Shark Attacks
Dog Intelligence
Since dogs are pack animals it means
that they understand social structure and obligations and are capable of
learning how to behave around other members of the pack. Adult canines
train their young by correcting them when they behave in an unacceptable manner
and reward them for acceptable behavior similar to humans. Brian Hare, a
professor at Duke University, is on a quest to understand what dogs know.
Gareth Cook, who is the editor for Mind Matters, interviewed Hare about his new
book on dog’s intelligence called "The Genius of Dogs." Hare said that dogs specialize in learning from
someone else’s actions. Most of the research that Hare has done on dogs has
been about the cooperative way they use human communicative gestures and how
they can interpret people’s gestures to understand people or get what they want.
All animals have their own unique genius that was shaped by nature. In the
case of dogs it happens to be their ability to read our gestures. No other
animal can read our gestures as well as dogs can. It allows them to be
incredible social partners with us. There is definitely something special about
the bond we have with dogs. Their ability to read our communicative gestures
makes them seem “in tune” with us.
Simple test that you can do at home: It looks like some dogs also contagiously yawn. The yawn test is
just the owner yawning and seeing if their dog yawns back! It’s a really
simple test but it can tell you a lot about your dog.
I thought this article was interesting because I have 2 dogs and one of them is a puppy and the other one was trained to be a guide dog. While I went through the process of training my puppy, I noticed how quickly he picked up gestures and learned to do new tricks. With my other dog, since he was trained to be a guide dog, he had to go through a year and a half of very strict training. After reading this article, I understand why dogs are so smart and can learn things so quickly.
The Elephant In The Room
Barack Obama recently travelled to Africa to announce his intention to prevent the smuggling of poached ivory, which is found in elephants' tusks/teeth. A rule on trading ivory, however, is the ivory from an animal can be taken only if the animal was killed before 1990 (tusks (ivory) don't deteriorate but the animal does). An industry, however, has created a way to make ivory look older than it actually is, so they can take the ivory for themselves. Kevin Uno, from the University of Utah, is figuring out a way to find out exactly how old a piece of ivory is. Dr Uno’s method uses the ivory’s carbon-14, which forms naturally in the atmosphere by the action of cosmic rays on nitrogen atoms that are also a used in bomb tests. Dr. Uno and his colleagues looked at 29 specimens of ivory (elephants’ tusks, teeth and tail hair, and hippopotamus teeth) of known age. The match was so good that their ages could be determined to within a year of the truth. Dr Uno’s technique costs $1,000, so some places, particularly poorer countries in Africa, might be hesitant to use it. In the context of an illegal trade, which is thought to be about $1 billion a year, and if it helps preserve elephants, whose numbers in Africa have fallen from 1.3m to 600,000, the money would be well spent.
AN ELEPHANT
I found this article really interesting because I recently went to Africa and learned a lot about elephant poaching and saw elephant tusks while on safaris. Elephant poaching is a terrible thing as well as illegal and I think it is really important that Dr. Uno is figuring out ways to find the age of ivory so poachers cannot take it illegally.
Catching On At Last
Kindergarten and first grade classes at a school in Chicago are learning how to read and write by playing games on a computer software program called Reading Eggs. In principal of this school says that using technology to teach can help students learn quicker and it is easier for the school to keep track of a child's progress through the computer program's data. The principal doesn't want the school's students to be learning through boring worksheets, but instead, use interactive programs to teach the student. With this kind of learning technique, teachers and parents of the student can see what type of student or learner he/she is from the saved data on the computer. Even the president is along with using technology in classrooms: earlier this year, he said that he plans to give 99% of students high-speed internet in the next 5 years. At a bunch of schools in San Jose, California and a school district in North Carolina, teachers noticed that students with a lower income performed better using technology than students with a higher income, which was very interesting. One program that has been very popular among schools throughout the U.S. is Khan Academy (which Dr. Griffis uses in biology). Although technology in classrooms are still too new to be proven efficient, so far, schools have seen much improvement in students' performances.
STUDENTS LEARNING ON COMPUTERS
I found this article really interesting because at Buckley, we are using more and more technology in our classrooms every year. In my opinion, I think that using technology in classrooms is great because it is something to look forward to in class the next day. It is really cool to see how advanced technology is getting and what it will be like in the future.
Understanding Alzheimer's Disease
Not only is Alzheimer's Disease a tragedy for the victim, it is extremely difficult for friends and family of the victim to handle. The amount of money being spent on treating patients is also very hard for most families to pay for. The total amount of money spent on treating patients with forms of dementia passed by the amount of money spent on cancer patients as well as patients with heart diseases. There are many symptoms of dementia but one of them stood out to researchers the most. There were little clumps made of protein also known as peptides called amyloid beta that were thought to be the cause of the disease. Researchers thought if the peptides were removed, the loss of memory would stop so scientists have been trying to develop a drug to stop the memory loss and stop the peptides from forming in the first place. However, every drug that scientists have created have failed. One scientist, Stuart Lipton, and his researchers have described the way the peptide works and how it destroys memory cells. Unfortunately, his drug failed but the way he researched and learned more information about the peptides will lead the way to one day find a drug that can cure the disease. Although many dementia drugs have been proved to be successful on animals, they are ineffective on people. Hopefully, one day scientists and researchers will find a cure to this horrible disease.
A NORMAL BRAIN AND ONE WITH ALZHEIMER'S
I found this article very interesting because I was very curious about what caused Alzheimer's Disease and how it effected people. I didn't really understand why people with the disease couldn't remember people or events but after reading this article, now I know that the small clumps that form on the brain would destroy memory cells. I think that knowing information about this disease is important because it can allow others to find more information and help those with the disease.
The Dangers of Insularity
In this article, the writer talks about how surfers look for big waves to ride and are looking for an adventure, which is why they usually stay away from small islands, even though they may have beautiful beaches and nice privacy. The small waves crashing on these small private islands may seem nice to people on vacation but not for surfers. According to an employee of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in France named Themistoklis Stefanakis, the pleasant waves on the private island beaches will soon bring disaster. Researches computerized wave crashes on what a typical island looks like to stimulate the way waves act when the crash onto island shores. Then they created different slopes of islands on the beaches and the wavelengths of the crashing tsunamis. However, the researches found out that, none of the islands helped protect their beaches but instead increased the size of the wave by 5% - 70%.
AFTER A TSUNAMI ON SOLOMON ISLAND
I found this article very interesting because natural disasters can be so destructive and so powerful. The reason of the huge natural disasters that occur on small islands all around the world are still unknown so when I saw an article about the dangers of being isolated (like an island), I was very intrigued to read this article. I think that this article is important because it showed how dangerous island tsunamis can be and how important it is to know how to stay safe in terrible situations that occur often and everywhere in the world.
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