The Circulatory System and You by Liam M.

Did you know your body is always circulating blood to get rid of harmful materials in your body? Our class is studying human body systems. I am doing the circulatory system. I chose this because I like to figure out how the body works. The circulatory system is the system of the body that circulates blood and get oxygen to the cells. The main parts of the system are the heart, vessels, and blood. The heart is the pump which pushes the blood around. The vessels are the pipes of the body. There are three kinds of vessels: arteries, veins, and capillaries. The arteries carry blood away from the heart, and blood flows back to the heart through the veins. Capillaries connect arteries to veins. The blood is the liquid which carries the nutrients to the cells. A fun fact about the circulatory system is the femoral artery, which is located in the thigh, is one of the biggest arteries in the body.

Are you really double-jointed? By Killian

I have always been fascinated when people can bend their fingers backwards.  Most people call this being double-jointed, but actually there is only one joint but the ligaments are stretched so their length of movement is extended. As we have been learning about the skeletal system in science class, we learned that a joint is where two bones meet, and ligaments connect the two bones together in a joint. Ligaments are a short band of tough, flexible connective tissue. The technical term for double-jointed is hypermobility. You can have one or two hyper mobile joints or a large group of them. In most cases it won't involve any treatment but sometimes, if the ligaments around a joint are too loose, it can cause joint pain and increase the risk of dislocating that joint. Hypermobility can be caused by age, genes, or even repetitive stretching. If you want to learn more go here,

Last week in class.... By Tobias

Last week in class we started a unit on human body systems. We were split up into five groups and these groups are the skeletal, nervous, muscular, circulatory, and respiratory systems. As of now we are doing some research, then we will make a ebook using the app book creator. I'm in the skeletal system group and we are making a page book about joints and bones.

Bones! By Beatrice

Do you know how many bones humans have? If you don't know, humans are born with 275 bones, but adults have around 206. When I first heard that I thought: how would the number of bones get smaller and not larger? Well the answer to that is the bones grow or if you want to use a scientific term fuse together. For example you have many bones in your skull but as you grow the bones fuse together to create bigger bones in your skull. The reason I chose bones as a topic is because I am learning about them in my body system group, and that's also why this topic is relevant to my science class. I have learned a lot about bones or the skeletal system. One of my favorite facts I've learned is the funny bone is actually a nerve called the ulnar nerve, it “hurts” because it bumps up against a bone called the humerus which the ulnar nerve runs through. I hope you are inspired to go learn more about bones after reading this blog post. To learn more information go to this link.

Dehydration by Charlie H.

I chose dehydration because people don't pay enough attention to how much water they drink. If you don't drink nearly any water for more than a couple days you might start to get sick because you have not got back the number that was lost. Dehydration is when your body doesn't have enough water to keep it working right. You mostly lose water when you sweat, but you even lose a little water when you breath. Usually it's pretty easy to make up for the water that we sweat out. Some signs of dehydration are feeling lightheaded, a fast heartbeat, or dry lips or mouth. You should try to drink 8 glasses a day but any number close to that is fine too, just find the right amount for you. If you're thirsty the best drink is water or milk but a Gatorade every once in awhile won't hurt. This topic connects to our science class because a common type of dehydration is cellular dehydration where your cells are unhealthy because they need water. I got my information here.

Dolphins by Jaden

I chose dolphins for this life science blog because they are one of my favorite animals. A young dolphin can stay with it's mother for up to two years!! A dorsal fin on top of a dolphin is different and unique to each one and can be used to distinguish them from each other. Dolphins can be as small as 5.1 feet but also be as big as 31 feet! Even though it is called a killer “whale” an orca is a type of dolphin. Dolphins are most commonly found in tropical areas but a few like the right whale dolphin can be found in colder oceans. Dolphins have several adaptations. The dolphins fins allow them to cut through the water more easily. They also have blow holes which allow them to consume oxygen and blow out air when they comes up. It has also adapted to swim incredibly fast as to avoid predators. Their retina can gather light very well which allows them to see underwater. This connects to our science class because earlier in the year we talked about adaptations. Websites I used: website 1 and website 2

Amazing Polar Bears by Amelia

Polar bears are strong, brave, smart animals. In our pond ecology unit we learned that animals have adaptations. Polar bears have adaptations such as strong legs for swimming and running, thick white fur to keep them warm in the cold and for camouflage. Polar bears live in the arctic so they are swimming in freezing cold water, but luckily their fat and thick fur keeps them warm. Polar bears have large paws that act like snowshoes and they have fur on the bottom of their paws to grip onto the ice. Polar bears need these adaptations to survive in their habitat. I chose this topic because polar bears are amazing animals that have many adaptations and because I wanted to learn more about polar bears. Click here for a website on polar bears.

How do tattoos work? by Dudley

During our skin unit I was interested in how a tattoo works. Artists create tattoos by injecting ink into a person's skin. To do this, they use an electrically powered tattoo machine that resembles a dental drill. The machine moves a solid needle up and down to puncture the skin between 50 and 3,000 times per minute. The needle penetrates the skin by about a millimeter and deposits a drop of ink into the skin with each puncture. It seems like the ink would just come off with the dead skin right? It doesn't because the ink gets injected into the dermis. When you look at a tattoo you are actually looking through the epidermis and into the dermis. Here is the site that I got my information.

Inside the mind of dogs! by Sadie

Dog are extremely intelligent animals, more so than they are given credit for. I knew this but was curious as to just how much dogs really understand. During my research I discovered that dogs were much more astute than I had thought. Dogs have about the same amount of understanding and cleverness as a 3-5 year old human. Dogs feel emotions just as a toddler would. For example when another dog is getting attention another dog might get jealous and start whining. The brain of a dog has a very similar structure as a human brain does. The thing that differs drastically in the two brains is that dogs use more of their brain in the part of their brains that is associated with smell. This is why dogs have such a keen sense of smell. Research has shown that a dog can understand up to 200 words and are able to comprehend many different phrases and tones. Another unique thing about dogs is they dream just as humans do. Dogs sleep in something called REM/deep sleep which is the same type of sleep humans experience! There is so much more to learn about the intelligence of dogs, but with the small amount of research I did I concluded that humans and dogs are much alike! Do you think that dogs can only see in black and white? (Add your answer as a comment.)

Check out this video of a really smart dog and his owner!

http://www.petmd.com/dog/behavior/dog-brain-facts-understanding-canine-cognition

The Sense of Touch!!! by Joe

Last week in science class we wondered what the most touch sensitive areas of the skin are. To gather this information, we split into partnerships and laid a pair of pins onto our skin to see how sensitive it was to touch. Now, you might be wondering how we just figured that out. We figured it out by pressing the pins at certain distances apart, and when we could only feel one pin we stopped. The distance between the pins was recorded in a data table, and in the data table the smaller the distance between the pins means the more sensitive the area is to touch. For example my arm had a sensitivity of 2.5 centimeters between the pins or a general sensitivity of 2.5. Our classes (B block) most sensitive area was the lips, with the average of less than 0.3 centimeters.  

Why Do We Have Fingerprints? by Cole

Do you ever wonder why we have fingerprints and just on our hands and feet? I chose this topic when the question came up in science: why do we have fingerprints and why just on our hand and feet? I thought that it would be interesting to learn about and spread the word about. Here is some information about the skin on your palms on your hands and feet: First, we don't have any hair on the palms of our hands and feet, even areas that you wouldn't think would have hair has at least the smallest amount (except the palms of hands and feet). Also there are many sweat glands. There is much less pigment in our palms of hands and feet. This skin is about 8-14 times thicker so the skin doesn't tear or wear down. Now here's what fingerprints are: They are tiny ridges or grooves on the surface of the skin and epidermis, these grooves are formed by lines in the dermis. Fun Fact: Did you know that fingerprints probably give us better grip by making friction and they could help the skin from tearing easily. Another Fun Fact: We are born with the same fingerprints we have through our whole lives. Now Here's a Question For You: Do you think that identical twins have the same fingerprints?

Click here for the website where I got my info.

Leatherback Sea Turtles by Cosi

I chose leatherback sea turtles for this life science blog because they intrigue me. The leatherback sea turtle is the largest species of sea turtles in the world. It lives in the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.  They prefer warm waters but they will go up to the cold waters of Canada or Norway. Every 3 to 4 years they will lay up to 80 eggs on warm sandy beaches. Leatherback sea turtles can weigh 550-1500 pounds. The biggest leatherback sea turtle ever seen weighed 2,016 pounds.  Leatherback sea turtles diets consist mostly of jellyfish and squid.

Hatchling Leatherback Sea Turtle

Adult Leatherback Sea Turtle

Science iMovie By Charlie D

My favorite project in science so far has probably been the mistake under the microscope iMovie project. In this project we got split up into groups of three and had to choose 3 mistakes that can occur while using the microscope. Our group chose, a) You lose the specimen when going from low to high power under the microscope, b) The specimen is too far to the left, and c) Things seem dark under the microscope. There are a lot of easy ways to solve all of that. When all groups were done with their iMovie we presented them to our class. I thought this project was REALLY fun and I'm glad we got to experience this project.

A Painful Condition By Jasper

The skin has many different parts and layers. Lately in class we have been talking about how some people can feel more pain than others. I wanted to know what would happen if someone couldn't feel pain at all which is why I wrote this. Around a million people have a condition, known as congenital insensitivity to pain, causing them to not feel physical pain. This causes self harm without knowing an injury has occurred. Often caused by a defective gene the condition allows the patient to put their hand in boiling water and not feel pain. This is bad because the body is being burned and does not pull away from the cause of the burning. The condition starts at birth and can sometimes lead to young death due to injuries.

Here is where I got my info: click here.