Happy Turkey Day, everyone! Here are some holiday themed articles for your pleasure:
Splurging a little too much on Black Friday? A bigger Thanksgiving dinner can remedy that.
Pig out More at Thanksgiving and You May Shop Less
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091118163210.htm
I only got to skim this (and most of the other articles) quickly, but it seems as though there is a specific molecule that says, "I'm full! No more turkey for me!"
Brain Sense Fatty Food: Molecule Shuts Down Food Intake And Turns On 'Siesta Mode'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081126122207.htm
Hmm... Chugging down your Thanksgiving Dinner seems to a double no-no this holiday season (and at every other instance.)
Eating Quickly Is Associated With Overeating, Study Indicates
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091104085230.htm
What does pie have to do with Powerpoint presentations? I don't know, but this interesting article turned up when I looked up "pie" on science daily. It's holiday related by a stretch, isn't it? (okay, I admit, it isn't, but it's still cool!)
Could Power Point Presentations Be Stifling Learning?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611110829.htm
Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Make sure you eat lots of food!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Thoughts for the Week
SunnyD and Kokopelli, where are the Thoughts for the weekend? There isn't anything! Anyway, I have decided to fill that gap in my brain with my own:
"The history of any one part of the Earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror." British geologist Derek V. Ager (from Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything)
How long do erasable pens stay erasable? (if you didn't know, some do turn permament)
"The history of any one part of the Earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror." British geologist Derek V. Ager (from Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything)
How long do erasable pens stay erasable? (if you didn't know, some do turn permament)
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Got Science?
Welcome all! This week's lineup seems interesting, so let's check it out.
It's the BEASTIE!! No, it's not, but here is an article on taming the "beastie."
Child Psychology: Tips on Taming the 'Boogie Monster'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091113083303.htm
What will you be when you grow up? Kids are deciding earlier nowadays, maybe you should too.
Today's Children Decide Their School and Career Path Early http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091115123711.htm
It thinks for itself. (of course, this is about bugs. Again)
Bigger Not Necessarily Better, When It Comes to Brainshttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091117124009.htm
Guess what? The world isn't about to end, the Mayans were just going to celebrate another long cycle or something like that. Good thing that was cleared up.
'Doomsday' 2012 Prediction Explained: Mayan Calendar Was Cyclical
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091113122958.htm
Ooh, ooh, this is the funniest thing about science: most of the really big discoveries in science is made... by accident!! There's this really great quote that goes something like, "The (best or something like that) phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...' " Anyway, they apparently found the perfect blue dye by just fiddling around with some materials.
Accidental Discovery Produces Durable New Blue Pigment for Multiple Applications
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091116143621.htm
Out of all of them, I'd say that the Doomsday article is the best read, the blue pigment a close second. See you next week!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Science Thought For the Weekend 11/13
Sunnyd's Thought for the Weekend is
"In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurred." Sir William Oster (1849-1919)
My first reaction was What a coincidence! The book I happen to be reading loves to point out that very fact- and I think that that is one of truest (and saddest) facts of science. For instance, in the book, A Short History of Nearly Everything (which I'm not done with yet) one very good example of credit not being given is the unlucky Gideon Mantell. This man was a doctor in practice, but an amazing (amateur) paleontologist as well. Here's a short bit of how unlucky this poor man was: his wife discovered a fossilized tooth, and taking it home to her husband who takes interest in this type of thing, Mantell immediately realized that this belonged to a new creature: something we now know as a dinosaur, but nobody knew at that time. After being cautioned by his friend (a rather eccentric person) to be careful as to how he presents this find, he spent three years trying to find evidence to support the fact that this belongs to a new type of very old creature. One expert in Paris said it was from a hippo, another researcher said it beloned to a lizard. Of course, during this time, the very friend who told Mantell to be careful went ahead and discovered a dinosaur himself, and is credited with the first published description of a dinosaur. Of course, this wasn't the least of Mantell's woes, but only one (and definitely not the worst). There are probably millions of tales like these because people weren't lucky enough to be the first, get published, attract attention, or even be alive when people finally realized the discovery's worth (that can happen with really big discoveries). Scientists, clearly, have to be people-smart, science-smart, and have a lot of luck to be successful.
"In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurred." Sir William Oster (1849-1919)
My first reaction was What a coincidence! The book I happen to be reading loves to point out that very fact- and I think that that is one of truest (and saddest) facts of science. For instance, in the book, A Short History of Nearly Everything (which I'm not done with yet) one very good example of credit not being given is the unlucky Gideon Mantell. This man was a doctor in practice, but an amazing (amateur) paleontologist as well. Here's a short bit of how unlucky this poor man was: his wife discovered a fossilized tooth, and taking it home to her husband who takes interest in this type of thing, Mantell immediately realized that this belonged to a new creature: something we now know as a dinosaur, but nobody knew at that time. After being cautioned by his friend (a rather eccentric person) to be careful as to how he presents this find, he spent three years trying to find evidence to support the fact that this belongs to a new type of very old creature. One expert in Paris said it was from a hippo, another researcher said it beloned to a lizard. Of course, during this time, the very friend who told Mantell to be careful went ahead and discovered a dinosaur himself, and is credited with the first published description of a dinosaur. Of course, this wasn't the least of Mantell's woes, but only one (and definitely not the worst). There are probably millions of tales like these because people weren't lucky enough to be the first, get published, attract attention, or even be alive when people finally realized the discovery's worth (that can happen with really big discoveries). Scientists, clearly, have to be people-smart, science-smart, and have a lot of luck to be successful.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Got Science?
Hello to all! We have an interesting lineup of articles here, so let's take a look.
Healthy ice cream? Well, I'm not sure whether I'd buy it, but it seems to be a good idea and some researchers seem to think so too. (Although I have to ask: why would a university have ice cream researchers in the first place? They explain it in the article, but still...)
Erm... This study was about bugs, everyone. Really!
Healthy ice cream? Well, I'm not sure whether I'd buy it, but it seems to be a good idea and some researchers seem to think so too. (Although I have to ask: why would a university have ice cream researchers in the first place? They explain it in the article, but still...)
Ice Cream Researchers Making Sweet Strides With 'Functional Foods'
Who here likes candy and soda? I do. But apparently, one of the ingredients, corn syrup, commonly found in many sweet treats that we like to eat causes high blood pressure. Who would have ever guessed it was *cough cough* unhealthy?
High Fructose Corn Syrup: A Recipe For Hypertension, Study Finds
Erm... This study was about bugs, everyone. Really!
Why Nice Guys Usually Get the Girls
For my dinosaur loving friend, here is an interesting article for your examination and commentation (which is apparently not a word). For everyone else, feel free to read it!
Warm-blooded Dinosaurs Worked Up A Sweat
"EBF3, I want two bicycles and an ipod touch, pronto!" Okay, maybe that's a little too far. Anyway, the machine that I'm talking about can create metal parts, layer by layer, as long as you can provide it a detailed 3-D drawing that's compatible with it's functuality, of course. Pretty cool- probably bordering sci-fi.
Star Trek-like Replicator? Electron Beam Device Makes Metal Parts, One Layer At A Time
And that's it for this week!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Science Flash: A "Black Hole" for Light
I actually learned about this first from my dad, who was reading in an article in Chinese. He said that some Chinese scientists actually made a black hole. Honestly, after reading about "mini black holes" that pop in and out of existence, I wasn't that concerned- until he said that it wasn't super small, like I suggested. That made me (literally) jump out of my seat (well, the couch) because any black hole made on earth that's visible to the naked eye would be really, really bad- rather, we wouldn't be here if it was a true, cosmic, suck-everything-up black hole. To my dad's credit, I must mention that he said it was for light. Still, it's not quite a black hole! To get the real scoop, I yahooed it (with no results) and googled it, to get this article. At least it's in English now.
First black hole for light created on Earth
First, before we start talking about the article, I want to point out what the "black hole" I had in mind was. A black hole occurs when you take something- anything, really,- and squish it down until it's really, really, really (really) small. For instance, I might be wrong, but I believe if you wanted to squish yourself that small, you'd have to be as small as a molecule- which is really small. Once it collapses down to a certain radius (there's a name for it, but I don't know how to spell or say it), it becomes so dense that it's gravity is really strong- so strong that light cannot escape the pull of it. Let's take an example that is almost certainly wrong, but gets the general gist of it. Let's say that I have a very big sheet of unbreakable fabric, which would be the space-time continuum. Now, put a school-bus on it. It creates a sag in the fabric, right? The sag is the gravity (according to Einstein) because if you were a marble on it, you'd roll down, or be "attracted to" the school bus. Next, you have to put on some muscle and compress the entire school bus into a tiny ball the size of a pinhead- no, not taking a little piece, but actually stuffing all that matter into a little ball. Put that little ball on the fabric, and voila! you see that it creates a "hole" that your marble self would just roll into and never come out again. That is a black hole. Such a thing on earth that, even it was a size of an atom, would suck us all up into oblivion if I have it correct, although the good thing would be that we wouldn't even know it (people were worrying about that when they launched the LHC Collider, which smashes atoms to find things like evaporating mini black holes and weird elementary particles. Complicated stuff). Anyway, it's fascinating to think about, but not a good thing to have.
The article is says they have made a "black hole for light." Is it a black hole that will suck us all up? No!! It's almost completely different than what a cosmic black hole is. It is meant to trap electromagnetic radiation (light, microwaves, etc.), not people, so rest easy. It is supposed to work on the principle of black holes in the sense that light spirals towards the center. I think of it more like a labyrinth that forces you to go a certain way. Back to the article- when they do start talking about the device, they say, "The key to making light curve inwards is to make the shell's permittivity – which affects the electric component of an electromagnetic wave – increase smoothly from the outer to the inner surface." If you are having one of those What's that? faces, then you know what I'm thinking. Permittivity, according to to dictionary.com, is "A measure of the ability of a material to resist the formation of an electric field within it." So, I'm guessing that that the outside attracts the light or microwave and the inside, well, keeps it inside- although it all transitions smoothly, of course. Two scientists, Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University of Nanjing made one of these "black holes" for microwaves (the radiation used to heat up your hot cocoa) with 60 round strips made out of a special material called "meta-materials." Meta-material's acclaim to fame, so to speak, is that they are used to make things invisible. (Quick lesson on invisibility: you bend the rays around the object you want to make invisible so the rays don't bounce off and go into your eye, making you "see" it. Don't count on it too soon though, I'm pretty sure they still have a long way to go. All the good stuff you'll probably have to wait a long time for) The outer 40 rings form the shell that the light/microwaves enter, and the inner 20 actually absorb it. Each of the rings apparently look like a circuit board. In the first version, the absorber converts the microwaves (or is it light? I'm confused) into heat.
Now that the version for microwaves is done, they are hoping to do the same for light. However, since light has smaller wavelengths than microwaves (the electromagnetic spectrum!), they have to make the circuitry on the boards a lot smaller. The purpose for this is that they could hopefully put a solar cell in the middle of the absorber, converting the light into electricity. If so, they could use this black-holeish thing instead of huge mirrors to focus enough sunlight on the cells. (Yes, you need sunlight for solar cells to work, you can't put it in half-shade and expect it to produce a whole bunch of electricity).
In my opinion, this is definitely impressive, but it is not exactly the biggest thing that ever happened. After all, with the ability to bend light and all those smart people (not me, I'm just the critic) out there, somebody probably would have come up with it sooner or later. However, the speed that they work and the neatness is definitely a big accomplishment. Also, I think that they (I don't know who gave the name, so I'm saying they) completely misnamed it. Black holes will make people jump, you know! Couldn't they have named it something like the "light-trapper" or "sun-collector" or "light labyrinth" or even "a device that simulates the effects of a black hole on space-time with meta-materials in order to bend light into a compact thingamajig." Making a black hole in any headline would definitely make people read it, but still, when it's in Chinese (English too) it's hard to get the real scoop without using dictionaries and a lot of prior knowledge that's there because of luck! (Actually, you could argue it's my fault for not learning Chinese properly and that I shouldn't be on a Chinese website in the first place, but it still makes people jump to weird conclusions). Wow, I just realized there are a lot of comments, and a treasure trove of information as well. I like how one person said "it is more of a lens made of meta-materials" because that makes more sense and is not nearly as extreme as a black hole! Plus, some people interpret it as sucking in light, while others think that the light has to hit the thing first, then it navigates its way to the middle. I agree with the latter more, because it says nothing about attracting anything other than the reference to black holes. There are also a lot of people pointing out that meta-materials aren't exactly cheap, so whether this light-trap (as people call it) would be more expensive or cheaper than mirrors is also something to consider. Others point out that this could have other uses. The one that I think was the most interesting (and probably practical) would be to create cheaper versions of this in order to trap excess radio waves and other radiation types from cell phones and wireless devices in the office to reduce exposure. There are also a lot of comments (you can see the varying degrees of "it's a black hole" vs. it's not) that actually take the idea of a black hole literally (one started talking about a black hole bomb! I don't think that would be possible with a light-trap). Overall a good discussion of the article in the comments- and there's a link to another version of the article! Here it is! http://blogs.discovery.com/space_disco/2009/10/first-ever-black-hole-created-on-earth.html Don't read the comments on that one, though, since it's a somewhat nasty discussion. Otherwise, it's definitely a good discovery, but they could have been clearer on the actual device, not just going "it's like a black hole!" because that isn't a good analogy at all- and certainly not good for innocent schoolkids to read, since they can get mixed up.
Science Buzz: A Really Cool Website!
I could not ignore the treasures of this website any longer- this website is amazing!
I played around with this website a couple of years ago, and I rediscovered in my bookmarks a couple of days ago. The main appeal of this website are all the online exhibits and activities- there is an incredible amount of info that you can learn from this website. It is actually a museum's website, but they have a lot of online games and activities. However, I just found today that if you happen to have finished all of those (and that'll take you a big chunk of time), they have a section of the website thoughtfully dedicated to more links about many subjects! I couldn't believe it, but they probably have enough cool links to occupy anyone for a very, very, very long time. If you ask me, this must be one of the most amazing websites on the web! Most websites have one or two things to do and that's it, but this website must have hundreds! I highly reccomend this website, it's great for anything!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Science Flash: Protection for Coral Reefs
When I was in second grade, we spent an enormous amount of time on the ocean (half a year with a teacher that actually appreciates science is a lot of info to soak in) and a large amount of that was spent on coral reefs. Therefore, it was very gratifying to see this particular headline at sciencedaily.
Coral Reefs Inspire Rare Consensus -- Just Save Them
The basic point of this entire article is that people want to save the coral reefs for the sake of saving them even if it means that people will be kept out for a while. For some basic info on coral, coral are little polyps with skeleton (that's the coral that shows up on beaches) and live with algae inside them, which provides the coral with food and their colors. The coral have to live with certain conditions to keep the algae alive: a warm temperature and clear waters so sunlight can reach the algae. Many creatures live in the coral reef (which is basically a whole lot of coral polyps all together), including but not limited to tropical fishes, eels, starfish, rays, and a lot of colorful critters. Here is a picture (I've given up trying to add more):
From: http://openphoto.net//volumes/dkeats/20050705/openphotonet_clownfish_fiji.jpg
The thing about coral reefs is: they're delicate, easy to kill, and take a long (millions of years) time to grow. If the temperature is a little higher or lower, or you accidently step on them, spill some chemicals, and a whole lot of other things, then a piece of coral can die as a result. They are incredibly diverse and beautiful, and having studied them for so long in second grade, I have a bit of an attachment to them. Anyway, they did some surveys, and found that the attitude of people towards coral reefs is that the reef comes first, and we should preserve them even if that means less revenue from the coral reefs. This is just amazing, but consider this: we can barely conserve our forests because we need the paper and timber. The equivalent of "paper and timber" for the coral reefs would be the large amount of money from the tourist industry. However, people agree that coral reefs are something to preserve, and say that if they can't visit it anymore, then they'd be fine with that. I am very, very happy about that, and that's about all I can say. (I know this is brief compared to what I usually do, but it's a simple article with a lot of meaning that's hard to express.) Perhaps our grandchildren and great-grandchildren may be able to witness the stunning beauty of the coral reefs after all.Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Got Science?
Welcome to the second weekly Got Science? post! Today, we shall look at some rather odd science news worth blogging about (and just in time for that homework assignment too!)
Does anyone get irritated at those stickers on fruit that you have to take off before you eat it? Has anyone eaten one of those by accident? (I haven't... yet) Now there seems to be a sticker-free and approved alternative to labeling grapefruit: lasers! Completely random if you ask me, but I suppose that there are scientists and companies out there that just can't stand stickers.
Tick tock, tick tock! We aren't the only ones with clocks, you know. Apparently, they have discovered that hydrogen peroxide could be the main chemical responsible for the rhythms in cells.
Not Just Bleach: Hydrogen Peroxide May Tell Time For Living Cells
Guess what? No matter how many times people say "Don't judge a book by its cover," we seem to anyway! The first one is about how we make judgements about people just by looking at them (or their photo). The second is about how if your teacher ruins his/her first impression(s), there's not much they can do to make up for it. Kind of sad, if you ask me. I know a friend who thinks a really great teacher I know is really mean because the teacher slammed the door once quite hard and tore some person's packet in half (although that person wasn't innocent in any way). I'd suggest you blog these two together because they are related and the first one provides good info and the second is easy to relate to.
First Impressions Count When Making Personality Judgments, New Research Shows
Poor Start Between A Class And Its Teacher Almost Impossible To Rectify
In physics, the ultimate speed limit is the speed of light. Apparently, there seems to be a speed limit for evolution as well. This relates well to what we're learning in class, so if you want something like that, then this would be the one for you.
Speed Limit To The Pace Of Evolution, Biologists Say
Does anyone get irritated at those stickers on fruit that you have to take off before you eat it? Has anyone eaten one of those by accident? (I haven't... yet) Now there seems to be a sticker-free and approved alternative to labeling grapefruit: lasers! Completely random if you ask me, but I suppose that there are scientists and companies out there that just can't stand stickers.
Laser Etching Safe Alternative For Labeling Grapefruit
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Science Class: Ecology
I have so many posts for, it seems, everything but class reflections and I figured I should solve that dilema do one to study for the test tomorrow, so here goes!
In class, we've been studying ecology, or the study of the relationships and interactions between living organisms and their environment. So, here are some vocabulary included in the first section (I know it's boring, but I need to study, so bear with me):
Environment: consists of all the non-living and living things in which an organism may interact.
Ecosystem: All the living and non-living things in a given area. The size of a ecosystem is defined by the ecologist studying it (e.g. a drop of pond water or an entire ocean- big difference there, but it's still up to the ecologist)
Ecologist: someone who studies ecology
Community: Consists of all the living organisms in an ecosystem
Population: A group of organisms of the same species (I think of it as the number of organisms of the same species)
Habitat: Where an organism lives.
Okay, now I will try to discuss this bit in an interesting and amusing manner. All of these technical definitions make my head spin, and it raises some questions: First, if the definition of an environment consists of all of the things that an organism may interact, then what about the things that an organism doesn't interact? Is there even such a thing that we can't interact with? (Dark matter doesn't count because a) nobody knows what it is and b) I don't get what it is!) Also, if an organism dies, is it still an "organism"? So is it taken for granted that organism in all of the definitions refers to a living organism? Are there even "official" definitions for all of these things? Anyway, there is an interesting website called "Kids Do Ecology" that I found. Here's a link: http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/ Some of it we learned, some of it we didn't. Apparently, ecology (from Greek) translates into "study of the household," so we are studying the "house" that we live in: Earth. There were also two new vocabulary words: abiotic factors, which are non-living factors, and biotic factors, which are living factors.
The next bit that we learned about were the different energy roles and food chains/webs. There are three main energy roles: producers, consumers, and decomposers. Producers produce their own food. The best example of this are plants: they take sun, air, water, and nutrients from the soil and photosynthesize to make food. However, in the ocean, the producers (surprisingly) aren't plants. Link time! http://kingfish.coastal.edu/biology/sgilman/770PlanktonBenthos.htm Annoyingly, while I did learn quite a bit from it, most of it I didn't get and it didn't answer my original question (which I will get to later). Interestingly, the producers in the ocean are phytoplankton, algae, and seaweed, but those are not plants! I honestly never knew that, I assumed they were plants. Interestingly, phytoplankton is generally not a major source of food. Algae, or mainly diatoms since they're slightly bigger, are eaten a lot. However, I wanted to know what were the producers at the bottom of the ocean, where no sunlight falls. I thought it was the tube worms that feed on sulfur from the vents. However, according to this webpage, http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/oceanography_recently_revealed1.html, it is actually bacteria that convert the sulfur into energy through a process called chemosynthesis. The bacteria live inside the vent worms, nourishing it. Okay, enough about ocean producers, we must move on. Consumers are organism that feeds directly or indirectly on another organism. There are four special types of consumers: herbivores, carnivores, omnivores and scavengers. Herbivores eat producers, carnivores eat consumers, omnivores eat everything, and scavengers eat dead organisms, which is usually meat but sometimes plants as well. However, isn't a scavenger a type of carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore? Also, if scavengers eat dead organisms, then how dead does it have to be? We are omnivores, but our food is most definately already deceased. Moving on! A food chain, by what the textbook says, is a series of events that transfers food and energy from one organism to another. I honestly hope we won't be tested on that specific definition. Food chains always (as we were taught) start with producers, then consumers, then the decomposers link the tail end to the front. An example would be: Grass -> Rabbit -> Fox-> Bacteria. However, shouldn't the resources that producers use be the start of the food chain? A food web is a bunch of interlinked food chains. Here is an example (I never knew uploading pictures could be so difficult):
In class, we've been studying ecology, or the study of the relationships and interactions between living organisms and their environment. So, here are some vocabulary included in the first section (I know it's boring, but I need to study, so bear with me):
Environment: consists of all the non-living and living things in which an organism may interact.
Ecosystem: All the living and non-living things in a given area. The size of a ecosystem is defined by the ecologist studying it (e.g. a drop of pond water or an entire ocean- big difference there, but it's still up to the ecologist)
Ecologist: someone who studies ecology
Community: Consists of all the living organisms in an ecosystem
Population: A group of organisms of the same species (I think of it as the number of organisms of the same species)
Habitat: Where an organism lives.
Okay, now I will try to discuss this bit in an interesting and amusing manner. All of these technical definitions make my head spin, and it raises some questions: First, if the definition of an environment consists of all of the things that an organism may interact, then what about the things that an organism doesn't interact? Is there even such a thing that we can't interact with? (Dark matter doesn't count because a) nobody knows what it is and b) I don't get what it is!) Also, if an organism dies, is it still an "organism"? So is it taken for granted that organism in all of the definitions refers to a living organism? Are there even "official" definitions for all of these things? Anyway, there is an interesting website called "Kids Do Ecology" that I found. Here's a link: http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/ Some of it we learned, some of it we didn't. Apparently, ecology (from Greek) translates into "study of the household," so we are studying the "house" that we live in: Earth. There were also two new vocabulary words: abiotic factors, which are non-living factors, and biotic factors, which are living factors.
The next bit that we learned about were the different energy roles and food chains/webs. There are three main energy roles: producers, consumers, and decomposers. Producers produce their own food. The best example of this are plants: they take sun, air, water, and nutrients from the soil and photosynthesize to make food. However, in the ocean, the producers (surprisingly) aren't plants. Link time! http://kingfish.coastal.edu/biology/sgilman/770PlanktonBenthos.htm Annoyingly, while I did learn quite a bit from it, most of it I didn't get and it didn't answer my original question (which I will get to later). Interestingly, the producers in the ocean are phytoplankton, algae, and seaweed, but those are not plants! I honestly never knew that, I assumed they were plants. Interestingly, phytoplankton is generally not a major source of food. Algae, or mainly diatoms since they're slightly bigger, are eaten a lot. However, I wanted to know what were the producers at the bottom of the ocean, where no sunlight falls. I thought it was the tube worms that feed on sulfur from the vents. However, according to this webpage, http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/oceanography_recently_revealed1.html, it is actually bacteria that convert the sulfur into energy through a process called chemosynthesis. The bacteria live inside the vent worms, nourishing it. Okay, enough about ocean producers, we must move on. Consumers are organism that feeds directly or indirectly on another organism. There are four special types of consumers: herbivores, carnivores, omnivores and scavengers. Herbivores eat producers, carnivores eat consumers, omnivores eat everything, and scavengers eat dead organisms, which is usually meat but sometimes plants as well. However, isn't a scavenger a type of carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore? Also, if scavengers eat dead organisms, then how dead does it have to be? We are omnivores, but our food is most definately already deceased. Moving on! A food chain, by what the textbook says, is a series of events that transfers food and energy from one organism to another. I honestly hope we won't be tested on that specific definition. Food chains always (as we were taught) start with producers, then consumers, then the decomposers link the tail end to the front. An example would be: Grass -> Rabbit -> Fox-> Bacteria. However, shouldn't the resources that producers use be the start of the food chain? A food web is a bunch of interlinked food chains. Here is an example (I never knew uploading pictures could be so difficult):
From: http://www.biologycorner.com/resources/foodweb1.gif
The decomposers in this picture are very enthusiastic bacteria, so they have spelled out "Bacteria" and all of the arrows for you, but since they are microscopic, you can't see it. There are many food chains in this food web, like leaves -> mouse -> fox -> bacteria. Food chains are better than food webs for the survival of the community because removing one link in a chain will destroy the chain. However, if we remove one link in a web, then the web can adapt. For instance, if I removed leaves, then it will impact the web but not necessarily destroy it. Why? Because the mouse, which eats leaves, will eat more grasshoppers instead. The grasshoppers, which eat leaves and berries, will simply eat berries only. Of course, chances are the populations of a lot of organisms in this web will shift because of the removal of the leaves, but the web itself will survive. This is also a good time to introduce something else we learned in class: energy pyramids. The basic concept behind an energy pyramid is to show energy transfers and how the amount of energy available decreases as you go up the pyramid. To start, let's begin at the bottom: producers. Producers have the largest amount of energy because they make their own: of course they use some of it, but some of it also goes into the actual producer. Going with the food web above, let's put leaves at the bottom of our food web. Now, let's say a primary consumer, a mouse, comes and eats all of the leaves (let's say six to keep it simple) off of a plant. The plant got more energy than the mouse did because the mouse only got the energy in the plant. However, the plant doesn't just store energy, it also uses it. So, to make up fictional units of energy, let's say the plant received 1,000,000 pippins of energy in its lifetime. It used 990,000 of those pippins to grow, make more energy, and do whatever plants do. There's only 10,000 pippins in the actual plant, which the mouse eats. Therefore, the mouse gets 10,000 pippins from the plant. However, the mouse got eaten by a fox! Through this time, the mouse used up 9,900 pippins from the plant for running, finding more food, chatting with other mice, and doing whatever mice do. The fox only gets 10 pippins indirectly from the plant. Pretty small compared to the 1,000,000 pippins that the plant had!
Finally, the last section talks about different types of interactions, relationships, and adaptations. I am hoping to speed up this process, but I don't think that will happen. A niche is an organism's role in the environment-what it does, needs, where it lives, etc. Two species may not occupy the same niche at the same time because it would create enormous competition. It's like someone coming and saying that they'll be you for a day: you won't like that, and both of you would be competing to see who gets to be, well, you. Competition is when two or more organisms have to struggle (i.e. compete) against each other to get resources to survive. The driving force in competition is survival (but then again, doesn't that drive everything?). Organisms deal with competition by either adapting, dividing up the habitat (I'll eat this flower and you'll eat that flower), moving, reducing the competition, or if they cannot do any of these things, dying. Predation is the type of interaction is when an organism kills another organism for food, although this is a little fuzzy. The predator is the organism that eats the other, and the prey is the organism that's being eaten. However, I say that this is a little fuzzy because if you really pay attention to the wording, that means that almost everything besides producers are predators: after all, we eat dead plants, right? They are already picked and not alive by the time it gets on our plates. Of course, you don't necessarily have to kill to get food, like bees harvest nectar to get honey to eat, but most creatures don't consume things and keep it alive. Organisms can adapt to predators and vice-versa by adapting to run fast, grow hard shells, have different colors, etc. Finally, my favorite (because it's interesting): symbiosis. Symbiosis is a close relationship between two organisms in which one lives on, near, or in the other organism and at least one organism is harmed. There are three types: parasitism, commensalism, and mutualism (they aren't usually listed in that order). Parasitism is the type of symbiosis in which one organism benefits and the other does not. The parasite benefits, the host does not. For instance, the strangler fig tree and the other tree that we saw in class the other day is an example of parasitism (yes, I'm just repeating what was said in class). The strangler fig tree sprouts in the canopy of the rainforest and grows downward, wrapping its roots around its host tree. The host tree, while not really "strangled," cannot grow any larger, and is slowly killed by the strangler fig tree by which point should have reached the ground. Commensalism is when one organism benefits and the other is not affected- nothing good and nothing bad happens. For instance, ravens would hang around wolves because they can get a free meal when the wolves are done eating, since they leave scraps once they're done eating. I found a website that says that the symbiosis between a clownfish and an sea anemone is commensalism, but people could argue that it's mutualism because the clownfish gets protection and attracts prey for the sea anemone. (http://www.owc.org.mn/econet/html/commensalism.htm) Mutualism is when both organisms benefits. For instance, an interesting example that I learned from when I was in second grade was a sea anemone and a crab- that is, the sea anemone rides on the crab. I won't tell why it's mutualism, it's a puzzle for anyone out there to figure out. Another type (we studied the ocean really in-depth in second grade) is coral and algae. The algae is safe inside the coral, which is the benefit for the algae, and the algae provides important resources for the coral. While I did learn this in second grade, here's a link for further reading: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/corals/coral02_zooxanthellae.html.
Wow, that took a really long time! In ecology overall, though, I find myself thinking a lot about the stuff I learned from second grade, the magic school bus series, and all those science videotapes that I had to watch. I didn't really think I knew much, but there seems to be random facts in the corners of my brain that pop up all the time. It's definitely been quite interesting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)