Owls

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-  Pale grey with neatly scattered dark and light freckles
- Large
- Powerful
- Kills large prey
- Broad, silent, soft wings are manoeuverable
- Lives in woodlands and bushvelds
- Found in Africa, south of the Sahara except for in very dry deserts and very dense forests
- Named after Jules Pierre Verreaux
- Also called the  'Giant Eagle Owl'
- Pink- rimmed eyes with long white eyelashes
- Large beak

Verreaux's eagle owl is a bird which many people, sadly enough, don't realize that it even exists. This owl lives in the beautiful deserts and forests south of the Sahara, in Africa. An outstanding feature of the Verreaux's eagle owl is it's beautiful rim of light pink around it's eyes, which are usually quite stunning themselves. The owl's wings are graceful, broad, velvety soft, and most importantly, quiet, so as not to scare away predators. Not that the owl has many predators; in this part of the world, Verreaux's eagle owl is on the higher half of the food chain. With their large beaks, they can quickly tear apart large mice, shrews, rodents, and other animals. The Verreaux's eagle owl 's attitude and strength earn it the 'eagle' part of it's name.















More information on the Verreaux's eagle owl:


http://www.owls.org/Species/bubo/verreauxs_eagle_owl.htm

If Stone Could Speak

How was stone henge made? find out in the book, If Stones Could speak by Marc Arson, the book was a very good book about an acheoligist named Mike Pearson and his discoveries at stonehenge, It was a very well written book that had me hooked just by looking at the cover hooked . I recommend this book because of how surprising it was. Since I have seen Stonehenge it made me think I knew about Stonehenge, but it ends up I barly knew half about it.



Mike Pearson the acheoligist

There where a few problems about the book though, I didn't see that much science in the book I only really saw history but I there were a few moments that had to do with science. After I read this book I gave Stonehenge a whole knew meaning it's not just a pile of rocks stacked on top of each over it's a historical masterpiece. I would also recomend going to see Stonehenge.
If you want to know more about stone henge press on this link below. 

The reason that Marc Arson had wrote this book because he, himself was always fasinated with stone henge and then when Mike Pearsin started reaserching Stonehenge he started observing to, and then wrote this book. I hope I convinced you to read this book.

Influenza

                               INFLUENZA

It's 1918, and war is upon us. Thousands have been killed already and everyone is tired and hungry.
Hundreds are killed everyday worldwide and death is everywhere. And then in a small army camp outside Philadelphia a soldier gets sick. He's stuck in bed and he's not feeling his greatest. He has a cough, but thats about it. In a matter of hours after the initial sickness started, the sick young private starts hacking up bloody mucus and saliva and he's having resparatory problems. A couple of hours after that the boy is dead and his body is sent to the surgeon for an autopsy and examination. The doctor cuts open the young soldiers lungs to find them drowned in bloody mucus and bodily fluids. The boy drowned to death, essentially for his lungs were full of liquid. After that another healthy young man gets sick and dies. Then another, and another until the entire army camp is in a frenzy of sick and dying soldiers. But what enemy were these poor soldiers killed by? An enemy we cannot see, an enemy we cannot smell, or taste. An enemy that has killed more people world-wide then any war ever to be held on this planet has and has killed over 100 million people in 1918 alone. This enemy is Influenza.

News.wisc.edu

 Gina Kolata's book "Influenza" explains the story behind the most deadly pandemic ever. It's very informative and thouroughly explains the whole story behind this silent killer, as well as briefly explaining other deadly diseases such as Cholera and Tuberculosis. What I find incredibly interesting is the fact that everyone has gotten Influenza but it just so happens that this insanely deadly strand of this fairly normal disease should happen to make itself known at a time of war, where death is already so common.  If you want to learn more about Influenza check out the CDC's (center for disease control) website.

http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu

BY: WHIT CLARK

The Odyssey Of KP2

I read the book by Terrie M. Williams called The Journey Of KP2. I thought the book was pretty good. Terrie is a world renowned scientist and that gives you an inside look at the world of scientist. In this blog you'll learn about the great things that Terrie teaches you.

I really enjoyed how you get to see all the different methods that scientists use for measuring and learning new things about ainmals. Also you get to see that scientists learn so many new things when reasearching an ainmal. Sometimes when you think of scientists, you always think they now everything but this makes them more human to me. The humaness of the book is the thing I enjoy the most. But the one complaint I do have for the book is that there was not taht much excitement and it left you wanting more. But as I said, being able to see what a scientist does is overshadows the bad things.

Here is a link talking about Terrie M. Willams http://freshfiction.com/author.php?id=30187. The book is about a hawaian monk seal who is abandoned by his motehr. Then the seal is nursed to health by the humans in hawaii. KP2 as he is known soon becomes an island favorite.But teh narrator decides that this is the perfect oprurtunity to study the almost extinct seal speices.Then you learn teh sweet story of a seal who just wants to be loved.

Here is a picture of an hawaiian monk seal: 












The seal is a very lovable and cute creature. Here is a link explaining more about it http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/pinnipeds/hawaiianmonkseal.htm.


The one problem with Kp2 was blind, so it wa sharder to do reserach on him. Some pople said he should be uthanized but as you see in this video he was just amazing seal.

I thought this book was an amazing book and it really moved me, I highly recomend it!

Deciphering The Senses

There are many things that go ‘bump’ in the night that amaze and astound us.A man feels pain in his leg, but he doesn't have his leg anymore. A painter makes a beautiful landscape, But he is blind. Is there really a sixth sense? Do you ever feel like your being watched?, or something is gonna happen and then it does? Have you ever had a hypinc jerk? (that's when you are getting drowsy and you "jerk" yourself up? If you wonder what these are, the book Phenomena: by Donna M. Jackson is the book you should take a look into!
check out this video on illusions!

Reading this book by Donna M. Jackson was very good,  but it isn't a book for inpatient people, its very tedious. 


I believe Donna M. Jackson's reason for making this book and deciding to put this information out in the world as a published book was extremely important to make the world aware of our surroundings as well as our minds and bodies. It is also interesting to comprehend and learn about the mysteries and our dreams and our senses, as well.  I learned a lot from this book and definitely do not regret reading it . I've always been interested in all of stuff. But,  Phenomena is a hard book to read and its different then a lot of books.This book  has helped me learn more about the brain, the types of dreams, why humans react to certain things, emotions, sensations, how the brain gets and understands information, And why we have déjà vu, 

An Seal's Tale

Kp2!!!

I read a book called The Odyssey of KP2 by Dr. Terrie Williams, an eminent wildlife biologist.  This book is the story of a biologist, two trainers and Kp2’s (an abandoned seal pup) friendship.  This book was written to tell us this amazing story.  In this book we learn about the Hawai’ian Monk Seal an endangered species.  We learn about how Kp2 and his trainers, Traci and Beau’s amazing.  You will learn about how an animal from a usually solitaire species is as friendly as puppy. You will also learn how he changes America and americans all over the country for good. How a seal helps clean the beaches. How he inspires children from Texas to Hawai’i help clean our streets and oceans.  How one animal can have Hawai’ian’s protesting to bring their Hoaloha (friend) home.  I really loved this book because though the beginning is sad the rest of the book is comical, amusing and cheery.  If you like cute animal’s and inspirational tales, than you will love this book.

Here Kp2 tries to salute but his flippers are to short so the only reach his noes.

Here is a cute video about Kp2 ft. Kp2 -->

Here is an interview with the author Dr. Terrie Williams-->

In this video Kp2 plays with mac the dog-->

Here Kp2 picks up his toys dispite the the fact that he can't see-->

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

      Henrietta Lacks was a life-loving young woman in the 1930s who loved going to dance clubs at night and being with friends. There was one thing that was stopping her from living a normal life: Henrietta Lacks was living with cancer. I read the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It is a very interesting book about a young African American woman named Henrietta Lacks who had cervical cancer. During her operation to get her tumor out, a doctor named George Gey took some cells from her tumor without her or her family's permission and put them in his lab. Unlike most cell samples, her's reproduced at an enormous rate and are still reproducing today. Her cells were shipped to labs all around the world and were used to make many vaccinations, to find out the effects on bombs, and for cloning. Many scientists were making a lot of money on Henrietta's immortal cells which were known as HeLa cells but her family got nothing. Scientists didn't want people to know who the owner of the HeLa cells were so they gave the media names like Helen Lane or Helen Larson so no one would find out who's cells they really were. But her family eventually found out. I liked reading this book because it is totally true to life and it wasn't only about the HeLa cells but also about Henrietta Lacks and the Lacks family so I definitely recommend this book.

Henrietta Lacks