Category: The Word On Science and Math

The three sisters’ writings on science and math.

Our First Lego League Team

My sister Simran and I are part of a First Lego League (FLL) team. The team also includes two of our friends, Brady and Naythan. Our team name is the Cryptic Cookies.

FLL is a two part competition and is organized around a theme. The theme  for 2016/2017 is Animal Allies. The first part of the competition is to complete a project based on the theme. bat-book-cover-pageOur team decided to focus on conserving bats; for our project, we  published an iBook titled “Days of Danger: the life of a bat”, which is on sale now for 99 cents in the iTunes Store, and we are also creating a board game to educate kids on bat conservation.  All proceeds of the iBook will go to Bat Conservation International, an organization which strives to help conserve bats.

The second part of the competition involves a series of missions to be completed using a Lego robot. This year, we must program our robot to deliver food to Lego animals, collect milk and manure, bring prosthetic legs to a stranded pig, and more.

The Cryptic Cookies also has a website. The link to our website is thecrypticcookies.simplesite.com .

 

The Respiratory System – A word on Science

By Simran Jayasinghe

The respiratory system controls your breathing. When you inhale, your diaphragm moves down, letting your lungs expand and take in more air. Air comes in through you mouth, into your trachea, and into your lungs. Your trachea branches out into bronchi, and the bronchi end in small air sacs called alveoli. Each alveoli is wrapped in tiny blood vessels. The air goes to the alveoli, and the oxygen in the air moves through the thin membrane of the alveoli, and into the blood vessels, and the blood carries it to our cells. Carbon dioxide, a waste product made in your cells,  gets carried by the blood and is taken to the alveoli. In the alveoli, the carbon dioxide moves from the blood to the air that we exhale. The exhaled air goes up your trachea, and out of your mouth. As you exhale, your diaphragm moves up, forcing the air out.

 

The Muscular System – Science

By Simran Jayasinghe

muscular_systemThe Muscular System is made up of muscles. There are two main types of muscles, voluntary muscles, and involuntarily muscles. There are also Skeletal muscles, Smooth muscles, and Cardiac muscles. Smooth Muscles are like the muscled that line the inside of your stomach. Cardiac and Smooth muscles are involuntary. Involuntary means that do things without you having to think about it. Voluntary means you need to think about it to do it. Skeletal Muscles are voluntary because you think before you move and your brain has to tell your muscles to move. Bones and muscles have to work together to allow you to move.

The Skeletal System – Science

By Simran Jayasinghe

skeletal_systemThe skeletal system is made out of our bones and our cartilage. Cartilage is tissue that’s flexible, like the cartilage in our noses. Some main type of bones are ribs, femurs, pelvis, and fibula. The place where two or more bones meet are called joints. Some types of joints are pivot joints, gliding joints, hinge joints and ball-and-socket joints. Your knee is a ball-and-socket joint. A pivot joint, for example, is found in the neck. If we didn’t have bones, we would be a lump of cartilage, skin, and organs. Bones are what make up our structure and shape. Our bones also allow us to move. If we didn’t have bones, we would have to stay still our whole lives! That would be pretty boring! They also protect some of your organs.Your ribs, for example, protects your lungs and heart. Strings of tissues that hold our bones together are called ligaments. Ligaments also help to keep us moving.

The Human Genome Project

By Simran Jayasinghe

We have all heard of DNA. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. You are probably wondering, why you need DNA? DNA is basically the instructions for every single cell in your body.  DNA makes a shape like a spiral staircase that is called the double helix. In most organisms, DNA is found in the nucleus of every cell. DNA is made up of four chemicals called nucleic acids: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). A always pairs with T, C always pairs with G. The complete set of your DNA is called your genome.

human genome projectThe Human Genome has about 30,000 genes in it. A gene is the part of the DNA that determines  an organism’s features. Genes can determine the color of your eyes, the color of your hair,    the color of your skin, how tall you will be, and things like that. When there is a mistake in a gene, it can sometimes cause diseases like Parkinson’s disease, Cystic fibrosis, and Spinal Muscular Atrophy. It would help doctors if they could look at the genes of a patient, because they might find out if that person will have a certain disease. They can find out a patient’s genes by looking at the patient’s genome.

The Human Genome Project was a effort to sequence all the genes that are found in us. The Human Genome Project took 13 years to complete, and cost 3 billion dollars. The Human Genome Project was finished in 2001. Today scientists can sequence one genome overnight!. Since we can sequence human genes very quickly doctors can determine which patients will get a genetic disease. This ability has also led to a field called Personalized Medicine.  To read more about personalized medicine see my sister Kiran’s entry.

Personalized Medicine

By Kiran Jayasinghe

Before releasing a drug to the world, scientists test a group of people. If the drug or medicine works on more than fifty percent of the people, they usually release it to the rest of the world.

But why doesn’t it work on everyone?

Scientists think that certain drugs work only on some people because they have similar genomes (a genome is a complete set of DNA – your genes), while others don’t. They think that if they looked at a person’s genome and prescribed medications according to the person’s genes, the medicine would work better. This method of practicing medicine is called “personalized medicine”.

Personalized medicine is a treatment that is, based on your genome, made to work better for you. Scientists can read a person’s genome almost overnight, and once they do, they can learn what type of genes they have, and what type of medicine will work better for them.

For instance, let’s say somebody has cancer. Some cancer drugs don’t work on all patients. In those situations, the doctor can sequence the patient’s genome, and figure out exactly what type of cancer the patient has and what exact type of medicine will work with the cancer.

Scientists think that personalized medicine will significantly change the way doctors treat patients in the next few years.

Sonoran Desert and the Sonoran Desert Museum

By Simran Jayasinghe

On our trip to Arizona, we went to the Sonoran Desert museum. If you would like to learn more about our trip to Arizona and the desert museum, click here. When I got home, I decided to research the deserts in California. A desert is a dry area that gets very little amounts of rain per year and where nothing much grows. The hottest, driest desert in the world is the Atacama Desert in Chile. Deserts are usually next to mountains because the mountains create a rainshadow (All the moisture in the cloud falls in the mountain and nothing is left for the desert). Sometimes though, it does rain in the desert, and when it rains, it rains a lot! But, the water doesn’t stay. It evaporates or the plants take it up.

I found that there are three deserts in California: The Mojave Desert, which is mainly in southern California, and southern Nevada; The Great Basin Desert, which is above the Mojave desert and is the largest desert in the U.S.; and the Colorado desert which is part of the Sonoran desert is located in the southernmost part of California.

The Sonoran Desert stretches from Southern Arizona to New Mexico and there is even a bit in Mexico and Baja California. I was wondering why it is called the Sonoran Desert and found out that it covers the western half of the Mexican state of Sonora, and since it covers such a lot of this state it is named after it. It is home to 60 species of mammals, 350 species of birds, 20 amphibian species, 30 native fish species, 100 different reptile species, 1,000 native bee species, and 2,000 native plant species. Part of the desert is also home to the last population of Jaguars living in North America. It is also home to the Saguaro cacti.P1090952
The Saguaro cacti is what many of us picture when we talk about a desert.

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Posing at the entrance! (Image by the Jayasinghe family.)

A couple of months ago, we went to the Sonoran Desert Museum. The Sonoran Desert Museum is the largest outdoor museum in North America and the museum is located in Tuscon, Arizona. The full area of the museum is 97 acres. There are different trails, and along each trail you see exhibits featuring animals, plants, flowers, and more. In this way it is kind of like a zoo. There was a mountain lion exhibit, a Mexican gray wolf exhibit, a black bear exhibit, a snake exhibit, and so on. There is an aquarium called the Warden Aquarium, and a theatre called the Warden Oasis Theatre. In the theatre they hold many different shows and we saw the one called ‘Live, and (sort of) on the Loose!’  This show only takes place Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. In the Warden Aquarium, there are new touch-tanks for kids to look at, and touch. There is a bird show held outside called Raptor-Free Flight, where you get to see some different species of birds fly from tree to tree without tethers. Be sure to go to the Arizona’s Sonoran Desert Museum. You just can’t miss out!

To find out more about Arizona’s Sonoran Desert Museum, click here.

A New Planet!?

By Kiran Jayasinghe

We’ve all learn’t that there are eight planets in the solar system – at least most of us. For the longest time, we thought there were nine planets. But several years ago, astronomers kicked out Pluto, and called it a dwarf planet. Since then, we’ve been learning that there are eight planets. Now, we might have to start learning that there are nine planets again – because astronomers at CalTech might have found a new planet, named Planet X.

These astronomers studied six objects in the Kuiper Belt (that’s the part of the solar system beyond Neptune) and observed that the objects were in a strange arrangement. They decided that a bigger, giant planet must be pulling on them. They thought that this planet would be the cause of the objects’ tilt, orbit, and other characteristics. And they’re probably correct.

Orbits_1280_PlanetX2
From the sciencemag.org

Planet X is supposed to be the size of Neptune. It has a highly elongated orbit, taking about 15,000 years to revolve around the sun. Now, if Planet X is at the far end of it’s orbit, we most likely, will not be able to see it for a long, long, time. If Planet X is at the closer end of it’s orbit, we might be able to spot it with one of our largest telescopes, like the one in Hawaii – CELT. That would be one great discovery.

Learning about Planet Nine made me think about our visit to the Lowell Observatory, in Flagstaff, AZ. Pluto was discovered at the Lowell Observatory, in 1930, by Clyde Tombaugh.  We went to the Lowell Observatory on our trip to Arizona, and it was pretty cool! We saw the Clark Refracting Telescope, and the Pluto telescope. And yes, you guessed it, the Pluto telescope was the telescope used to find Pluto.  The Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, and became a National Historic Landmark in 1965. It receives 85,000 visitors per year – Wow! Most of them look at the telescopes, some watch shows and presentations, and still others take walks along the trails.