Grade 9 Science (2015-2016): January 2016

Thursday 28 January 2016

Monday 25 January 2016

Science news review

Luka Lavrnic

Mr. Youell

TOP SCIENTIFIC STORIES OF 2015

It seems unbelievable that human can find everything they need on one place, planet Earth. But, human population is getting too demanding for Earth, and if something doesn’t change, people will have to look for another place to live. That’s why scientists are looking for planets similar to Earth, and trying to discover new ones that could save human species one day.

Mars is in the same solar system as Earth, called Milky way. What makes Mars so interesting is the fact that it is the closest planet to the Earth so it’s logical that if any planet in Milky Way, Mars is the one where we could live on. As ''Universe today" and "Phoenix Mars mission" say, Mars has similar, if not the same, features as Earth: Mars has 4 seasons, on Mars one day lasts for 24h37min, also, atmosphere is made out of same components on both Mars and Earth.

But, there is another thing that humans need to live- water. Last year MRO(Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, spacecraft designed to explore Mars from orbit) provided the strong evidence that water periodically flows on Mars(See picture 1).

Picture 1.MRO- MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER

“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water is flowing today on the surface of Mars.”

As "NASA" and "Science News" say, sing an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on Red Planet. These dark streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons and then fade in during cooler seasons. Appearing happens at several locations on Mars(gullies and craters)(See picture 2).

First, when NASA decided to explore Mars and it’s features they were hoping to find water, because it’s a first sign of life, but now when they found it, the question is: What next?
My opinion is that this discovery will be meaningless if we don’t find life on Mars or at least predispositions for creating a new one. This discovery maybe looks like it can change the history, but we are far away of something like that. Also, scientists confirmed that there might be problems in further exploration because NASA needs to be sure that they won't transfer some bugs from Earth that may still be alive because it could ruin the whole exploration.

I don’t know what future is going to bring, but I am sure that this discovery can lead human specie to something great that can help us in upcoming years.

Picture 2. One of several places where water flows periodically on Mars

Another big scientific story during 2015 was "Biological age. According to "Science news" and "Tech Times", scientists from Duke university proved something that many people already suspected- all people don't grow old at same rate. This “appearance” is called Biological age- actual condition of a person’s organism compared to condition of other people their age. To prove Biological age, scientists analyzed the health of about one thousand men 38 years old by doing "BAG test" and they found out that some appeared a decade younger while others appeared older. Researchers determined people’s Biological age by different health indicators.

Maybe all these information are not spectacular but they could change your opinion if “Biological age” really helps at solving one of the biggest questions during human history and that it is: “Why people die”? During this research, scientists noticed that long-living proteins become damaged during life. They hope that in closer future they will be able to find a way to make this protein more resistant.

According to "Wired" and "Telegraph" scientists hope “Biological age” will help them in is curing diseases like Alzheimer’s. Scientists believe that a blood test which shows how well people are ageing can predict the Alzheimer's disease, they have identified a set of genes which must be functioning properly for healthy ageing. How well these genes are working can be presented by HAG(Healthy Ageing Gene) score. The lower the score is the more likely Alzheimer is present or will develop. Although there aren’t any drugs which can stop Alzheimer, new treatments which can slow(even to the stage where it won’t affect people’s lives) development of Alzheimer’s disease are showing early promise in trials.

Biological age test could help scientists design anti aging drugs, says geroscientist Felipe Sierra of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md. “How we age is something we can control,” he says. “Trying to convince people to exercise or eat better has not worked, so we need an alternative.”

I think that this “discovery” is really important because it can lead us to curing one of most dangerous diseases- Alzheimer's and even more important “Biological age” maybe will show us why our life must come to an end. Maybe at this point Biological age (test) doesn’t mean much to all of us, but it in the future “BAG test” may save people’s lives and there isn’t anything more important.

Picture 3.Biological age, metaphor

Third great scientific news of 2015 is about global warming, gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans, is a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate, defines "Live science'. It’s already having many effects on our life, health and climate. As UCSA says, sea level rise is accelerating, number of wildfires per year is getting bigger and dangerous heat waves are becoming more common. There are more droughts and extreme storm events are increasing in different areas.

"Stanford news" and "Nature" wrote about Climate hiatus, Global Warming pause or slowdown, that scientists thought it was happening during 21st century, but after a research made last year, group of scientists at National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration did a research that helped them conclude that there wasn’t and isn’t “climate hiatus” in 21st century.

"Science news" wrote about research where scientists found out several comparisons to the past that helped them make a final conclusion about climate hiatus. Scientists discovered that Earth’s average surface temperature is getting about 0.2 Celsius warmer every decade including the last two that were thought to be part of “climate hiatus”. Second, last years carbon dioxide levels were the highest in the history. As reflective ice melts into heat-absorbing dark open ocean, warming increases further.There is one stat that made me completely scared about global warming: Using climate simulations and ocean sediment data, scientists calculated that the period during which carbon dioxide levels increased lasted at least 4000 years, and the carbon release rate during that time had been at most 1.1 billion tons a year. That rate is just about 1/10 of the approximately 10 billion tons of carbon released because of fossil fuel burning in 2015.

The worst thing is that it’s happening right now and if we don’t react on time, World can turn into one big “fireball”(See picture 4). Even worse is, as Richard Zeebe(climatologist at the university of Hawaii) says “What we’re doing right now to the climate is unprecedented.” that we, humans, are doing it to ourselves.

Picture 4. Metaphor: World is a fireball

I can not really decide which one of these three stories is the most important one, but as i already sad, all of them can affect humans in future on many different ways, Biological age test could open the door to the endless life, if we find the way to live on Mars it can save the humans one day and the news about Global warming could make people act on different way that could make planet Earth be our home for many more years.

Zachary Tyndall 9a

Mr. Youell

Science

1/22/2016

Top Science Stories of 2015

1. Water on Mars

2. Tree of Life

3. Ebola cure

2015 was a year full of news, some tragic ones but also some good ones. For science, 2015 was a very good year ("Top Stories of 2015: Pluto, Gene Editing, a New Hominid and More."Science News. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.). There were many great breakthroughs in science such as the discovery of water on Mars, the reshaping of the tree of life, the cure for Ebola... Many people don't realise this, but this discovery has helped scientists understand our human race better.

Water on Mars

From the articles in Science news and NASA, I have seen that there are some hydrated salt minerals on Mars. This is the most detailed evidence yet that water flows on the planet’s surface today. Using an imaging spectrometer on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) , researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 23 degrees Celsius, and disappear at colder times. This discovery may be the proof that there has been or could be life on mars. The search for water has taken more than 15 years to prove that there is liquid on Mars. This discovery brings up the ideas that there once may have been a lot of seas and oceans on Mars. Since 2012 a curiosity rover (seen in fig 1) which you can see in the picture below, has been roaming around Mars. Nitrogen, which is used to create molecules such as protein or DNA on Earth, has been also found on Mars. This all indicates that life on Mars may be possible in the future which might save our race if Earth is destroyed by global warming.

Fig 1-A curiosity rover which has been roaming around Mars since 2012

Tree of life

Microbes which have been discovered in Arctic mud may be the closest relatives yet found to the single-celled ancestor which had swallowed a bacterium and made life so elaborate. Biologists ("Year in Review: Microbe Discoveries Spur Rethink of Treetop of Life."Science News. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.) have proposed that this swallowing event, which has happened about 1.8 billion years ago, led to complex cells with membrane-wrapped organelles, the trademark of all eukaryotes from amoebas to horses. Biologists have discovered a new phylum of microbes which are called Lokiarchaeota. This was discovered by screening DNA from sediment, naturally appearing material that is broken by the action of wind, water, or ice. Although no one has found an actual cell yet, the new phylum has similar genes to those to those in modern eukaryote. This discovery has reshaped the old multicellular-biased tree of life. Old textbooks had drawn a eukaryote tree top that branched into three kingdoms of mostly multicellular organisms plants, animals and fungi and one kingdom of single-celled organisms called Protists. Beginning in the late 1980s, new genetic studies relegated the multicelled kingdoms to basic side branches on five to seven much bigger branches of mostly single-celled protists. Nowadays biologists suggest representing this as a ring of life rather than a tree of life (as seen in fig 2) but of course there is more work to do.

Fig 2, we can see the ring of life

The cure for Ebola

Ebola is a viral fever of humans and other primates caused by ebolaviruses (fig 3). Symptoms typically start between two days and three weeks after the person is affected. Usual symptoms are: sore throat, muscular pain, and headaches. Then, vomiting, diarrhea and rash usually follow, along with the liver and kidneys starting to malfunction. At this point some people begin to bleed both internally and externally. The disease has a high risk of death, killing between 25 and 90 percent of those infected. On average almost every second person dies from Ebola . This is often due to low blood pressure from fluid loss, and typically start to happen five to sixteen days after the symptoms appear.

The start of the development of Ebola vaccines closed in on the finish line this year, as scientists tested two types of vaccines that could be made in use for future outbreaks. Both vaccines target a protein made by Zaire ebolavirus, the virus that haunted and destroyed West Africa in 2014 and the beginning of 2015, killing more than 11,000 people. The epidemic now appears to have stopped spreading and starting to calm down in West Africa, with only a few cases in Liberia.

The first vaccine uses a live, replicating virus to stimulate a response of the immunity system in patients. In August, researchers testing it found very promising results from the biggest Ebola vaccine trial yet to show evidence of protection: a study of 7,651 adults from Guinea. None of the people who were vaccinated immediately after a close contact with Ebola became infected by the virus.

The second vaccine uses a virus that can’t replicate. In November, Myron Levine, a scientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, and his colleagues demonstrated the vaccine’s safety in a trial that included people from the U.S. and West Africa. A single high dose was enough to make the immune system fight against the virus.

Of course other vaccines are being made, but these are the ones that lead the race and they are pretty close to receiving approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Fig 3, we can see the Ebola virus

In conclusion i picked these three science stories because i find them the most interesting, and because i think they have really changed our thinking. The discovery of water on Mars indicates that there may be life outside of Earth. From the microbes found we learnt the origin of our race, and it has really changed what we believed before. The Ebola vaccines are really important because they can save Africa not only the people who are still in danger, but also the economy because it has really suffered. Africa have lost a lot of money because of the Ebola virus and this can maybe be the start of the renewal of Africa.

Sources: Top stories of 2015: Pluto, gene editing, a new hominid and …

https://www.sciencenews.org/node/191210?mode=pick&context=166

https://www.sciencenews.org/node/191205?mode=pick&context=166

https://www.sciencenews.org/node/191222?mode=pick&context=166

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars

Planetary news of 2015

There has been many interesting and important things happening throughout the year of 2015, some people discovered that LED lights can affect badly on animals, and new specie of human-like kind called Kennewick Man have also been discovered. There also were few other interesting planetary news as well. Such as water found on Mars and an Earth sized planet in a ‘habitable zone’ around another star found during the Kepler mission.

2015, October 31th NASA announces that their ‘Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft’ has found salt minerals on Mars like in the Figure 1.

[Figure 1] The blue color is the mark of salt minerals.

This could help the scientists to find whether there is or was any living organism on Mars although it will still take them a long time. NASA also announced that they are planning to launch another spacecraft which can be sent back with rocks or some other materials so that the scientists can examined and analysed. Until this happens, their best view of Mars is a picture taken from Maven spacecraft, a space probe designed and which is on a mission to study Martian atmosphere while orbiting around the Mars. Also, over billions of years, the Mars has been losing air by solar storms. I think this could mean that there is higher chance of a creature living or have been living on the planet of Mars. As of now, there’s too small amount of air that it could be difficult for them but, maybe, in the future, there could be discoveries of fossils of the creatures.

[Figure 2] Picture of Kepler 186f and its star

There was another interesting news. NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, has discovered Earth sized planet orbiting around a smaller sized star than our Sun in the “habitable zone”, Kepler 186f. Habitable zone means that the planet is in a range where water might pool on the orbiting planet. There have been other planets discovered to be in the habitable zone of other stars. However, those planets were all at least 40% larger in size compared to the Earth. It is the first planet to be around Earth size. But this doesn’t mean that the planet has water on the surface, because the temperature in the atmosphere could be too high that the water could all be vaporized before being exposed to be taken a picture. Many scientists think that it could just be a rocky planet with no water. But if the water exists on the surface, there could be life on surface,

may be a highly developed civilization or few multi-cellular organisms. Or nothing. The planet takes about 130 days to orbit once around its star and from its star, the planet only absorbs about one third of what Earth absorbs from our Sun and the brightest moment on Kepler 186f is only about as bright as our sky about one hour before the sunset. So, the sunlight might not be enough for some things like photosynthesis to occur or maybe there is only little amount of water as displayed in the figure 2, we can’t know how much water is on the surface of Kepler.

https://www.sciencenews.org/node/191210?mode=pick&context=166

https://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-of-another-star

3 science articles science project

Tara Jevrosimovic

1/18/2016

Science 9A

Patrick Youell

Most Important Astronomy News of 2015

Besides the tragic terrorist attacks, the celebrity gossips and scandals, other current events took place in the year of 2015, such as scientific ones. The following three current events are for me, the most important current events of 2015.There is finally evidence of water on Mars, a clear picture of Pluto, and a planet with two suns.

Pluto

More than 80 years after Pluto’s discovery, it became much more than a undistinguished point of light. It’s a unique, complex, and dynamic world that is different from any other orbiting the sun. The new discoveries of Pluto are the highly detailed images (more detailed than ever before) taken by the New Horizons spacecraft on July 11th 2015. These images show signs of glaciers, ice volcanoes, and mountains of water ice tower thousands of meters over fields of frozen methane and nitrogen.

Figure 1: Two ice mountains jut out of a textured plain (top), a close-up example of the varied terrain that stretches to Pluto’s horizon (bottom, taken 15 minutes after closest approach).

“It’s amazing to look at this world and realize I’ve been staring at it for years through a telescope and all that detail was there.” says Cathy Olkin, a deputy and planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado., and working on the New Horizons mission. As manifested by figure 2, the picture drastically changed from June 15 to July 11 2015. From July 1994 till July 2015, there were only blurry images from which only shadows could be seen. After the New Horizons project, some patterns and predictions could be made from the new images.

Figure 2: shows how we could see Pluto on June 1994, and how it turned clearer as the New Horizons project improved.

As soon as the spacecraft sent back its first comprehensive pictures, it could be seen that Pluto had changed a lot during its lifetime of over 4.6 billion years. Pluto was geologically alive, which meant that it has land-forms like volcanoes and tectonic plates that are constantly moving and rearranging the surface. Scientists could say this by their observations of the tiny planet, it supposedly has ice flows, mountains, glaciers and many other.

Mars

2015 was a very important year for the planet Mars, the year in which there was evidence found of water on Mars. When NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) announced that their Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft spotted hydrated salt, minerals it was almost sure that life could exist on Mars. Although water on Mars has already been announced many times in the past, this new finding is more detailed than ever before, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: “Seasonal water flows might have created dark streaks on Mars’ slopes, as seen in this computer-generated view of Hale Crater.”

The Curiosity rover (which is a robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars) has been on Mars from the year 2012, and from then discovered chemical evidence of life on Mars. The rover recognized a form of Nitrogen in Martian rocks that is used in Earth to construct biological molecules, meaning that those molecules are present in living organisms, and Mars is inhabited by them. Six meteorites which were blasted into space by asteroid impact, show they contain methane which is used as a food source to microbes that are on Earth. To know if there is life on Mars, or ever was, will have to wait until at least 2020 when NASA is planning to launch a rover to collect rocks and store them which would in the end be flown back to Earth for tests and examination.

Two-sunned planets

After researching and collecting data, scientists believe that there could be more planets with two suns, compared to ones with only one (like Earth). After the space telescope Kepler was launched in 2009, finally astronomers had the implements to search for these multi-star systems which host planets among extra-solar planets (are planets that orbit a star other than the sun). Those are worlds which are outside of Earth’s solar system. Kepler-453b, shown in figure 4, the new-found extra-solar planet, is 1,400 light years away from Earth. It orbits a circumbinary (planets which orbit two suns) system because it circumnavigating both stars.

Figure 4: this in an illustration of what Kepler-453b might look like. The red and orange are the suns, and the blue is the actual planet.

“We realized there must be many other systems that we’re missing.” said Nader Haghighipour, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The fact that they found this planet at all is very lucky, if his team didn’t watch the stars at just the right time, they scientists would have definitely missed the telltale dip in light that gestured the existence of this planet.

After analyzing and recording this information, planets are truly the most interesting to me out of all scientific events. In the year of 2015, machines and technology improved well enough to determine & find out all of these things about our neighboring and far away planets. After doing this research, I asked myself a question, why spend so much money for discovering all these things about space, when there is a big possibility that Mars is the farthest we'll go? Well, by doing additional research, I found out that humans are driven to explore and discover the world, and space is something that they will never quite fully understand, so they spend lots of money to understand it, and with every new discovery they are getting closer and closer in finding out the secrets of the universe.It is amazing that we have come so far in finding new worlds and planets, and we are closer and closer each day to uncovering new mysteries of the universe.

Bibliography:

"Like Tatooine in Star Wars, This Planet Has Two Suns." Student Science. Student Science, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

"Year in Review: Best Evidence Yet for Water on Mars." Science News. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

"Year in Review: Pluto Unveiled as a World like No Other." Science News. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

Grade 9 Science (2015-2016)

Thursday 28 January 2016

Top 3 Science Stories of 2015

Monday 25 January 2016

Science news review

Top Science Stories of 2015 Zachary Tyndall

Zachary Tyndall 9a

Mr. Youell

Science

Top Science Stories of 2015

3 science articles science project