Could We Move to Mars?

Reuters
Microscopic worms may hold key to living on Mars
By Kate Kelland
11/30/11

Some scientists sent 4,000 worms to mars. Those worms are called Caenorhabditis. We sent the worms to space to see ideas for coping if we did go to Mars. The worms stayed healthy. They also developed from an egg. They were able to grow and reproduce from the trip to one planet to another. They sent those worms because they have a lot of genes that do the same things as ours. One of the reasons why they think it is too dangerous to go to Mars is the large amounts of radiation exposure. Also your bones would loose bone strength quickly. They do not know if it is safe enough on Mars for people.

I did not know that scientists were considering moving to Mars as one of our options. I think it is amazing that we might be able to live on mars. I think it would be freaky to go on Mars because of all of the health risks.

Saunas can Save your LIfe

Saunas could heal your mood and your heart
By Linda Geddes
23 November 2011
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21206-saunas-could-heal-your-mood-and-your-heart.html

Quick, if you have heart problems rush to a... sauna? Yes, I said a sauna. Saunas can help heal your heart. Studies have shown that people with heart problems who go to the sauna regularly heal quicker. Heart failure is the inability for you heart to pump blood to your body. With heart failure you have a lot of trouble exercising so to get your heart fixed is really important. Scientists doing a project at the University of Toyama in Japan believe that the sauna sets of the pathway that makes nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps your heart pump blood to the rest of your body.

I think that this is absolutely amazing. I thought that saunas just calmed people, I did not know that it could save peoples lives. I hope people start to hear about this so they can help themselves.

Rabbit bean population

In my science class we wanted to calculate the pattern of how rabbit populations increase. We started with two rabbits on year zero and ended up with 2048 in ten years. Each year all of the rabbits reproduce to make twice as many rabbits than before. This table shows the birth rate.

This is  the graph of the birth rate.

How to Find a Gems Origins

Tracing a gem’s origins                                                                 November 2, 2011                                                                      Stephen Ornes                                                                        

Before you assume that your gem was mined get it checked by some scientists. They use a technique called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. They take a piece of the gem and shine a laser on it. The same way that ice turns into water and water turns into gas the gem also turns into a gas. The gas has a special pattern from each place. Scientists know where they mine and where they don’t. This technique works for most minerals, but not quite all of them. 

 Spectroscopyis the study of light patterns. Though I do not know why it is necessary to know if minerals were mined or not, I did find this interesting. I never knew that scientists did this.

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2011/11/tracing-a-gem%E2%80%99s-origins/ 

Planets... What are they?

Science Mission Directorate. "What is a Planet?" Mission:Science. 2009. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 09 Nov. 2011 http://missionscience.nasa.gov
/nasascience/what_is_a_planet.html
The arguments made about the requirments of planets has now come to an end. That is because they have made a definition of it. Each planet must; orbit (go around) the sun, it has to be big enough so it's gravity turns it into a round ball, and it has to be big enough to push things like planets out of it' s area. The ex-planet named Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet because it did not meet the last standard. The word planet came from the Greek word Planetes which means wanderer. As we started to get better telescopes we started to find more of our planets. So as you can see, now the arguments of whether or not Pluto is a planet is useless.



I think this was interesting. I never knew the standards of a planet. I am sad that little Pluto is not a planet, but it isn't quite big enough.

Prehistoric Mastodon hunt

EurekAlert. "Evidence from a prehistoric mastodon hunt." EuekAlert. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2011.

  <http://www.eurekalert.org/features/kids/2011-10/aaft-efa101411.php>.

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The mastodon hunt is a hunt of mastodon. They have now found some evidence of it. The piece they found is thirteen thousand eight hundred years old. They found this in 1970 but, they thought it was fourteen thousand years old, they have been debating it ever since then. The scientists used the type of dating named mass spectrometry to date it. That dated the carbon in it. The scientists finally found out that the bone they found was a rib bone. That proves that the people were hunting mastodons and mammoths. It proves it because it was made out of mastodon bone.When you think about that this is a very long time ago because they were hunting mammoths.

Here is the bone they found.

This was an interesting article. I never knew about these things before. However it was a bit confusing so I wished that they explained what it was a bit more.