Pangea

It is very interesting how the continents look like a broken up puzzle. At one point in time they actually were pieced together. This super continent is known as Pangea. The word Pangea means "all lands" in Greek. But, over time the continents appear to move. Plate Tectonics caused this really dramatic change.This change may seem great over time but, day to day it is almost unnoticeable. In a year it will move 5 centimeter on average. Never the less Plate Tectonics are constantly moving and recycling rocks and land within the earth. Plate Tectonics are 100 to 120 kilometers thick and lay in the crust and upper mantle.  It took these plates 200 million years to move to where they are today from when they formed Pangea. One question you might be asking your self is how these gigantic plates move and why? The Mantle underneath the Earth crust pulls the plate tectonics with the convection currents it produces. Basically the mantle is rising with heat and falling when it release energy. This Energy and motion is pulling the plates along. This is what made Pangea change to what is is today. Although this is the accepted theory we still have much to learn about the earth and it's movement.
http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tectonics/boundaries.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/17701/high/pangaea/
http://http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/interior/plate_tectonics.html
www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/animate/pltecan.html



Go to this website to see pangea like never before!!!!
http://www.scotese.com/sfsanim.htm

  There are three major requirement to sustain life, as we know it. The first is that the star the planet with life orbit has to be a main sequence star. Secondly, the planet has be solid so that there is the allowance of a liquid-solid surface. The last requirement is that the planet has to be the right distance away from the star to allow liquid water.

Jupiter

The Theory of how the Planets form is called Accretion. It is the idea that during the process of Nebular Hypothesis all the gas and dust that didn't go into making the sun started to collide and gravitate towards each other. Eventually all this matter sticking together, forms a planet. Accretion is still happening today. In July of 1994 A comet named "Shoemaker-Levy 9" collided with Jupiter.  That day Jupiter grew, just a little. The Accretion Theory isn't completely perfect but, the planet Jupiter supports it. Because Jupiter is 778,369,000km from the sun it was cool enough for ice-forming compounds to condense and form the planet just like the other gas giants in the outer disk.Which looking at all the planets explains their different compositions and temperatures. Another reason for the Accretion theory with Jupiter is that it has a diameter of 142,984 km across, which proves the accretion theory because it shows the abundance of materials farther away from the sun and that more gravity would explain it's size. Jupiter as you can see supports the accretion theory. It's days are 9 hrs and 55 minutes. It takes 11.86 years to orbit the sun. And is primarily composed of Hydrogen and Helium. It was also named after the Greek god Jupiter because of it's great size.

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/
http://www.bobthealien.co.uk/jupiter.htm

The Requirements for Life

There are three essential parts to form human life. The first is that the plant orbits a main sequence star. Secondly the planet must be solid so that there can be a  a liquid solid composition on the surface. The Last is the planet has to be far enough from the star to have liquid water on it. Our solar system stared 4.568 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small molecular cloud. Which formed the sun. The remaining pieces of the cloud flattened into a disk and formed planets. Among all these planets the only one that supports life is Earth. Now scientists can look farther out into the universe, and considering how many star there are they expect to find life out there.

A collection of my thoughts on Stars.

Stars have different characteristics, that tell us about it's size, the stages the star is on, or is going to experience, and much more. One of these characteristics is Luminosity which is the absolute magnitude, or in other words is how much energy a star emits. Spectral Types show the non-thermal radiation of light from stars. This is helpful because each element has a different Spectral Type. The Temperature of a star also tells us things about the star. The temperature can be determined by color. Blue stars have a hotter temperature, while red stars are cooler. Hydrogen turns into Helium on stars, and the temperature can tell us how fast this is happening because, the hotter the star the more fusion occurring. Main Sequence stars are considered stable stars because their brightness and temperature are usually relative to each other.


http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/senior/astrophysics/photo
http://www.universetoday.com/39974/hertzsprung-russell-luminosity.htmldiagram/metry_
http://cas.sdss.org/dr3/en/proj/advanced/spectraltypes/

My Science Fair

 I will be testing the capability of participates to identify and replicate the musical notes that they hear. I will also be comparing the results of musically talented people verses non-musically talented people to see if musically talented people can hear tones better. In the experiment the people will be using only one ear per set of notes. This way I will be able to tell which ear could identify tones better. I suspect that the left ear will better be able to identify the tone because the left side of the brain is musical side of the brain. Also I think that people that are more musically inclined will be able to replicate and hear the sounds better than people who do not take music classes or play a instrament. I play the piano, violin, and sing therefore I know that in music is is important to hit the right pitch so I was wondering which ear was better able to hear the note. Which is why I am really interested in the results of this science fair project.

Paper.li

The article Cat Saves Owner's Life Just Hours After Being Adopted was very interesting because it was about a cat who was able to save her owner, who was having diabetic seizure by waking the owner and her son up in the middle of the night so they could get help. I didn't know that in general cats are more selfish, solitary animals. Considering this information I think it is really cool that the cat was one of few to care for their owner. If you were the owner, how do you think you would respond to this information, knowing that you almost died?

http://paper.li/238devink4/1327459028

In Flying Squid Rocket Through the Air I learned that Squids actually fly, but not only do they fly they fly faster than they swim. They take water in eject in from thier body which pushes them up into the air. As I was reading I thought to myself, If squid fly so well why haven't people noticed this before? Ronald O'Dor answered my question he thinks that most of squids flying takes place at night and so it's not as noticeable. I find this behaviour for Squids interesting because I thought squids lived deeper down in the ocean. I also like the research because it reminds me that there are still discoveries out there to make.

http://paper.li/238devink4/1327459028

I think that Bus Stop Ad Reacts Only To Women is a really funny article. The bus stop ad only responds to woman who stand infront of the face recognition technology, and plays a video for them. But for men it shows a link to the advertiser's website. The adveritisement is tring to  to raise money to help educate woman in 3rd world countries, so I think it is really weird how their is a definte group this non-profit organization is adversiting to.

http://paper.li/238devink4/1327459028

The Speed of Light

The fact that something could go faster than the speed of light blows my mind. Their was a nuetrino went traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than a light beam. Which is about.0025 percent faster than light. Einstein said " if you could send a message faster than light then you could send a telegram to the past." I believe light speed is somehow linked to time so that if you go faster than light you beat time. That why the speed of light is the cosmic speed limit because, up until now we didn't know of anything that could go faster than it.

The Cosmic Speed Limit

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/science/23speed.html
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Light-speed-limit.jpg

WIPP SITE

The WIPP site is a place to store radio-active Transuranic waste so that is can decay safely. Transuranic waste is known as materials mixed with U-233, nuclei's with an atomic number greater than 92, and isotopes of plutonium. This waste is a result of nuclear energy and, when it is inhaled or ingested can result in serious health hazards. It has an extremely long half-life, which means it will take hundreds of thousand years to completely decay. Which means it posses a threat to the health of everyone on the earth now and for future generations. There are storage devices to hold in the radioactivity but, there are no garantees that they will stay sealed. I think that nuclear energy is a good idea because it is a solution to the energy problem. I am cautious of creating too much energy because, we have not created a way to get rid of the waste very effectively, but we shouldn't just abandon this method, we should discover more about it so we can be sure it that we are not just creating another problem for the future. I think for now storage the Transuranic waste is okay but, we need to be careful of the future so that we know what we are getting ourselves into.

http://www.wipp.energy.gov/library/pioneering/LongRoad1.pdf
http://sheff.caeds.eng.uml.edu/hazwaste/sciadone/transura.htm
http://www.wipp.energy.gov/Photo_Gallery_Images/CH_photos/CH3.jpg
http://www.wipp.energy.gov/Photo_Gallery_Images/Photos/Sunrise%202.jpg

Blog Comments

I commented on these blogs...

http://soccer789.blogspot.com/2012/01/science-is-true-meaning-about-world.html#comment-form

http://maritzag15.blogspot.com/2011/11/nasa-making-mistakes-omg.html

http://maritzag15.blogspot.com/2011/09/real-science-what-does-it-mean-to-me.html

http://angelascienceblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/big-bang-this-week-in-science-we-have.html?showComment=1328502131576#c1517611422378234748

The things I responed to are about the metric system, what science is, and the Big Bang. I like commenting on blogs because, what I may have focused on the same prompt may be thought differently on another persons blog. I think it is cool to think about how other people think about things. No matter who you are, we all are different and are raised differently and I like to see the differenet ideas that come from another perspective.

The Big Bang

The leading model for the beginning of the universe is know as the Big Bang. In a nutshell, it is the idea that the universe began with an explosion and this caused everything to be created and expand out. This model honestly sounds ridiculous and untrue but, considering the evidence it really makes sense.  The reason scientists agree that the universe is expanding is because, when supernovas explode they show the same amount of light, and the light appears red. According to the Doppler effect the red light means it is moving away from us. Using the supernova we have found a trend that the farther the star is away from us the faster it is moving away. So therefore if the universe is expanding then, it must have started out smaller. I think this model is very reliable but, for me it is hard to understand all of the theories behind it and I question some of the elements of the Big Bang. For example, I don't understand how the universe finds the room to grow if there is "nothing there". In a video about the big bang from http://virtualgardnerblogs.weebly.com/integrated-earth--physical-science.html the speaker discussed the possible outcomes of the big bang. One I particularly thought was interesting was the idea that the universe would go thorough a process where there was stars and galaxies, followed by black holes, and then filled with emptiness. He said that emptiness gives off radiation and the universe could then go through the process again. Therefore, the Big Bang may not have been the beginning, but may be part of a process. Although I can't wrap my brain around these concepts completely, it does cause me to think about what new discoveries can prove about how the universe came to look the way it does now.

The True Meaning of Science.

Science is the means by which we come to understand the world. When I think of science I tend to think only about science fairs, labs, and the facts that come from experiments. But depending on what you do with it, science is much more. Scientist create science from wanting to know why the world is the way it is but, I think scientist have that desire because they want to see how that can impact and improve the world.
For example, we constructed paper air planes because we wanted to know which model of airplane would go the farthest. From our experiment, you could use similar methods and designs to create a more efficient plane. This would help improve our world and maybe effect the way the plane runs causing less accidents and deaths. Therefore science is the methods to understand and improve our world.  To see ways Science effects your life daily go to
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/whathassciencedone_01 .

Science Defined

Science is a way to understand the laws of the world using experimentation, data, and precision. Scientist conduct experiments for the purpose of answering a question. When the experiment is done the question may not be fully answered but it leads to other discoveries and questions for things that couldn't be defined before.  From http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122science2.html there are reasons for science that help us understand what it is and why we do it.

"Societies support science because of simple curiosity and because of the satisfaction and enlightenment that come from knowledge of the world around us. Few of us will ever derive any economic benefit from knowing that the starlight we see in a clear night sky left those stars thousands and even millions of years ago, so that we observe such light as messengers of a very distant past. However, the awe, perspective, and perhaps even serenity derived from that knowledge is very valuable to many of us. Likewise, few of us will derive greater physical well-being from watching a flowing stream and from reflecting on the hydrologic cycle through which that stream's water has passed, from the distant ocean to the floating clouds of our skies to the rains and storms upstream and now to the river channel at which we stand. However, the sense of interconnectedness that comes from such knowledge enriches our understanding of our world, and of our lives, in a very valuable way. In recognizing that the light of the sun and the water of a well are not here solely because we profit from their presence, we additionally gain an analogy from which we can recognize that the people in the world around us are not here solely to conform to our wishes and needs. When intangible benefits like these are combined with the more tangible ones outlined above, it's no wonder that most modern societies support scientific research for the improvement of our understanding of the world around us."

In our Integrated Earth and Science Class we conducted an experiment where we flew airplanes to see which type of airplane went the farthest. This experiment was clearly science because it focused on something we would like to know about the world which was what type of airplane was more aerodynamic. We tested using measureable data which was how far it went. Thorough the experiment we satified curiousity and discovered something new about our world. And that is what science is.