Magic show

For our magic show, me and Mateja did two tricks. I was in charge of a experiment where milk turns into different colors. To see the trick click the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr6dZ6aWpF4. Mateja did a trick called instant snow. To see the experiment, search the link below :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz2Pr7ZS76Y
Everything went nice except we wasted a lot of time emptying and cleaning the plate. The kids were excited for both for mine because it was nice and for Matejas because it was hard to believe, even I was amazed what happened.

  For my color milk this is why it does it: Milk has quiet big amount of surface tension which means it is pretty strong. That's why when we add food color it doesn't do anything. But, when we add soap it pushes the food color and milk to the edge.


You can do this at home.
WARNING: Do not drink the milk after the food color is added.

Simulation

 For the solid, liquid gas part, when you add heat to all molecules they start to spread and move fast. When we take away heat, the molecules slow down.  They are all the same because they all do  he same thing. They are different colors. At room temperature neon is moving kind of fast. At 25K the molecules start to connect and slow down.
 For the phase change, the higher the pressure the faster the molecules move and spread. When we add pressure the molecules squeeze together to survive. When the pressure is too high the molecules expand and break the top and fly around.

BacillaFilla - A Bacteria That Glues Concrete Walls

This article I found on Dogo news and it was posted by Meera Dolasia two days ago. This article is about a bacteria which a group of students in UK's New Castle University  created for gluing concrete together  or filling in holes in concrete. This bacteria was  created by genetic engineering   using an ordinary bacteria from soil. The name of this bacteria is BacillaFilla and it fills up the concrete cracks in the following way:

1. bacterias enter the hole and they cluster together
2. a hardening fiber is produced by this bacteria  and
3. a special kind of glue is created and it sticks everything together

This bacteria is still not on sale and that's a pity, because natural disasters are happening often and they destroy the concrete structures. For the time being, this ruined buildings must be completely thorn down or repaired with a new concrete whose production contaminates the environment. Imagine how easy would be just to put some bacteria in cracks and holes and wait for this wonder creatures to do all the repair work!

My mixture

In science class we had an assignment to create a mixture and to identify it. I made a mixture called Apfel Spritzer. This is a mixture of  apple juice and fizzy water. My mixture was homogeneous mixture and it was a solution. At the end I even got to share it with my classmates and they enjoyed it, they even wanted more but the teacher didn't allow. This assignment  was fun and I enjoyed tasting all these delicious mixtures. 

Notes on mixture videos

Mixtures are two ingredients  mixed together. In the videos that I watched, I learned  that homogeneous mixture is a mixture in which it seems that there is only one material even though it's a mixture of two or more components. There are 3 types of homogeneous mixtures, there are  Suspension, Colloid and Solution. Suspension is a mixture in which particles do not dissolve and different layers are visible. Colloid Mixture is a mixture in which particles move all the time. Solutions are mixtures which are made when one component (solvent) melts or dissolves the other components (solute).   I also learned that another type of mixture is heterogeneous and it's a mixture where you can see separate materials. 

glogster reflection

During October, we had to create a glog about glaciers/desalination. While I was doing it, everything went fine. I was  on time except,  I got sick while the presentation day . When I  came back to school, I realized we had to put our glog on blog which I had no idea how to do. So, that also took some time because we didn't have time-management for me and my teacher to help me put my glog on the blog.  I presented yesterday. While I created my blog I learned that we` should stop global warming in order to help  important glaciers to stay oh Earth.

Reflection on water molecuels

During the last lesson we did an experiment in which we put food color into a cup of hot, room temperature and cold water. The color in the hot water dissolved the fastest and in the cold water it was slowest Temperature means how hot something is. Molecules can be moving in different directions and different speed. Hot water moves the fastest and move around very quickly. Room temperature molecules are moving with medium speed but they are connected. Cold water molecules are moving slow and they are connected very tightly.

To sum it up, molecules in water have two hydrogen and one oxygen.

Glogster

Hot Lava on a Hot Planet, http://sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20101110/Note1.asp

      This week, I read a news article posted in Science News for Kids on November 10th. It is about the new evidence that some of the volcanoes on the planet Venus might still be active. There are more than 1000 volcanoes on the surface of Venus, but most of them are very old and not active any more. However, recent information, got from the microwave radar recordings, show that some parts of surface on the northern part of Venus are hotter than the rest of the surface. Scientists from the University of California, Santa Cruz think that these hotter parts are actually lava which comes from active volcanoes and which has not cooled yet. Actually, this does not mean that the volcano eruption is happening right now, but that it happened during the last 100 years. And for the volcanoes, it is short period and they can still be called "active".

       It is very difficult to study Venus from Earth because it is surrounded by thick clouds. Telescopes on Earth can’t see through these clouds. Only information can be collected by some spaceship which flies around Venus and which goes behind these clouds. This is why we can not be sure if this theory about active volcanoes is 100% right.

WISH TO IMPROVE YOUR MATH SKILLS? ZAP YOUR BRAIN!

I read an article posted on DogoNews on 8/11/2010

This article is about a special way how to improve your math skills and I was very interested in it because math is not my "strongest link".

Scientists from the Oxford University and University Collage London made experiments with three groups of students in order to discover if there is a possibility to get better in math without working hard.  Two groups were solving math problems every day for 20 minutes and during that period scientists were putting very light electric current through their brains. The only difference was in the direction of the electricity. First group got electric current from the right to the left side of their brains, direction of the second group went the opposite side. If the electricity went from right to left, that group gave better results every day, but if the electricity went the opposite way, the group got worse results every day and at the end, they were at the level of  a six-year boy.

I find this article promising, and I hope everyone on the world with problems with math will be better.

WARNING : DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.

Reflection on Mixture Lab Experiment

We did a experiment on Thursday which I found very interesting. What happened? Well, we were experimenting can we make liquid alive using corn starch and water. In our group, it didn't happen.  Our group went nicely except there was a lot of mess on the desks and on the floor.

The Green Comet Visits Earth

There is an  article published in National geographic daily news, published on 19/October/2010, about the Green comet. Link to this site is :http://kidsblogs.nationalgeographic.com/kidsnews/2010/10/the-green-comet-visits-Earth.
This green comet called Hartley 2 was visible from Earth to the naked eye on October 20th. This comet is the size of a mountain and it appears to be green because it is composed of a mixture of ice and dust. Comet Hartley 2 orbits the sun every 6.5 years, but it is almost never visible from Earth because Jupiter is between  the comet and the Earth. This is why it is such a big thing now that the comet was seen.

This article is very interesting for me because I never knew a green comet exists.

Flamingos have makeup

Article posted on 30/10/2010.
http://www.dogonews.com/2010/10/31/omg-flamingoes-wear-makeup-too 


This article is about scientists in Spain that discovered a miracle about flamingos. Flamingos are also  having makeup. The scientists were impressed with this because they (neither did I) thought that animals didn't know what to do  to look attractive. Scientists observed flamingos for 3 years and saw that they are becoming more pink and "beautiful" when they groom their feathers. This is because in this way they apply on the feathers a special glands oil called carotenoids. This oil has pink color.
The female flamingos who are the pinkest find the husbands first and first get kids.




I find this article very amusing and intresting. 


Hope you learned something new.

Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 for Graphene-"Two Dimensional" Material

 (Science Daily, Oct. 5,2010,  link to this article is http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101005085507.htm)

This year, two physicists got the Nobel Prize for inventing a new, revolutionary material. This material is so thin that it is two-dimensional. It is called graphene and it was extracted from an ordinary graphite which can be found in any pencil. Using an adhesive tape, they were producing thinner and thinner flakes of carbon and finally they got a material which is as thin as one atom.

This material has perfect characteristics. Although very thin, it is the  strongest known material, as well. It is heat resistant, 10 times more than any other material. It is totally transparent but very dense. So, You can see through it, but nothing can pass through it.
Thanks to its exceptional properties, graphene can be and, I'm sure, will be used in many practical applications such as in computer industry,  development of touch-screens and sollar cells. Satellites, airplanes and cars could be made of it, because it is so light but so strong.

If this two-dimensional material is so perfect, I hope that we all shall use it in the near future.




http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101005085507.htm

New Planet

         I read an article called " Not too hot, not too cold- Have scientists finally found the Goldilocks planet?"

             Space scientists found a new planet called Gillese 581G which is 20 light years far from Earth. Some scientists think that there may be life on this planet because it has gravity and atmosphere. It takes 37 days for Gillese 581G to circle it's sun called Red Dwarf star.Only problem for possible life is that it doesn't turn fully around its axis and that's why on one half of the planet it is always hot and on the other half it is always freezing.
I think this is realy nice and exciting because the big mystery of life can be finally resolved.

The long distance yoyage of plastic

 I read an article called The Long Distance Voyage of Plastic. This is an article about plastic which is thrown in the sea. Scientists have been collecting these plastic particles from the sea for 20 years.It's weird that they are collecting the same quantity of plastic these days as they used to collect 20 years ago, although much more plastic objects, such as bottles and bags, are consumed now. Scientists don't know where this plastic disappears. It may sink down to the bottom of the ocean or marine life eats it .

 My first reaction to this  article was anger, why do people throw plastic in the sea?! Why don't they recycle it? Plastic is bad for sea-creatures because they can be harmed by floating plastic objects. They can eat plastic, which is poisonous. Plastic is also bad for the sea itself because it gets dirty and it is a type of the worst pollution.
I hope someday  people will stop throwing plastic and other bad materials into the sea.

The States of Matter

                                   

state	mass	shape	volume	expanding on heating	compressi- bility	example
solid	definite	definite	definite	real low	no	rock, wood and glass
liquid	definite	indefinite	definite	slightly	low	water, milk and gasoline
gas	definite	indefinite	indefinite	large	easy	oxygen,hydrogen and carbon dioxide

                              







 The patterns I noticed:

• All three states have a definite mass
• Gas is least definite because it has indefinite shape and volume and it is easily compressed
• Expanding on heating and compressibility increase from solid to gas
• Solid state has all physical properties definite