WINTER 2014
"Mistletoe as a Keystone Resource: An Experimental Test." Mistletoe as a Keystone Resource: An Experimental Test. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2013. Harris, Randy Allen. The Linguistics Wars. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Print. "Phonetics vs. Phonology." Phonetics vs. Phonology. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. "Reviews: Morphology and Syntax." Reviews: Morphology and Syntax. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. "Semantics." Semantics. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. Than, Ker. "Ancient Lost Continent Discovered in Indian Ocean." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2013. Cassimally, Khalil A. "The Violent History of Mauritia." Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 5 Mar. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2013 "Phenomena:." Phenomena Electric Brain Stimulation Triggers EyeoftheTiger Effect Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2013. "Will to Persevere Can Be Triggered by Electric Stimulation: Scientific American." Will to Persevere Can Be Triggered by Electric Stimulation: Scientific American. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2013. Green, Samantha How Long do Carnations Live? ProFlowers, 21 Apr. 2011. Web. 22 Dec. 2013. Gage, Kristi. "Keeping Those Fresh Cut Flowers Alive." All Articles RSS. Knoji, n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2013.
Title: "Decorated Cherry Pie Cookies." How to Decorate Cherry Pie Cookies. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013. 4: "Lost Island Image." - Space News. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013. 5: "Decorated Cherry Pie Cookies." How to Decorate Cherry Pie Cookies. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013. Carnation. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013. 7: "Chililady (Monika) on DeviantART." Chililady (Monika) on DeviantART. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013. 8: Christmas Mistletoe. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
"Americans Spend 34 Hours a Week Watching TV, according to Nielsen Numbers" NY Daily News. Ed. David Hinckley. The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2012. Web. 22 Dec. 2013. "More than Half the Homes in U.S. Have Three of More TVs." Nielsen, 20 July 2009. Web. 20 Dec. 2013. Tancer, Bill. "Business & Money." TIME. TIME, 19 Sept. 2007. Web. 22 Dec. 2013. Hagan, Pat. "Watching TV Could Help You LOSE Weight ...but Only If Your Set Is Broken or Needs Tuning." Mail Online. Daily Mail, 12 June 2013. Web. 22 Dec. 2013
9: Niven Teams with Alchemic for Freefall. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013.
Fackler, Martin, and Hiroko Tabuchi. "With a Plant’s Tainted Water Still Flowing, No End to Environmental Fears." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Oct. 2013. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
11: Fukushima Powerplant Flood. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013.
10: Static TV. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013. Rainbow Mountain of Misery. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2013.
Located several hundred miles off the coast of Madagascar, Mauritius is a small African island country in the Indian Ocean. Recently, scientists have found evidence that Mauritius was once part of a microcontinent named Mauritia which they believe that drifted away around 80 million years ago. Scientists came upon this discovery when they found fragments of zircon, a mineral found in the earth’s crust, ranging from 600 million to 2 billion years old. Bjorn Jamtveit, a Norwegian geologist, says that the zircon could be there because lavas, moving through continents on their way towards the surface, contain zirconiferous rocks. The heat of lava usually melts the rocks, but zircon grains would form other rocks with the lava. Many scientists have long hypothesized that volcanic islands like Mauritius and others in the Indian and Pacific Oceans could have evidence of “lost” continents. Jamtveit and his colleagues decided to test this hypothesis first in 1999. The geologists chose to study Mauritius because it is only 8 million years old, and they did not expect to find large amounts of zircon there. They extracted 20 samples and dated their ages, finding that almost all of the samples were much older than Mauritius. Jamtveit says, "They all provided much older ages than the age of the Mauritius lavas. In fact they gave
ages consistent with the ages of known continental rocks in Madagascar, Seychelles, and India." His study concludes that there was a microcontinent that broke off from India and Madagascar 85 million years ago and then drowned into the ocean. Some scientists, however, disagree with the research’s claims. Jerome Dyment, a French geologist who works in Paris, says that there are many other ways for the zircons to be transported to Mauritius. He thinks that this microcontinent claim is very extraordinary and believes that too little evidence has been found. He also participated in a similar study with French and German scientists on the Island of Reunion, only 200 kilometers away from Mauritius. They found no ancient zircons which should be present, considering the proximity of the islands. Although the microcontinent Mauritia may not have existed, many geologists think that there is a chance to discover some “lost” continents. Mac Niocaill, who works in the United Kingdom, says “We know more about the topography of Mars than we do about the [topography] of the world's ocean floor, so there may well be other dismembered continents out there waiting to be discovered.” ◙
In March of 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake devastated the east coast of Japan. This powerful earthquake rocked the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, nearly destroying it, and caused massive damage to the power plant and ecosystem. This was due to the enormous amounts of radiation released from the melt down of the nuclear reactors. It has since been two years after the earthquake, but numerous accidents are still being reported. The company, Fukushima Daiichi, that is operating the plant admitted that tons of contaminated water were leaking into the Pacific Ocean every day. In October 2013, excessive rain caused dikes to overflow, leaking even more contaminated water. Prior to that, workers disconnected a pipe by accident, causing more than ten tons of water to leak into the ground.
How can this problem be solved? Scientists are attempting to freeze the ground around the burned out power plant to slow, or even completely halt the flow of contaminated water. This, however, may not be completed until at least the year 2015. Many Japanese believe that while the plant has stopped releasing radioactive material, radiation is still leaking into the air and water. The Japanese and we hope, however, that scientists will be able to terminate the flow in the near future, for the good of Japan and the ecosystems of the world. â—™
Scientists are concerned about the newly discovered hot spots or volcanic regions in the ocean around the Fukushima power plant. They are uncertain as to whether many of the environmental changes are due to the dying power plant, or because of these hot spots.
â—™
EXEMPLARY MENTOR
Students sleeping, chewing gum, and even using their phones—this is the inconvenient reality in some classrooms, but in Mr. Smith's Earth Science class, many students attentively listen and are excited for the activities in store. When asked of how he is so successfully able to engage active and eager participation in his classroom, Mr. Smith responds, “I am not sure anyone would think science is boring if they knew of the bazillion places and new things to explore. I try and incorporate my past, present, and future science research into my classes to demonstrate how science is a dynamic pathway to learning what makes the natural system tick. And the more you understand about how the system ticks the more it makes sense and becomes more exciting.” He enthusiastically describes his favorite part of being a science teacher as, “Doing science! And importantly doing science alongside other future scientists and future scientifically literate professionals. The science in science teacher still comes first for me and doing field work and experimenting in class with students is a way to generate new ideas, correct misconceptions (including mine), and learn more science.” Clearly we can see how dedicated a teacher Mr. Smith is, and how much he cares for his students, whom he sees as the scientists of tomorrow.
And it pays off—students come to his class eager to learn and excited for new things, whether it be rocks, the earth's core, or clouds. A former student notes, “Mr. Smith's class was a blessing in disguise. It was fairly challenging at the time, but it greatly prepared me for the experiences in high school biology. Not only did I gain a background in some concepts covered in class, but I also gained the skills required to survive in a fasterpaced learning environment.” His nonpareil enthusiasm in the classroom has not only made him an outstanding teacher, but also an accomplished one. Mr. Smith's activities extend well beyond the classroom. Besides being involved in countless extracurricular activities, he also has been selected for field study in Big Bend National Park in Texas and has been chosen as a mentor in Boston University's GLACIER. Mr. Smith sees these experiences as an opportunity to benefit BLS students, noting that his study in Big Bend Texas can possibly become a field-based project for students, and that the GLACIER program will help to incorporate his research into his teaching. Mr. Smith's involvement outside of school and his utmost passion in teaching truly fulfill Boston Latin School's mission in preparing its students for a rewarding life. It is teachers like him that not only teach students, but inspire them. ◙
Have you ever stood in awe of the complexity of language? From Sanskrit to Latin to German to English, languages might seem to work completely differently. A sentence spoken by a German speaker might be complete rubbish to a Roman (and the Roman might even call the German a barbarian!), but similarities between languages and patterns do eventually emerge. The science of language is called linguistics. In our school, we are coerced to study three languages: English, Latin, and a foreign language of choice. For the sake of variety, let’s say we were all forced to study Chinese. English, Latin, and Chinese are all prime examples of different types of languages. Linguists (people who study linguistics) would have a field day comparing these three languages through a multitude of perspectives: linguistics history, grammatical syntax, vocabulary, etc. There are five major branches of linguistics: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. In our English classes, we are primarily focused on semantics. Many of us are native speakers and all of us are proficient English speakers, so we know how to pronounce our words and how to form sentences. But what do we really know about the words we are reading or the words we are writing? Semantics is the study of meaning of words and human expression through language. When you see the word: “allure”, what do you think of? That initial idea of the meaning of the word is called the connotation. The connotation is the “understood” cultural or emotional association one has with a word. As Americans, we are exposed to a magnitude of “American” culture, and so we associate definitions of words in accordance with “American” culture whereas a Brit would associate the definitions of words in accordance with “British” culture. However, no matter where you are from, the denotation of the
word never changes; denotation is the primary official meaning of a word. To phrase the definition of semantics more specifically, it is the study of the relationship of different linguistic units and how the meanings, connotations, and denotations link back to the larger context of the text. So the next time you are reading Charles Dickens or writing an essay,
ask yourself, “What does this word mean here? What does the word actually mean? How does this fit back into the sentence? How does the sentence fit back into the chapter? How does the usage of this word reflect on the writer’s culture?” Our study of Latin, the ancient language of the Romans, the sacred language of the church, and a boring class that takes up an hour of our lives each day, focuses on syntax and morphology. Syntax and morphology are what we normally group together as “grammar,” but they are different in their own respects; Syntax is the formation of sentence – it is the “structure” of language--whereas morphology is the analysis and identification of linguistic units – it is the “formation” of language. In Latin, there are an unquantifiable amount of grammatical structures: purpose clause, cum-causal, indirect statements, proviso, etc. Let’s use the sentence, “Dicit se aquam bibere – he says he drinks.” Let’s mess with the structure of the indirect statement, “Aquam se bibere dicit – he says that water drinks him.” What happens to the sentence? Since we switched the positions of “aquam” and “se”, we switched their roles in the sentence: water became the subject and the person the object. A Roman might be able to understand you just as we would understand “man water drinks says he”, but a language follows specific structural guidelines and the meaning of the language might not be understood otherwise. Endings are very important in Latin because there is so much information crammed within them. Let’s take the verb, “appella-ba-nt-ur – to call by name.” What can we find out from this verb? We know its 3rd person plural from “nt”, it is in the imperfect tense “-ba”, it is in the passive voice “-ur”, and it is indicative, and so we would translate it as “they were being called by
name.” In Latin, we morph the root to modify its meanings. This type of morphology is found in inflected languages, such as Latin, German, and Sanskrit, where there are only a few base words, and by morphing these base words in specific patterns, you get thousands of new words. Now onto Chinese, let’s assume you are a new learner and this is your first year of Chinese. You would focus on phonology, phonetics, and syntax. Just as in any other language, you would need to learn the syntax In order to be understood. But when learning a language which belongs to an entirely different language family, our main endeavor is to learn how to actually speak the language. In Latin, almost all pronunciations and stresses come naturally to English speakers with a tweak here or there, but in Chinese, there is an entirely different system of pronunciation. Phonetics and phonology are the studies of the “music” of language. Phonology focuses on the sounds themselves; it is the systematic grouping of sounds in a language. In Chinese there are basic sounds [Vowels and Consonants], which can be further categorized into liquids, mutes, fricatives, etc, there are tones in which vowels are augmented to sound differently, and then there is stress, which deals with the rhythmic aspect of language. Phonetics on the other hand deals with perception and production of language. Phonetics focuses on the mechanism of sound: pitch, amplitude, and harmonics. From such a small sample size of three languages, you can see the variety of languages and the different patterns and aspects of language. There are hundreds of languages with thousands of distinct dialects. But within any language, there will always be “structure”, “music”, and “meaning”, and all of these are interconnected: “structure” and “music” will always have “meaning,” “meaning” needs “structure,” and “music” allows people to communicate “structure” and “meaning.” As people migrated and interacted with other people, language changed little by little, soon becoming a new language altogether. Language makes connections: it connects Person A to Person B, it connects Person A to the larger community of their language, and so to the web of human interaction. Language undergoes evolution; it changes to a speaker’s preferences and his environment. Language is an organism, it is alive. ◙
The hanging of mistletoe is well known by many as a traditional element of Christmas celebration. However, the function of this botanical joy extends far beyond the lighthearted atmosphere it conjures in the holiday setting. It in fact serves, in nature, a far more significant role – it is a keystone species. A keystone species is an organism, on which many other organisms in an ecosystem depend, and whose removal would result in drastic changes to the ecosystem. In other words, a keystone species’ presence is essential, analogous to the function of a keystone in architecture. Without the keystone of an arch, the arch would collapse. Likewise, experiments have shown that, with the removal of a keystone species, the biodiversity of an ecosystem is significantly reduced, many populations are diminished, land is invasively taken over by other species, and on occasion even the physical components of that environment are affected. But how could one species be so ecologically important? A recent study conducted in Australia shows how the mistletoe is one such influential and crucial species. The mistletoe is a flowering parasitic plant of the Loranthaceae family. Like some parasitic plants, it derives its nutrients, in part, from hosts and photosynthesis. Mistletoe usually attaches itself to trees and shrubs and it is from these organisms that mistletoe can survive However, while parasitism sounds sounds malicious, this quality and other qualities of the mistletoe are crucial elements of its status as a keystone species. In the study in New South Wales, Australia, done by David M. Watson and Matthew Herring, a test was done to prove that the mistletoe is a keystone species. The experiment’s general premise was to see the effects of the removal of mistletoe from woodland and then to compare the results with woodland where mistletoe is left alone and woodland where mistletoe was naturally absent. First, 17 sites were selected, in which mistletoe plants were to be removed, another 11 were selected as controls to be left intact, and another 12 sites were selected because they naturally contained no mistletoe plants. In total, 5493 mistletoes were removed from the 17 sites
94% of which were removed at the first removal period in 2004. The other 6% were removed over the course of the next three years, for these mistletoes were resurgent young plants that grew from leftover seeds of the first generation. However, before the mistletoe was removed, the number and diversity of birds were recorded every season over the course of two years in order to have data, so that they could compare it to results obtained from the experiment. The results are incredibly significant. The sites, where no mistletoe naturally existed, experienced no significant changes. However, in the woodlands where mistletoe was culled, the fittingly named mistletoebird, Dicaeum hirundinaceum, became locally extinct in some of the removal areas. In others, its population was drastically reduced. In fact, in areas left intact, there was a rise in the bird populations. This rise was probably a result of the end to a recent drought, which coincided
with the completion of the researchers’ experimentation in 2008. In addition to the decline of the small mistletoebird, whose favorite food is the fruit of the mistletoe plants, there was an average 20.9% drop in bird species diversity in the culled woodlands. The mistletoe’s disappearance affected more than those organisms directly reliant on the plant itself, but others indirectly as well. Culled woodlands experienced a 26.5% drop in bird species dependent on the woodlands themselves and a 34.8% reduction in all woodland-dependent organisms. Furthermore, these numbers are conservative, for the original data gathered on species richness was based on populations during a drought which would make the populations naturally lower. At the
end of the experiment, however, the drought ended. Therefore, under normal circumstances, the percentages that reflect the loss of birds and decline of general biodiversity would be higher. It is clear that the mistletoe has a remarkable effect on the community, but what are the reasons for its environmental importance? First, the mistletoes provide food in the form of berries, leaves, and nectar. Birds feed on the berries and nectar, and insects eat the leaves and drink the nectar. This food source becomes especially important to organisms when other food is sparse. Second, the mistletoes provide nesting sites for birds and mammals. This quality allows bird and mammal populations and diversity to increase. But while these are two contributing factors to its ecological importance, leaf litter is by far the most influential quality of this plant. Litter from the decaying foliage supports an entire microenvironment, which is directly connected with the ecosystem as a whole. Arthropods (insects, spiders, and crustaceans) thrive in the leaf litter on the ground. Therefore, the mistletoe benefits these arthropods themselves, and furthermore the arthropods provide food for the woodland fauna. In this way, the mistletoe also indirectly aids other organisms in their struggle for survival. This leaf litter also supports a completely different kingdom of life – the fungi. In addition, the leaves and the droppings of other animals supply the earth with extra nutrients, which promote new plant growth. In these ways, the mistletoe not only benefits living organisms but even the nonliving components of the environment, such as the soil. Finally, the mistletoe’s parasitic symbiotic relationship with trees and shrubs serves a dual purpose: (1) to provide food for insect borers, are more food for birds and mammals, and (2) to prevent the overpopulation of competitive species of trees. In conclusion, it is clear that the mistletoe is the center of a myriad of ecological interactions, upon which many more organisms are dependent. Imagine the effects the mistletoe’s disappearance would have on larger and more biologically diverse ecosystems than the ones studied in the Australian experiment. Thanks to this study in New South Wales, Australia, the question of whether the mistletoe is more than a holiday decoration can now be definitively answered with a resounding yes. ◙
though
the
most popular works, what is your personal favorite work and why? Niven: There are many: The Ringworld seems to be everybody’s favorite mental toy. The Integral Trees is my best hard science fiction. Lucifer’s Hammer might save civilization, and has the best staying power. Destiny’s Road is my best novel, barring [Lucifer’s] Hammer, which is a collaboration. What qualities do you think have helped you become such a renowned science fiction writer? Niven: Imagination plus determination plus a healthy curiosity.
Ringworld Series are your
Even
A mathematics graduate from the California Institute of Technology, Niven saw his passion for science fiction in his early twenties and began to work on writing sci-fi for the local newspaper . Among several works that he has written, it was Ringworld Series that the catapulted Larry Niven in fame. For this work, Niven won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards, highly prized awards given only to very best science fiction books. Niven writes “hard” science fiction, which means that he focuses on scientific accuracy and detail in his writing. He has been regarded among the most famous and well-liked sci-fi writers of all time. We are so honored to be able to have a short interview with him. Check out the hundreds of works he has written at your local library or bookstore! As a great and influential science fiction writer, what would you advise to students thinking about possibly being a science-fiction writer or scientist when they grow up? Niven: Tell me a story. If you aren’t dreaming up stories, no technique helps. What do you find the hardest about writing science fiction? Is it brainstorming, putting scientific elements in it, or making it attract to people who don’t know very much about science? Niven: I used to be able to be first to use a new idea in fiction. These days, the Net gives everybody the same chance. I’ve got to be better. Brainstorming is easy. Scientific elements make their own stories; I research for fun. Explaining what’s going on to average readers is a longtime skill. Some people criticize science fiction saying that it is “pointless and unrealistic.” What is your response to that? Niven: People who don’t read science fiction are semi-literate. There’s more to it than just learning the future…or a whole spectrum of possible futures with an option to choose. There’s learning to recognize crap; learning to use common sense. Science fiction writers learn to be cynical; to recognize the predictions that might actually come true. ◙
Tired of feeling discouraged? Have no motivation to push through with life and persevere? If you answered yes to any of these questions, we have a solution to your problems. We can stimulate your will to persevere by electricity! Yes, you heard it right. We will stimulate your brain and give you the power of perseverance just like that. No more painful repetitive visits to your psychologist, just a single zap to your brain! Recently, news reports have been coming out about how the will to persevere, or “The-Eye-Of-The-Tiger effect” as Ed Yong of National Geographic calls it, can be stimulated by sending electrical pulses to AMCC, the anterior midcingulate cortex, a specific part of the brain. This discovery came as the result of an experiment done by Dr. Parvivi. A surgeon and neurologist at Stanford University, he intended to cure a patient with severe epilepsy by removing the brain tissue that caused the seizures. To find the tissue causing epileptic seizures, Dr. Parvizi stimulated areas of the patient’s brain and asked him how he felt when his brain was stimulated. When he stimulated the AMCC, the patient reported, “‘It was more of a positive thing like: push harder, push harder,
Television, probably the most important invention in our lives. Nielsen, a global information and measurement company, reported in 2009 that “There are 114.5 million TV homes in the U.S. in 2009.” We see TVs everywhere we go and often cannot resist being pulled into the colorful screen. According to the NY Daily News, “The average American over the age of 2 spends more than 34 hours a week watching live television.” TV has become so essential to us that we, on average, spend one and a half days of each week with our eyes glued onto the screen. Watching television has always been thought of as a bad habit. Nobody likes to be called a couch potato or bum because they have been watching too much TV. This, however, will, perhaps fortunately, change. Studies and reports have recently shown that watching television may have some benefits to our health. Before you speed off to yell at your parents about how they lied to you, keep in mind that there are certain limitations to how TV can benefit you. In 2007, Time reported that “the Journal of Health Communication published a study showing that watching certain television programs may be good for our health...The study followed 807 primetime television viewers and found that those who watched a series of episodes of the NBC drama ER, in which a teenager is diagnosed with hypertension and is counseled to eat more fruits and vegetables and to get more exercise, were 65% more likely to alter their eating habits than those viewers who never saw tbe episodes." Some television
push harder to try and get through this’”. This test was repeated on another epileptic patient and similar results were obtained: the person felt a challenge was coming but felt the strength to overcome it. Finding the same symptoms in another patient supports the theory that a stimulation of the AMCC does indeed trigger the will to persevere. Scientists then studied the AMCC though imaging and further concluded that the exact site where the electrical stimulations triggered the effect was a neural junction which connected the AMCC to many other parts of the brain. Parvivi notes that the results support that “‘...feelings and functions are not and cannot be centered in [just one] area of the brain, but [lie within] a distributed network’”. This recent interesting discovery helps us understand more of how our minds and perception work in our brain. Maybe in the future, we won’t need to pay anymore long and painful visits to the psychologist. Maybe all we need in life is a spark of inspiration, literally. ◙
shows were able influence the eating habits and behaviors of their viewers. In addition to ER, Time claims that another show, The Biggest Loser, affects viewers as well. “Over the last two years, however, there's been an unseasonable bump in mid-September, a surge of interest online [visits to wellness sites] that coincides with the launch of the new fall TV line -up—including the premiere of NBC's hit reality show, The Biggest Loser.” Time acknowledges that there is a correlation between watching people lose weight on shows like The Biggest Loser, and actually taking an interest into losing one’s own weight. A more recent report in June, 2013 by Daily Mail claims that watching flickering screens reduces the appetite of the viewer: “Scientists have found that looking at the flickering screen that usually means your television is broken, or needs tuning, can banish hunger pangs. Food cravings instantly disappear if someone spends just a few seconds looking at a black and white flickering screen.” Watching TV may seem to be good for your health, but there are so many restrictions that one would have to do to make watching TV actually beneficial. You would need to get a broken TV and only watch certain shows. Even if you are doing exactly that, weight loss cannot be certain. For those of you, though, who are TV addicts, do not give up hope. There may come a day in the future where we can watch TV and lose weight without any restrictions on what we need to watch and how we should watch it. ◙
When you take a certain letter from the answer to each of these clues, take it from the LAST NAME of the person being described. 1. Repopularized the heliocentric solar system model 2. Friar who demonstrated inheritance of traits in pea plants 3. English naturalist credited for the theory of evolution 4. Formulated laws of motion and universal gravitation 5. Famous Renaissance astronomer who created one of the first telescopes 6. Best known for his mass-energy equivalence formula 7. Polish chemist who won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry 8. Proposed law of planetary motion 9. Created cures for many diseases and created process to make milk safer to drink 10. Discovered Uranus, along with two of its moons: Titania and Oberon. 11. Was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins. Take the first letter of the answer to 9 Take the second letter of the answer to 5 Take the sixth letter of the answer to 1 Take the fifth letter of the answer to 6 Take the eighth letter of the answer to 10 Take the second letter of the answer to 8 Take the third letter of the answer to 7 Take the second letter of the answer to 3 Add a space Take the sixth letter of the answer to 2 Take the fifth letter of the answer to 4 Take the fifth letter of the answer to 11
One of the coolest things in science is DNA! DNA is made up of 4 bases: Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), and Thymine (T). In DNA replication, the A base becomes a T base and vise versa; the G base becomes the C base and vice versa. In transcription, the DNA code becomes mRNA. During transcription the T base becomes a U base, the C base becomes G base and vice versa, and the A base is still an A base. Example: DNA: GACCGTATG through replication: CTGGCATAG through transcription into mRNA: CUGGCAUAC mRNA can be broken down into groups of three bases called codons: CUG | GCA | UAC From these codons, long chains of amino acids are created. Through translation of the mRNA, the codons become amino acids. CUG | GCA | UAC becomes: Leucine-Alanine-Tyrosine Applying your new knowledge, solve the puzzle using a secret pseudo-protein code dealing with codons to find out why chemists like nitrates so much! ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ AUG AAC UCU AUC CGC ____ ____ ____ UUC CAA AUC ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ CUC UCU AUC UUC UAU AUC CAA ____ ____ ____ ____ AAA UCU UUC GCU ____ ____ ____ CUG UUC CGC ____ ____ ____ ____ CAA UUC AAA AUC
____ UAA
Across 2. Mentoring program that Mr. Smith is chosen for 6. This quality of the mistletoe is one of many crucial elements of its status as a keystone species 7. People who don't read science fiction are considered this 10. “The-Eye-Of-The-Tiger effect” can be stimulated by sending electrical pulses to this part of the brain (abbreviated) 12. No one chose this answer choice for the survey 13. A prize Larry Niven won 14. Catapulta seeks to ______ interest in the sciences 15. In this month of 2013, excessive rain caused dikes to overflow 16. Bjorn Jamtveit says that this mineral could be in Mauritius because of lavas 17. This amount of degrees increases the surface area of the opening of the carnation stem, allowing for maximum water absorption Down 1. The study of meaning of words and human expression through language 2. The G base in DNA and mRNA stands for this 3. State where Niven graduated from college 4. A global information and measuring company that reported 114.5 TVs in the United States 5. The formation of sentence or the “structure” of language 8. The _______ Trees is Niven's best hard science fiction novel 9. State in which Mr. Smith will do field study at Big Bend National Park 11. Catapulta's gmail address
What is the most beneficial invention/advancement of the 21st century?
1
1
2
Developments in Drugs (which battle diseases such as cancer and HIV) Nanotechnology
13
2
Hydrogen Powered and/or Hybrid Cars
Robotics (includes prosthetics)
Smart Phones
3
Genetic Engineering
Social Networking Sites
4
Artificial Intelligence
Not Sure
3
Other
7
“I believe that Hydrogen Powered/or Hybrid Cars are the invention of the 21st century, because they allow us to move around efficiently and are better for the environment. It also means that we can do the same with medicine and other useful things too.” - Anonymous “I chose "Robotics/Prosthetics" because they benefit amputees and those who lost their limbs in tragic events.” - Lily Yang (VI) “I chose social networking and smartphones for a reason. These technologies greatly change the human life and how we connect with each other. We are now more connected to each other. Information appears faster than ever before. The society requirement also changes as the people who are quickly adapting to these new technologies are having more of the advantage in life.” - Duy Nguyen (III) “Development in Drugs is the most beneficial because it prevents the loss of millions of lives.” - Anonymous “I think nanotechnology is currently the most important. The large amount of money invested in it will make it more and more impacting as the century continues.”