I am still focused on space and science research to help gain an understanding toward possible teachable concepts.
I was glad to see Pluto in the news, since it has been down-sized lately.
I had no idea NASA is trying to land on Pluto! Travel around it and take photos, yes, but actually landing and exploring is news to me. I want to know why spend money and time on this project? What could possible be so great about Pluto in relationship to science?
Could Pluto’s smooth flat icy surface offer great scientific answers because it may possibly contains an ocean habitat similar to earth under all the ice?
Could Pluto’s ocean depth be more like the Antarctic and Arctic habitats teeming with marine life then possibly imagined?
NASA’s new Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched and has covered about 500 million miles since January 2006 when it was launched. It can accelerate about 52.000 mph and reached Jupiter’s solar system faster than previous spacecraft. By using Jupiter’s massive gravity to pick up speed New Horizon successfully completed a fly by on its way to Pluto as reported February 28th to gather data about the atmosphere and Jupiter’s moons. New Horizon is now within 1.4 million miles from Jupiter and planned to reach the Pluto system in July 2015.

The Jovian moon Io, as seen by the New Horizons probe, which is passing Jupiter en route to Pluto. (NASA)
Pluto probe swings by Jupiter
A small spacecraft en route to Pluto has flown past Jupiter, picking up enough speed from the giant planet's gravity field to shave three years off what would have been a 12-year voyage.
In exchange, the New Horizons spacecraft is taking a lingering and long-awaited look at Jupiter, which was the focus of the now-defunct, eight-year Galileo mission. Of particular interest is Europa, a large Jovian

moon that shows strong evidence of a subterranean, salty ocean.

This image provided by NASA and taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager shows a 4-millisecond exposure of Jupiter and two of its moons on January 17, 2007. The spacecraft was 68.5 million kilometers (42.5 million miles) from Jupiter, closing in on the giant planet at 41,500 miles (66,790 kilometers) per hour. The volcanic moon Io is the closest planet to the right of Jupiter; the icy moon Ganymede is to Io's right. The shadows of each satellite are visible atop Jupiter's clouds; Ganymede's shadow is draped over Jupiter's northwestern limb.

(NASA Photo)Photo Gallery>>>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1859742.htm

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/01/content_5785822.htm

More Space

I wanted to know more about The LCROSS mission and wonder; is it possible for astronauts to use moon water to fuel their rockets?
A fleet of soft-landing, automated spacecraft could begin lunar astronomy missions to the
moon to offers advantages for astronomy. Ultra-thin liquid mirrors on giant optical telescopes that hold their shape could scan the skies for pulsars and other radio sources since the moon's far side completely blocks Earth's radio transmissions. This could reach areas that are permanently shaded from sunlight where the moon is as cold as outer space. Infrared telescopes could peer through dust clouds masking other solar systems and galaxies as slow rotation would give them days of uninterrupted observing time without tricky spacecraft maintenance.
Full-scale lunar observatories are expensive, but reaching the moon within just a few years is America‘s goal. Next year, two spacecraft will piggyback aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. The LCROSS mission will probe crash into a crater at the moon's south pole to see if water ice is lurking there, and the other will measure solar and cosmic radiation, while adhesive strips attached to its skin will help determine how much lunar dust gets lofted up from the surface. If there is substantial ice in the craters of the Moon’s poles astronauts plan to make rocket fuel with it!!!
A 1-meter telescope with no moving parts could be placed on the moon's surface within a few years. There, it could scan up to 7500 stars simultaneously for the light-dimming effects of transiting extrasolar planets.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/219/1
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/multimedia/images/2006/lunarorbiter.html

tapeworm tummy?

http://www.gcnm.com/colon_cleansing_detox.html?

ovchn=GGL&ovcpn=GifamGoogle&ovcrn=colon+parasite&ovtac=PPC
http://www.mayoclinic.com/
Are Parasites living inside you?
Parasites could actually be lurking inside us. What’s even more shocking is that among the different colors and shapes people often notice various forms of parasites.
Are you carrying parasites around in your body?
This is unfortunately a lot more frequent than most would like to believe. According to United Nations data:
“Overall, about 1.5 billion people have roundworms, making it the third most common human infection in the world. Whipworm infects 1 billion people… More than 1.3 billion people carry hookworm in their gut, and 265 million people are infected with schistosomes.”(10)
Most parasitic-related disorders occur in developing countries, but the rate in North America is skyrocketing. An astounding number of people would test positive for parasites. This is from the Parasitology Department of the University of Cambridge, England: “Pinworm. An extremely common nematode infection, particularly in temperate areas such as Western Europe and North America… It has been estimated that the annual incidence of infection is over 200 million, this probably being a conservative figure. Samples of caucasian children in the USA and Canada have shown incidences of infection of 30% to 80%, with similar levels in Europe.”
Humans can actually play host to more than a hundred different types of parasites, ranging from microscopic ones to tapeworms that are several feet long. Contrary to popular belief, parasites are not restricted to our colon alone, but can be found in any other part of the body - in the lungs, the liver, in the muscles and joints, in the esophagus, the brain, the blood, the skin and even in the eyes!
We may all have parasites if we drink contaminated water, eat undercooked meats, improperly washed fruits and vegetables or have an infected pet.
If antibiotics are used too much it lowers the body’s resistance and interferes with our good intestinal flora. Most microbes will not hurt us because our immune system protects us, but others cause infection. Helminths are one of the largest parasites and if they or their eggs enter the body they move in. They reside in your intestinal tract, lungs, liver, skin or brain and live off the nutrients in your body. Helminths include tapeworms and roundworms and range in length from 6 to 14 inches. but can grow to be 25 feet or longer. Tapeworms are made up of hundreds of segments, each of which is capable of breaking off and developing into a new tapeworm.
I know people with parasites and as I do this research I have as much chance having them as not. Many try to remove them the natural way, but rumor is it’s not as effective.
It all seems to be related to a unhealthy diet. So have a v-8.

river dolphin

River Dolphin

I was watching a PBS show about the endangered Yangtze River Dolphin and wanted to learn more. They are also called fresh water dolphin because they reside in freshwater rivers and estuaries. Their are four species; three species live in fresh water, however one species, the La Plata Dolphin, lives in saltwater estuaries and the ocean. These four beak-nosed dolphin species are scientifically classed in the river dolphin family, but there is also the oceanic dolphin family classification.Some of the most endangered of all the world's cetaceans are the freshwater dolphin. They are extremely vulnerable to extinction because of human hunting and loss of their habitat. They possess either poor eyesight or are blind which causes naturally low numbers - making it easy to catch and kill this species with boats or fishing nets. Another possibility could be sub-aquatic sonar pollution may interfere with their sonar-based method of locating food. The Tucuxi species can live in both fresh water and salt water environments, but is not regarded as a true river dolphin.One species will have completely perished by the end of this decade and the Yangtze River Dolphin was declared "functionally extinct" because it was last seen in September 2004.

How sad; another species gets added to the extinct list.

What can we do as future teachers to help save the river dolphin?

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=river+dolphin&btnG=Search+Images

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverdolphin

what does a patent mean?

What does a patent mean?

The idea of getting a patent is a great concept because it’s the government’s way of giving ownership to the inventor’s creation. It’s a legally binding way for a person’s genius and innovation to be financially rewarded. But make sure you patent your great idea before you share it with any one else because you never know.

As I researched this topic I discovered that corporations own the patent for my genes!!!
What a scary concept and my research lead me to believe this one is truth in the making.

If you have at least one kidney, a company called Biogen in Cambridge, Massachusetts patented one of the genes involved in repairing damaged kidneys. They discovered and isolated the gene and the valuable protein involved in treating kidney disease and injury.
If the taste buds on your tongue work the University of California own the rights to three more of your genes.
If you have had normal bone growth since birth a company called Sumimo Metal Industries is trying to develop a treatment for osteoporosis with your bone-building gene.
They are looking at the natural chemical that produces bone growth to encourage bone growth on diseased osteoporosis. That sounds promising.
In 1980 about a dozen “life patents” claiming ownership to naturally occurring building blocks in the human body were granted. In 2000, 500,000 DNA genes were patented.
Corporations, academic institutions, charitable research groups, and the U.S, Department of Health are the proud owners of our genes. Anything the pharmaceutical companies have a hand in makes me up-set because there are for profit.

So the race is on for businesses to be the first to patent human DNA and as of 2007, 20 % of the genes that make up human DNA are patented.
I find this news both encouraging and discouraging as we more forward in scientific discoveries every day.

Here I was worrying about companies owning and controlling plant and animal food sources for future survival. When in reality why shouldn’t they own my farm and produce if they own my body?

http://www.howstuffworks.com/patent.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,2763,397403,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

What is an Organism?

How can I explain and really understand organism?

i was looking up GMO and came to the word organism.


I have always wanted to know how to explain organism to some one else and it may be important to get a better idea for a teaching perspective.





















Organism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?mode=Root
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism
http://www.biol.lu.se/cellorgbiol/plantmicrobe/index.html



In biology and ecology, an organism (in Greek organon = instrument) is a living complex adaptive system of organs that influence each other in such a way that they function in some way as a stable whole.


The word "organism" may broadly be defined as an assembly of molecules that influence each other in such a way that they function as a more or less stable whole and have properties of life. However, many sources, lexical and scientific, add conditions that are problematic to defining the word.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an organism as "[an] individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form"[1] This definition problematically excludes non-animal and plant multi-cellular life forms such as some fungi and protista. Less controversially, perhaps, it excludes viruses and theoretically-possible man-made non-organic life forms.

• Organism are molecules that come together as a whole to function as life forms
• They can be good organism that include the salad we eat or they can be bad organism that include E.coli
• Organism are never really independent of an ecosystem
• They are capable of independent reproduction and can exist in systems of life, made of living and dead tissue
• The crab is and example of an organism
• Superorganisms consist of many organisms and ants are the most well know example
• All organisms are classified by the science of taxonomy, which we just learned about
• Organisms are complex chemical reactions that promote reproduction and survival
• All organisms consist of cells
• Organism life span could be as short as one day, while some plants can live thousands of years

I am still unclear how to tie in the Greek word "instrument"

Does any one know - is GMO an organism? (non-organic / life form)

http://www.howstuffworks.com/