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THE SECRETS IN GENES AND DNA

Scientists today know a lot about how and why humans – and most all living things for that matter – are the way we are. The secrets in genes and DNA that used to be a mystery are being unlocked at a quick pace. We no longer wonder why one person has blue eye and another has brown eyes. We know of many diseases that are passed down through families and why. We breed animals and plants for specific traits like size and color. It is truly amazing what we know about how life and living things work. It wasn’t like that in the 1800s. That’s when Gregor Mendel was alive. Mendel was a scientist. He loved math and science. Although his father wanted him to run the family farm, Mendel joined a monastery instead. One of his favorite things to do there was work in the garden. It was through experiments in this garden at the monastery that Mendel discovered the basic principles of heredity. His findings were considered so significant that he is known as the father of modern genetics. So what did he learn that set the field of genetic study in motion? He used pea plants to show that certain inheritable traits in pea plants follow a pattern. It may not sound like much now, but by cross-fertilizing pea plants with opposite traits (he mixed tall with short, smooth with wrinkled, etc.) he was able to show that there are dominant and recessive traits that are passed from parents to offspring. That bit of information turned out to be a building block for many scientists that went on to study biology, botany and many other life sciences.

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Come Out and Play

The Golden Gate is Open

The Golden Gate Is Open is a fun and easy game to play with a few friends. It can be played outdoors or inside, wherever there is enough room to run around a little. It is a simple and easy game without any real winner or losers. How to play: • To play the game there should be at least three people, but there is no limit to how many can participate. • Players should pair up in two lines. • Players reach across lines and hold hands above their heads. • It should form a shape like a tunnel. • Players should sing the following rhyme: Golden gate was opened, unlocked by a golden key But if you are late to enter, you will lose your head Whether it’s him, whether it’s she… Will be swept away by a broom. • While the players holding hands sing, one player should run though the archway as quickly as possible to avoid being captured. • At the end of the archway, the runner should join hands with whomever is at the end to form part of the arch. • Then the next player should run through the archway and repeat this process. • The round is over when the rhyme ends. • At the end of the rhyme, archway players should lower their hands to trap whichever player is running through the archway. • You can sing the rhyme as fast or slow as desired to make the game easier or harder. There is a second version of the game. Instead of player’s trading places after the runner passes through the archway, the runner keeps passing through the archway. The archway players try to trap the runner at the end of the rhyme. If the player escapes the rhyme starts over. If the runner is captured then they must switch places with an archway player.

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Around The World

Around the world – April 2016

In the Czech Republic, April 30 is known as pálení čarodějnic (burning of the witches) or čarodějnice (the witches). Every year, on the night of April 30, in towns across the Czech Republic, people light bonfires. On this night, folktales say that witches gather and meet in the hills. The fires are meant to scare away the witches. This also serves as an official farewell to winter. April Fool’s Day falls on April 1. While no one knows for sure when our how it became a day for pranking friends and family, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy it. The first recorded reference to April first and foolishness was in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which was published in 1392. In Mexico, April 30 is known as el Dia del Niño — Children’s Day. Even though it is not an official holiday on the school calendar, there are no classes on Childrens Day. Instead of going to school, many families go do special activities like visiting a zoo or going to a water park. Some parents give their children gifts on this day, too.

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What’s It Like To be

Astrophysicist?

Thanks for taking time for this interview! Please tell our readers a little bit about yourself. My name is Christopher Moore and I am an astrophysicist. I am currently in graduate school pursuing my Ph. D. in astrophysics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Graduate school has a lot of class work, teaching responsibilities and big tests. I have always been interested in how things work and the beauty of stars in the night sky, so physics and astronomy were great choices for me to study in college. Hard work, dedication and a strong curiosity have given me the opportunity to do what I love. Part of my Ph. D. involves a very small satellite (called a CubeSat), the Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS, please check out our website! http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/minxss/) Please tell our readers a little bit about what you do. I am the Instrument Scientist for MinXSS. In labs here on Earth, I test the performance of the detectors for our satellite and compare their actual performance to a predicted performance based on physical models. It is important to understand how efficiently the detectors can count X-rays and determine each X-ray’s energy before we launch MinXSS into space to observe the Sun, because we do not exactly know the amount and energy of the X-rays created from the Sun. So, I shine a known amount of X-rays (of different energies, like a rainbow) on the detector and see how the detector responds. MinXSS will measure X-rays from the Sun after it is launched into space. X-rays are very energetic versions of visible light, and like a rainbow, a bunch of X-rays can have different colors, or energies. The outer atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona, is around 1 million degrees Kelvin (around 2 million degrees Fahrenheit) and this is much hotter than the surface of the Sun, which is near 6,000 degrees Kelvin (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). The outer atmosphere of the Sun is so hot that it makes X-rays. Thus, I also use physical models to predict the ‘rainbow’ of X-rays created by the Sun to estimate what our CubeSat will observe. Why is this work important/how does it apply to every day life for most people? A big mystery is exactly how the Sun’s atmosphere is hotter than its surface. Explosive events like solar flares, create a lot of X-rays and charged particles in a few minutes. We currently do not know exactly how many and the energies of X-rays are released by solar flares. The particles created by solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs, large amounts of matter ejected from the atmosphere of the Sun) can disrupt satellites, harm people onboard polar airplane flights, cause harm to future astronauts on deep space missions and create aurora here on Earth. We have to continue to study these ‘solar storms’ to better understand them and to predict when they will occur in the future. What is the coolest thing about your job? One of coolest parts of my job/career is having fun doing experiments and watching predictions come true. As a student, I get to work on a satellite that is currently in space (the first MinXSS CubeSat launched from the NASA Kennedy Space Center in December 2015), and I think that is really cool. The fact that a piece of equipment that I worked on is in space is amazing. Another unique aspect is the opportunities to travel across the United States for the MinXSS CubeSat and other career opportunities. I have been to Florida, Hawaii, California and many other places, and it is all for science! In my travels, I get to meet people of different backgrounds and cultures and these have been great experiences. What is a typical day like for you? Designing, building, testing and operating a satellite takes a team. There have been more than 40 graduate students that have worked on MinXSS under the guidance of professionals and professors. So it depends on the day and what is needed for the MinXSS CubeSat at that time. Normally, I spend time in labs with X-ray sources or special labs called clean rooms were it is necessary to dress in a special suit. What kind of training does it take to do your job? To succeed in physics at the graduate school level, it is important to be comfortable with math, be able to solve problems on your own and communicate your ideas effectively. Computer programming skills are becoming more and more important, too. Also, having the ability to understand the basic concepts of a complex idea and then apply it in a situation is necessary. Some of this training happens in school. Other parts must be developed through experience. If you want to study, physics, math, engineering and/or astronomy, learn as much as you can in grade school and high school. When/How did you know you wanted to be an astrophysicists? I was always curious about the world around me and liked to build things. As a kid growing up in the Chicagoland area, I did not see many stars at night because of the bright city lights. I knew that the stars were there but did not really know how many were in the sky. One day, when I was about 12 years old, I was on a vacation with my family. We were far from the city lights. When I looked up at the night sky and saw vastly more stars than I did back home, this astonished me. From that point on I was fascinated with space and stars. What are some challenges you face in your work? Working on satellites, detectors and the physics of stars requires a wide range of knowledge. Anything can go wrong or break at any time. CubeSats have relatively smaller teams than the big satellite missions, so more workload falls upon each member. Skills in physics, math, computer programing, chemistry and engineering are critical. Learning so much, so fast and then applying…

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Kids

Brown Throated three-toed sloth

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Pilosa Family: Bradypodidae Genus: Bradypus Species: Varigatus There are four species of three-toed sloths, one of which is the Brown Throated three-toed sloth that is native to Central and South America. All sloths spend the majority of their lives high in the treetops of rainforests. Their long claws are curved making them perfectly shaped to hang from tree branches. Sloths sleep, eat and even give birth in trees high above the forest floor. They very rarely descend from the treetops as this is when they are most vulnerable to attacks from predators because they are unable to effectively walk. Brown Throated three-toed sloth The algae that grows in the fur of sloths is a very specific kind of algae, and the two living organisms have a symbiotic relationship. It can’t be found in any other environment. The sloth provides the algae a place to live and a good supply of water. The algae help hide the sloth from predators. The sloths gain their algae colonies from their mothers at just a few weeks old. Some scientists also think that the algae help feed the sloth by providing nutrients through the sloth’s skin. No one totally understands the relationship, but it is unique in the animal kingdom. • They are some of the slowest-moving animals in the world. • They are herbivores; their favorite foods include leaves, twigs and fruit. • Their plant diet also provides the water that they need. • It can take a month for a sloth to digest a meal. • They are about the size of a cat and weigh 8 or 9 pounds. • They sleep 15 to 20 hours a day. • They are good swimmers, but on land they just drag themselves along the ground with their front arms. • They are called three-toed sloths because they have three long claws on each hand. • They have long greyish-brown fur. • The fur usually has a greenish tinge from the algae that live in its hair. • The algae add some camouflage for the sloth and help them blend into the green leaves around them.

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Where in the World

Mount Chimborazo (Ecuador & Tidal Bulge)

Mount Chimborazo is an inactive volcano in the Andes mountain range. The last time it erupted was in 550 A.D. Because it has been so long since its last volcanic activity, it is called inactive and is just thought of as a mountain. It has four summits called Veintimilla, Whymper, Politecnica and Nicholas Martinez. The highest of the peaks is Whymper. The top of the mountain is constantly covered in glaciers, making it difficult and dangerous to climb year-round. There are often avalanches and dangerous weather near the summit. • It is the highest mountain in Ecuador. • The summit Nicolas Martinez was named after the father of Ecuadorian mountaineering. • It is 20,702 feet high. • It has many craters on its surface from past volcanic activity. • The summit Whymper is named after Edward Whymper the British mountaineer who was the first to reach the summit in the 1880. • The other mountaineers on the first ascent with Whymper were Lois Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel. • It is a stratovolcano. • It had seven eruptions in the last 8,000 years. • It has a circumference of 78 miles. • The largest crater is 820 feet deep. • The glaciers at the top of the mountain provide water when they shrink in the summer. • The glaciers are also mined for ice sold in markets. • Natives call the mountain Urcorazo.That is translated to “Mountain if Ice.” Mount Everest is the highest point on earth above sea level, but Mount Chimborazo is actually the highest place on Earth. It is the farthest place from the center of the earth — 3,968 miles. This is because of tidal bulge. The earth is not a perfect circle. The gravitational pull of the moon not only moves the oceans of the earth creating the tides, it also stretches the surface of the earth. The earth has a bulge where the tidal pull is strongest, the equator. Mount Chimborazo is only one degree away from the equator so it’s height as a mountain and being located on the tidal bulge make it the highest place on earth, beating Mount Everest.

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Weather

Recognizing Patterns at the Storm Prediction Center

The job of alerting the public about severe weather is performed by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Oklahoma. The SPC is responsible for issuing Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm Watches and provides severe weather forecasts up to eight days in advance of the storms. How can they forecast severe weather so far in advance? SPC has a team of forecasters who specialize in the various types of hazardous weather such as tornadoes and thunderstorms. They use supercomputers and forecast models to understand the state of the atmosphere and what it might do next.The forecasters focus on weather pattern recognition by looking for certain patterns in the models. These patterns often occur in the atmosphere several days in advance of an outbreak of severe weather. Typically, details of potential severe weather become more apparent one or two days out. When forecasters identify potential severe weather they then have a momentous decision to make: whether to issue a Tornado or Severe Thunderstorm Watch. It’s a huge responsibility. Their decision will impact the lives of ordinary people, causing them to change their daily activities. For example, placing New York City or Chicago in a watch puts millions of people on notice about severe weather potential. A watch will put Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs) and other public safety agencies on heightened alert. It is not a decision that can be taken lightly. But that is their job. A forecaster explains, “Knowing the destructive force of a tornado, living in central Oklahoma, and seeing destruction first-hand, you can become overcome by a dreadful feeling of knowing that this will not end well. You know the power of the storms. There is a very eerie feeling that comes over you, especially if storms occur overnight when people are sleeping. You can watch the storms on radar and see the towns the storms are crossing and realize the potential damage. Our role is to protect life and property. I keep that in front of my mind at all times.” Dangerous weather can occur anytime and anywhere. While storm forecasts are not exact yet, they have vastly improved over the past couple of decades due to additional satellites taking weather measurements from space and more computing power. The men and women of NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center use these tools to keep us safe.

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Letter From Truman

March 2016 – Letter from Truman

Hi, Kids! Did you know that Earth is not round – only round-ish? I had no idea. When I learned about the many things that influence the shape of this big beautiful planet on which we live, I was surprised. And what I found out was quite interesting. Check out the “Connections” section to learn more. Ecuador holds a special place of honor when it comes to the shape of Earth. It is home to Mt. Chimborazo. It is not the tallest mountain, but it is the highest mountain above sea level. Ecuador is also the home of a very special kind of music — pasillo. With beautiful lilting chords, pasillo is played with guitars (sometimes mandolins) and a rondin a flute-like instrument. It is the official musical genre of Ecuador. You can read more about it in the “Cultural Connections” section. Chris Moore has a cool job. He is an astrophysicist. He studies the stars and space. You can find out more about what he does in the “What’s It Like to Be …” section. It’s been decades since the first man walked on the moon, but it is still something not many people get to do. Would you visit the moon if you had the chance? I would!

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Space Place

Watching El Niño Closely… From Space!

By Katie McKissick National Aeronautics and Space Administration This past year, Earth has had unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. Believe it or not, this one thing can lead to a lot of interesting weather events all over the globe. We call it El Niño. It happens because of changes in winds and ocean circulation. We can’t predict an El Niño before it happens, but we can watch it closely when it does. This is one of the many things that scientists at NASA do: they keep an eye on Earth and track big events like El Niño. What exactly are they looking at? Because El Niño causes so many strange things to happen, scientists have plenty to watch. They use information from more than a dozen satellites orbiting Earth to keep track of what’s happening all over the planet. A big thing they’re looking at is temperature and how different it is from usual. This includes the temperature of the air and the temperature of bodies of water like the ocean. Temperature affects a lot of things, like the sea level height, humidity, clouds and storms — even big tropical storms like hurricanes and typhoons. The temperature of the ocean also affects all the things that live there, from small phytoplankton to fish and whales. NASA is keeping an eye on all of it. You might be wondering how NASA scientists could monitor living things in the ocean from space. After all, it is quite a distance away. But you can tell a lot by looking at the color of ocean waters. The colors can give us clues about living things in the water and how much food there is for them to eat. Phytoplankton, for instance, is bright green. We can see the green color in the ocean with Earth-orbiting satellites. During El Niño, the water is less green than usual because there is less phytoplankton. This is bad news for fish because that’s what they eat. Scientists also keep a close eye on rainfall all over the world during an El Niño year. In the western United States, El Niño brings lots of rain, but in places like Australia, El Niño brings less rain. Some places have floods while others experience drought. El Niño makes a lot of things change. Since El Niño changes the amount of rainfall, there is also a difference in the number of wildfires. During El Niño years, there are more wildfires, especially in Indonesia, Central America, and the southern and central Amazon. Some of NASA’s satellites observe wildfires and can even tell the difference between active flames and smoldering burns. These satellites can also monitor the affects of all the smoke and ash that go into the atmosphere during a big fire. El Niño causes some big changes and strange weather, but NASA scientists are watching closely. Every day they learn more about El Niño, the weather and our planet. Want to learn more about El Niño? Visit NASA Space Place, and then whip up some El Niño pudding! http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/el-nino.

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Kids

KUNG FU PANDA 3

In the third installment of the popular family film series Kung Fu Panda, you will find yourself on an emotional roller coaster with just enough action, comedy and love to go around. Large and adorable, panda Po (Jack Black) realizes he has a lot to learn if he wants to surpass his next obstacle from his role-model instructor. During this long, adventurous process, he finds himself reunited with his long-lost father (Bryan Cranston). Po must find a way to morph into the teacher he was always destined to be. With help from his new panda family, the martial-arts masters come together to fight the envious and malevolent Kai (J.K. Simmons), a warrior who came back from the spirit realm in order to steal everyone’s chi. I have always been a kid at heart, but watching this film truly made me feel like it was my first time ever watching Kung Fu Panda in the movie theater. Since it brought back a ton of memories, I couldn’t help but notice all of the fantastic, quality changes the film has gone through. This has always been a great series, but this movie takes the gold when it comes down to story line and visual effects. There is no doubt in my mind that the creative directors and graphic designers behind this film spent tons and tons of hours developing the amazing oriental scenes within this movie. Every single color, movement, saying or setting in this film truly embodies what Kung Fu Panda is all about, which makes the meaning and experience for an avid moviegoer all the more understanding and worthwhile. Because of the sincere story line, it will hit home for lots of viewers and family members. One thing I do wish I had the opportunity to see more of are the famous and Furious Five (voiced by Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Angelina Jolie, David Cross, and Seth Rogen) and Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) in action altogether, especially when attempting to defeat the evil Kai. Ultimately, Kung Fu Panda 3 is a hilarious and charming film for everyone in the family to enjoy. Whether it’s moving you to tears from laughter or gloominess, you’ll find it hard not to smile with satisfaction when the credits begin rolling. This movie is rated PG for its martial arts action and some mild rude humor, so I think this will be just perfect for kids ages 5 to 18. I rate this film 4.5 out of 5 five stars.

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