get better signals. They hope to have a working example ready in a year or two.

Opinion

Its pretty awesome, unless of course the device falls into the wrong hands - Like your parents or teachers. Now there's a scary thought! I would probably use this on my friend or people in school, so funny. :)

The Lizards Run on Water, Really!!! (Article)

Only when its worried by a predator, you will see its weird ability to run over water. Nicknamed Jesus Christ lizard, the reptiles that range from 200-600 grams in weight and grow up to 3 feet in length, are able perform this outwardly impossible task, thanks to their large feet that have flaps between each toe. Using only these feet, with their arms to the side, the lizards are able to stay on the surface if, they sprint at a fast speed. Besides their ability to sprint away from predators, Basilisks are also very good hide artists - thanks to their color, which ranges from green to olive brown with brown stripes, allowing them to blend in, and sit unnoticed, for hours on the end will eat almost anything ranging from insects to fruits and even flowers. In the wild, their biggest predators are opossums, snakes and raptors. But these sneaky little creatures have learnt to escape quite effectively, first by hiding in trees that are hanging over water and if spotted, leaping in and sprinting across like Usain Bolt - except, even he can't do it over water!

My Opinion
I think that it is very cool when they run on water. And i also whached a video of it and it was vrey funny. It is the first time i hear about somthing like thins to happen. It is very

extraordinary.   

Spray on Fashion! (Article)

The material was invented by a Spanish designer, Manel Torres and Paul Lukham, a professor of particle technology at Londons Imperial College.That spray contains short fibers and polymers, mixed with a solvent that helps turn the fabric to a liquid form. As it dries, the fibers stick together creating a fabric that can be peeled off easily. The spray on clothing is pretty flexible and can be made with any fabric - cotton, wool, acrylic and even linen and manufactured in any color you want. The density of the clothing can be made thicker by spraying on extra layers, that means that it can be use for any weather you are preparing for.While the designer will be showing his fun fabric at the upcoming Science in Style Fashion Show, it is not ready to hit the typical market yet for some reasons. The first difficulty is the smell of the solvent, which is very strong and remain around the clothing. Also, there is the problem of the snugness of the clothing created, which may not appeal to a lot of people.  


My Opinion
 I think that spray on fashon is really cool because it looks like you are spraying something put the it turnes into fabric:) I think that it is bad that when you make a shirt for example out ouf that spray the smell will stay on the shirt. It is cool because you can actully have tons of clothing without actually bying the cloths.

States of Matter

State of Matter	Mass	Shape	Volume	Heating	Compressibility	Examples
Gas	Has a definite  mass	An Indefinite shape	Indefinite volume too	On heating it expands real large	Easily Compressible	Oxygen
Liquid	Has a definite mass	Has an Indefinite shape	An definite volume too	On heating it expands slightly	Low compressibility	Water
Solid	Has a definite mass	A definite shape	Definite volume too	On heating it expands real low	Some Compressibility	Rock

 

From that tabel I saw some patterns. One of them were that all of the states had a definite mass.  All of them were compressible and that all of them expanded diferently when youput it on heat!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I love science because...

I love science because it is fun and exiting. It is exiting because when you do an experiment you never know if something is going to explode. There are many things that you can learn about in science, fun tings for shure. I also like science because if you predict something wrong it wont matter because in science you sometimes learn through mistakes. If you ask me, the funest thing in science is experimenting with materials we dont know.

What is matter

Matter is anything that has mass. All objects are made of matter. Air, water, a brick,everything around you. Matter is anything made of atoms and molecules. Matter is anything that has a mass. Matter is also related to light. Even though matter can be found all over the place, you usually find it in just a few forms.There are five  states of matter, liquid, solid,gas, plasma and Bose-Einstein condensates.

What I know about Matter

Matter is everything and everything around us.
I know that there are three states of matter, solids, liquids, and gas. When solid melts it will turn into liquid, when liquid is put on high heat it will vanish which means it will turn into gas, and then all over again.

Matter are also many different materials, like wood, bricks and many other different materials. 

The air that we breath is mad out of oxygen and water.

My Goals for Science!!!

My first goal for Science is to definitely cooperate more when i am in groups. I also want to get better at explaining things and giving reasons why we did what we did. I want to get better at explaining what was happening during an experiment, so instead of writing we put this and that and then it exploded, I should use more detail. I want to start working with different people and not just with my friends all the time. I want to get better at using science equipment.