Sea Urchins reveal medical mysteries

Scientists and medics are discovering that ancient sea urchins can help us to understand diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and and muscular dystrophy. Scientists also find that sea urchins and humans have more than 7,000 of the same genes. Scientists are saying that the sea urchins may be able to  help solve some of their most difficult and deadly problems.

Sea urchins can help us solve Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, muscular dystrophy, and other cancer-related problems. They may even be able to help solve the problem of infertility.  When you compare a sea urchin’s amino acid sequences to a human’s, quite a few are a perfect match.

Sea urchins are one of the few invertebrates on our branch of the evolutionary tree, sharing more genes with humans than fruit flies and worms. But the weird thing is, sea urchins don’t have eyes, ears, or a nose, but they have the genes humans have for vision, hearing, and smelling.

1. why do scientists think sea urchins may be able to help us one day?

2. do you agree with the scientists? why or why not?

3. why are sea urchins so much like us, even though they don’t look like it?

Sprinters Have Longer Toes and Achilles Tendons

Through the many and many years, evolution has made some remarkable adaptations. For one is the sprinter’s toes. Scientists at Penn State University have found that for runners who ace the 100-yard dash, the thrill of victory may spring from the ankles and the feet.

When it all starts, sprinters launch with a burst of acceleration. That initial velocity in (in some part) depends on the length of their toes. The scientists examined the feet of a dozen collegiate sprinters and a dozen non-athletes of a similar height. They measured foot length and used ultrasound imaging to watch Achilles tendons in action. In these examinations they found 2 things.

First, the sprinters have longer toes. This could give them an advantage by allowing them to maintain maximum contact with the ground as they push off the starting block. Second, their Achilles tendons have less leverage. That might sound bad, but it actually allows their leg muscles to produce greater force.

So next time you see a 100-yard sprinter take off, remember: his toes are a big part of such an amazing feat.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=good-sprinters-have-long-toes-09-11-05

1. How do YOU think having less leverage in the Achilles tendon is good?
2. Do you think this is in just sprinters or in all athletes ? (swimmers, body builders)

Babies May Cry In Their Mother’s Tongues

Research is being done on how babies communicate. Scientists say that babies cry in melody to what they heard while in the womb. Early signs of melody crying shows that they have developed a form of language at a young age. At ages 3 months and on they produce vowel sounds demonstrated by adults. They know how to cry in order to get what they need. Fluent speakers of this melody, change pitch and rhythm can show anger or happiness. German babies pitches moved from high to low instead of low to high like French babies. Mothers may have tended to babies differently in France as to Germany causing the differences in the language melodies.

Do you believe this is true?

Don’t all babies have their own melodies at which they cry?

By: Bruce Bower

Web Edition: Thursday, November 5th, 2009

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49195/title/Newborn_babies_may_cry_in_their_mother_tongues

No more ice in the Northern Hemisphere?

   David Barber of Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, did an exploration of the northern hemisphere searching for multiyear ice, but found only “rotten ice“. All of the ice covering the Northern Passage, is all melting at a very fast rate, opeinging up slowly. Ships and boats will like this because it will be an easier way to pass through as a shortcut. Scientists on the other hand are not to thrilled. The multiyear ice is melting at an extremely high rate and this isn’t making life any eaiser for all the wildlife that survive on ice. The ice is melting so fast in fact that in 2007-08, it was recorded as third lowest on record. Barber and many other scientists are fretting that the by 2030, there will be no ice remaining on the North Pole. (Scientists link higher Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.)

By David Ljunggren     Thu Oct 29, 2009

What do you think Humans as a race could have done to help prevent this 10 years ago?

Do you think all the ice will be gone by 2030 like Barber?

What do you think will happen in the next few years with this situation?

Magnetic Leaves.

The scientist who first noticed the magnetic leaf was from Europe. Pollution was believed to make the leaves magnetic. What was found was a pollution called particulate matter. Harmful particles of pollution to humans are sticking onto to these leaves. Metallic pollutants such as iron oxides (from diesel exhausts) was a compound found in the particulate matter. What captures the pollution is the wavy and bumpy surfaces on the leaves. The pollution captured onto the leave may grow into the leave or just stay on the surface. Where the busiest roadways are is the most likely spot to have these magnetic leaves. There was an experiment done by Bernie Housen to find out if there was a difference in the leaves from a rural area and a busy city. This experiment proved that along bus routes it was two to eight times more magnectic to those in quieter streets. Also what was found is that leaves in busy cities were ten times more magnetic then the ones in rural areas. These leaves were annouced to be a way to monitor the pollution.

Have you ever thought that leaves can become magnetic?

Are the leaves an efficiant way to monitor our pollution?

Why do you think this is possible?

Don’t avoid your dairy products!

    Are you lactose intolerant and consume absolutely no dairy products?  Though you are lactose intolerant the consumption of dairy products is necessary for your body. Studies show that to receieve many essential vitamins, we must consume some kind of dairy product. There are so many products now that are manufactured without lactose. By us eating or drinking these products we are allowing are bodies to still have key componets of milk without actually having it.

     Recent studies have been done on the amount of lactose intolerant people in the world. The number has dropped from recent studies done years prier. Most of the worlds lactose intolerant patients are African-American. Though there are still other races with the problem. The studies though are done by people just reporting that they are lactose intolerant. So the studies accuracy and guarantee are not reliable.  Theresa Nicholas of the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine says that the more accurate the studies, the more medical professionals are able to help those who are lactose intolerant.

Are you lactose intolerant? If you are how do you feel about eating or drinking milk products? If you aren’t lactose intolerant  what else do you think doctors or professionals could do to help those who are?

Babies’ Language Learning Starts From The Womb.

We all learn to talk eventually, but can the learning process begin in the womb? Scientific studies are finding that babies in the womb might be learning a language when they’re in their last trimester of pregnancy. It has been shown that babies in the womb respond to music and voices of people around them. They respond best to the voices they hear the most, such as the mother’s voice.

Scientists say that babies have a different cry when they come from families with different languages. For example, studies show that babies will cry with the tonal qualities of the language they have heard while in the womb. German babies cry on a falling melody while French babies cry on a rising melody due to the different qualities of the languages they have heard.

What kind of testing do you think they should do to look into this more?

Do you think that babies learning in the womb might have a great impact on the way humans are evolving?

Rats and Eating Disorders?

Today there is alot of eating disorders but can this be explaned by using rats? Scientist are wondering the same question. They are looking at one spacific disorder a binge diet. They use rats to see if mabe they can possibly explain the reason for binge dieting. Scientists have discovered that in a way they can. Rats have a basolateral amygdala and when you deactivate it the rat will search for food but will not eat it.“Understanding how this circuit in the brain works may provide insight into the exact networks and chemicals in our brain that determine the factors influencing our feeding habits.”said Matthew Will, assistant professor of psychological sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science.

They think that rats basolateral amygdala is the main source of their binge dieting. When their oploids release (Which are pleasure chemicals)it can lead to euphoria, into the brains which causes non hungry rats to eat. They think mabe or close to the same problem is happening to us. “Humans have more programming to start and continue eating than to stop eating.” says Will. If this problem is solved with rats they may beable to get more of a idea with the way we eat and help our society control binge dieting.

Do you think that this study will eventually help americans beable to control the way they eat?

Whats your opinion on the way they are doing research, do you think there are more and better ways to do this kind of research?

Do you think that a binge diet is even really a disorder to the point they need to use test rats to see a way to fix it?

Do you think using rats is a accurate way to find out ways to quite binge dieting?

Eating Licorice During Pregnancy Affecting Child’s IQ and Behavior?

Eating Licorice in Pregnancy May Affect a Child’s IQ and Behavior

October 7,2009

A result of a study of eight children whose mothers ate excessive licorice during their pregnancy did not perform as well as other children in cognative tests. These children were also shown to have poor attention spans and show disruptive behavior such as ADHD. It is thought that a component in licorice called glycyrrhizin may impair the placenta, allowing stress hormones to cross from the mother to the baby. High levels of such hormones, known as glucocorticoids, are thought to affect fetal brain development and have been linked to behavioral disorders in children.

Professor Jonathan Seckl, from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Cardiovascular Science, said: “This shows that eating licorice during pregnancy may affect a child’s behavior or IQ and suggests the importance of the placenta in preventing stress hormones that may affect cognitive development getting through to the baby.”Women who ate more than 500mg of glycyrrhizin per week – found in the equivalent of 100g of pure licorice – were more likely to have children with lower intelligence levels and more behavioral problems.

The research followed on from a study which showed that licorice consumption was also linked to shorter pregnancies. Laboratory studies have also shown a link between the placenta not working to prevent stress hormones from passing through to the fetus, as well as a link to cardiac and metabolic disorders and behavioral problems in later life.

How do you think pregnant mothers could still enjoy this treat without harming their infant?

How mush licorice is to much?

Ants are caring insects!

In the animal kingdom animals rescuing eachother is uncommen. However ants will risk themselves to save a kinsmen. Studies done by Elise Nowbahari the University of Paris North and Karen L. Hollis of Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Massuchusets have shown that in a natural environment ants trapped under sand and debris were help out of their predicament by fellow ants from the same colony. The same test showed that the ants would not help ants from a different colony or other insect species. This shows that ants have a high cognitive complexity. This also shows that ants have some base level of caring associated with colony members since they themselves could become trapped. Original Site

Do you think humans could take a page from the ants?

Why do you think the ants do this?

Google Droid vs. iPhone

Article: Google Droid is here: Can it go toe-to-toe with Apple’s iPhone?

Author: Larry Greenemeier

Posted: Nov 6, 2009

vs.

     Google has just come out with its new “droid” .  And they are wondering, will it be any competition for the iPhone.  The reviews suggest: “If  you were to put these two in a ring together it would end up like the first Rocky movie.”  The droid doesn’t kill the iPhone but it does offer a credible alternative. 

     On price the two are pretty much a toss-up.  With the droid at $200 and the iPhone running between $100 and $300 depending on the model.  As for entertainment its the iPhone.  The iPhone offers iTunes whereas the droid offers nothing of the kind.  The droid wins on phone network, customizability, GPS navigation, speaker, physical keyboard, removable battery and openness (free operating system, mostly uncensored app store). The iPhone wins on “simplicity, refinement, thinness, design, Web browsing, music/video synching with your computer, accessory ecosystem and quality/quantity of the app store.”Troy Wolverton’s bottom line: “I still think it comes up short against the iPhone, but I also think the Droid is probably the best smart-phone choice out there other than Apple’s iconic gadget.”

What do you think is the better choice of phone?

Would you ather have the Droid or the iPhone?

Do you think that the droid will sell as well as the iPhone has?

Antimatter

Signature Of Antimatter Detected In Lightning

By: Ron Cowen

Friday, November 6th, 2009

 The Fermi Gamma -Ray Space Telescope, designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system, has picked  up a shocking vibe  from Earth. it has detected17 gamma-ray flashes affiliated with Earthly storms, some of the flashes contained a surprising signature of antimatter, during its first 14 months of operation.

Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could have been produced only by the decay of energetic positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons, during 2 recent lightning storms. The observations are the first of their kind for lightning storms.

“It’s a surprise to have found the signature of positrons during a lightning storm”, said Michael Briggs of the University of Alabama in Huntsville announcing the puzzling findings November 5 at the 2009 Fermi Symposium. The17 flashes Fermi detected occurred just before, during and immediately after lightning strikes, as tracked by the World Wide Lightning Location Network.

“During lightning storms previously observed by other spacecraft, energetic electrons moving toward the craft slowed down and produced gamma rays. The unusual positron signature seen by Fermi suggests that the normal orientation for an electric field associated with a lightning storm somehow reversed”, Briggs said. Modelers are now working to figure out how the field reversal could have occurred. But for now, he said, “the answer is up in the air”.

“Recording gamma-ray flashes — which have the potential to harm airplanes in storms — isn’t new. The first were found by NASA’s Compton Gamma-ray Observatory in the early 1990s. NASA’s RHESSI satellite, which primarily looks at X-ray and gamma-ray emissions from the sun, has found some 800 Earthly gamma-ray flashes”, Briggs noted.

Do you think we should be messing around with antimatter? Why/why not?

Do you think this research is a waste of resources? Why/why not?

Saving seahorses from extinction

Marine biologists are worried that regular harvesting of wild seahorses may threaten them with extinction, so they started breeding them in aquariums.  This requires a three-step water filtration process which includes feeding them three times a day have a careful temperature and water chemestry monitoring. One researcher is worried about their depletion so he is studying ways to help them survive. Seahorses mate for life, the male gives birth  and, must eat constantly in order to survive so many Wild seahorses are dissappering. Marine biologists like Katherine Bernabes are conserned for the health of them because they are being sold on black market, being made into Asian medicine, kept in aquariums, their costal habitat is disappearing, and pollution is killing them off. around twenty millon seahorses are being traded globally each year and its depleation their natural stock. Bernabeo’s goal is to breed a substainable amount of seahorses native to Long Island sounds as an alternative to depleating seahorses in the world. Bernabeo carefully nomitors the seaborses. “I have to make sure they are allways full, they’re happy and let nature take its coarse,” she said. She wants to breed more seahorses, hoping to save them from extinction (when no more individuals of a species can be found anywhere on earth). Many animals have been classified as on the endangeredspeicieslist because their populations are close to becoming extinct. If one anmal relies on another for its foodor protection,it could become part of the extinct chain. Possibly the most famous extinction was atthe end of the Cretaceous period(around 65 milion yerars ago) when most of the speicies on earth were believed to be wiped out by a large astroids impaction earth. All nonbird like dinosaurs went extinct. To know more check out their website at http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0210-saving_seahorses.htm.

Do you think that seahorses are on the top of a extinct chain?

Do  you think that seahorses are important?

Would you care if seahorses were extinct?

Will The Mars Rover Spirit ever get back home?

Mars rover plans its escape     By Katharine Sanderson   November 5, 2009

NASA is trying to free Spirit! Spirirt, one of the Mars Rovers, is plannig an escape from Mars. John Callas, a member of NASA’s station, says that this process will take months but they should be able to pull it out of the bag. Spirits mission was only supposed to be a three month trip, but ended up being a five year trip because Spirit ended up getting stuck in the soft sand of Mars, and has been stationed there ever since. Callas says that Spirit has 5 working wheels and one not. They could either pull off the “rescue” mission or spirits wheels could just spin, digging itself deeper into the soft sand.  Callas also said that the data base built into Spirit is having malfunctions and may have lost all the information collected.

Do YOU think that Spirit can get out?

Do you think NASA will have any information on Spirits data base?

Will we ever know if there really is life on other planets?          Any suggestions???   PLEASE COMMENT!!!

Magnetic Bird Eye-balls!!! Maybe a True Sixth Sense!

Is it instinct? Is it their beaks? Is it a phenomenon? No, bird’s eyes are responsible for navigation when migrating and not by sight, by magnetics. For many years it has been a mystery how birds manage to migrate every year. Past studies have concluded that a magnetic sensor in the birds beak is responsible to tell which way is north. However, recent studies have concluded that the birds eye-balls not their beaks are responsible for this magnetic compass. 

Researchers have proposed iron-based sensors in cells of the eyes of birds. Others have thought that light sensing cells in the eye also detect magnetic field in the poles of the Earth. Research has not shown how this works yet, but are looking into it in the future.

Researchers have tested this by severing or damaging different systems in the birds brain to test which system is responsible for this navigation. Henrik Mouritsen of University of Oldenburg in Germany, has suggested that the beak may play a different role in magnetic sensing and may be responsible for minor changes in magnetic fields, but navigation is still possible.

Knowing this can help us with the relocation of endagered birds, who often fly back to their original unsafe locations.

How could this knowledge help us “save” relocated birds?

Do you believe studies like these are important?

Can small earthquakes predict larger ones?

It is common belief that moderate-sized quakes can help predict where a big quake might hit next. But a new study, conducted by Mian Liu and Seth Stein, says that this belief may be false. Lui is a geophysicist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and Stein is from Northwestern University in Evanston. According to them, many of the moderate-sized quakes that happen away from the edges of tetonic plates could simply be aftershocks of larger earthquakes that happened along those same faults 10-100 years ago.

A lot of the larger quakes happen at the edges of tetonic plates, where much stress can be put on them as they scrape by each other. However, it is also possible for major quakes to occur along intercontinental fault zones, which can be thousands of kilometers from the edges of plates. Those quakes are much less common – making them much less predictable.

Using worldwide earthquake data, Liu and Stein found that when big quakes happened on the edges of tetonic plates, when the edges scrape past each other at an average of 10 millimeters per year, the aftershocks ended after about 10 years. When a major quake occured where faults passed each other at a few millimeters per year, the aftershocks lasted as long as a century. The longest chain of aftershocks (the longest lasting as long as a couple of centuries) happened when earthquakes struck intercontinental faults that moved slowly. The researchers guess that this is because the energy is stored up longer.

Here is a quote from an article written by Sid Perkins on sciencenews.org that I found interesting. They didn’t list a publishing date, so I’m not sure when it was written. “In midplate regions where repetitive cycles of earthquakes can take millennia to unfold, forecasting when and where the next big quake will occur is akin to predicting a full year’s weather based on watching conditions during one week in January…”

Do you think this is true?

What are your thoughts on aftershocks that happen as much as a century after the actual earthquake?

Stopping Strokes

December 1, 2005 — To prevent strokes in at-risk patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm, researchers have devised a mechanical alternative to common drug treatments. In the procedure, surgeons place a small parachute-like device near the left appendage of the heart. Once there, the device deploys and stops clots from leaving the heart and traveling to the brain. In one study, the device was about 60 percent better than the drug Warfarin at reducing the risk of stroke.   there are millions and millions of AMAERICANS that have a heart problem. Why are we this way do you think is is all the obeasity? Do you think its all the on the good fast food places with thousands of calories in just one meal? I think it is the fault of each person that has a health related heart problem. But the people that are born or have the problems in there family and there past.  Please commet and tell me what you think?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081123222844.htm

How to talk

            In Australia many woman have weak voices and men can barely speak above a whisper. People are saying this is due to a speaking disorder; there is a something going on with genetics. According to scientist this disorder has something to do with chromosomes. The arrangement of some chromosomes are arranged so that theire voice  brakes when a person speaks.

            When this happens it is called tospeak. The gene does not have proteins and the RNA does not resemble the RNA function. RNA is an important function for the development of the larynx. The larynx is what abeles a person to talk. People with this disorder have small, short, and thick vocal chords that do not vibrate right. They also have many fused bones that could also be connected to this disorder. People that have this condition also can have fused finger joints and toe joints.

            Studies have shown that this appeared in primates in early age. As the brain became more advanced the vocal chords loosened in humans. The loosened vocal chords is why humans can talk. That is why this condition is rare.

Do you think this condition started in early times or is it something new we just discovered? 

What do you think life would be like if you couldn’t talk above a whisper?

No ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro!!

Do to the increasing temperatures the ice caps on Mount Kilimanjaro could be gone.  Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar Research Center in Columbus and his fellow colleagues have been studying what has been happening to this mountain. From 1989 to the most recent survey in 2007, the ice-covered area dropped, on average, a huge 2.4 percent per year. People have been arguing if it is happening because of global warming or climate shift.  As fast as the ice is melting it could be completely gone by by 2022.

 Mt. Kilimanjaro

What do you think is causing the ice to melt?

How could we help slow down the ice form melting?

Eating Licorice While Pregnant Can Change Your Baby?!

A group of 8 year olds who had mothers who ate large amounts of licorice while pregnant, acted different then the other children who’s mothers had not eaten large amounts of licorice. They also had bad attention spans and appeared to have ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder. There is a component in licorice called glycyrrhizin that may cause impairment on the placenta and allow stress to reach the baby. High levels of a hormone called glucocorticoids are thought to have been linked to bad behavior and fetal brain development. Scientists used the same questionaire for the mothers that consumed a lot of licorice that they use to monitor little childrens behaviors. The studied showed that they were corrupted by licorice. I believe that licorice can mess with your baby while you’re pregnant because it has lots of sugars. 64 children had high levels of glycyrrhizin, 46 had moderate levels, and 211 had low levels.

Do you think that licorice corrupts the brain during pregnancies or is it all in there heads?

Is this common enough to do a study and be able to say this is why?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091006093349.htm

The Gene For Speech

Originally Written by: Tina Hesman Saey

Originally Posted on: ScienceNews

In this article, scientists have found a gene that allows you to speak! This gene was dubbed the name tospeak. This gene was first found by inspecting an australian family whose voices where so inaudable. Scientists inspected these subjects only to find that there vocal cords were very very weak. The scientists then concluded that there was a gene that gave everyone the strength they needed in there vocal cords to be able to speak and be heard.

What do you think about this gene?

Do you think there are different genes for different parts of the body that scientists haven’t found?

Antimatter-Matters Mirror

Author: R. Micheal Barnett of Berkeley National Laboratory Published: January 24, 2002 Article

        Antimatter. Any Strek fan can tell you that every Federation ship runs on this “magic” fuel, but what is it really? In scientific terms it is an oppositely charged particle (opposite relative to matter). By opposite I mean an electron in matter which has a negative charge has an antimatter parrellel in the positron which has a positive charge and the proton (positive)  has the antiproton (negative). Now when antimatter and matter collide they annihilate each other and their energy is transformed. Anyone who has read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown has heard of the destructive power of antimatter. Luckily, we can not yet make enough antimatter to pose any real threat.  You may think ” Why are we made of matter and not antimatter?” The answer is unknown, but many tests have shown that during the big bang a difference of one matter over antimatter would have given us the current levels of matter and antimatter. When antimatter and matter annihilate each other the energy they realease is exponential. This aspect of antimatter is being researched as a “miracle” fuel source. It is 100% efficient, to compare nuclear power is only about 15% efficient, it produces no  harnful radiation, and one kilogram has the power to run the entire U.S. for half a year. However, that same kilogram can vaporize a 10 mile radius. I don’t mean ruined city, I mean perfect crater. As of now we don’t have a way to create enough antimatter for this to be effective. It would take the Hadron Super Collider one trillion years to create one kilogram of antimatter.

If we could find an efficient way to make large quantities of antimatter would you use it or would the possible annihilation make you think twice?

antimatter explosion in space

top 10 mysteries about the first Humans.

Humans are unique among life on this planet, and much remains a mystery as to how we evolved.

NUMBER 10 — Where do modern humans come from?

The most bitterly debated question in the discipline of human evolution is likely over where modern humans evolved. There is a couple of hypothesis about this, like the out-of-africa hypothesis maintains that modern humans evolved relatively recently in africa and then spreaded around the world, replacing exsisting populations of archaic humans. The multiregional hypothesis contends that modern humans evolved over a board area from archaic humans, with populations in different regions mating with their neighbors to share trits, resulting in the evolution of modern humans, currently the out-of-africa hypothesis is in the lead, but mulitregional hypothesis remains strong in their veiw.

NUMBER 9 — Who was the first hominid?

Scientists are ucovering more and more ancient hominids all the time.- meaning bipeds including humans, our direct ancestors and closest relative. They strive to find the earliest one, to help answer the most fundamental question in human evolution.

NUMBER 8 — Did we have sex with neanderthals?

Did we interbreed? Scientists have suggested that perhaps the neanderthals did not die out, but instead were absorbed into modern humanity.

NUMBER 7 — Why did modern humanity expand past AFrica about 50,000 years ago?

Roughly 50,000 years ago, modern humans expanded out of AFrica, rapidly across most of the world’s land to colonize all continents except Antarctica, reaching even the most remote Pacific Island. A number of scientist conjecture this migration was linked with a multation that tranformed our brains, leading to our modern, complex use of language and enabling more sophisticated tools, are and societes.

NUMBER 6 — What is the Hobbit?

Is it ‘Hobbit’- the nickname givin to diminutive skeletons found on the Indonesian isle of flores in 2003- in fact an extinct human species, are they a different species than us, but perhaps not an extinxt human species and instesd as seperate as chimpanzees are? solving this mystery could help shed light on the radical paths human evolution may have taken.

NUMBER 5 — Is human evolution accelerating?

recent evidence suggest that humaninty is not only still evolving, but that human evolution is actually accelerating, speeding up to 100 times historical levels after agricuture spead. a number of scientist challenge the strength of this evidence, saying that it remains difficult to ascertain weather or not certain genes really have recetly growm in prominence because the offersome adaptive benefits. Diet and Diseases may be some of the pressures that caused humans to change.

NUMBER 4 –  Why did our closest relatives go extinct?

Roughly 24,000 years ago, our species, homo sapinens, was not alone in the world, – our closest relatives, the neanderthals, were still alive. The so-called ‘hobbit’ might also have been a member of the senus homo, and it apparently survived until as recently as 12,000 years ago. Why did they die and we survive? some evidence exists for both scenarios, but no conclustion is agreed.

NUMBER 3 — What happened to our hair?

Humans are unique for looking maked compared to our ape cousins. One suggestion is that our ancestors shed hairiness to keep cool when venturing across the hot savannahs of Africa. ANother is that loosing our fur coast helped free us parasite infestation and the diseases they can spread. One unorthodox idea even suggest human nakedness developed after our ancestors breifly adapted for a streamlined life in the water, although most aquatic mammals of roughtly human size actually possess dense fur.

NUMBER 2 — Why do Humans walk on two legs?

Our ancestors evolved on upright posture well before our large brains or stone tools even appeared. The question is why stand and walk on two legs when our ape cousins get by on four limbs? walking on bipesds might actuallu use less energy than movement on all fours does, by freeing up our arms might also enabled our ancestors to carry more food. Standing upright might even have helped the control their tempature better by reducing the amount of skin directly exposed to the sun.

NUMBER 1 — Why did we grow large brains?

There is no question that our large brains have provided us an extraordinary advantage in the world. Still, the humans brain is an increibly expansive organ, taking up only 2 percent of the bodys mass yet using more than a fifth of the bodys energy, and until about 2 million years ago none of our ancestors make better tools. another is that larger brains helped us interact with eachother. perhaps radical changes in the enviornment also demanded that our ancesters deal with a shifting orld.

Questions-

Where do you belive modern humans came from?

Why do you think we expanded so rapidly?

Do you beileve in this logic?

picture !!!!

This looks like it was copied and pasted. I need a link to the journal article where you read and summarized this from before approval.

I pods catching on fire!

   Title:Are you playing with fire when you play your tunes?

   Publisher:Lynne Peeples

   Date:August 10,2009

I pods keep getting smaller but they still hold the same amount of music. How are they doing this? They are making their size’s smaller by improving the way the batteries rely on lithium ions. Which hold and realse energy. This may seem convenient but your i pod may catch on fire because of the little room on the battery which limits how much the battery can cool off. If the battery gets to hot it can overheat and possibley catch onto  flames.

     These batteries are extremly sensitive to temperature. The battery works well at a 50 degree celsius. But overheating is not the only way an  i pod could catch on fire just by simply charging the battery. No need to worry this process is very slow when the battery is in room temperature but the process gets faster as the temperature rises. They are trying to make a safer type of battery with lower power but you can reduce the risk by limiting their exposure to heat and let them cool off. Also by not over charging them it’s rare but it can also happen.

 Do you think its i pods are safe?

Are you afraid of your i pod bursting into flames?

Should they fix this probelm?

Should people be so worried about Global Warming?

Should people be so worried about global warming? There seems to be so many people worried these days about temperature increase in the polar ice caps causing the water to rise in the oceans, but is it happening fast enough to be a major problem? I think that Global Warming is happening but it is not happening fast enough to be a major problem. Sure there are some things we can do to reduce our “Carbon Footprint” but I don’t think that we should have to go out of our way and do something extreme to help. I think that if we all do small thing like recycle our paper instead of throwing it away than nobody will have to complain that the temperature is going to rise and cause massive damage. according to the union of concerned scientists “Global warming is primarily a problem of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  This carbon overload is caused mainly when we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas or cut down and burn forests.”

Do you think that we aren’t doing enough to prevent global warming or are you one of the people that think that the world is fine?

to read the full article go to http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/CO2-and-global-warming-faq.html