Brown Penguins ?! 36 million years old!!! Current Events #3

This article involves a giant penguin with differently-colored feathers – an extinct one. A fossil giant penguin was found recently – studies show that the fossil is 36 million years old! The skeleton found includes a pretty big portion of the body with the skull and flipper, but the best find overall are the fossilized feathers. They were so well preserved that scientists were able to examine the feathers and look at the pigmented nubbins (called melanosomes) that give the plumage its color. This penguin, dubbed the Inkayacu Paracasensis, is about twice of today’s emperor penguins weight and stretched almost 1.5 meters while swimming! However, the most interesting discovery from this fossil is that the ancient penguins wore hues of soft grays and reddish browns, as opposed to wearing the formal “tux” that penguins adorn themselves with today. This discovery was made in Peru, and quite recently, too. Scientists all over the world have been studying it in hopes of understanding more about how the penguins had evolved from flying birds to swimming birds – unfortunately with nearly no luck. From the flippers, scientists have worked out that at this point in time, the birds were already built as swimmers, not as fliers.

This was very interesting to me because I had always thought of penguins as black and white swimming birds. I never really thought about how they had to evolve from flying birds to swimming birds and how their color was once different too. Also, one part of the article that was really interesting was the part describing the melanosomes. According to research, the melanosomes in the penguins’ flippers help them withstand the pressure from the water, because water is 800 times denser than air. This helped me understand more about the cycle of how animals become who they are today, and this has a lot to do with adaptations. At some point in time very long ago, these penguins were probably built in a different way. However, because this way was probably not the best way for them to survive, they slowly evolved over millions of years to what they are now.

Antarctic Presentation Reflection

There are many different predators in the Antarctic. Although Mr. Watts didn't really talk about them very much, the orcas are at the top of the food chain. After them come the seals - the leopard seals, the crab-eater seals, and the elephant seals. These seals tend to eat a couple of different seals. The leopard seal eats the biggest food because it is the leanest and the fastest - it eats krill, squids, penguins, and sometimes even other seals! The mother seals are the ones that are the most ferocious - you do NOT want to mess with them. The male seals even sing sometimes to get their attention!
At the bottom of the food chain is the krill. The krill is the most abundant animal in the Antarctic and also one of the smallest. The only thing that is lower on the food chain than krill is algae, because even krill need something to eat! Almost all other animals eat krill, because they are simply the easiest to catch.
The animals from the Antarctic migrate once the weather starts to change. In the Winter (Summer for us), it is so cold there that basically no living thing can survive (or very few). Once it is Spring, the seals and the penguins come out, and the place just starts swarming with life. Also, the algae becomes more abundant once the animals come out. We have the whales to thank for that. :)
Most animals go by weather to determine whether it's right to reproduce. A big factor in this is how much food is available to them. They don't want to reproduce if they don't have enough food to feed the babies! That's why most penguins reproduce before summer starts properly, because they want the prey to be thriving and more than enough food for the babies to be available. Seals especially want there to be enough prey for their pups, because they store all the fat they can before the Winter.
There are many adaptations that animals in the Arctic have, but one of the more important ones is blubber. Blubber is a thick layer of fat around a body that keeps the animal warm and allows it to survive. Both seals and whales have large amounts of blubber, and it is one of the main things that they depend on in order to survive.
Instead of blubber, penguins and some other animals huddle together to create heat by sharing each others body heat. The males huddle around the outside and take turns going to the inside where it is so warm that sometimes the penguins have a hard time keeping themselves cool enough! This proves that there are more than one way of keeping body heat - animals don't necessarily need to pack on fat.
What some of the faster animals have as an adaption is speed. The leopard seals especially are very fast and very dangerous, and this allows them to capture SO much more prey than penguins, for example.
An example of an interesting mating ritual is from the leopard seals. Because the female is the dominant one, the male has to sing to the female in order to attract her. Sometimes, if the male doesn't sing nicely enough, the female will kill him. According to Mr. Watts, this is a really. That is something I would like to hear someday - I looked it up online but I couldn't find it.
A way that penguins ensure survival of their species is by testing their young. I personally really do not like to think about this because I think it is cruel, but it is what they have to do in order to survive! If the food is scarce, the penguin mother will take her babies and see which one is the strongest. She then abandons the weaker one and feeds the stronger one, ensuring its survival.
On the other hand, a seal mother often risks a lot in order to feed her pups. They feed on her and feed until they become as fat as their mother was, and then the mother is think again and must hunt for a lot of prey in order to store more blubber.

I thought this presentation was an amazing experience because it was like a different world(although, in reality, it was just a different biome)! I think it's really good that the species are so abundant there currently, and I truly hope that we don't mess things up anymore for what is the least-disturbed spot on the planet. Also, I hope we find a way to at least slow down the melting of the ice-caps, because if it progresses the way it is now or gets even worse, a whole biome will just disappear.
This presentation also helped me learn A LOT about the unit at hand and how biomes and ecosystems work. It helped me learn a lot about the food chain and how animals ensure their survival. It also helped me learn a lot about how some animals react with other animals, and how there are both predators and prey in every ecosystem.

Current Events: Scorpion Venom as a Cure?? By Emily Sohn

Scorpions tend to be very aggressive animals. Who wouldn’t, with venom that can be deadly? Inside of the venom are very many toxins, with proteins called peptides inside of them. A lot of those peptides are toxic. They can cause paralysis inside of cells or even kill the cells! The good thing is that the peptides have to get inside of the cell to cause damage. This can be very useful because it allows scientists to examine the venom without suffering damage. Scientists are looking at the venom a scorpion lets out because they believe the toxins inside of the venom can be useful for a couple of different reasons. Because there are many different types of toxins and compounds inside of the venom, scientists believe that if they find the right type of compound they might be able to use this as a toxin to destroy tumors, to get rid of cancer. However, this is a very unsure subject – all the different types of peptides that scientists have found are ½ % of all toxic compounds inside of the venom. A slightly more promising option is using the toxins as pesticides. If there were a type of toxin that, for example, only kills potato bugs, then we would be able to eliminate the insects that destroy crops while keeping the ones that cause crops to thrive. Plus, the pesticide wouldn’t have any effect on any other animal except for potato bugs, including us – it would be harmless!

This was interesting to me because I think this would solve A LOT of problems. It would be wonderful if we could find the right type of toxin to destroy tumors – it would save a lot of lives! Also, we would have more “organic” food – without all those chemicals inside of them, which would be both a lot healthier for us and a lot better for the earth. This topic in particular helped me understand how scientists play such a big role in our lives. While a lot of people were and still are afraid of scorpions, scientists just become curious about what’s in that venom and bam – we have another ingenious idea that might just save thousands of people’s lives if the idea is carried out right! Also, this article again shows how each animal has its own mechanism for survival. Some have spikes, some have defense mechanisms, and some have venoms (such as scorpions).

Here is the link to the article, I suggest you go check it out:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/63561/title/FOR_KIDS_Better_living_from_scorpion_venom

Venn Diagram

James Bond-like Worms Discovered

James Bond-like Worms Discovered

Imagine having to escape from hungry predators all your life and having no means to protect yourself. This happens a lot, but fortunately it's often not the case. Many animals have protective traits, or distractions to allow them to get away. For example, seven newly found species of annelid worms that swim have a method of distraction – they simply drop bomb-like appendages that momentarily distract their predators because of the fact that the appendages are luminescent. Therefore, these annelid worms are nicknamed the Green Bombers. Possessing modified gills (which is what allows the worms to drop the bombs in the first place), these worms go from depths of 5,900 feet to more than 12,000 feet. This is a new discovery for scientists, because they hadn’t seen a species of worm similar to them before that combined both dropping appendages and bio-luminescence. This article was interesting to me because I find it amazing how all different animals have their own ways of scaring off predators or warning them that they’re not to be messed with. This worm just happens to have a very intriguing method – dropping glowing bombs and then making an escape. This article also helped me understand more about how animals manage to stay alive when they are the prey, not the predators. Sometimes it isn’t easy for them to just to run away or to hide when they are being hunted down –they often need some form of distraction to be able to make their getaway. Some animals, such as porcupines, just have their own protective “shields” that allow them to be safe while others, such as these Green Bombers, have a way to create a distraction while escaping from their predators.

Here is the link to the article:

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

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Survival Tactics

Survival for all animal species requires water, food, oxygen, and a way to keep safe from attacks. Animals have many different ways of keeping safe and of hunting, all based on the parts of the animals that keep them safe. Some animals, such as cheetahs, have the ability to run really fast and corner its prey, while others, such as sloths, are so slow that their only means of survival are to camouflage in the trees, which tends to work. Others, such as poison dart frogs, have really bright colors to warn all predators that "You can eat me, but you will either get paralyzed or die, so it's not worth it."
Another very important means of survival, which every species needs to do in order to survive, is reproduction. Some mothers, such as the sea turtle, are so devoted to reproducing that they bring their eggs over 2,500 miles across the ocean so they can bury them in the sand. People have noticed different ways of reproduction over the years, and have come up with certain symbols such as the pheonix, which represents renewal, and eggs, which represent life.
Charles Darwin was very interested in animal survival. He wondered, Where did all the animals' protection come from? Their Instincts? Humans are not able to survive certain altitudes and pressure underwater, while some animals are able to go farther than humans, such as geese, or fish. If we were to go that far down underwater, first our ears would pop and then we would most likely die from the pressure. If we go too far up, the oxygen is scarce and we get something that became known as altitude sickness.
What do we and camels have in common?
We both store fat in order to break it down and use it if we have no source of nutrition. The only difference is that we store the fat all over our body and camels just store it in their hump.

Here is a video I found about a hyena's survival with African Wild Dogs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiqAxa1tJ5g&feature=related

What needs are met by an organism's environment? There is always food of some sort, water, and most organisms need sunlight and find a habitat that has sunlight. There is also oxygen in all of the habitats. What are the two parts of an organism's habitat with which it interacts? The biotic and abiotic parts of an organism's habitat. What are the levels of organization within an ecosystem? There is the organism, then the population, then the community, and lastly the ecosystem. Why do you find different kinds of organisms in different habitats? Because certain types of organisms have different needs-some organisms need soil, while others, such as fish, only need water. Think about what will soon start happening within Belgrade. How do animals prepare for such a change? Some animals will go into hibernation when winter comes, while others will grow more fur in order to keep themselves warm. Some fish die when it gets too cold, and some fish simply go further down into the water where the temperature is adequate.

Here is a video of baboons in their natural habitat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaXwYQtNkJw

KWL Living Things and the Environment

KNOW:
- all living things are called organisms
- all organisms have cells
- all organisms are able to reproduce, can excrete waste, need nutrients, have cells, and are able to grow and develop
- all organisms are classified in the Linnaeus classification
- there are 5 kingdoms of organisms
- there are two main types of cells - plant cells and animal cells
WANT TO KNOW:
- what causes certain types of weather?
- what are biomes?
- why are certain plants and animals only found in specific parts of the earth?
- why is Earth the only planet on our solar system we can live in?
- what causes things from so long ago to be preserved for so long - what in nature causes it to stay the same?

My Science Goals

My Science Goals:

1. This year I want to get better at creating my own labs or creating labs in groups, because I think that will help find out stuff about our different units.

2. I also want to be more organized with my notebook, so that way I won't have to start a new one because the first one was too messy.

3. My third goal is that I want to figure out how to use the computer and technology and that stuff to keep myself organized and to know what's going on.