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

Lucy Long Ago

Book Cover

      

Scientists have been searching for it, for a long time. It, was something that was not easy to find, it did not fit into the ancient homo-tree, it was not an australopithecine tree either, it was one of the first hominids that could walk straight up. Its name was Lucy. 

This book "Lucy Long Ago,Uncovering the Mystery of Where we came From." by Catherine Thimmesh, is about the discovery of were us humans came from. Lucy the afarensis, was one the first hominids to walk straight up. And what made this discovery so grand, was the fact that her skeletal system was found in almost perfect condition considering how old it is and that it was buried under many layers of soil. Lucy was found in Hadar, Ethiopia in 1974, by Donald Johanson and his team of scientists, exploring the vast lands. They where on a search to find the mystery of where humans came form. Every skeleton found was another clue, but finding Lucy's Skeleton was a huge clue. She had almost everything intact, except for her right Pelvis which was reconstructed by Owen Lovejoy, who was able to reconstruct it by making a cast of her left Pelvis. Lucy lived sixty million years after the Dinosaurs, and she died, and layed in the grown as stone until found thirty million years later. 

Over the millions and millions of years, a big change takes place. That change is called evolution. Evolution is something that takes place over a long time, it's a change that's not necessarily seen at one time, it takes a very long time for something to evolve into something else. And usually when something evolves it usually evolves into another form that benefits their survival.Some of our ancestor Hominids evolution was that they got taller, and sharper/ human like features, and a ton of body hair loss.

The Hominid Evolution.

Scientist use a lot of artifacts and facts and findings to find out about a creature, and they can study it all they want if they have all the information needed and found. Usually it is very hard to find a lot of information on something that is so old rare as ancient ancestor bones. So sometimes scientists can look at a few guesses and choose their best possibilities and make a best guess. Scientist are able to look at the bones and muscle markings and tell how strong that creature was. Scientists are also able to tell a lot about the mammal like it's skin color just by looking at their habitat that it lived in. So they don't need the hard cold facts, they just need a few surrounding facts to figure out the missing pieces. it's like a puzzle and each leads you closer.


Because of Lucy us humans have a great understanding of where we came form which was the great question asked by many scientists back then, and the scientist can never stop finding information, there is still more out there to be found later on, or we may never find it, it's a great mystery.

I thought that the Author Catherine Thimmesh, wrote this book because she wanted to give out the information but also help readers understand how important it is to know where we humans have came from. And how and why it is important. 

My opinion of this book "Lucy Long Ago Uncovering the Mystery of Where We Came From."  was that i thought it was very informative, and even though it gave facts it told it in a fun story way and sometimes it actually told it like a regular list of facts. But the best part i liked about this book was that it was telling it almost like they where following a journey of one man, almost in the sense of a diary/journal entry, but at the same time not. I really enjoyed this book and it was an easy read, with lots of fun pictures. I very much recommend it!

The Fast Food Industry Beneath the Surface

Hi, everyone! I read the book, Chew On This by Eric Schlosser & Charles Wilson. Reading this book makes me really proud to be a vegetarian. It was about the works that go into making your burger and fries... And the not-so-secret little secrets that fast food industries don’t want you to know.

This book was really informative and surprisingly gripping considering that it was a non-fiction book. This kept my interest for the entire book because I wanted to learn more about the fast food industry. I learned that it is powered and run entirely by greedy, cash-hungry people that care more about the profit of their companies than the well-being of their clients and customers.

This book was much like the movies, Food Inc. and Supersize Me in concept.

You may think that you already know all there is to know about fast food, but it is most likely that you don’t even know the half of it… This book was written specifically for you to know all the facts and to clarify and/or put to rest all of the hazey rumors. It was also written to help you know what the fast food you eat does to your body, how the animals and raw food is treated before the industry gets to it, and how it even alters our children’s minds.

Overall, this book was very on point with the information it gave and I strongly suggest you give it a chance… I’m sure you’ll like it!

                        

Ray Kroc, Corporate Owner of McDonalds

McDonald's Big Mac with Fries and a 32 oz. Coke

 

The Book About Blood by HP Newquist

The book that I read is called The Book About Blood By HP Newquist. It is a book that explores some fascinating ancient tales and history about blood. Scientists began to understand this fluid only one hundred years ago: how it's microscopic components flourish our whole body. Blood is spread so much all throughout your body, that if you poke a needle through your skin, you are drawing blood.  This is because blood travels through a network made up of 100,000 miles of veins, arteries and capillaries.While it is in your body,  blood is always red. It is never blue but some people think it is. This is because some veins look blue under skin. Oxygen that is rich with blood is red, and when blood cells give up oxygen, they lose their brightness. Blood turns dark red as it travels through you, before lightening again when it absorbs air. Your veins aren’t blue either. They appear that way because of the way light interacts with the layers of your skin, letting the area around your veins take on a different color.

During the 1300’s, Europe had little to no education so they believed many superstitions such as the plagues. This period condoned ideas about witches and warlocks, werewolves and vampires. People would believe almost anyone who had a “good” explanation for what was going on around them. Into this confusion came the strangest doctors to ever practice medicine: barbers.  During the Dark Ages, many barbers learned how to become surgeons. This was because of two things. The first was that many real surgeons died during plagues because  they had been infected by the people they were treating. The second was because barbers knew how to use razors, and this was an important skill when you needed to cut someone or something open. The easiest medical procedure for barbers was bloodletting. Around this time, it was called phlebotomy. It became one of the most common ways to treating various illnesses all over Europe.     Bloodletting did continue. These barbers, and the doctors after, had to be very careful when performing phlebotomy because they could easily cut open a vein and let a person bleed to death.                                                                                                                                             
Blood is created in the spongy marrow. Blood flows from your heart to your lungs and back to the  heart to bring oxygen inside your body. Blood pressure is a measure of how hard your blood is pressing against your blood vessels. This is very important because it tells doctors if your heart is beating at an appropriate strength and if there are any problems with your arteries.
The circulatory system is the highway in which your blood reaches every part of your body.  More blood goes to your brain, than to any part of your body. The Circle of Willis ensures that blood gets to the brain by a number of different ways. Everything that you put into your mouth ends up in your blood and these are the organs that play a very important role in helping blood do its job. The liver is your blood system's biggest filter. Your spleen is small, but it acts as a blood reservoir in times of emergency.
All in all, blood is very important, so try to keep it in your body!

The Limitless Universe

I’ve read a lot of books about space but this was the first book I read about an astrophysicist and his life. You may be familiar with this author, some know him as Neil DeGrasse Tyson. You may know him as the director of the Museum of Natural History! He calls this book, The Sky is Not the Limit. It's a great book if you want to learn about Neil's struggles and hardships and how he became an astrophysicist, or if you just want to learn a little about what makes up the night sky. However, if you're looking for a more in-depth science book, this book doesn't talk as much about science as it is more of an autobiography. In this book, we can see how rare it is for an African American to be a

famous physicist because most African Americans usually pursue other jobs as Neil explains to us. He shows us how his school life was affected because he was black and all the challenges that he faced as a result. Despite the difficulties, he was still a very talented young man and many people looked beyond their stereotypes and recognized this. Thus, he got scholarships and was allowed to participate in a lot of trips that involved very famous people, such as Neil Armstrong and Isaac Asimov, to name but a few. He also goes on to tell us that being an astrophysicist is an unusual profession for a black person and most people didn't expect him to pursue the sciences but he never gave up on his life dream. So, even though he is already a famous physicist, he is even more renowned now because of his ethnicity, making him one of the few well known black physicists in the entire world. 

This book is also humorous and funny and shows us how science and math can be fun and interesting because you can always expand your knowledge and try new things. He tells us why science and math are necessary skills in everyday life, whether you're trying to apply for a job or get a 100% on your next science test. To support this point, he gives several humorous examples from his own life, with people who were unfamiliar with the sciences and said very inexact and often times hilarious statements. For example, a news reporter once said on a cold day when the temperature was rapidly approaching 0 degrees, "There is almost no temperature left." 

Overall, I thought this book was very interesting because it showed us a view from the very unique perspective of a black astrophysicist. I also thought it was cool how throughout many hardships, Neil never backed down, never surrendered and did whatever it took to realize his dream. This story shows us courage, sacrifice and a will to keep going even when all seems lost. It shows all of us that if we work hard, we can be whoever we want to be, do whatever we want to do and literally, reach the stars themselves.

  

The Hot Zone: The origins of Ebola

You may have heard about the Ebola virus. If so, you know the ultimate horrors it can do to the human mind, and worse of all, the body. Imagine feeling sick one day. You don't feel well, so you take an asprin. Next day, you cough up your blood in black vomit. Then, you become zombie-like, not being able to think like a person. Then, you crash and bleed. That's when you bleed out all your blood either inside, or you bleed out on the outside. (Outside of your body) It also kills 95% of its victims. Now imagine this virus with the fact that it is incredibly contagious. Now it sounds like it can, and will, if it gets the chance, wipe out humans. Well, The Hot Zone describes how close it came to doing just that.

     The Hot Zone, written by Richard Preston captures the secrets of the deadly Ebola viruses, and their sister  virus Marburg. The book starts out describing The Marburg virus, a virus that makes people bleed out from under their skin, and cough up black bloody vomit. Disgusting but fascinating. It may sound hard to make that fascinating, but Richard Preston does it. The next part is about the Ebola Zaire virus, it has similar symptoms of the Marburg virus, but it kills more people. After Ebola Zaire is discovered officially, the attention switches from what it is to curing it. Sadly, there was no cure. After that, Ebola came the closest to killing off millions of humans. It was discovered outside of Washington D.C. in a monkey house, a business that supplies test monkeys from foreign countries. And you never know what happens in foreign countries. Obviously, nobody is very happy. The Army puts up countermeasures, and after much strife, the Virus is gone, receded into hiding, waiting to strike.

Biohazard team removing something possibly deadly from a hot zone.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and best (Or possibly worst) of all, it is all a true story! The endings to each chapter left me on the edge of my seat, yet it also included a lot of valuable information which is the best thing I will take away from it. The writing was good, but it jumped around too much to seem perfectly flowing. I enjoyed this book because of the facts and the way the author ended the chapters. The fluidity is something that made me somewhat confused as a reader, but nothing bad.

Wikipedia page for "The Hot Zone"
The authors website

Why do Pandas do Handstands?

(source)

For a very long time, Animals were thought to be boring, senseless creatures with no intelligence. This book is all about proving the people who thought that wrong. The book Why do Pandas do Handstands by Augustus Brown, is written kind of strangely in my opinion. It is split into sections, with a brief summary of each section, and then lists off peculiar facts, such as mice sing to their partners, or that caterpillars can roar, or that parrots understand the concept of zero. While the general idea of the book is good, I thought that this might have been better if the author had wrote one book on each section, and then expanded on each animal listed. All in all, I would give this book a two out of five stars, because it wasn't as satisfying of a read as it could have been with all the information in the book. But if you're looking for a quick read or to just learn some interesting facts about animals, this book might be for you.

Just one of many Amazing Animals

Decoding Life: Unraveling The Mysteries of the Human Genome

Have you ever imagined that the growth and development of all life forms on Earth are controlled by tiny pieces of genetic material located inside each and every cell of any organism? These tiny pieces are called genomes which are made up of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA that are located on the chromosomes inside the nucleus of the cell.

Over this past winter break, I read Decoding Life by Ron Fridell, a book that is short yet densely packed with information on everything there is to know about genetics and it's implication in passing different characteristics from one generation to the next. Every creature has its own unique genome but the basic structure of all creatures' genetic material is the same. It also discusses targeting the mutated genes that are responsible for genetic diseases and genetic malformations, future possibilities for making designer babies and even cloning mammals. But the most important topic that this book covers is the work on the development of gene therapy, which could cure genetic diseases and some types of cancer in the future. Another vital idea is to use stem cells in replacing damaged cells instead of fixing it with gene therapy. This book also talks about how scientists believe that aging is the result of the telomeres at the tips of chromosomes, being used up and when this happens, the cell becomes aged thus stops dividing and dies.

In writing this book, I think Ron Fridell was trying to update the public on the very important advancements going on in the current world of genetics.

This genomic revolution leaves scientists with moral and ethical dilemmas that may never be resolved. After all, they have to weight the benefits and the risks involved in altering human genomes.  

Space

       I read a book about how Earth's rotation is slowing, how the moon was formed, the possibility of alien life, and other cool things. The book is titled The Universe At Home in the Cosmos by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Charles Liu, and Robert Irion. I learned a lot of new things. The authors wrote this book because they wanted to connect us to the universe.
       For example, Earth is slowed down by the moon's gravity. Every million years, a day becomes 16 seconds longer. Four hundred million years ago a day was only 22 hours long.
       The moon was created about 4.5 billion years ago. A mars sized asteroid hit the embryonic Earth. The very hot ejecta that came out in the crash started orbiting Earth. This then cooled and was pulled together by gravity to form the moon. Click here to learn more about the creation of the moon.
       Scientists believe that Jupiter's moon Europa could have life. Jupiter heats Europa so that there can be a ocean below the ice. Life could be possible in Europa's ocean because Biologists believe that life on Earth began in the sea.