Rat Applies Poison for Defense

Justin C. -- There is one mammal that is very unique from others. It is the only mammal other then humans to use poison that they did not make themselves. This mammal is the African Crested rat. It uses the poison from the bark of Acokanthera tree; it does this for self defense against predators. The rat firsts chews some of the bark then mixes it with its saliva and puts it on its fur. The rat’s fur is extremely absorbent; its fur has very tiny holes that absorb the poison.

            I found this was a very interesting article. The fact that a animal such as a rat can be smart enough to use a trees poison for defense. I think that this article really showed that animals are not as dumb as people portray them as. The strengths of this article were the good facts on the African Crested Rat. The weaknesses were the repetition of some of the facts. I think the rats fur is one of the most interesting adaption’s I have read or heard about.

Link:  Rat Applies Poison for Defense

What Steers Vampire Bats to Blood: Heat Detecting Molecules on Nose Discovered

Laura E. -- How do bats know where to tear through an animals skin with their razor-sharp teeth? Is it with their incredible eyesight? NO! Scientists have recently discovered that it's their sensitive, heat-detecting molecule covering nerve endings on their nose called "TRPV1". Since vampire bats feed on blood, it's helpful for them to have an infrared detector to help them find the circulation.It turns out that now scientist and pharmacists want to use the "TRPV1" for pain medication!


I thought the article was pretty interesting, but nothing too fascinating. I wish they talked more kinds of bats, and if they have heat sensors in their noses! But overall, it was pretty cool. I didn't know that vampire bats had specific places that they need to bite to get the proper blood, and I also didnt know that they knew how to find those specific places. I also think it's pretty darn crazy that they're now using the "TPV1" for pain medication. Next time I'm prescribed pain medication, I'm checking the label!


Link:  What Steers Vampire Bats to Blood

The flight of the bumble bee: Why are they disappearing?

Alex A. -- Bumble bees are very widespread and are used to pollinate many things, but in the 1990’s they started dying off and scientists couldn’t figure out why or how to fix it. Scientists have begun studying other types of bees in order to try and compensate for the dying off bumble bees. The first candidate they found was located in the Midwest and eastern parts if the U.S. and Canada, but many feared that putting that type of bee into the western region would go awry because all the bees would be fighting for supplies.  Also they were afraid that this type of bee would bring pathogens to the western bees that they were ill equipped to battle. They found a bee native to the west that could pollinate greenhouses located there, and are furthermore investigating that type of bee now.

                I really liked this article because I think bees are really cute. But I also liked learning about what bees actually do for our society. I enjoyed learning about how there are so many different types of bees for different regions because I always thought that there was only one type. I learned about how even simple things such as bees can do so much for our ecosystem by pollinating everything and helping stuff grow. I also learned that even bees if put into a bad situation will end up fighting each other or another bee hive for food and water and other necessities. I think people would benefit from this because not everyone sees the real beauty of bees and how they work together so easily. The reader most likely thinks of bees as just annoying scary things that buzz around and are yellow, I used to be one, but now I really see clearly how interesting and helpful they really are.

Link:  Flight of the bumblebee: Why are they disappearing?

Artificial Skin Made From Spider Silk

Kiara G. -- Hanna Wendt, A tissue engineer of Germany has found a new material to use for burn victims that need new skin. The new skin can be developed by spider dragline silk. Spider dragline silk is 5 times stronger then collagen, which is the most common used material to make innovative skin.“ Spider silk displays excellent mechanical features,”. Though spider silk is a great material to use, its not realistic to use due to a low abundance of it.

Spider dragline silk seems like it could be a new advancement for the future. Just think of how engineers can use it to build people new arms, toes or fingers. It is a coincidence that this article has come out because just recently a victim who was attacked by a chimpanzee a couple of years ago was seen with a new transplanted face. It has not been said what kind of material was used but it would be very amazing if the dragline silk was used to reconstruct her face. It seems that nature has cures for all of our medical problems and we just have to look for them.

Link:  Artificial Skin Made From Spider Silk

Pregnant Fossil Proves Live Birth for Sea Reptile

Arianna K. -- Scientist recently discovered the fossils of a huge fetus within the remains of a 78-million-year-old plesiosaur. The fossil shows that the plesiosaur had given birth to a single live baby. The female plesiosaur is 15.4 feet long. Plesiosaurs were the top predators during the time dinosaurs walked the earth. This is the first fossil where scientists can clearly tell what the gender is. The article shows that even millions of years ago organisms gave birth to live offspring. Show that life was good for the plesiosaurs.

I find the article interesting that dinosaurs could give birth to live offspring. I believed that all dinosaurs laid eggs. If organisms can give live birth 78-milliom-years ago with organisms still be able to thousands of years later form today. This helps us better understand our former earthlings. This information could help scientist understand dinosaurs in a better way. I wonder what other kinds of dinosaurs have live offspring. This shows that it maybe necessary for large aquatic organisms to have large offspring instead of laying eggs.


Link:  Pregnant Fossil Proves Live Birth for Sea Reptile

China and the rise of the driverless car

Antonio W. -- China Daily recently announced that a car with no driver and no GPS has managed to travel 286 km (app. 177 m). It did so over the course of three hours and twenty minutes, traveling on a busy highway between Changsha and Wuhan, capitals of Chinese provinces Hunan and Hubei. The car is called the Hongqui HQ3, and is currently under development by the National University of Defense Technology.

It uses video cameras, laser range detectors, and radar to keep the vehicle from crashing or turning into the wrong lane. Unfortunately, due to the fact that most of it is visual information, night tests and fog tests did not turn out as well. Its average reaction time is 40ms, compared to 500ms of that of the average human. They are now continuing the project with China's First Auto Works to make a better, perhaps commercial version.

I also read in the article that Google had mad a GPS self driving car, and now that technology has finally gotten to this level, I see much laziness in our future. Of course, it is a bit frightening to see life being taken over this much, but its been done successfully before, it will probably work again (introducing new tech). Eventually, I assume that the GPS and the sensory methods will combine at some point to a larger scale. Almost everything is becoming automated, and even China has managed to catch up. Glitches will still happen, and whatnot, but I still feel comfortable with going human for just a bit longer. If it escalates too far, than we will all have to go around with EMPs in our hands when walking the streets just to not get run over. But that is at least 200 years from now (I think), so I'll support it til then. Soon, we will all have the fully automated car, and it will be slightly less dangerous.  It shall become the medium of transportation.

Link:  China and the rise of the driverless car

Really? The Claim: For Better Hydration, Drink Coconut Water

Toyosi O. -- As the days get hotter, many people have been reaching for coconut water. This liquid substance, once very uncommon, has gained popularity because it has many natural electrolytes. Coconut water contains an important electrolyte, sodium that is lost after sweating. Not all coconut water is made equal though. Scientist have compared different coconut water brands and noticed that most had less sodium then they claimed to have, and less sodium that a regular sports drink. Scientists did another study comparing the hydration levels from water, regular coconut water or sodium enriched coconut water and a sports drink. Researchers had subjects run for 90 minutes and them gave them one of the drinks mentioned before within a 2-hour time span. Even though all of the subjects claimed to be “Somewhat dehydrated”, researchers noted that the sodium enriched coconut water worked equally as well as the sports drink. In conclusion, scientists were able to determine that if a drink has enough sodium than it can hydrate as well as a sport drink.

I found this article very interesting for many reasons. One reason is because salt actually dries out things yet hydrates the body better than plain water? I guess it does make some sense because salt absorbs water, and if it’s in your body it will absorb all the fluids. I’ve heard that coconut water is super hydrating and good but really its equal or even less as good as a sport drink such as Gatorade. I think that the main reason coconut water has become popular is because it sounds much healthier that PowerAde or Gatorade. You always hear people say that Gatorade has too much salt and that it’s bad, but in reality that’s what makes it good for you!

Link:  For Better Hydration, Drink Coconut Water

Artificial lung mimics real organ's design and efficiency

Megan C. -- There are over 200 million lung diseased people all over the globe waiting for a transplant. Scientists have come up with an artificial lung, which works and is the proportions of an actual living lung. It will take years for the devise to be used in humans and made mobile. It will be able to use plain air instead of pure oxygen. As of right now, the lung must be hooked up to a machine and uses tanks of oxygen and only works for a few days. However, one day it will work just like the lungs inside of people now.

I really hope this will be able to help people, even if by the time it works I’m really old. It doesn’t interest me that much, but I’m sure to millions of people with lung disease can wait for it to be an option for them. Even though it’s not my thing, I still think it’s pretty cool that scientists are now able to recreate an organ in the human body.

Link:  Artificial lung mimics real organ's design and efficiency

Who's To Blame For Anorexic Children?

Peter D. -- In this article it talks about how that models and barbie dolls are not the cause of Anorexic kids. anorexia is caused by a very rare and it is not contagous. people thought that the movie black swan would cause the anorexia rates to go up, but the rates didnt go up at all after the movie was out.In fact the rates of girls with anorexia went down. a survery showed that most girls think themselves as pretty.

I think this is a great thing to figure out so we narrow down the causes of anorexia. At first i thought that anorexia was a choice in your life, but now I know it is a serious diaease that is very dangorous and deadly. This article makes me want to help the people with anorexia. I hope they find a cure for it some time in the near future.

Link:  Who's To Blame For Anorexic Children?

Trojan Asteroid Discovered Stalking Earth

Adrianna H. -- Astronomers have discovered the first Trojan asteroid sharing Earth's orbit around the sun. Trojans are asteroids locked in stable orbits by a gravitational balancing act between a planet and the sun. Scientists led by Martin Connors from Athabasca University in Canada suspected they may also be in stable positions orbiting with the Earth. WISE looked at the infrared light coming from all over the sky and was particularly good at detecting asteroids, finding about 150,000 of them, including 500 which come near the Earth. By examining the orbits of these objects in the WISE data, Connors and colleagues identified a small asteroid called 2010 TK7 as a probable Earth Trojan. The researchers then used ground-based telescopes to confirm the sighting, calculating that it's been in a stable orbit with Earth for more than 10,000 years.

Different sciencetist and astronomers have figured out that Trojan Asteroids share earths orbit. The asteroids are very bright red. Hopefully sciencetist will able to learn more about it. 2010 TK7 but they haven figured out how to build a rocket that would stay stable. Technology is so advanced that they can see all the activity going on the orbit. I think in the future they will come up with a special telescope that can see everything on the asteroid. I think this discovery will help with future study on asteroids.

Link:  Trojan Asteroid Discovered Stalking Earth