Sunday, May 11, 2014

You get extra points for wearing stripes!

Hey Guys! I'm back! Sorry, my blogging schedule (I'm not sure if that's a thing, but you know what I mean) has been very weird. We had testing and then an overnight field trip during the last two weeks, so our school has been quite busy. Oh! I see some of you are wearing zebra print! You get extra points. Good job! As you can tell this won't be a regular science blog post, it will be one on an interesting article. I chose zebras! Yay! So, if you don't want to read this summary, then click here. That's the actual article.


Have you ever wondered why zebras have their stripes? I haven't actually I just saw it and it looked interesting, but now I know why. Some of you that have wondered that may have thought that it was because it helps hide from predators, it helps cool them off, or even help them form social groups. Scientists have tested all of these theories, but none of them were true. Instead, they found out that their stripes help avoid vicious flies. Studies say that these flies prefer solid colors to stripes when looking for a landing place. 


To help test the original theories, scientist came up with some ideas. They found out that lions, one of their predators, eat many zebras. So, the first theory is out of the question. They also found no evidence that it helps cool the zebras off or helps them form social groups. These striped animals tend to live in areas where most of the year, the vicious flies flourish. This study doesn’t show why the zebras got the stripes, but it shows how it helps.


In this article, I found that the theories that people had were very interesting. They were different, but made sense if you thought about it. I shoes this article because the title caught my eye. I like the look of zebra print and stripes, so when I saw “Extra Points to Wearing Stripes”, it caught my eye. I also have always wondered why zebras have stripes (don’t ask why, just go with it), so it was a cool article. 


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 So... Yeah.. BYE!


Friday, April 18, 2014

ARE YOU JUST NOW MEETING ME CAUSE WE ARE LEARNING HOW TO WAVE! Or about waves.

        Oh, Hello People of the Earth! *waves an annoying wave* *only some people will get why that's funny* If you looked at the title you can realize that I am teaching you about waves! Well, not the greeting.... The actual scientific wave...


        So, as you can see that is adorable but we aren't learning about them or that kind of wave, we are learning about the wave that actually has to do with science. So, do you know what waves are? Well, I don't care if you do or don't I'm telling you! :D Waves are chains or vibrating molecules. They transfer energy from one place to the another. When you are talking, you are making a sound, which is a type if wave. Earthquakes are a type of wave because it transfers energy. There are many more examples, but there are too many to list.

 
        Scientists broke waves into two basic groups, mechanical and electromagnetic. Mechanical waves are waves that need a medium to move through. A medium is any kind of matter that's disturbed by energy. The energy disperses through the medium in the form of waves. There are two different types of mechanical waves, transverse and compressional. I know, it might be confusing but bare with me. If it's not confusing, then good for you!


        Transverse waves are waves that carry energy by making it move at right angles to direction of the energy flow. Compressional waves, aka longitudinal waves, displace matter back and forth in the same direction as the energy of the wave. When the compressing air molecules hit your eardrum, it causes a vibration. When that happens, it sends sound signals to your brain. Cool, huh! These two waves are similar because they are both mechanical waves, and they both transfer energy. They are different in the ways they travel, though.


        Okay, so the two main types of waves in general are mechanical and electromagnetic. Then, there are two other groups that fall under mechanical, compressional/longitudinal and transverse. Okay, hopefully you got that. If you didn't, sorry I have to move on. Look for more information here! That's where I got mine from. Okay, let's talk about electromagnetic waves now. Electromagnetic waves are waves that don't need a medium to move through. They can travel through empty space. This is why you can see outside! Isn't that nice! The light waves from the sun can travel through empty space and reach Earth. Cool, right?

 
        Okay, because its pretty late right now and I don't want to write out a huge long paragraph that would be to long to read, I'm going to write out a couple bullet points describing the different parts of a wave. *If anyone says this is a copied idea, I actually wanted to do this before I heard of anyone else is doing it!*

  • Crest: the highest point of a traverse wave
  • Trough: the lowest point of a traverse wave
  • Amplitude: the distance between the midpoint of aware and the crest
  • Wavelength: the length between a crest and a crest, or trough to trough 
  • Frequency: the number of waves that pas a given point in one second. If you have high frequency, that means that you have taller waves, and a shorter wavelength. If you have low frequency, that means that you have wider waves, and a longer wavelength. 
  • Fun fact! Frequency is measured by hertz (waves per second).


        WELL THAT'S ALL FOR TODAY! BYEEEEE!

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 BYE!

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Newton's Three Law's of Motion! I dont have a weird title today.. Sorry.

     Hello everyone! I am back! Today we will be learning about Newton's Three Law's of Motion, just incase you didn't read the title. Guess what! Isaac Newton comes into this once again! Wonderful, right? Well, let's get started.


1. Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it's compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it.

2. Force is equal to the change in momentum per change in time. For a constant mass, force equals mass times acceleration.

3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action.

     Okay, so lets look at the first law. So, basically it is saying that an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion unless an external force is applied to it. For example, there is a soccer ball laying on a field. This object is at rest, so it will stay at rest. I am thinking like a normal person (probably not but just go with it) and decide to kick the soccer ball with a lot of force. Now, because I applied a force, the ball is in motion. The soccer ball is in motion, and will stay in motion until an external force is applied. In this instance, my external force is the net or the soccer goal stoping it from continuing. Got it? Hopefully because I am moving on.


     First law is now done, hopefully that was a simple one. Let's move on the second law. It's talking about how force equals mass times acceleration. I talked about this a couple blog posts ago so go and read it if you need to. The second law is saying that force equals mass times acceleration (f=m*a). You are throwing a 6-pound and an 8-pound shot put, a heavy led ball that you throw in track and field, once at a time. You will be applying the same force for each of them. The 6-pound will go further because the weight is smaller than the 8-pound. If you want more inforation, you can go down to my earlier blog post.


     For the third and final law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other and simpler words, for every force there is a reaction with the same size, but in the opposte direction. *Credit to Maddie for the help for this example :D* Gravity. That is my example. When you are standing on the earth, you are using a force against the Earth, but there is a force from the Earth that is pushign back at you.




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Links are in pink (for pictures).
Information is from the 8th Grade Physics Book.

Monday, March 10, 2014

We are watching a movie! Haha no, We are learning about Gravity.

      Hello People! I'm going to go ahead and guess what you are doing right now. You're sitting down reading this blog. That part is kind of obvious, but how are you sitting down? Have you ever wondered how you don't just fly into the air? Well, some of you probably haven't recently because you know why :/. But anyway, the reason you aren't currently floating is because of gravity! If you know what that is, then you will understand this blog post very easily!



      Gravity is a force of attraction between all objects in the universe. We experience it every second of every day. Every thing in the universe has gravity. The earth has gravity! This is how you are standing up! The Earth has a gravitational pull that is pulling you towards the center of the Earth, but because you have a gravitational pull as well, you stand upright. The Earth's pull is larger, so you don't feel the pull. When you get into space, you are a certain distance away from huge objects that the force isn't strong enough. 



      This theory was introduced by Sir Isaac Newton. Here's that name again. He believed gravity had to do with two main things, mass and distance. Massive objects will exert a stronger gravitational pull than less massive objects. If two objects are closer together, than the force is stronger than when they are farther apart. Galileo Galilei made up a famous experiment testing gravity. He climbed up to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped two balls with different masses and similar shape. He learned that heavy things fall faster than light things. 




      An objects mass and an objects weight are very different. An objects mass is the amount of space the object takes up. An objects weight is the force exerted on an objects mass by gravity. If you move to the moon, your mass stays the same, but your weight changes. The amount of space you take up won't change, but the amount of force exerted will because it all depends on gravity. The moon is smaller, therefore it has a smaller gravitational pull.




      Did you know that gravity is one of the most important forces in the universe? Well, know you do! It is because gravity keeps everything in place in the universe. Gravity is why we aren't floating aimlessly in space until we hit something. Interesting, right?



Now for random gifs of One Direction showing examples of gravity! :P 











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Monday, March 3, 2014

May the FORCE be with you...

Hello to all the people reading this! I'm not really the one to write puns... So... yeah... I used one in my title and that's it. Sorry! It might sound like I am a couple times though. :D Anyways, this week we are learning about... The force. Not the Star Wars force, just the scientific force... Okay, lets move on.


Force is basically a push or pull. Right now you have a force holding you down on the earth, *says hoping you know what it is* gravity. Another force that you have is reaction force. This is the force that keeps you upright standing so you don't sink into the ground. Also, when you are walking, you have a driving force that pushes you forward.


Did you know that Isaac Newton discovered all these facts about force? Well, that's probably why force is measured by Newtons. A newton is the standard measurement of force. That's probably the only way to describe it. An object can have multiple forces acting on it at once. A net force is the combination of all of the forces combined. For example, when you are driving in a car, the engine is pushing you forward, but the air resistance is slowing you down.

You measure net forces with Newtons. If both forces go in one direction, then you add the two together. If the forces are in opposite directions of each other, then you subtract the two and the larger amount of force wins. If they are equal forces, the net force is zero.


Remember that example I used with a car moving forward for net forces, well, it can be something else as well. If the air resistance has 20 Newtons going against the car and you are driving with 20 Newtons, the force is balanced and you stay stationary or at a constant speed. That is when you have a net force of zero. But, if the air resistance is 20 Newtons and you are driving with 50 Newtons, the force in unbalanced. The net force would be 30 Newtons to the direction the car is going.


Now let's talk about thrust. Yes, thrust... You read correctly. Thrust is a push of something suddenly or violently in one direction. How does this relate to force? Good question, person that doesn’t exist. Thrust relates to force because a force is a push or pull, so thrust falls into this category. Just look above for an example.

Wow, this was a long post this week. Oh! I almost forgot about something. Fun fact time! Centripetal force is when it forces something to follow a curved path. An example of that would be like when you are driving and have to make a U-Turn. You turn your car in a curved path. Easy! 

Did you like my blog about force
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xoxo Teemster! :D

Links are either in pink (for pictures) or red (for info).