Cur. Ev. 2nd quarter No 1

Dinosaur Speed Demon

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/

22^nd October 2011

Carnotaurus

          You’ve probably heard of the tremendous Tyrannosaurus Rex, or the amazing Albertosaurus, but have you heard of the road runner of the dinosaurs, the Carnotaurus? On one episode of Quirks and Quarks, the host Bob McDonald interviews Scott Persons, a PhD student at the University of Alberta, about this fantastic beast. Persons was studying the Carnotaurus, and he noticed that its tail bones looked very strange. They tilted steeply upward, overlapping each other. This bone structure would cause a very stiff tail, restricting quick turns. But why? In dinosaurs’ tails, there was a muscle called the codothimeralis. This muscle, when it constricted, would pull back the leg, helping the dinosaur run. In the Carnotaurus’ tail, the bones tilting upward gave more space for the codothimeralis, allowing it to expand. So this dinosaur gave up quick turns for sheer speed. It could probably run 30-35 mph, as fast as a racehorse. That is really fast for a dinosaur.

My thoughts

Finding out about this dinosaur and how it was structured was really interesting for me. I think that learning about past life forms is very important, because it helps us understand how we and our Earth as we know it came to be. It’s also really cool to learn about. =D

Cur. Ev. 2nd quarter No 2

Cur. Ev. 1st quarter No 3

Water fingerprints

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/

Saturday, October 8^th 2011

        Ever wonder how water came to Earth? Well, astronomers think that water couldn’t have existed on Earth at the beginning. The sun was so hot, any water would have evaporated. So where did the water come from? In one episode of Quirks and Quarks, a radio show on CBC, the host Bob McDonald interviews Dr. Darek Lis, a Senior Research Associate in Physics at the California Institute of Technology. He and his colleagues have found a trace of water on Comet Hartley 2 when it hurtled past in 2009. They found that the water on this particular comet has the same chemical fingerprint as the water on Earth. This suggests that the water that’s on Earth came from the same place as the comet, the distant Kuiper belt, rather than perhaps the much closer asteroid  belt between Mars and Jupiter.

My thoughts

       I think that this is very interesting, and that it really could help us learn about the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. Knowing where all our water came from would help us understand who we are and how we came to be. It could also give us a hint about alien life. Who knows, maybe there’s a planet out there that sustains life because of the water. This article really sparked my interest, so maybe you should check it out, too.

Cur. Ev. 1st quarter No 2

Japan Earthquake

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598

11 March 2011

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

       You’ve probably heard of the earthquake that struck Japan earlier this year. Can you imagine just walking around, minding your own business, when suddenly the earth begins to shake and tremble? Can you imagine what fear these people must have felt when the saw the giant wave hurtling toward them? This terrifying earthquake was 8.9 on the Richter scale, making it one of the strongest earthquakes in history. Cars, ships, and buildings were swept away by the tremendous tsunami that followed. Officials say that 350 people are dead and approximately 500 missing, but it is feared that final death toll will be much higher. The tsunami rolled across the Pacific at 800km/h before hitting Hawaii and the US West Coast, but there were no reports of major damage from there.

         
          The earthquake was the fifth-strongest since 1900, so I really feel sorry for the people who had to experience it. All those people who died… there must have been many, many sad families. I think that earthquakes are horrible, even though they are natural, and we can’t prevent them. It’s really sad that this happened. The good news is that people are helping Japan by donating, and that, even though its slow, things are getting better for Japan.