Blience Tuesday #6: Amphibians

     This is the six of the my blience (blog/science) series. Today's topic is amphibians, the class of animals that live on land as well as in the water. Amphibians start their life in the water, and finish their life on land. This post will be divided into three sections, like the last five posts. The first of the three sections will be ab
out the evolution of amphibians, as well as extinct spices of amphibians. The second section will interesting amphibian information. The third section will be about caecilians, an order of amphibians that are so obscure that blogger is putting a nasty red line under it. So, enjoy!

     Amphibians were the first vertebrates on land, using their lungs and nostrils to let them breath. They evolved from legged fish that let them crawl along the sea floor. To live on land, they had to evolve their muscles, spine, and limbs had to grow stronger to hold them up. Their skin had to thicken to protect them from harmful UV rays. The amphibians, once evolved to live on land, still had to return to the water to lay their eggs. Reptiles could lay their eggs on land, which enabled them to eventually dominate over amphibians. About 250 million years ago, the three orders of amphibians are thought to have diverged from each other. Eventually, because reptiles became dominant, amphibians grew smaller.

     The class amphibia contains some diverse and fascinating species. For example, Wallace's flying frog can jump from trees when threatened and glide with it's large webbed feet for up to 50 feet. The poison dart frogs of central and south america have poison on their skins, with some species being so poisonous they could kill ten to twenty humans. Their is one species of salamanders that live only in a small part of Mexico that live only in the water, even though they have lungs. The largest species of amphibians is the Chinese giant salamander, reaching up to 6 feet long.

    Caecilians are an order of amphibians who resemble earthworms. They live mainly underground, in Central America, South America, Africa, and South Asia. They have no limbs. Their vision is limited to light-or-dark. Most caecilians have lungs. Mature adults eat mostly insects. Not much is known about their behavior.


Thanks for reading, and any ideas can go in the comments!

Blience Tuesday #5: Cicadas

     This post is about North American cicadas, the load, irritating buzzing insects. I do not live in the area that is being hit by Brood II this year, but I hope to travel to NJ for a weekend. This is Blience Tuesday #5, continuing my my weekly series. Section #1 of this post will be about the broods. Section #2 will be about their life cycle. Finally, the third section will be about their noise.

     Firstly, the broods. There are 15 broods that have been documented recently. Two more were documented, but now are thought to be extinct. Twelve of the fifteen come out every 17 years, the other three come out every 13 years. The brood out now (or coming very soon), brood II, stretches from New York to North Carolina, with a pocket in Georgia. Their are about seven distinct species of cicadas within the genus Magicicada, four of which live for 13 years underground; the other three take 17 years.

     Secondly, the life cycle of a cicada. While cicadas are underground, they feed on plant roots. They molt five times while underground. When they emerge, they climb up a plant and shed their skin once more. Then, the males start making the buzzing-humming-vibrating song, which is used to attract females. the females cut slit in tree branches, were the lay their eggs. The eggs hatch and nymphs fall down into the dirt and bury themselves. Go back to first line of this paragraph.

     Finally, their song. The noise is only from males, not the entire population. It is used to attract a mate. The noise comes from the cicada's tymbal, or the bumpy part of their exoskeleton. There are actually three songs, one being a "weeeeee-whoa"-like sound, whereas the others are more like clicking and buzzing.

Thanks for reading!


Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas
http://www.magicicada.org/about/species_pages/species.php

Blience Tueday #4: Lice

   
     Unfortunately, my family has been plagued with head lice recently. As well as being really irritating, the lice have given me a blience subject to blog about. So, #4 in my series will be about lice. The first section will just be about head lice in general. Section #2 will explain about the bad things they can do. In section three I will talk about treatment for them.

     Head lice are insects, who only live on humans. They cannot jump or fly. Lice lay their eggs on hair shafts. They spend their entire lives on the scalp and hair, and feed only only human
blood. They live about 1 month. They itching is caused by a reaction to their saliva, so only some people itch.

     Unlike the body louse, head lice do not pose any disease risk. They are, other than making your head itch, harmless. I am not sure where all the fear and stigma about them came from.

     Finally, treatment of head lice. To get them out of my hair, I went to a lice "clinic" where I had them combed out after my head had been covered in conditioner. I also slept one night with olive oil on my head with a plastic bag on my head. I have filled my head with conditioner and combed it out every three or so days. The lice clinic told me and my mother that the "lice killing" shampoos do not work. I am not entirely sure which treatments work and which don't, but my lice seem to have gone away, so something I did worked.

Thanks for reading, and put blog ideas in the comments!

Bibliography:
(Photos came from here too) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_louse

Blience Tuesday #3 Fungus

     This is number 3 in my Blience Tuesday series. This post will be about fungi. In this post, I will give a brief introduction to fungus, and then give my audience a general idea of how fungus can be helpful or good, as well as how fungus could be destructive or bad.

     First, what is a fungus? Fungus is thought to be sort of strange, a weird plant-like thing. Fungus is actually a separate kingdom, different from plants or animals. A very important part of the fungus is the mycelium. The mycelium sits underground, and collects nutrients. Out of the mycelium sprouts mushrooms, which are like the fruit of mycelium. The mushrooms can shoot out spores, which can land in the ground and become mycelium again.

     Now, I will give a few examples of how fungi can be good, as well as bad. First of all, what we can and do use them for. Many types of cheeses incorporate mold to give a certain flavor, like blue cheese. Yeast, which is used in many baked goods to make them rise, is a form of fungus. Also, fungi has been used to soak up motor oil and kill insects. Also, fungus can decompose dead things and return their nutrients to the ecosystem.

     Now, bad things fungus can do. There are certain types of fungus that live in damp places that can cause health problems. Fungus can decompose wooden structures making them unstable. Some mushrooms are poisonous, often deadly.

     Overall, I think fungus does more good than bad. Please comment! Thanks for Reading!



Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_cheese
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html



   

Blience Tuesday #2: Trees

    This is number two in the Blience Tuesday series. This post will be about trees. I will be splitting it up into three parts: pollen allergies, why they change color in the fall, and where they get nutrients. In part one, I will explain why the body dislikes pollen. I part two, I will explain chemically why the leaves grow more colorful in the fall. Finally I will explain where trees get the nutrients that they need to grow.

     First of all, pollen. Pollen is a cell made by the plant to let it reproduce. Some types of pollen are carried by insects, such as the pollen of the sunflower or orchid, where as other species of plant have the wind carry their pollen like a pine tree or oak. I a human inhales pollen, the body recognizes it as an unknown cell, and tries to try to get rid of it, and keep any more of it away by making you sneeze, making more mucus, and making your eyes itchy.

     Second, and my favorite of these three, is color-changing leaves. Before I get into why they change, I want to explain why they are green in the first place. There is a chemical called chlorophyll that colors the leaves green. Chlorophyll is present in the leaves because it is helpful in photosynthesis. In late summer, the tree begins to gradually block of the leaves, blocking the chlorophyll supply. There are chemicals called carotenoids presentin the leaves the entire year, but are usually masked by the green. Once the green is gone, these chemicals dye the leaves orange-yellow. There are more chemicals, called anthocyanins, which are produced in late summer and dyes the leaves red-purple. These two chemicals result in beautiful trees in the fall.

     Lastly, nutrients. Now many people have heard of photosynthesis, and probably know that it involves leaves geting energy from the sunlight. What I did not know about photosynthesis until I researched this is that the carbon dioxide that plants absorb from the air and the water that they absorb from the ground via their roots is also a part of this process. The water helps turn the light energy from the sun into chemical energy, which then turns the CO2 into sugars, feeding the plant. I think this process is amazing, and find it very interesting.

Thanks for reading!

Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergic_rhinitis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_leaf_color
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis

Blience Tuesday #1: Solstices, Equinoxes, and Eclipses

     This is the first post of a weekly series called Blience Tuesday! Blience being a portmanteau of blog and science, and Tuesday being the day of the week on which Blience Tuesday happens. This post is the first in the series. In this post, I will explain what an solstice is, what an equinox is, and what an eclipse is.

     First of all, a basic explanation. The Earth's axis is tilted. The Earth's axis is pointed the in the same direction all the time, so some depending on the Earth's position relative to the sun, the one hemisphere will be closer to the sun than the other. The hemisphere that is closer, even by such a marginal amount, is warmer, and has summer. The video (from here) shows this. When it is warmer in the northern hemisphere, it is colder in the southern one.
   
     Now, an explanation of solstices. The solstice is when one hemisphere is closest to the sun. In other words, the time when the difference between the seasons in each hemisphere is the greatest. That is why the the solstices happen in the middle of winter and the center of summer. The solstice is shown in the above video at the point where the Earth is farthest to the left of farthest to the right.

     Next up, equinoxes. While the solstice is the time when the seasons in the south and the north are as different as they get, the equinox is when the are the closest to each other. When the sunlight that hits he Earth hits perpendicular to the direction  of the axis, the axis is not really changing anything, and therefore the seasons in the south and the north are similar. During the equinox in the spring, the other hemisphere has autumn weather, and vice versa. In the video above the equinoxes happen when the Earth is directly behind the sun and directly in front of it.

     Finally, eclipses. There are two types of eclipses, lunar and solar. A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth is between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow onto the moon, and darkening it. Lunar eclipses happen twice a year or more. A solar eclipse happens when the moon goes in front of the sun, so from a certain place on Earth, the sun is blocked from sight. A solar eclipse happens twice to five times a year.

Thanks for reading!