Current Events 7

Smart People Sleep Late
Author: bluemana
Date Written: 7/11/2010
http://www.disinfo.com/2010/11/smart-people-sleep-late/

People that have higher intelligence quotients tend to go to sleep later than those with lower intelligence quotients.  This is becuase the "smarter" tend to have a higher nocturnal activity, which means that they are more active at night, which results with them going to sleep later than other people. We are still not sure chat the exact effect of sleeping is but we have seen many bad effects of the lack of sleep such as: high blood pressure, obesity, shorter life spans and drowsiness. These are all negative effects. For example 37% of car crashes are caused by drivers that are drowny and body chemistry can be effected by even small sleeping problems. According to Juliette Faraco of Stanford University, sleep los can cause a strong need for “sleep rebound”.According to other studies, sleeping habits are also closely related to academic achievementsof students.According to another research by Satoshi Kanazawa, people with a higher IQ tend to be more of „night owls“ while peole with a lower IQ tend to have to do their work during daytime.

I personally find this interesting. I know a lot of people who really tend to be „night owls,“ like myself, but aren’t really geniuses.I guess that could be somehow related to all those hormones in a teenager’s body or also the „coolness“ of going to sleep late. It goes the samet he other way around. Some of the smartest people I know go to bed really early but I guess that might be a habit forced by the family.

Current Events 6

Cosmic Rebirth

Author: Ron Cowen

Date Written: 18/12/2010 (?)

Link: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/66525/title/Cosmic_rebirth

The big bang as we know it happened about 13.7 million years ago, however according to a new study the universe could be much older than that, eons older. This is because it could be only the latest part of a series of multiple big bangs. This theory by  a theoretical physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford in England and Vahe Gurzadyan of the Yerevan Physics Institute and Yerevan State University in Armenia. It is based on their findings of round patter in the microwave background of space. These circles show where the temperature is slightly different from the rest of the space. This supports the new theory as an inflatable universe shown in currently generally accepted theories could hardly create them and would most likely erase them. Those circles should be a slight look back at the big bangs that came before the most recent one. They found similar circular patterns with two different machines which lowers the possibility of them being wrong or being fooled by a faulty machine. The results of this study are not necessarily perfectly reliable but currently a new map of the cosmic microwave background is in the works. This could tell us more about how reliable this theory really is.
I personally find this very interesting. The possibility of us being wrong about the big bang is possible. As history has proven, we are often wrong. The question is: What came before the first big bang of the series?                                                                                                                                

Current Events 5

The Brain Controlled RatCar, or the First Still From the Live Action Pinky and the Brain Movie

Author: Kyle VanHemert

Date Written: 4/10/10

Link: http://gizmodo.com/5655459/the-brain+controlled-ratcar-or-the-first-still-from-the-live-action-pinky-and-the-brain-movie

A group of researchers at Tokyo university have made a device which they call the "RatCar". It works thanks to electordes which they have planted right into the motor cortex of the rats. It was hard to teach to rodents to use the RatCar. First they had to have the rats run around with the vehicle attached to them but with the engine turned off. They placed sensors on both the rats and the cars. Then they observed those and programmed the cars to respond accordingly. Then six out of eight rats were able to control the RatCars. Unforunetaly the question still remains how much control the rats actually have over the RatCars. 

This could be a pretty cool invention especially if it gets used on people in the future.  But as I mentioned, these devices haven't necessarily been proved to work as hoped and need to be tested and improved more.

Current Events 4

For The First Time, Genetically Engineered Mosquitos Are Released Into The Wild

Author: Lizzie Schiffman

Date Written: 12/11/2010

Link: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-11/mutant-mosquitoes-nearly-wipe-out-their-population-and-diseases-they-carry

A group of researchers based in Oxford has thought of a way to attempt ending the spreading of the Dingus Fever. They did this by genetically modifying male mosquitoes. They would simply sterilize them and then set them free into the wild. Not only would those mosquitoes be harmless like other male mosquitoes, but they would also prevent the dangerous females from reproducing. This would be an easy but questionably affective way to lower the population of the mosquitoes and therefore even more importantly the chances of them infecting humans. Some scientists say that this is not a good choice as the lowering of the mosquitoes’ population could cause serious and temporary effects on the environment, especially the species that depend on those mosquitoes. This method is usually considered better than using chemicals to kill off the mosquitoes. This is not only because these sterilized males have absolutely no proven effect on the environment but also because some mosquitoes could have developed immunity against pesticides that are usually being used against them but not even the strongest individual can reproduce with a sterile female.

 I found this article interesting because as far as I know this is a new way of solving things. However this could be called animal abuse if used on larger creatures. It is a good strategy though as the mosquitoes lethally infect 2,000,000 people every year.

Reflection on Survival

Animals have different ways of survival depending on their abilities. For example some animals wouldn't be able to survive in the winter, so they hibernate. When they aren't active, they don't need as much energy and therefore now even as much food. Therefore they can survive just from their own fat. Or animals that live that live in very cold places have very warm fur. Some animals use deception. For example the snapping turtle. Under their tongues they have worm like flesh. Some animals pretend to be more dangerous than they really are.

Current Events 2 - 29/9/10 - Tomatoes That Trick Taste Buds

Tomatoes That Trick Taste Buds

by Stephen Ornes

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/63519/title/FOR_KIDS_Tomatoes_that_trick_taste_buds

Even though they are officially fruits, they are usually sold, treated and used as vegetables. In fact many people think that they are simply vegetables. Now, their classifying could become even more confusing as Kazuhisa Kato and his colleagues have developed tomatoes which trick your taste buds.  They make you think that sour things taste sweet for about an hour after you eat them. For example if you ate one of these and then ate a lemon within an hour, the lemon would taste super sweet. This could be very helpful for weight-loss. For example you would eat a grapefruit which has vitamins and low amount of calories but it would feel like you are eating sweets. The key to these genetically transformed tomatoes is miraculin. Miraculin is a glycoprotein which is a protein with a carbohydrate molecule attached to it. Miraculin is mostly found in a type of berries which grow in Western Africa. There they are sold as “Miracle Fruit”. These berries are already being used in some parts of the world for weight-losing purposes. People have already thought of planting them in bigger numbers but it would be pretty complicated and could even cause the extinction of the berries if the demands were too high. The scientists have inserted gene of miraculin in the genetic code of the tomatoes. With the genetic code changed, the tomatoes started producing miraculin themselves. In fact, they have produced and amount of miraculin which could be compared to the amount of it in “Miracle Fruit”.  The main advantage of tomatoes is that they can be produced in large numbers in controlled indoor conditions. The scientists will be trying the technique on other fruits and vegetables in the future as well.

I personally find this story very interesting. I’ve heard and read a lot of amazing scientific stories but when I so this I was like “WOW!”.  It is pretty amazing that there are such substances which can totally change your taste. I’m still wondering if this isn’t a bit exaggerated though. It would also be pretty cool if they could actually make sweet lemons using the same method.

Current Events 1

Karen Osborn discovered several species of "James Bond"-like worms. I'm saying "James Bond"-like because they blind their opponents by using green bombs. Seven species that have never been seen before were discovered in a depth of over 1,800 meters. They are very small as they only grow to a size of 3/4 of an inch, to 4 inches. They use green flash bombs to blinden their opponents. Then when the opponent has been blinded, the worms quickly disappear before the opponent can see again. They all live in the Pacific in depth of 5,900 to 12,000 feet. Although they do all live in different parts of the Pacific so the odds are that there will be more similar species discovered in the close future. Some scientist consider this very interesting as it proves that even “simple” worms can have very sophisticated behavior unlike expected.
I personally find this very interesting as it doesn’t happen very often that we discover organism which have achieved something that took us thousands of years just in the process of evolution. I haven’t heard about many similar cases, especially not ones where worms would evolve to such a level. As mentioned they are usually very simple and their behavior isn’t very sophisticated. This makes it even more of a surprise for me. It is also pretty incredible that such a tiny creature can use this to defeat predators which are much bigger and would easily kill them if they didn’t get blinded.

Jan Marek 7.A










Bibliography:


http://www.sciencecastle.com/sc/index.php/home/james_bond_like_worms_discovered_in_deep_sea