National Geographics

Todays article was on the giant devil catfish, it was said to be a man eater meaning it ate humans. It was also a TV episode going on tonight at 10 PM which i will be watching. Here's the article on it.

Go in search of the legendary Goonch, a ferocious catfish rumored to be a man-eater. Known as the Giant Devil Catfish, this vicious fighter is believed to have developed a taste for human flesh by feeding on burnt bodies from funeral pyres in India. Now, one extreme angler is determined to find out what is myth and what is real. Embarking on a daring expedition, adventure angler Jakub Vgner is on a quest to come face to face with a monster Goonch in the flesh.

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National Geo-graphics

Today's article was on Carbon Dioxide emmision limits which is other words means the amount of CO2 released into the air. This is because people are actually starting to be aware of all the CO2 being released into the air and actually starting to do soemthing about it. Here's the article.

The Carbon Bathtub
It’s simple, really: As long as we pour CO2; into the atmosphere faster than nature drains it out, the planet warms. And that extra carbon takes a long time to drain out of the tub.
A fundamental human flaw, says John Sterman, impedes action on global warming. Sterman is not talking about greed, selfishness, or some other vice. He’s talking about a cognitive limitation, “an important and pervasive problem in human reasoning” that he has documented by testing graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Sterman teaches system dynamics, and he says his students, though very bright and schooled in calculus, lack an intuitive grasp of a simple, crucial system: a bathtub.
Interactive
Climate Change Simulator » In particular, a tub with the tap running and the drain open. The water level can stand for many quantities in the modern world. The level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere is one. A person’s waistline or credit card debt—both of which have also become spreading problems of late—are two more. In all three cases, the level in the tub falls only when the drain runs faster than the tap—when you burn more calories than you eat, for instance, or pay off old charges faster than you incur new ones.
Plants, oceans, and rocks all drain carbon from the atmosphere, but as climatologist David Archer explains in his book The Long Thaw, those drains are slow. It’s going to take them hundreds of years to remove most of the CO2; that humans are pouring into the tub and hundreds of thousands of years to remove it all. Stopping the rise of CO2; will thus require huge cuts in emissions from cars, power plants, and factories, until inflow no longer exceeds outflow.

Most of Sterman’s students—and his results have been replicated at other universities—didn’t understand that, at least not when the problem was described in the usual climate jargon. Most thought that simply stopping emissions from rising would stop the rise of CO2; in the atmosphere— as if a tap running steadily but rapidly would not eventually overflow the tub. If MIT graduate students don’t get it, most politicians and voters probably don’t either. “And that means they think it’s easier to stabilize greenhouse gases and stop warming than it is,” Sterman says.

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National Geo-graphics

Today's article was on the creation of a New National Geo-graphics, if you want to check it out I'll put the link below.



This new National Geographics is upgraded and updated and is very new so i suggest everyone to go and check it out.

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National Geographics

Todays article was on an underwater eruption of an volcano that was actually caught on film. It was said to be the deepest ocean eruption to be ever caught on film. Also in the video it said that there was a special group of people that try and go around to film these underwater eruptions but they never even got one on camera like this one.
Here's the article describing the video.

December 17, 2009—See the recent "underwater Fourth of July" scientists believe is the deepest volcanic eruption ever seen—with three-foot-wide lava bubbles and flows creeping over the seafloor.

© 2009 National Geographic; Video courtesy National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Unedited Transcript

Researchers witnessed a spectacular, fiery underwater volcano explosion, and captured it on video. Its believed to be the deepest ocean volcano eruption ever recorded.

The undersea Pacific Ocean explosions in May of this year were recorded using a remote operating vehicle. Under the tone of the vehicle motors, recorded by a hydrophone, you can hear the muffled sounds of the explosions, still audible under 4,000 feet of ocean water.

An expedition team, which included researchers from the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was conducting observations in an area of the Pacific bounded by the island nations of Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. The eruption was southeast of Samoa.

One of the lead scientists called it, an underwater Fourth of July. Images show large molten lava bubbles about three feet across; glowing red vents ejecting lava into the sea, and lava flows across the seafloor.

This West Mata volcano stands more than a mile high off the ocean floor. Its eruptive area is about the length of a football field. It is producing Boninite lavas, believed to be among the hottest erupting on Earth in modern times. Researchers believe they have a unique chance to study magma formation and how the Earth recycles material where tectonic plates slide against each other.

A microbiologist on the team found diverse microbes in the extreme conditions, and they observed a small species of shrimp thriving. Its believed to be the same shrimp species found at eruptive sites more than 3,000 miles away.

Mission scientists believe 80 percent of eruptive activity on Earth occurs in the ocean, and most volcanoes are in the deep sea. But until this discovery, NOAA and the National Science Foundation had sponsored submarine volcano research for 25 years, without observing a deep-ocean eruption like this one, which is now recorded for all of us to see.
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National Geographics

Today i got in the mail my very first National Geographics magazine which i ordered. It was fantastic too. It was titled Are We Alone and some of the pictures were really great and some were also found on their web page so be sure to check that out. The magazine talked about a lot of things but the main one was how scientists are searching for another planet out there that is like earth so when earth dies, the human race won't go down with it. So far the numbers are already in it's double digits so they're making good progress, but the bad thing is that the planets are hundreds of billions light years away. Yeah, i know, travesty. That's a bummer. Also im going a little off topic today because so many things have been going on i just have to talk about them. First thing was that i got my first term report card today and the marks are pretty good. Also tommorow is going to be the last day of school for this YEAR!! That's right it's already been another year, starting to feel old yet? I sure am. Also i will be heading to Las Vegas on the coming Tuesday so im pretty excited, just a little sad i won't be spending Christmas here in Burnaby but it's good to try different thing once a while, don't you think? I sure do myself. Anyways im gonig to go now, got some packing to do before heading over that border(i live in Canada). SEE YOU GUYS LATER,

AND HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS :D

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National Geographics

Today's article was on a woman who had a robotic arm because she lost it in a car accidnent. I wonder how she was would feel with everyone looking at her like she's some sort pschopathic maniac. Here's the article that was talking about her.

Amanda Kitts is mobbed by four- and five-year-olds as she enters the classroom at the Kiddie Kottage Learning Center near Knoxville, Tennessee. "Hey kids, how're my babies today?" she says, patting shoulders and ruffling hair. Slender and energetic, she has operated this day-care center and two others for almost 20 years. She crouches down to talk to a small girl, putting her hands on her knees.

"The robot arm!" several kids cry.

"You remember this, huh?" says Kitts, holding out her left arm. She turns her hand palm up. There is a soft whirring sound. If you weren't paying close attention, you'd miss it. She bends her elbow, accompanied by more whirring.


That's really something, i would never want a robot arm but looks like she's trying to make the best of it.
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National Geographics

Today's article was on how the author and productor of finding nemo chose that kind of fish and they say it was because they found a picture that was really spectacular and they just had to choose it. Here's the article.

When Andrew Stanton set out to make an animated children's movie set in the ocean and faithful to "the real rules of nature," all he needed was the perfect fish for his main character. Combing through coffee table books on sea life, his eye landed on a photo of two fish peeking out of an anemone. "It was so arresting," Stanton says. "I had no idea what kind of fish they were, but I couldn't take my eyes off them." The image of fish in their natural hiding place perfectly captured the oceanic mystery he wanted to convey. "And as an entertainer, the fact that they were called clownfish—it was perfect. There's almost nothing more appealing than these little fish that want to play peekaboo with you."

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National Geographics

Today's article had some really spectacular pictures so if you just copy and paste this on your adress bar you can see it for yourself,

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/hebrides/richardson-photography

It was on the Hebrides and this was the caption.


On Skye's Trotternish Peninsula, basalt pinnacles loom over the Sound of Raasay. Rising from the debris of an ancient landslide, they bear witness to the geologic upheavals that shaped these lands.

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National Geographics

Today's article was on the pyramid of Giza. It was a video so i can't actually show the article but it just showed some fantastic pictures of egypts.

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National Geographics

Today's article was on bizzare octopuses that have coconuts stuck on the bottom of there tentacles. Here's the article.

"We were blown away," said biologist Mark Norman of discovering the octopus behavior off Indonesia. "It was hard not to laugh underwater and flood your [scuba] mask."

The coconut-carrying behavior makes the veined octopus the newest member of the elite club of tool-using animals—and the first member without a backbone, researchers say.

Coconuts to Go

A team led by biologist Julian Finn of Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, was observing 20 veined octopuses (Amphioctopus marginatus) on a regular basis.

The researchers noticed that the animals were frequently using their approximately 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-long) tentacles to carry coconut shells bigger than their roughly 3-inch-wide (8-centimeter-wide) bodies.

An octopus would dig up the two halves of a coconut shell, then use them as protective shielding when stopping in exposed areas or when resting in sediment.

This, on its own, astonished the team. Then they noticed that the octopuses, after using the coconut shells, would arrange them neatly below the centers of their bodies and "walk" around with the shells—awkwardly.

"I've always been impressed by what octopuses can do, but this was bizarre," said study co-author Norman, senior curator for mollusks at Museum Victoria.

To carry the shells, a veined octopus has to stick its arms out and over the edges of the coconut and walk around as if on stilts—making the octopus, while in motion, more vulnerable to predators—study leader Finn explained.

"An octopus without shells can swim away much faster by jet propulsion," he said. "But on endless mud seafloor, where are you fleeing to?" In other words, a coconut-carrying octopus may be slow, but it's always got somewhere to hide.

So what makes the veined octopus's behavior tool use, versus, say, the hermit crab's use of seashells as armor?

Worn nearly constantly, a hermit crab's adopted shell isn't considered a tool, because it's always useful. Tools, by definition, provide no benefit until they're used for a very specific purpose—showing that the animal is capable of what you might call advance planning.

The octopus's coconut carrying qualifies as tool use, Finn said, because the shells provide only "delayed benefits."

Octopuses of many species are well known for their intelligence. In captivity they've been known to navigate mazes, seem to be able to remember past events, and are cunning escape artists.

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National Geographics

Today's article was about a new animal founding called the pyrgmy sea cow which was found in Madagascar. Here's the article.

December 12, 2009—A new species of extinct pygmy sea cow (illustrated above with skull inset) is one of the first fossil mammal species found in Madagascar from the mysterious time period between 80 million years ago and 90,000 years ago, experts say.

"There's a big gap where we really don't know anything about what's going on in the fossil record," said study leader Karen Samonds, of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Sea cows, or sirenians, today include manatees and dugongs.

Known from a roughly 40-million-year-old skull and a few ribs, the new species has been named Eotheroides lambondrano, after the Malagasy word for dugong, which translates to "water bushpig." At about seven feet (two meters) long, the ancient pygmy sea cow was smaller than the modern dugong, which ranges from about 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 meters) in length.

The pygmy sea cow would have been "a neat in-between" animal in the evolution from primitive land-dwelling mammals to today's aquatic sea cows, Samonds said. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)

E. lambondrano is also unique in that its closest relatives would have lived in what is now India and Egypt, according to the study—making its Madagascan location all the more special.

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National Geographics

Today's article was on an animal that has become endangered. Here's the article.

December 16, 2009—These hard-to-reach "plush toys" on Papua New Guinea have been outfitted with "Crittercams" for the first time. The breathtaking treetop footage is already solving tree kangaroo mysteries, researchers say.

© 2009 National Geographic

Unedited Transcript

High in the northern mountains on the island of New Guinea, in the cloud forest, lives an elusive animal found nowhere else in the world.

With an endearing face and thick fur, the Matschies tree kangaroos of Papua New Guinea are only found on the islands Huon peninsula, and, theyre endangered.

Threats include a growing human population and subsistence hunting. Tree kangaroos for a long time have been part of the local diet.

They are difficult to study because of the remoteness of their habitat, and, they spend most of their lives high in the rain forest canopy, 70 to 100 feet above the ground.

Just getting to their home isnt easy. First, the area is inaccessible by vehicle, so researchers need a small plane, landing on a bumpy air strip in the village of Yawan.

Then, its a 2-day hike through dense forest, up and down steep mountain ridges. Even once you get there, they are extremely difficult to find. Local hunters and trackers provide the critical skills to locate these elusive animals.

Dr. Lisa Dabek is Director of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program based at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Shes studied this endangered marsupial for more than 20 years.

SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek, Director, WPZs Tree Kangaroo Conservation Pgm. Tree kangaroos spend most of their time high up in the trees, and we are not able to see what they are doing up there.

Thats why shes asked for the help of the National Geographic Crittercam.

SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek This Crittercam for the tree kangaroo is completely new. Weve been working with National Geographic for several years to try and find a way to have a small enough Crittercam to put on a tree kangaroo.

It takes a team of experts for this project: scientists, veterinarians, and the local hunters.

SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek These are the local landowners who used to hunt tree kangaroos, but now they are helping us with our research. So they are the best people to find the tree kangaroos in the forest. SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek Tree kangaroos really hide in the trees. You might be able to see the mosses on the trees are the very same color as the tree kangaroos themselves. And tree kangaroos tend to hide in the moss or they sit on the moss and you cant tell them apart. SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek They look like plush toys, up in the branches. But theyre very well adapted for the cloud forest, again with the thick fur, and they have long claws for climbing the trees, and they have their long tail for balancing themselves. But they can also leap down from the trees onto the ground and not hurt themselves.

When one is spotted, there are no tranquilizer darts or anaesthesia used. A hunter will climb the tree the kangaroo is on, and coax it to leap to the ground. Below, other hunters clear brush, and wait for the moment.

Papua New Guinean Gabriel Porolak handles the captured male. He is the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program Research Coordinator, and a key figure in the local preservation effort.

The captured animal is weighed and examined by veterinarian Carol Esson.

And then the Crittercam collar is fastened into place.

And then the animal is released. For the next few days the animal will have a new role- as a Crittercam videographer.

What the researchers found was more than they ever dreamed of seeing. SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek: Its way beyond my wildest imagination. It actually brought tears to my eyes. These animals go so high up in the trees. You cannot know what they do unless you have a camera on them, and now we can see that.

The Crittercam recorder is on a timer, so it records short segments at different times of the day.

Scratching.

Grooming

Eating

As he scales one old tree branch to another, you can see the lush vegetation mosses and orchids that serve as a smorgasbord--- some 90 different species of plants the tree kangaroo eats.

SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek, So you get this view all the way down to the ground, from probably 100 feet up. And then it was sunrise, it was about 6am or so, because thats when we think that they feed. And in fact, thats when we saw in the video that he was feeding. But then he looked out, and it was the sunrise which was amazing.

The team captured a 2nd kangaroo, this one a female theyve been tracking for 3 years, named Trish. And this time, she has a baby joey developing in her pouch.

When Trish was set free with the camera, she collected video from a female perspective, including one segment where she is seen cleaning her pouch.

SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek Dono, one of the landowners and hunters, he pointed to the video and said, Oh my gosh, thats one of the orchid species weve never known that species before. Now we can write that down as one of the animals food plants.

The forest where these tree kangaroos live is pristine, and it will hopefully stay that way, as the local population has agreed to set it aside as a Conservation Area. Dabek helped enlist the local population that she says is crucial to the efforts to save this species.

This first Crittercam tree kangaroo project was funded through the National Geographic Society/Waitt Grants program.

SOUNDBITE: Lisa Dabek, This is an incredible tool. We can now see what the animals are eating up in the canopy, which we never could do before. We can see how theyre moving in the trees and at what time of day.

The project was a success for tree kangaroo research and also a crucial test for the new Crittercam. With this smaller system, Crittercam will be opening windows into the hidden lives of many new species.

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National Geographics

Today's article was on the possibility of finding a new plant similar to earth. Here's the article.

December 13, 2009--Like a silver spear cast from the heavens, the bright streak of a Geminid meteor pierces the night sky over California's Mojave Desert during the annual meteor shower's 2009 peak.

Geminids are slower than other shooting stars and are known to make beautiful long arcs across the sky. This could be because they're born of debris from a dormant comet and so are made mostly of hard, sun-baked rock that takes longer to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, experts suggest.

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National Geographics

Today's article was on the discovery of a new jellyfish in the depth of the artics. Here's the article.

December 11, 2009--In the black depths of the frigid Arctic Ocean, scientists on a 2005 expedition found a splash of color: The brilliant, blood-red Crossota norvegica jellyfish (pictured).

The creature was spotted by a remotely operated vehicle 8,530 feet (2,600 meters) underwater during a two-month National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expedition to the Canada Basin, the deepest and least explored part of the Arctic waters.

Though C. norvegica is not a new species, several new deep-sea animals were discovered during the expedition--some of which were announced in recent research papers in 2009.

Biologist and team member Kevin Raskoff, of Monterey Peninsula College in California, was surprised at the diversity of jellyfish living in the extreme polar seas.

"We knew there were going to be interesting jellies up there," Raskoff said by email, "but the reality surpassed all of our imaginations!"

--Christine Dell'Amore
—Photograph by Kevin Raskoff

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National Geographics

Todays article was on Terra Cotta Warriors who were a stone alignment of soldiers. Which seems pretty freaky to me. Here's the article.

Soldiers. Charioteers. Archers. Musicians. Generals. Acrobats. Nearly 2,000 years ago, thousands of life-size clay figures were buried in massive underground pits to accompany China's first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, into the afterlife. Their discovery outside the city of Xi'an in 1974 is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Now, you can stand face-to-face with these terra cotta warriors. In November 2009, National Geographic Museum will host Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor, an exhibition featuring treasures from the tomb complex including 15 life-size figures, weapons, armor, coins, and more. Don't miss this chance to see the largest collection of significant artifacts from China ever to travel to the United States.

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National Geographics

Today's article was on Wade Davis and his life. Here's the article.

One of the world’s most celebrated and distinguished anthropologists, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis has become one of the world’s leading crusaders for the protection of the “ethnosphere,” his term for the totality of thoughts, beliefs, myths, and institutions brought into being by the human imagination. His many books and films have provided the intellectual basis for the growing movement to celebrate traditional cultures around the world.
Recently, Davis starred in the 3-D IMAX documentary film, Grand Canyon Adventures, which follows Davis and Robert Kennedy, Jr. as they navigate the Colorado River with their daughters, raising awareness of the environmental threats facing rivers worldwide. He has also contributed to a film called In Search of One River, adapted from his book about his Harvard mentor, Amazonian plant explorer Richard Evans Schultes, who conducted pioneering studies of plant use by the native peoples of the Amazon. And in 2008 Davis wrote, co-produced, and hosted Peyote to LSD, an award-winning, two-hour documentary on the history of psychedelics, from their traditional use by indigenous groups to the drug culture of the 1960s and beyond.
Popular Presentation
The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in a Modern World
Indigenous human cultures are going extinct faster than many plants and animals. Fully 50 percent of the more than 6,000 languages spoken today will cease to exist in our lifetime. With them will go the knowledge, stories, customs, and footprints of entire cultures. Davis leads us on an enlightening and gripping journey through ancient worlds, demonstrating how our world is richer for their presence and contributions.

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National Geographics

Todays article was about seals, and photographing them. Here's the article.

Growing up in a small Inuit community in Canada’s Arctic, Paul Nicklen spent his early years hunting and traveling. On Baffin Island, Nicklen developed strong field skills and a keen interest in observing wildlife.
After completing a B.S. in biology at the University of Victoria, Nicklen returned to the Northwest Territories and began his career as a biologist. However, his camera was always at his side, and his hobby turned into his profession. Since 1995, Nicklen has specialized in photographing the polar regions and their inhabitants with an emphasis on underwater photography.
Nicklen is an entertaining presenter who brings a self-deprecating sense of humor, award-winning images, and captivating stories to the stage.
Presentation Topics
Ends of the Earth
Paul Nicklen’s photographic mission is to celebrate the beauty of the lands and creatures at the ends of the Earth and to show the rest of us what is truly at stake in the ongoing debates over global warming.
Patience and Passion: Overcoming Adversity
Nicklen often has to go under the ice and come face-to-face with awesome predators to get the story, sometimes waiting months before he sees a glimpse of his subject. In a presentation filled with self-deprecating humor and stories of terrifying moments, Nicklen shares the patience and passion his job requires and relates it to the workplace.
Dispelling the Myth: In the Jaws of the Leopard Seal
In this touching presentation, Nicklen shares the most terrifying, electrifying, and satisfying shoot of his career.
Leviathans of Icy Seas
Take a trip to the icy seas as Nicklen shares stories and breathtaking photographs of polar bears, narwhals, bowhead whales, and walruses.

National Geogrphics

Todays article was on environmental issues like the global risk melting all the glaciers causing water levels to rise which then result to flooding of cities. People don't realize these things until it's too late. Also global warming is causing fish to die out because it takes so much carbon dioxide out of the waters fish can't live in it. Also for some parts of the world, global warming has decreased the amount of rain meaning crops dieing and animals all dead from thirst. Also another event that occurred was that US tried to make a sattelite that can look at the worlds carbon dioxide rates it cost the US 270 million dollars but it was a total failure and failed to work as soon as it reached orbit. This 9 year process was called a total failure by NASA.
HERES THE ARTICLE.
Carbon Monitoring Satellite Crashes

A satellite meant to orbit the Earth and monitor global carbon dioxide emissions suffered a glitch at takeoff in February and crashed into the ocean near Antarctica.

Researchers had hoped the Orbiting Carbon Observatory would provide new insights into the distribution of the greenhouse gases around the globe—data that could have improved climate predictions.

NASA officials called the U.S. $270 million mission, under development for nine years, a total loss.

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National Geographics

Hey there, todays article was on the Capilano Suspension bridge which I have actually been on several times, it's located in Vancouver which is actually where i live(I actually live in Burnaby but it's close to Vancouver). The bridge is really high and swings and sways with rapids 450feet below it. Though it might sound scary, it's actually really safe so if you can get a chance to travel around, i highly suggest going there.
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National Geographics

I'll be talking about today's article but before that i would like to say that i found a new background for my BLOG and I have to say it's pretty sweeeeeet. OK on to the work, today's article was on Shark Fins Traced to Home Waters Using DNA -- A First which was basically an article talking about how a large shark was caught and was going to be made for fin soup but a local scientist came by and wanted to test the DNA of the shark to find out where it was born, they have started doing this for other sharks of the same species and reports show that most sharks come from Hong Kong. Here's the article.


Many of the hammerhead sharks that are butchered to feed Asian demand for shark-fin soup start their lives in American waters, a new forensic study shows.

For the first time, scientists have used DNA from shark fins to determine where they came from. The researchers traced finds from the scalloped hammerhead shark species—collected at the world's biggest fin market in Hong Kong—back to rare populations in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans.

shark finning picture

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* Shark Pictures
* Asian Shark-Fin Trade May Be Larger Than Expected
* Hammerhead Sharks Have "Human" Vision

The trade in shark fins supplies Asian markets with the key ingredient in the luxury dish shark-fin soup. The practice claims up to 73 million sharks annually, including up to 3 million hammerheads. The finless fish are usually tossed back into the ocean to die.

Because the vast flow of shark fins to global markets usually operates in secret, conservationists have been left in the dark about where the sharks are killed. And governments can't control the trade if they don't know how many sharks are being taken from their waters.

The shark-fin market is "like this big Wild West show [that] no one is monitoring," said study leader Demian Chapman, now at the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at New York State's Stony Brook University.

But the new DNA technique, which Chapman worked on at Nova Southeastern University, may be a tool for controlling the shark trade, he said.

For example, governments could use DNA-derived finning data to develop quotas to prevent overfishing.

Hammerhead Shark DNA Mapping

Chapman and colleagues took small tissue samples from 62 hammerhead fins at the Hong Kong market.

Hammerhead fins—which can sell for U.S. $120 each in Hong Kong—are highly coveted, since their fins boil down into noodle-like pieces that give the soup texture.

The team then ran a DNA sequence of a particular part of the shark's genome and compared it to a "map" of hammerhead DNA sequences culled from global research efforts.

(Related: "Shark-Soup Boom Spurs Conservationist DNA Study.")

The results showed that 57 of the 62 Hong Kong fins had come from sharks in either the Atlantic or the Indo-Pacific.

Twenty-one percent of the 57 fins had originated on sharks from the western Atlantic—including the Gulf of Mexico and the North American Atlantic coast as far south as Brazil. These populations are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Finding so many sharks from the depleted waters of the western Atlantic surprised the team, Chapman said, and it suggested that overfishing is still a problem in the region.

Sharks, Top of the Food Chain

Sharks are declining rapidly worldwide, and losing the top of the marine food chain could have vast repercussions for the rest of the ocean—and even us, Chapman said.

For example, sharkless seas may allow swarms of prey species, such as stingrays, to crowd beaches and wipe out commercial fish species.

Also, the sharks' decline is disturbing because shark species have existed on Earth for nearly five hundred million years, Chapman added.

"I don't think anybody wants to be part of a generation that's snuffed out an animal that's been in the oceans that long."

Study published today in the journal Endangered Species Research.

National Geographics

Today's article was a really long one and was on the world's 10 highest mountains. They say the highest one was at 19,340 feet high and here it is above. Also here are some statistics on all the mountains.

1.
Mount Khuiten, Mongolia

In Mongolia, it’s easy for a traveler to be quickly swept away by the endless green steppes, the heartiness of the Kazakh nomads, and the rolling landscapes that define the Altai Mountains. This makes the trek to Mount Khuiten as enjoyable and scenic as the climb itself.

The mountain straddles the corners of Russia, China and Mongolia. To reach it, trekkers must cross a golden, vast, and barren landscape that is one of the last remote regions on Earth. This remarkable journey is enhanced by the gentle hospitality of the Kazakh nomads.
2.
Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Flat-topped Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest mountain. Located on Tanzania’s northern border with Kenya, the mountain is made up of three extinct volcanoes, Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. The highest peak, Uhuru, is 19,340 feet (5,899 meters) high.

Reaching the top of Kilimanjaro is exhilarating. Take the Machame Route up so you can see the region’s wonderful animals and birds. Then you’ll begin the trek across the Shira Plateau through the Grand Barranco Canyon and on to the top. If all goes as planned, you’ll reach Stella Point with a chance to continue around Kibo’s rim to Uhuru.
3.
The Andes, Peru

The Inca Trail is an in-depth journey through a variety of ecosystems, from plains to desert to tropical cloud forests. You’ll pass views of snowcapped mountains and rushing rivers. The highlight is Machu Picchu, the famed lost city of the Inca that was discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham. Then continue your trek to what was the heart and soul of the Inca Empire, Cusco.
4.
Mount Everest, Nepal

Rising 29,035 feet (8,856 meters) above sea level, Everest is the highest mountain on Earth. For decades, reaching the top of this giant has been considered one of the greatest mountaineering achievements. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay accomplished this feat in 1953 when they approached the peak along the South Col route. Since then, more than 2,000 others have made ascents through South Col. It is, by far, the most successfully climbed route on the mountain.
5.
The Matterhorn, Switzerland

Nestled in the Swiss Alps, the Matterhorn is the most recognized mountain on the European continent. In the shape of a roughly chiseled rock pyramid, this peak serves as a defining geographical landmark. For many climbers, ascending the Matterhorn, the birthplace of the sport of mountaineering, represents a return to the purist traditions of climbing.


6.
Mount Elbrus, Russia

Dynamic in both region and terrain, Mount Elbrus stands as a watchtower in the Caucasus Mountains between Europe and Asia. Elbrus is a large, double-coned volcano, whose summits vary by about 65 feet (20 meters). For the climber with moderate skills, the highest mountain in Europe has great appeal because it presents a strenuous, yet rewarding climb. The mountain’s location affords visitors excellent opportunities to see the region’s large melting pot of ethnic groups, such as Turkish, Georgian, Azeri, and Russian.
7.
Cilaltépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, Mexico

In the heart of Mexico, about 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) south of the United States border, Citlaltépetl and and Iztaccíhuatl are the third and seventh highest mountains respectively in North America. The first is 18,406 feet (5,614 meters) tall, while the second is 17,159 feet (5,233 meters) tall. Ascents of these two volcanoes are by far the most attractive climbs in Mexico. From a distance, it’s easy to see how Iztaccíhuatl or “white woman” got its name; the snowcapped peaks look like the head, breasts, and feet of a sleeping woman.
8.
Denali, Alaska

Mount McKinley, also called Denali in Athabascan, in Denali National Park, Alaska, at 20,320 feet (6,194 meters) is the highest mountain in North America. This massif needs no explanation as to why it should be climbed. From its base to its apex, it rises nearly 18,000 feet (5,490 meters), an elevation gain unsurpassed anywhere in the world. No other mountain offers such breathtaking and diverse views each day of an ascent.

Mount McKinley’s tremendous size and beauty create a magnetism that continually draws climbers from around the world. Choice months for attempting Denali are May and June, before the threats of avalanches and open crevasses become too severe. The mountain provides an unforgettable experience, touching the psyche of all mountaineers who have undertaken its challenges.
9.
Annapurna, Nepal

In terms of sheer geological and cultural diversity, a trek to Nepal’s Annapurna region is unbeatable. By circumnavigating the giant Himalaya, you’ll see everything from lush bamboo forests to arid high mountain landscapes. Most visitors here climb over the famous Thorung La (17,599 feet; 5,368 meters). The hike into this glorious mountain pass rewards one with spectacular blazes of orange as the sun rises, casting the white Himalayan peaks in a fiery glow.
10.
Damavand, Iran

The Elburz Mountains stand huge and stunning as they lean against the Caspian Sea northeast of Tehran. Damavand’s peaks range in altitude from 18,400 feet (5,612 meters) to more than 19,000 feet (5,795 meters). Steam rises from the hot springs and fumaroles that pockmark this dormant volcano, and two small glaciers provide dazzling views.

Discovery Channel

Todays article comes from discovery channel, and was on the Storm Chasers who are a bunch of people who chase tornadoes to get pictures. Personally im fascinated by tornadoes myself and there which comes the reason i clicked on it. It was saying how one of their team members got too close to the tornado and his head hit the outside of the vehicle they were driving in which wasn't a normal car, it was more like a tank then a car. Another one was on how they were actually in a tornado and one of the crew members also lost his $1000 camera because the winds were so strong, he had to hold it down with both hands so it wouldn't fly away.
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National Geographics

Todays article was on hammerhead sharks and their stereo type vision which is basically seeing things of either side of themselves and able to see in front of themselves except they just have a big nose which blocks part of their view.
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National Geographics

Todays artice was on how much effect humans had made on earth. Here's one picture of Deforestration where too much tree's had been cut down for use of other supplies(ABOVE). Also there are only 10% of the world's fish left in the sea from the start of time. Scientist stimate that in 25 years there will be no more seafood meaning no more fish in the sea.
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National Geographics

Today i wastched a movie on National Geographics on something that has never happenned before. It was about how an orca shark and a white shark battled out. The killer whale defeated the shark but this doesn't usually happen because large predators don't usually attack large predators so everyone who was at the scence was very suprised.
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National Geographics

Today's artice was on how a ship had been found deep in the atlantic and was holding tons of gold. Scientists and Historians believe it came during the Gold Rush and stored too much gold that it had sunk.
Recently photographed for the first time, the gold rush-era sternwheeler A.J. Goddard was discovered sitting upright and remarkably intact in a lake in the Yukon Territory, Canada (see map), in July 2008. (Watch an underwater video of the newly explored wreck.)

Like an early 20th-century snapshot, "everything is just like it was when it went down in that late October storm in 1901," said project leader John Pollack, a nautical archaeologist and National Geographic Society Waitts grantee. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

The five crewmen's boots, kicked off in haste as they abandoned ship, were found on the deck. Fresh firewood was still in the boiler, and cooking pots and other utensils were scattered about. Axes lay on deck where the men, in a last-ditch effort, had tried to cut away the boat they'd been towing. (Related pictures: "Blackbeard Pirate Relics, Gold Found.")

But once water started sloshing over the iron steamship's deck, "this thing went down like a submarine," Pollack said. Three of the men drowned.

National Geographics

Todays article was on how one of Jupiters moons Europea could acutally Harbor fish sized life in it's oceans which was seen from a telescope on earth. Also in Hindu there were 10 sacred caves that were found and had giant goddes statues apon them like the trimurti which was 3 faces faces oppisite ways.
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National Geographic

Todays article was on how World War 2 had a submarine that has only been found recently and it was called the Samurai Sub because of it;s stealth and power at the same time. they were also really hard to find because they barely sent out any radar signals or any vibes at all so it was rarely see and a really good weapon in the ocean for World War 2.
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National Geographics

Todays article was on how a special group of people go out to hunt great white sharks and they were going to catch them but then put them back into the water so i was really fascinated.

National Geographic

Todays first video was about Head Shrinkers which were people who took other peoples heads when they die and shrink it to a size where they can carry it around which i found pretty gross. Here's the process of how they did it.
THE HEADSHRINKING PROCESS

* First, the back of the head is opened and the skin is sliced free from the skull. Care is taken not to damage the facial features. While the skull and remaining flesh are discarded, the skin is boiled in water for half an hour (any longer and the hair may fall out).

* After being dried in the sun, the skin is turned inside out and any unwanted tissue is scraped off. The skin is formed into a sack shape and hot stones are used to burn off the fat inside.

* Hot sand is added to reach the fat in hard-to-get-to places, such as the nose and lips. The head-taker massages the skin to help the drying process and produce the head shape once again.

* The process is repeated and can take up to six days, until the head is a quarter of its original size.

* The warrior must now make sure there is no revenge attack from the dead man’s soul: Eyes are sewn shut, preventing the victim’s spirit from seeing out, and wooden pins are placed through the lips and lashed together with string. This stops the soul from asking for the death to be avenged.

* The warrior is now safe, while the soul within will remain in the abyss.

National Geographics

In afganistan there had been a lockdown due to some women that went crazy and are on the verge of insanity becayse of the way there living.
The second video was of a man that went down deep into the oceans and found a river snake that was really deadly
The third video was of Japanese kids and how they all want to be Sumo Wrestlers and how it was mroe then a sport to them.
The fourth video was on how cats and dogs reacted to each other and what they do when they see each other.
The fifth video was about hurricane katrina and the aftermath of the trail it left. It was a trail of destruction.
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National Geographic

Today'article was on how a blue whale had been hit by a oil tanker and how the blue whale died and was found at the shore of a forbidden California Cove last weekend. Also there was an article on how a new species of fish was found.
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National Geographic

Today's article was on how a new fossil of a dinosaur has been found and that this was a new dinosaur that was the smallest of all the other ones with size up to 70 centimeters which is smaller then my sister who is already 100 centimeters at age 3. This dinosaur was said to be over 150 million years old or even older by it's bones. Also the weirdest thing was that this dinosaur was actually a meat eater so compared to the T-Rex, there was a large difference. It must have been hard for this critter to survive in the world with dinosaurs that were as large as skyscrapers.
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National Geographic

Today's article was on how the lions on earth are dieing out. There was a dramatic drop from 1940-2000 from 450,000 lions all the way down to only 20,000 left today. So if we don't act now and do something for the lions, they might all very likely die out and become an extinct creature.
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National Geographic

Today's article was just a bunch of photos on the world and it was a contest to see who had the best photo and the winning photo was a elephant standing in water with only the top of it's head out of the water and a boy standing one foot on each tusk of the elephant and the boys head was out of the water. The second article was on animal mummies that were found in Egypt so just like a dead cat wrapped in cloth.
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National Geographic

Today's article was about a unmanned ship being pulled in at the space station. There were no passengers but had tons of food that would last up to 6 years stored inside. NASA says that it was sent from Japan and that more and more of these type of unmanned transportation in space will be in need. The second article was about why we sleep and there was no answer but it said it is one of the world's most interesting mystery that scientist are trying to find out because we spent a third of our lives asleep and the other 2 third awake.
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National Geographic

Today's article was about a hot fume of lava under the crust of the earth at a place called Yellow Stone was could blow at anytime. Also i saw some pictures of Natural Disasters like Tornadoes, lightening and cyclones. The third article was about Tsunamis which are huge wakes triggered by earthquakes deep in the ocean which forces the water in one direction because of the force of power.
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National Geographic

Today's article was about crocodiles and reptiles and how they were all once at the top of the food chain even higher then the dinosaurs. There was, for example, one crocodile that swam from his rver onto a University beach where it looked for food and often found some so it was a faint reminder that reptiles were once the strongest creatures. The second article wasn't really an article, it was a series of pictures about the world in general and everything in it and about it and the pictures were really spectacular and was really a pleasure for my eyes.
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National Geographic

Todays article was on a how 2 galaxies 250 million miles away had crashed into each other and photos of that were taken. It said that if our galaxy, the milky way had crashed into another galaxy, that it was look something like that too. The second article said that a meteor exploded over the Netherlands but in the air so no one was killed but it was suppose to be like fiery fireworks in the sky.
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National Geographics

Today i read an article about Saturn being the most likely to harbor life on it. It is said that Though it may be far, it is a resemblance of earth itself and could possibly have life on it. The second article was about a new species of snake that were very deadly and starting to crawl into the US and already invading a third of US property.
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National Geographic

Today's videos i saw were about a earthquake in Samoa which also triggered a tsunami and then the day after the next there was another earthquake causing over 700 deaths and leaving over 1000 homeless. Samoa was basically in pieces by the second earthquake and they feared another tsunami. In the second video a woman was in Mt. Fuji and she said the people that live under Mt. Fuji always had a 6 week celebration for it so the mountain wouldn't crush them to pieces. They would bring food up there and all 400,000 people would go up there and celebrate which is basically throwing a party.
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National Geographic

Today's first video i saw was about a polar bear that stuck his head through the ice to get at a seal and actually got it and then ate it. The polar bears fur became all bloody and he looked scary. The second video was about a walrus baby being born and how it survives. The seal swam all by itself but the mother had to catch food for it. The moth er had to protect its baby or the baby would become prey to the polar bear in the first video.
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National Geographic

Today's first video is saw talked about a new fossil of human skeletons found and said to be the oldest one found so far. It said the skeleton was said to be 3.2 billion years old and was older the Lucy which was the previous oldest skeleton found. Not only is this the oldest skeleton found but this skeleton was said to be very different and looked like a half ape and half human creature. The second one talked about a town called samoa that got hit by a Tsunami and killed many people and damaged a lot of people properties.
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National Geographic

Today's videos were about a frog that had fangs which was found as a new species and a new fish called a jelly nose that was found floating around the surface of the water. The jelly nose wasn't often seen because they dwell at depths of 1000ft in the water and rarely come out to the surface. They have been found before but this one they found might be a new species of jelly noses. The third video was about a new born baby elephant that was just playing around and jumping up and down around its mother and following its mother showing how a new born elephant should behave like.
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National Geographic

Today's videos were about a Honda Magic Stool which was a stool where you can sit on and leen in the direction you want to go and the stool with go that way. The second video was about some people who work in a cemetary because in there city almost 50 people die per day because there was so much people that some poor people die of starvation.
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National Geographic

Todays videos i saw were mostly about different species of animals that are abnormal or interesting in their own special way. The first video was about a baby chimpanzee that was with his mother and playing around on a tree swinging around. The second video was about turtles who got protection from the military because their eggs were always stolen by people and animals for food. The olive turtles are now endangered because of this and so the military had ti scare away any poachers that were trying to steal the eggs.
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National Geographic

Today my dad told me to start watching videos from National Geography instead of TED. He also said i would have to watch 10 minutes worth of National Geographic videos so the first video i saw was about a red panda that was abandoned by its mother and raised up by zoo keepers and scientists who named the red panda Bandy. The panda had a sickness that was life threatening but he got through it and lived a happy life. The second video talked about a person trying to photograph and entire red wood tree which was surprisingly never done before. The tree was so high that no one could take a whole picture of it and so this man tried to do it. The third video talked about how one man was looking at the moon with a telescope and found traces of water all over the moon. The fourth video was about Teotihuacan which was a pyramid like building that no one knew who built so they talked about that mystery.
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TED

Todays TED video was about Tim Glave and technology in general. He said we are who we are because we evolved. We also made electronic devices such as computers and TV and iPods when we evolved and we wouldn't be here today if we did everything like we did in the past. We would not have survived 2010 because we would have had to adapt to the difference from 1910 to 2010.
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TED

Todays TED video talked about Vishal Vaid and his band who play a traditional South Asian musical. I wouldn't have chosen this video to blog about if it didn't sound so hypnotic which was the point of the song. It almost made me fall asleep with it musical charm and because of all the different instruments used.
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TED

Todays TED was about Taryn Simon who talked about some of her photograph of restricted places that's hidden from the world and criminals sent to jail for a crime they did not commit. She said these pictures say a story just by themselves and that they were never seen before. The pictures were really cool and and the ones about the men who went to jail for no crime, those were really sad and you could see the tears down their faces and the sadness they feel.
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TED

Today's TED video was about Oliver Salks and how he looked deeper into what causes hallucination and what it really is because he said that none really found out what it was and what caused it. He said when he looked deeper into hallucination, he found out about an old lady who was turned blind in the past 5 years and but one day she started seeing things but not normal things, she said she saw people in South Africa and cats and dogs walked towards her and a building encased by snow. He said he hasn't found out what caused it and what really happens when a person hallucinates but he would look into it.
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TED

Bjarke Ingels was the man in today's TED talk video. He was a Danish Architect who wanted to make comic book architecture the ones that looked really out there but were only seen in comic books. He made many notes and worked on his idea and goal and then he made a blue print and made it. He said the building was really cool and it became a site seeing place. He said after that building he saw a lot of other buildings that were really cool, then some Chinese people invited him to make them a cool building because there were too many boring skyscrapers in Shaihai.
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TED

Today's TED video talked about Rebbecca Saxe and her curiosity for reading other peoples minds. She says that we all know that other people have minds like ourselves but it sometimes doesn't seem like it, she said that we cant read other people minds yet then again we know how they feel because it shows on their faces and by the way they do things. She said because she is a teacher she wants to know what her students are thinking and how they feel to the work she gives them and such.
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TED

Today's TED video was about Lewis Pugh and his swim across the North pole which is -1.7 degrees. He said he was very scared but he knew he had to do it because climate change was happening and by doing this swim he could tell people about it. He said the water was so cold he thought he got frost bite and would have to cut off his fingers but he made it and he was the first person to do a 1km swim across the North Pole. I would be very scared because i hate water and who knows what lurks in North Pole waters?
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TED

Today's TED video was about Jimmy Wales talking about the birth of Wikipedia, he said Wikipedia is a free web encyclopedia for anyone in the world, he said anyone and everyone can edit or add in new content on Wikipedia and there are many volunteer that help out for this cause.
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TED

Todays TED talk was spoken by Vik Muniz who talked about creations. He said all creations started with creativity, then he went on and showed some of his creations. He was a very creative person, he used an airplane to draw lines in the sky to make a cartoon cloud. He also used sugar, dust and chocolate to make portraits of people. He even used spaghetti to make a persons face. The most interesting thing he did that i was most impressed by was when he drew gigantic pictures on top of mountains. Though the pictures were simple from a pair of scissors to a envelope, it wouldn't be easy to draw it on a gigantic mountain top and when you can't really see your drawing as a whole.
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TED

Today's video was about a stunt man who wanted to jump from 120,000 feet in space. He said that the highest jump recorded so far was 100,000 feet in 1960 and so he wanted to jump from the edge of space. He said being a stunt man is actually really safe and fun. He showed some videos of him jumping off buildings with nothing on but his clothes and a video when he was on fire with a fire proof suit but no mask. He said that technology today was way more advanced then the old age and he used these new technologies to make his stunts more safe then before because in 1960 they had no safety precautions and if you wanted to do a stunt, you would be putting your life on the line he said his favorite hero was the guy who jumped from 100,000 feet and they even talked about his attempt to jump from 120,000 feet.
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TED

Todays video was about a man who had a liking for airplanes because of one video he saw of a famous pilot who made a video of himself entering the plane in a dramatic way with a cigarette in one hand and a woman in the other. He said that he drew a lot of plane models and decieded to work as a plane modeler but once he became that, he wanted even more, he wanted to make models along with the parts inside and name the plane and its engines etc. so he did and when he made a whole book of those, he made it into a book and mailed it out to be published. When it got published he tried to sell it to a bunch of companies and was successful and so he kept at what he was doign and became very successful.
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TED

Todays TED video talked about John silver who was a man that had poor vision and seeked out to find a pair of glasses that fit him. HE found out that many people needed glass4es but there weren't a lot of optometrists in the world so not everyone can get the glasses they need. John silver made a special pair of glasses that you could adjust to your liking and he said he would sell these glasses so everyone can get glasses because in Russia there is only 1 optometrist for every 8 million people so imagine how hard that would be for the optometrist.
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TED

Today's TED video was about a man who believed through research and planning, that in the year 2070-2100 we would lose %30 of our crops we have today which might not seem a lot and might seem a long ways off but he said that we would need more time then that to store all our food into Sea banks where they are safe. He said the crop failure will be because of climate changes and because of climate changes the plants won't be able to adjust quick enough and they will disappear. He said that food was dried up and put into these Sea banks which were really just a freezer in the sea floor, but natural disasters happen everyday and they lose some of their food. He said if we don't act now, our next generation might not survive.
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TED

Todays TED video talked about a girl named Miru Kim who liked to look deeper into things then just the outer layer because she knows that there must be hidden layers beneath so she went to New York city and began to explore around and found lots of urban ruins that were to be torned down and took photos of them to make art and she put herself in the photos to imagine what it would be like to be there in the past and she also found some people down there too who visited those places of a daily basis. She said the places were mostly abandoned subways, factories or sewers but they all had a unique piece to them all.
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TED

Todays TED was about a woman named Natasha Tsako's who was an actor who uses technology to help her in her acts. She made a play called Upwake where she pretends to be a character named Zero who lives in another reality and acts around with images moving around in the background. She showed us a clip from her act and then preformed a little bit too. She explained that people act more freely when she dresses up as Zero and she believes that theater acts bring everyone together and differences won't matter.
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TED

Todays TED video was about a man named Dan Pink explaining the ways and works of motivation. He started off explaining a problem a scientist made called the candle problem where you had to get the candle on the wall without letting the wax drip down and all you get is a set of matches with a box full of nails and the candle. He said he told one group of people that if they finish first they would get $20 as a motivation and he just told the second group to finish it fast. He said the second group without the motivation won because they weren't under a lot of pressure as losing and winning $20 and they thought of how to do it but the first group was too focused and didn't think out of the box. He said the answer was to take out the pins needles from the box and but the candle on top of the box was would be nailed to the wall with the needles. He said he tried this again but took the needles out of the box for a different 2 groups and the motivated group won because the answer was really clear because there wasn't any needles in the box so they just raced ahead to do it. he said this happened many times for the past 40 years and i have to agree that i have experienced too because in Math class i was versing one of the smartest kid in a multiplication question and the winner got a gummy worm, i had to erase many times because i was rushing and there were a lot of tricky parts but my opponent rushed too and we both took really long to figure it out.
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TED

Todays TED video was about a man named Adam Savage who had a obsession for making replicas of famous things like he making a replica of the Dodo bird skeleton and a replica of a eagle who was suppose to be used in a famous movie back in 1944. He showed pictures of the things he made and even brought his eagle sculpture which looked really nice. I think he really has a passion for making replicas of sculptures and he said he made money out of this too fro the past 15 years which i found really amazing because doing a job that you love and gives you money is what everyone wants but not everyone gets.
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TED

Today's video was about a woman named Qi Zhang who could play the organ of the Ridiculous fellows from the Love for Three Oranges.She was really good at it too and she could change the sound of the keys to be a drum or a trumpet to a crow or a duck and she changed it swiftly so you could barely see the movement and wouldn't stop playing. It sounded like a whole band was playing instead of just herself and she also had to memorize the whole 3 minute long piece of song so it must've been a real challenge for her because it would be for me.
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TED

Today video was about a man named Golan Levin who studied art and engineering and decided to make digital art because there weren't much of those on the internet. He said us humans should use the tools we have in our day to produce what we can and that we should make digital art which he did. He showed many of the projects he made for example he made huge black pipe with a robotic arm in the middle and a googly eye on the end and it would turn to look at the object that was moving the most. He also a telephone with an eye in the middle of the dial keys and it would look at you and blink when you blink. He did a lot of cool stuff with digital pictures and electronics too like when you made a shape with you hand on this screen he made, the shape you made will turn red and fall down to the bottom of the screen instead of going away.It was a really cool video and I was very interested.
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TED

Todays TEED video was very short but it said a lot. The woman named Carolyn Porco who explained that recently they sent a shuttle out to Saturn and found that there were a burst of water vapor that came from a side. Then they studied it farther and found out that Saturn had many resources we have on earth and those that we need to survive. She explained that one day we might be living beside the stars in the moon.
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TED

Todays ted video i watched was about a man name Dan Ariely who talked about decision making. He said that we always pick the better deal but when theres 2 good deals and one bad deal that's similar with one of the good deals, the deal that's good and similar with the bad deal gets chosen.he showed many examples and he also said that when you pick something, afterwards you always think that the other choices were better which i have experienced many times myself.
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TED

Today's video that i watched was about a woman named Brenda Lauren who asked why girls don't play video games. Sure they play video games just not as much as boys do. When i play video games i usually see boys as other players and maybe a girl here and there but just mainly boys.I wondered about the same question not too long ago so this i could tell that im not the only one who had thought of this question from this video.She talked about some theories she had which i thought were not very reasonable like for example she said that girls like to study and work more then boys and that boys like to play more. I disagreed with that but she talked about some more facts and surveys they did around the neighborhood and it showed that girls did work harder and boys preferred to play over work.
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TED

Today's video i watched was about a woman named Sarah Jones who was a woman who could act out different characters with ease and so she did. She pretended to be some of her friends and teachers which was very entertaining in my point of view. I'm not sure of what to say about her except she was very humorous and i enjoyed watching her preform especially because she can change her voice to have different accents like a Chinese accent, a British accent and an Indian accent.She explained some things about each persons life and made it funny in a way each time. IF there was a rating system for TED videos i would definitely give it 5 stars.
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TED

The video i watched today didn't say much but instead the 3 people who were talking showed a 10 minute long video and explained each thing. The topic of the video was sea life and which was also why i chose it because i was always fascinated by sea life because their were such big sea creatures and creatures that look really weird which i would be scared of. He showed some animals i have never seen before because he also said that they came from the bottom of the sea and usually going down that low would be really hard but his crew managed it and got some amazing footage's. I can't really explain what the creatures looked like because they were so far out i couldn't have imagined them. He did say that their were volcanic smoke everywhere and bacteria was everywhere too and that the bacteria usually combine together to make 150 foot long creatures that roam the bottom of the sea.I was really excited when i saw this video and wanted to see more when it was over.
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TED

Todays TED video that i watched was about a man named Joshua Klein who was convinced that crows where highly intelligent because of their behavior. For example he showed a video of a crow that was put into a room along with a weight that was down a tube and a metal wire. The crow bent the wire into a hook and lifted the weight from the handle and got it out of the tube. Just by that video i was convinced that crows were smart but he continued on and showed another video where a crow dropped a nut into the busy streets and let the car tire crush the nut open then when the walk signal was on, the crow went to the middle of the street to eat the nut. He also said that after that day, crows where seen everywhere doing the exact same thing so they learn from each other. I was beginning to wonder where he thought of studying something as far out as crows when he explained tha he was at a cocktail party with his friend and his friend said the crows in his backyard where really getting to him so he wanted to kill them but he told his friend to train them but his friend said that was impossible so he decided to prove him wrong. He also invented the crow vending machine where there's a lot of pennies littered around the machine and when a crow sees it, it'll put the coin into the slot of the machine and the machine will spit out a peanut for the crow. It was a weird invention but he showed a video where his plan worked and lots of crow came to do the same thing.
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TED

Once again today I’m writing another article of the video I saw on TED. The subject of this particular video was about happiness which is mostly the reason I chose it. Nancy Etcoff was the person who explained what happiness really was. She said that we all wanted happiness and some of us do all kinds of stuff to get it like taking depression pills for example. She also said that depression and anxiety was rising quickly around the world while happiness didn’t change a bit. The good thing was that she told us that more people were happy then not which was a relief because I wouldn’t want to live in a world of sadness and stress. The one thing I already knew that she said was that emotions change the way you do everything and can change your opinion of something which I experienced today when my sister kept slapping me and I just lost my temper and yelled at her. She said that it’s easier for us to detect something bitter then to detect something sweet. My opinion is that this video spoke the truth, and that I agree with it all the way. Everyday I feel like I have more depression then happiness and this video proved it to me that that was true.
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TED

Today im writing another article on a TED video i saw. This one was about a man named Micheal Pritchard who made a water filter that could turn really disgusting undrinkable waste into clean fresh water in seconds. He named his invention the Lifesaver and all you had to do was put the dirty water into the lifesaver, then pump the pump at the end and just drink from the top. He made a demonstration by filling the Lifesaver with rabbit poop, sewer water and water from a flood. He pushed the pump in and out 3 times then popped the lid open to drink. He said he came up with this idea when he saw the Asian Tsunami which forced everyone to drink the dirty flood water which caused diarrhea and death and when Hurricane Katrina hit the side of America damaging all food supplies and water. He also concluded that people were shooting each other just for water. In my opinion, this man has a good heart because he cares for others and did something about it. He didn't just sit down at home in front of his TV watching the news talk about the tsunami instead he wanted to help get ready for the next natural disaster. I can connect to him because I want to help others too. I want to build a automatic crab opener so people won't have to struggle with taking off the shell of the crab to get to the meat.It's very struggling to open the shell just to get a little bit of crab meat. With the automatic crab opener, it can take off the crab shell for you and so you won't have to. All you have to do is eat it.I've seen many people cut their hands or get their shirt dirty just to open a crab so i decided to help them out just like how Micheal helped out the people who got struck by the natural disasters.
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TED

In the morning today my dad told me to write a article on a story on TED which is a application on the iPod where people tell their life story in a video. The video I saw today was about a old lady who wants people to believe we evolved from sea apes and provides a theory which I didn't understand. She was very determined but scientist says she is wrong. While I watched this video I felt sad for her because she was so determined but still turned down. This has also happened to me many times like for example in track and field I would usually be on the first rally team but in this year I was on the third. I was so confident that I would get first team that I became in the last. The old ladies theory might sound funny and childish but she thought about this topic a lot and devoted many years into her work yet to be turned down and a laughing stock. She said that there has to be another change from apes to sea apes before changing to humans because sea apes have more of a resemblance to humans. This was an awkward video but a quiet enjoyable one too.

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Tuesday

I haven't written a blog for awhile now so ill fill you in with what you missed. First of all, SUMMER SCHOOL IS OVER!! Secondly, I went to a new friends house which was really big and nice. And last of all, my mom is making me write a report on what we are going to do at Banff which is where we are going for the next week and 3 days along with Jasper, Kamloops and Kelowna. So far i've done a lot but i still have to do a lot. That's about it. Nothing new has happened except those events and ill try to write my blog more often.
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Wednesday

Today i spent my whole day thinking it was Tuesday when it was actually Wednesday which i just figured out a hour ago. Today was a normal day as usual and you guys probably don't care but i scored 7 goals in our soccer game and one of them was when my friend chipped the ball high up on the left of the net and I jumped and headed it into the net. It was a really nice play so i had to show off. I didn't go out to bike today because my friend was busy and so i stayed home to play badminton with my mom at 8:00. I won but i had to take a bath afterwards. That's about it. Nothing new happened except summer school is almost over and then i can finally actually enjoy summer instead of suffering it.
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Tuesday

Today is Tuesday and today i did my project presentation about my country. It was really scaring and i was very nervous because i had to go up second by random choice. Other then that nothing new happenned at school but when i got home i had not much to do either so i just fooled around. After dinner my mom told me that the mooner eclipse is going to happen today at some point. But then she said this time it was only going to happen in China and i got sad so i went out biking, until 9:00 then i had to go back home.
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Monday Again

Once again its Monday and school has started again. School went normally but after school i worked on my poster which was a project for my morning class. Also i went biking after dinner which was something new, but otherwise nothing happened.
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Saturday

Today started off as a bad day because we went to Boundary Bay and digged up some clams until lunch time and then we headed back to the car but then a police saw us and said we weren't allowed to take clams and so we got a fine of 500$. It was a bad start to the day and afterward we went to Richmond to eat lunch. After lunch it was already 3:00pm and so we went home. At home some of us went to sleep and i did my homework. It went on like that until it was finally dinner. After dinner I went oyut to ride my bike until 8:00 then i came back and i played ome badminton with my dad until 9:00 then i wrote my blog. After that i went outside to find my grandparents then i came back to play some cards.
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Finally Friday

Today is finally friday and i was so happy when my summer school courses finally ended for the weekend that i did a lot of homework when i got home. Though i still had a whole other week next week, i survived this week and that was a big accomplishment. Today was a pretty tiring day as usual and nothing new happened except that i didnt tell you guys that we got our carpet cleaned by a professinel and had to move everything out of the way for that to happen. Sorry but nothing new has happened and so im going to stop my blog here.
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Wednesday

Today was very tiring because i had a normal day. That might not sound right but it makes perfect sense because my day is too planned and compacted. Also i had a haircut today. It looks ugly as hell and i really regret trusting my mom because last she made it horrible last time too. Don't feel pity for her because i don't. Well im very angry right now so i won't right anymore because ill just write more bad things about my mom that you don't want to hear and ill regret writing up later.
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Tuesday

I haven't wrote my blog for awhile now because of all the summer school courses i have to take, heck i wasn't even going to write my blog today but i squeezed it in my schedule. Today i woke up at 7:00 to go to summer school at North. We did a lot of boring stuff there and there was a lot of work to do and a project to get done and also a lot of homework. After that at 12:00 the class was dismissed and we went home. At my house i had to eat lunch quickly because at 12:45 i had to run up to Aubry elementary school to take my other course about building leaders for tomorrow. That was also really boring and lasted until 4:00 which then we went home. I ran home and at home i had to do my homework until dinner. After dinner mom, Angela and I went swimming until 9:00 and then we went back home. I was about to sleep but then i wrote my blog and then slept. As you can read i had a pretty busy week and there's another week to come.
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Wednesday

Today was a really tiring day for me because i slept late last night and woke up early this morning and i felt like i didn't want to get up this morning and wanted to continue sleeping but my mom told me to get ready for school so i had to get it eventually. When i got up i got my backpack ready for school and then went to eat breakfast. At breakfast i barely ate anything for i felt as if i wasn't hungry. After that i had to leave because it was already 7:50. AT school we first played a few rounds of Password which is a game where one person sits in a chair facing everyone else and the teacher writes one word behind him and then the class gives him/her a clue to help him/her get the word. Then we had a math test which i got one wrong on and then we read a book then wrote a review on it. And then we had a short break then went on working again. We studied a Socials text book until it was time to go and get assigned a piece of homework on it. Then i went home and ate lunch before going to my other school. The other school course was really boring so i wont talk about that part. After that on the way home, i all of a sudden had to take a number 2 very badly. I started running home but the more i ran the worse it got. I half ran and half walked home and then i rushed into the bathroom. When i finally got out an hour later, i felt refreshed and relaxed. Then i read a book until it was time to eat dinner. After dinner i had to go to the doctor because i was sick and then we went to the library to get a book for school. Then by the time we got back it was already late and i went to sleep.
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Monday

Sorry i didn't write my blog on the weekends but i had a lot of things planned and not much time to write my blog, also i was sick too with a fever and so that didn't help. Today i still feel a little uncomfortable because i don't think i was fully recovered yet. I had to wake up early for summer school which was more boring then usual so i won't talk about that but after summer school at 12:00 i started walking towards the field and saw my grandpa with my lunch and we sat down to eat because i had only a hour to eat before my second afternoon class called Building Leaders for Tomorrow. That once again was also really boring so i won't mention it. Then after the class was done, it was already 4 and i walked home in the rain. When i got home i was wet but at least i was home. I got settled in and soon my mom came home and so we ate dinner. After dinner my grandparents went for their walk and dad, mom, Angela and I went out shopping. We came back pretty late so we all went to sleep.
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Friday

Today is friday as you can see from above. Once again i had summer school today so i had to wake up at 7:30 and get ready. My mom dropped me off at the end of Grant leaving me 20 minutes to et to school. When i got to class, it was only 8:00 so i talked with my friends for awhile. When class started we started by giving the teacher our report cards and medical forms and then we handed him our homework assignment. After wards we did a few activities until it was 10:00(break time) i found my friends and we talked awhile before going back to class. After the break we learned about math and got a worksheet to do. Then before school was over, we went outside to play for 30 minutes, Then we went home. At home i ate lunch and then started on my homework. I didn't have much to do because i did most of the worksheet at school. Then i just fooled around until dinner and my mom and sister came home. We all ate together and i got very full.Afterwards my dad came home and i did some more homework. Finally before i went to sleep, I played badminton with my mom and beat her badly. Then i went to sleep relieved that i could sleep longer the next day because there was no summer school.
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Thursday

Today was very tiring and right now im very tired physically and mentally because today was the started of summer school. As some of you may know, i usually wake up at 8:00 but today i had to wake up at 7:00 because summer school started at 8:10. After i ate breakfast and got ready to go, my mom drove me to Burnaby North. She dropped me off at the sidewalk and left for work. I went into the building to find everyone crowded around a notice board. the board talked about what classes your suppose to be in. My name wan't on the list so i foound my soccer coach, who was also the vice principle of the summer school program, and asked him what to do. He told me to go to the office and ask them. At the office i had to wait awhile because there were a lot of people waiting in line to ask questions. Then when it was my turn i told them about the incident and they made me resign up because they couldn't find my form. Then they assigned my to room 36. I went there to find 4 people i knew already there. I felt a sdden relief. the teacher made me fill out a medical form then started with the class but before we started, another student came in. It was Jessica from my school making that 5 people i knew. We first got to know each other then we did a math test seeing what we needed to study on. After that it was a quick 15 minute recess then we went back to class. Then we did a reading assignment where we had to descirbe our room and then we got a sheet a paper that said some things like- find someone who has been to Seattle. We did that until class was dismissed. Then i walked all the way home. At home i ate lunch then started on my homework right away because we had a few pieces of homework from summer school. Then i played around until dinner came around. I dressed up for soccer then a quick dinner before i left for soccer practice. Practice was really tiring and so i won't descirbe it but i will tell you i scored the last winning goal on our scrimmage. It was 8:00 when i got back home and i started on my blog then i took a bath and went to sleep.
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Monday

Today was pretty fun, i woke up at 9:00 and then ate breakfast, afterwards i did my homework then played around until lunch time. After lunch a friend of mine and I went to someone esles house called Lily. There wasn't much to do so we played around with my friends iPod Touch. Then we went to his house and we played there for 2 hours. All i mostly did was play with his iPod because he has a lot of games on it. Then i had to go home at 4:00. At home i wrote my blog and then my mom and sister came hopme. We ate dinner then we played in the backyard until it was tmie to go to sleep/
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Saturday

SCHOOLS OVER!!!! Finally after so many horrid months of school, its finally over. I never thought i'd see the day but here we are. On the last day of school we had only 1 hour of school to get our report cards back. I got 7 A's and 4 B's which was a normal mark for me. Then we went to Silvercity in Metrotown to watch Transformers: The Rise of the Fallen. It was a really good movie. Today i woke up at 5:45 because i heard a noise that sounded like a trumpet or a really loud mosquito. It was coming from the house to our right. I still dont know what it is but it took my half and hour to get to sleep because i couldn' t sleep from the noise. Finally i fell asleep only to wake up at 8:45 in the morning. Then i ate breakfast then did my homework. When it was lunch we went out to eat then we went swimming right after. Then i went to my friends house until dinner time. After dinner we played around in the backyard until it was time to sleep.
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Monday

Yesterday was Monday, yesterday we went to Belcarra Park were we played all day long. First when we got there we went on a trail that took us to a beach place where there were a lot of rocks. After that we went back to camp and ate lunch. After we were done eating, a tour guide split us into 2 groups. She took us down to another beach where it was all muddy and dirty but there were a lot of starfishes grew on poles. They came in all types of colors but mostly just purple. They were all on top of each other so it seemed like there were a lot of them. We also found some dead crabs. After that we went up to the fishing dock where the tour guide showed us a sunstar that big and orange. It had many tentacles and was really squishy when i touched it. We also found some wild jellyfishes swimming in the waters. One was brown and another one was blue. One of my class mates touched the blue one while it swam by. Luckily he didn't get stung or anything. After that we went back to the camp and played around until 1:30 then we had to head on back. When we got back, it was time to go so i left for home. I wasreally tired by then so i went home and lied on the sofa.
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Tuesday

Today was a normal day for once since in the last few days we've been going on a lot of a field trips and haven't really had school for awhile. Today at school we first had our intermediate awards ceremony where we get awards. I got an award for participating in Gauss and another one with 7 stickers on it saying the things i did. Also i got an Effort Honor Roll but they didn't give me a certificate like their suppose to. After that it was recess and after recess we had to practice walking in and out of the gym for our leaving ceremony tomorrow. Then it was lunch and so i ran home to eat. After i was done it was time go back to school. We watched a movie called Hancock which i already watched. It was about a guy who could fly and was strong and was indestructible, but he had bad manners and was a drunk. He also wrecked things when he tries to save people but after he saved one person, that person tried to make people like him and make him a good superhero. it worked and he became good but that persons wife had the same powers and she said that as long as these two super heroes were together, they would slowly become mortal and so the man superhero had to leave but before he left some guys tried to kill the both of them and they barely got away. After we watched that it was time to go home already so i did. At home i played around until dinner then after dinner i watched some TV until my dad got home and told me to read the book he bought me called Campout! It was about what to do at a Camp to make it more enjoyable like bringing extra towlet paper just in case and like putting a tarp under the tent to make it more comfy and that the best sleeping bag is the mummy bag which is a really tight bag that keeps heat in and has a strap on the top to put your head in to keep warm. Thats the one i have. It had a checklist that was at least 3 pages long and a things you should bring section that was 14 pages long. Then i played soccer with my dad outside until it was late and dark. After we came back home, we took a shower before it was time to sleep.
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Sunday

Today as you can see from above, is Sunday. Today i had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach the whole day because i needed to get a tuxedo for my grade 7 graduation. First in the morning we just worked on the garden outside because we needed to plant new grass. We worked until it was lunch time then we ate noodles. After we were done, mom and grandpa went to sleep and dad, Angela and I went out to Brentwood Mall Sears to see if they sold them. All i needed was a tuxedo coat and some dress shoes. Once we got there, we searched around for the boys clothing section. When we found it, the tuxedo coats were right there so we didn't need to walk around trying to find someone to help point us in the right direction. There was one i liked and 2 my dad liked but i didn't like them because they were blue and looked like Navy Uniforms. I tried on the black one and it looked ok so we bought it though it cost $100. After that we went to the library then to the glasses store to get my dad some new ones. Then at 4 we finally went home. At home i tried on my suit then we went out to a resturant to eat dinner. I ate a lot and so did everyody esle and then we split up. Dad, grandpa Angela and I went home while mom and grandma went out shopping. At home i did my homework and my grandpa and dad worked on the garden. Then it was time to sleep.
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Thursday

Today was grade 7 day, where all the grade sevens go on a field trip. Today we first went to cliffhanger which is a rock climbing gym. At first i thought, this is going to be easy, but when you get over halfway and look down, you feel like your going to fall. I climbed a lot of walls but i never got to the top, well except this very small one where its only a few steps off the ground but it was slanted towards me so it actually wasn't that easy. After that we went to a pizza shop called Me and Ed's and we had lots of pizzas there. When we were done stuffing ourselves, we went to Planet Laser which is a laser tagging place. We played 3 games. The first game it was free for all and i got 6 place with 70 thousand points. The second game, there were 2 teams and our team won. The last game there were 4 teams and our team came second because the first team had all of the good players. After that we went back to school and when we got there it was after school already so i went home. At home i didn't have any homework so i just walked around not doing much until dinner. After we all ate dinner, mom and Angela went out to my sisters music class and dad and I went to Metrotown where i bought my friend a birthday card and a Metrotown gift card. We went back home and i decorated it. Then i had to sleep.
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Tuesday

Today is Tuesday. I had a pretty fun day today because at school we had a special event. In the morning, we did Art all the way until recess then all the way until lunch while watching a movie called Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure. It was a 2 guys who were failing history class and one of the kids dad told him that if he fails he would go to military camp. So these two need to do well on their next project to pass and a guy from the future comes back in time and gives them a time traveling device they could use to travel around and learn about history. We didn't finish the movie though because lunch came and i had to go home and eat lunch. In the afternoon, we all got our stuff and headed down to Beachers Creek to have a water fight. I got soaked but i soaked a lot of other people too. Some people used water guns, others used buckets. The buckets were all too slow but one of them got me when i wasn't ready. When we got back to school it was already 3:00. After school i went home to do homework then played around until dinner. After dinner everyone went out to do one thing or another and i stayed home to do more homework until night came. So i had fun at school but at home i had to work.
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