Life of an Insect

Because insects have a tough, non-living outer covering or exoskeleton, they cannot grow steadily, but have to grow in stages by periodically shedding the exoskeleton. This process is called moulting or ecdysis. The stages between moults are called instars.

Although some insects give birth to active young (notably the summer generations of aphids), the vast majority of insects lay eggs. When the young insect is ready to leave the egg it either chews its way out or bursts the egg shell by muscular action, sometimes assisted by sharp spines on its body covering.

The apterygote (or wingless) insects, and some of the species which have lost their wings secondarily during the course of evolution, hatch in a form very like that of the adult except for the lack of reproductive organs. Apart from an increase in size there is little visible change in appearance as the insect grows (i.e., little or no metamorphosis).

Rainforests are home to two-thirds of all the living animal and plant species on the planet. It is guessed that many hundreds of millions of new plants and insects are still un-discovered. Tropical rain forests are called the “jewels of the earth”, and the “world’s largest medicine cabinet” because of the large amount of natural medicines discovered there. Tropical rain forests are also often called the “Earth’s lungs”. Even with the growth of plants in a rainforest, the actual quality of the soil is often quite bad. Fast decay stops nutrients from collecting.

The under growth in a rainforest is usually very dark, because the trees block the sun. This makes it possible for people and other animals to walk through the forest. If the trees are cut down, the ground beneath is filled with vines, shrubs and small trees called jungle.

This site is pretty good on any information about the Rain Forest

AmazonTeam.org

Clean Air with Plants

Top 10 plants for clean indoor air
Indoor air quality is often worse that outdoor air quality. What can you do about it? Grow these plants.


Common name Scientific name Score
1 Areca palm Chrysalidocarpus lutescens 8.5
2 Lady palm Rhapis excelsa 8.5
3 Bamboo palm Chamaedorea seifrizii 8.4
4 Rubber plant Ficua robusta 8.0
5 Dracaena “Janet Craig” Dracaena deremensis “Janet Craig” 7.8
6 English ivy Hedera helix 7.8
7 Dwarf date palm Phoenix roebelinii 7.8
8 Ficus Alii Ficus macleilandii “Alii” 7.7
9 Boston fern Nephrolepis exalta “Bostoniensis” 7.5
10 Peace lily Spathiphyllum sp. 7.5
These are plants selected for their ability to remove indoor air pollution, based on research carried out for NASA’s Clean Air Study.

The score is based on four factors,

1. Removal of chemical vapours
2. Ease of growth and maintenance
3. Resistance to insect infestation
4. Transpiration rate

The information is from B.C. Wolverhampton. Eco-friendly House Plants: 50 indoor plants the purify the air in homes and offices. London: Seven Dials, 2000. For information about how to take care of the plants etc., see the book. These plants are very easy to take care of.

Global Warming Articles

Climate change may be a big problem, but there are many little things we can do to make a difference. If we try, most of us can do our part to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that we put into the atmosphere. Many greenhouse gases come from things we do every day. As we have learned, these greenhouse gases trap energy in the atmosphere and make the Earth warmer. Driving a car or using electricity is not wrong. We just have to be smart about it.Some people use less energy by carpooling. For example, four people can ride together in one car instead of driving four cars to work. Here are some additional ways you can help make the planet a better place!

Read
Learning about the environment is very important. There are many good books that will help you learn. To get started, ask a teacher or a librarian for some suggestions. You also can look at the Links page to find other good web sites with information about the environment and climate change.

Save Electricity
Whenever we use electricity, we help put greenhouse gases into the air. By turning off lights, the television, and the computer when you are through with them, you can help a lot.

Bike, Bus, and Walk
You can save energy by sometimes taking the bus, riding a bike, or walking.

Talk to Your Family and Friends
Talk with your family and friends about climate change. Let them know what you've learned.

Plant Trees
Planting trees is fun and a great way to reduce greenhouse gases. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the air.

Recycle
Recycle cans, bottles, plastic bags, and newspapers. When you recycle, you send less trash to the landfill and you help save natural resources, like trees, oil, and elements such as aluminum.

Also Ive come to relize that taking action is the learning process. I've learned more by groups, this class, and the actions i have taking. As far as my opinion goes, I pretty well set on the articles, but when it comes to the media, thats where i differ. The media exploits and tries to just blame not fix. I mean thats great that you can find blame and place it. But what good does that do if you can't replace or fix it. Ideas and actions is the way to go. Below are a couple of great sites for information and places to sign up and take action. Also along with many ideas to act upon yourself. Easy as that.

stopglobalwarming.org

coolaction.com

Tasmanian Devils Extinction

CANBERRA, Australia - Tasmanian devils - the marsupial made famous as a snarling cartoon character named Taz - are being relocated to an island off Australia to avert their extinction by a contagious cancer. Some scientists fear the move could endanger rare birds and other animals on the island, but other experts say it is a last resort and should pose no problem since the devils are scavengers, not predators.

”The path to extinction is looking pretty certain on Tasmania,” said William Karesh of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, who organized a workshop in Australia to help the government and biologists develop a plan to save the devils.

The fox-like animals with powerful jaws and a bloodcurdling growl - made famous by their Looney Toons namesake - are being wiped out on the island state of Tasmania by a contagious cancer that creates grotesque facial tumors. The disease was first noticed in the mid-1990s in the state’s northeast, where 90 percent of the devils have since perished. It is spreading south and west, and scientists estimate that within five years, there will be no disease-free population in Tasmania _ the only place in the world where the devils exist outside zoos.

”I think there’s a real risk of extinction within 20 years across the whole of Tasmania,” said Hamish McCallum, a professor of wildlife research at the University of Tasmania.

I found this to be very intresting. Extinction of animals have came an intrest of mine since my Ecology class and the Wildlife classes they have us taking.

Scientists create Asteroids

Look at Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movies with its computer-animated interpretation of a comet striking Earth -- were big box office hits. But computer scientists at Sandia National Laboratories are creating some big hits of their own these days that they think may better approximate a real asteroid catastrophe.

Using virtual reality techniques, decades of experience in shock physics, advanced computer programs, and the world's fastest computer, the scientists have completed in recent weeks one of the largest hypervelocity impact physics calculations ever performed.

In the latest computing scenario, an asteroid 1.4 kilometers in diameter strikes the Atlantic Ocean 25 miles south of Brooklyn, N.Y. To model the event the scientists broke up a 120-square-mile space that roughly approximates the New York City metropolitan area, the air above, and the water and earth below, into 100 million separate cubes, or grids. Sandia's teraflops supercomputer then calculated what happened inside each cube as the asteroid splashed down. The cubes were reassembled to produce a three-dimensional moving picture of the collision. The teraflops, currently the world's fastest computer, performs more than one trillion mathematical operations per second.

The simulation is no video game; the calculations take into account the real-world laws of physics governing time, temperature, pressure, gravity, the densities of water and earth, and hundreds of other considerations to create an accurate prediction. What's more, the resulting computer simulation can be explored using interactive virtual reality techniques. For instance, scientists can "fly through" the 3-D movie to get a better idea of what's happening on Coney Island if they want.

Water Reservoir

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, such examples in the USA. Almost every manmade reservoir that is a primary water supply source for USA cities also serves as a major recreation area, i.e., fishing, water skiing, boating, canoeing, ski boating, swimming, etc. They also provide important fish and wildlife habitats. However, USA reservoirs are usually quite large, and are as deep as engineeringly feasible at each location to accommodate as large a volume of water as possible----they range in size from less than 100 acres (typically in the eastern US) to as large as many square miles (the big Western US reservoirs). Water from these reservoirs goes through typical (for USA) treatment facilities before becoming household water supplies. USA reservoirs also often serve other purposes at the same time as being urban water supplies and recreational sources---they may also be used for hydroelectric generation, for floodflow storage, and farmland irrigation. They may also be locations of important headwater and side channel wetland areas, and their shorelines may have vacation or permanent homes located on them. The US Army Corps of Engineers owns and/or manages nearly 500 of these reservoirs, and a number of others are owned and managed by other federal, state, county, and city agencies.