Bonding Discovery

4 facts:

- this new technique by researchers at North Carolina State University gives scientists new insight into the way silicon bonds with other materials at the atomic level and could lead to improved understanding of and control over bond formation at the atomic level, and opportunities for the creation of new devices and more efficient microchips.
- Bonds are the chemical interaction between adjacent atoms and are what give materials their distinctive characteristics.
- strain makes a difference in how bonds form, but up to now there hasn't been much understanding of how this works on the atomic level.
- Application of even small amount of strain in one direction increases the chemical reactivity of bonds in certain direction, which in turn causes structural changes.

Alloys

Definition: mixtures composed of two or more elements, at least one of which is metal.

Examples:

- Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. It is harder than copper and is more easily cast and it is also used in coinage.

- Steel is the most important alloy today. The principal elements in most steel, in addition to iron, carbon, are, boron, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, tungsten, and vanadium. Steel has a wide range of useful purposes, such as corrosion resistance, ductility, hardness, and toughness.

Color Vision in Birds

5 interesting things I learned:

-  Raptors, like this Swainson’s hawk, have the most acute avian vision, relying on sight to spot and capture prey from altitude. While most birds have laterally positioned eyes, giving them a broader field of view, raptors have eyes set frontally to give them increased binocular vision and depth perception.

-Diurnal birds tend to have increased ultraviolet sensitivity, with far more cones than rods, while nocturnal species such as owls tend towards sensitivity in the infrared end of the spectrum and have a relatively high proportion of rods.

-One possible advantage of ultraviolet vision is in spotting the traces left by prey. The urine and feces of mice are visible in the ultraviolet range, so they stand out against the uniform color of a cultivated field to the eyes of a hunting kestrel.

-Some species we see as having identical male and female plumage differ when seen in the ultraviolet range - a difference apparent to the birds themselves.

-Migrating birds that fly at night need different navigational equipment. When compared to daytime flyers, songbirds that migrate nocturnally have an enlarged section of the brain, which apparently controls this aspect of migration.

How New Elements are Named

When elements are newly discovered, they are given a temporary name that is derived from their numbers. For the past decades, new elements are generally named for famous scientists. For example, Einsteinium is named after Albert Einstein.

Glow-In-The-Dark Millipede Says 'Stay Away'

1.) Five facts that I learned after reading the article, "Glow-In-The-Dark Millipede Says 'Stay Away'", is:

-The nightly glow of millipedes belonging to the genus Motyxia helps the multi-legged invertebrates avoid attacks by predators.
-12.000 species of millipedes have been discovered, but it is believed by biologists that around 100,000 are still undiscovered.
-The Motyxia spend the day underground, but even though they are blind, they somehow sense when night falls, and come to the surface to forage and mate.
- When they are disturbed, they ooze toxic cyanide and other foul-tasting chemicals from small pores running along the sides of their bodies as a defense mechanism.
-Just like all other millipedes, Motyxia are vegetarians, feeding mostly on decaying plant material, but in the course of adapting to a lifestyle primarily underground, they lost the ability to see.


2.) I know that the scientists involved in the experiment used the scientific method because they had a purpose, which was to answer the question, why does the phenomenon, bioluminescence, occur? After researching about the topic, the scientists came up with a hypothesis. "Marek and his coworkers hypothesized by using bioluminescence as a warning signal, luminescent millipedes would be attacked less than non-luminescent ones." They then designed an experiment to test the hypothesis. After their experiment they analyzed the results and came to a conclusion, which was that the Motyxia millipede does use their bioluminescent capabilities to prevent being attacked by predators, such as the grasshopper mouse. This shows that the scientists did use the scientific method when doing this experiment.