Many have worried about the work being done at some of the linear accelerators around the world, especially recently at CERN, some are worried that by simulating a black hole, which is a theory, with particles, that we might open up a self-perpetuating a growing object that might swallow us up. Well, scientists and researchers tell us to hold our conspiracy theory, paranormal, and anti-research rhetoric, as they say it will not happen.

Can they guarantee that? Well, their answers are usually no, but they say based on the theories and understanding of such, it's not possible, or so improbable that it is not a concern at CERN. Well, no matter how improbable it might be, if there is the slightest chance, you can see why people are a bit concerned about such things.

Not long ago an acquaintance said to me; "[Humans] are infants in the world of physics [and] until this species understands the basic language of the universe, and doesn't mess things up, we won't be allowed into that playground."

This maybe so, but it postulates two things. One, that there is a greater intelligence out there, that is keeping an eye on the human race and our evolutionary and science developments. And two, that the human species is naive when it comes to physics and what is known.

Now then, we need to be very careful what we call "this species" as there is a lot of separation between the members of this species in intelligence and reasoning ability. Human science is making headway. Further, human pursuit of knowledge will never stop. Messing things up, is a concern, yes, but that should not stop the flow or pursuit of truth.

None of this bothers me to consider, but others get so upset because it interferes with their belief system, which is too bad. We must not stop research, we must press on, and we ought to minimize risk, but we must move forward. Please consider all this.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes all research facilities need good EMTs with updated certificates; EMT Recertification



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We all learnt at school in our science class that electricity is the flow of electrical power or current through a conductor or circuit. But electricity does not actually exist as an electrical quantity it is a commonly used generic term given to the movement or flow of electrical charge through a conductor. For example, we say that a river has a current flowing in it but this current is actually the movement of the water. If the water is stationary then there is no current flowing in the river and this is the same for electrical current. Electrical current results from the movement or flow of electrical charges from one point to another with the word current meaning the "flow of charge".

Electrical charge is produced when free electrons leave the outer orbits of their respective atoms and move in a controlled direction from one atom to another through the conductor as a result of a force or energy being applied to them. This movement of free electrons through a conductor is known as drift which constitutes an electrical current flow. Then electrical current can be known as the rate of movement of charge.

All conductors such as metals contain large amounts of electrons that are loosely connected to the nucleus of their respective atoms and so can easily move through the material from atom to atom. Therefore metals are full of charge making them conductive as opposed to insulators whose electrons are held tightly to their nucleus preventing them from moving. In some metals such as copper there is an abundance of these free electrons that randomly move about from atom to atom thereby making copper highly conductive.

So why do we not get an electrical shock when we touch a copper pipe?. Well, this random movement of electrons from atom to atom does not result in a current flow as the electrons are constantly moving about in all different directions at once cancelling each other out so their combined movement in any one direction is zero. This random unorganised movement results in the overall electrical charge of the material being zero making it electrically neutral so we could say that the electrical charge in the copper pipe is uncharged.

However, some of these free electrons can line up together on the outer surface of the copper pipe as they are restricted from moving about causing the surface of the metal to become negatively charged. Since the electrons are not moving the surface generates a negative static electrical charge known commonly as "Static Electricity" or simply electricity at rest.

Connecting a battery to the copper causes all these free electrons to stop floating about, line up and move in the same direction resulting in an orderly flow of charge from one point to another and therefore a current. Then electrical current has a definite direction. We always think of electrical current flowing from the positive battery terminal to the negative battery terminal and we call this movement "conventional current flow". The reality is the reverse, electrons move in the opposite direction as they are attracted to the positive pole of the battery and are repelled by the negative pole. Then this direction is called electron flow.

An electrical current that flows in one direction only all the time is said to be direct current (dc), while an electrical current that alternates back and forth in direction of flow is said to be an alternating current (ac). We measure the flow of charge in terms of amperes, abbreviated to "A" or just simply "amps".

The amount of electrical charge that passes a point in a circuit at any one time is measured in COULOMBS abbreviated to "C", with one coulomb of charge flowing per second being equal to one ampere. One coulomb is approximately equal to an excess or deficiency of more than 6 trillion electrons, 1 coulomb = 6.28 x 10^18.

So going back to our original question of "what is an electrical current" we can now say that an electrical current is an orderly flow of electrical charge through a conductor or circuit and which is measured in amperes.



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The predator with the fastest bite known in the animal kingdom isn't the lion, the crocodile, or the great white shark. Rather, the world's most impressive jaws belong to an ant native to Central and South America.

Biologists have found the trap-jaw ant, Odontomachus bauri, closes its mandibles in a mere 0.13 milliseconds, or 2,300 times faster than the blink of an eye. This translates to a speed of 35 to 64 meters per second, or 78 to 145 miles per hour.

More impressive than the closing speed is the force and acceleration. Researchers found that the jaws accelerate at 100,000 times the force of gravity, with each jaw generating forces exceeding 300 times the insect's body weight. (The ants have typical body masses ranging from 12.1 to 14.9 milligrams, or about three hundredths of a pound.)

Scientists point out this acceleration is huge compared to the tiny mass of the jaws, and is among the highest in the world. Although falcons can dive as fast as 300 miles per hour, they must start from very high altitudes and work with gravity to reach those speeds. On the other hand, trap-jaw ants rely entirely on energy stored in their own bodies.

The mandibles of the trap-jaw ant are controlled by a pair of huge, contracting muscles in the head and are held by a pair of latches. The jaws are sprung when the latches are released. The researchers explain that using a latch system enables animals to obtain much faster speeds than through muscles alone. The analogy is throwing an arrow versus using a crossbow: the crossbow stores elastic energy, and a latch releases this energy almost instantaneously. As a result, the arrow shoots out very fast and goes much farther.

Although trap-jaw ants use their jaws to catch prey, another use is to escape from other predators. By snapping their jaws against the ground, the ants can launch themselves into the air, achieving heights up to 8.3 centimeters or horizontal distances up to 39.6 centimeters. For a human, that's equivalent to jumping to a height of 44 feet or a horizontal distance of 132 feet. The path they take depends on the purpose of the mandible's strike. When escaping quickly from a predator, the ant strikes its jaws against the ground to propel itself upward.



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Unfairly or not, 9th grade science fair projects compete against those made by high school students, which can be intimidating for even the most accomplished 9th grade science whiz. Fortunately, the playing field can be leveled with the right science project that can compete head-on with others. But first, it is necessary to choose the type of science fair project you will take on. This makes the process of choosing the final science project so much easier since you have narrowed your choices down to a manageable level.

Experimentation

This is the most common type used in 9th grade science fair projects, which seek to answer a relatively straightforward question through the scientific method. Thus, you will observe and collect data, measure and organize it, construct a hypothesis and prediction, experiment with the variables, analyze the resulting data, make a model and finally, communicate the results. Of course, your venue for communication is the science fair. Fun examples of this type are the comparison of wood pellets for barbecues, determination of the best type of pesticide against crickets, and the evaluation of various types of water purification.

Demonstration

You will either confirm or invalidate the results of a previous experiment conducted by another scientist. In many instances, you do not have to replicate the processes previously employed as you can indeed improve upon them. Usually, demonstration type 9th grade science fair experiments can be culled from Internet resources, which have a rich abundance of full published studies made by other 9th graders. Examples include the improvement of jatropha oil properties and the explanation of the oscillating clock chemical reaction.

Research

As the name suggests, you collect relevant information about the chosen topic and then presenting your findings. Keep in mind that a good presentation for 9th grade science fair projects can make or break your science fair project so make it as best as you possibly can. To make it fun, you can use innovative presentation methods like a mini-play or a mini-demonstration. Or you can use more colorful materials to attract the attention of the observers and judges.

Model

If you want to stand out from among many 9th grade science fair projects, the best choice would be to go for the model type of project. You have to build a scale model to describe in visual and audio terms your chosen concept or principle. Examples include making a scale model of the tectonic plates to simulate earthquakes, constructing a baking soda volcano that spews vinegar, and building a solar toy car to explain its large-scale counterparts. Or to make it even more fun, you can invent something new! Don't worry if it appears silly to others because the silliest of inventions often start a revolution. Think of the way Henry Ford revolutionized car manufacture.

Collection

If you are an avid collector of things, you can show them off but with an award-winning twist. For example, instead of showing just your bug specimen collection, explain how each one differs according to the season of the year it was collected, how its environment may have affected its growth and many other things.

Once you have selected from among these types, your 9th grade science fair projects will become more inspired, more focused and more award-winning. And isn't that where the fun really is?



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Charles Darwin spent some thirty pages in 'The Origin' discussing difficulties with his theory. He says, 'Some of them are so grave that to this day I can never reflect on them without being staggered...'. However, the problems that the theory still faces, 150 years after 'The Origin', are almost invariably ignored in both school textbooks and in media references to the theory.

Indeed, in the latter case the theory is usually treated as an unquestionable background fact. Based on such sources of information one would be hard-pressed to discover the issues that challenge the theory and to make an informed decision about its credibility. Fortunately, Darwin's Theory is such that we can all readily understand what it asserts, and discover and assess the facts relevant to it - without having to be experts in Biology and Palaeontology (my own background is mainly in Physics/Maths, which I taught in Further Education).

Darwin's Theory Of Evolution has enormous scope, in claiming to be the complete explanation of the development of all life, but it can be expressed in just two basic propositions:

1 - All organisms alive now or that have ever lived have been arrived at by extremely gradual changes along sequences made up of, as Darwin puts it in 'The Origin', 'inconceivably great' numbers of 'intermediate and transitional links'

2 - The mechanism of change along the sequences is dependent on Natural Selection preserving those characteristics that are inheritable and advantageous for survival

Evolutionary change is sometimes represented by a 'tree of life'. If we put vertebrates alive today in their appropriate places on such a 'tree', we find that there are localized numerical 'explosions' as species of fish, amphibians etc. mount up. However, we do not find sequences of life forms, corresponding to descendants of the supposed intermediates, to populate the trunk and branches of the tree, linking together the different distinct groups. All we have are a handful of curious individuals - these include monotremes, suggested as a link between reptiles and mammals - of these, Molecular Biologist, Michael Denton (in his 1985 'Evolution - A Theory In Crisis') says: 'Instead of finding character traits which are obviously transitional we find them to be basically reptilian or basically mammalian so...they afford little evidence for believing that any of the basic character traits of the mammals were achieved gradually in the way evolution envisages.'

When Darwin was writing 'The Origin' he knew that there were no fossil sequences to directly support his theory of gradual organic change. He wrote: 'That our paleontological collections are very imperfect, is admitted by everyone' - so presumably he expected that the fossil evidence his theory required would turn up as fossil collections became progressively more complete.

So what's the situation now, after 150 years of fossil-hunting? Dr. Niles Eldredge says (Guardian Weekly - 26th Nov. 1978): '...geologists have found rock layers of all divisions of the last 500 million years, and no transitional forms were found in them.' And Michael Denton says (ibid., page 162): '... while the rocks have continually yielded new and exciting and even bizarre forms of life ... what they have never yielded is any of Darwin's myriads of transitional forms...'.

As with the living, the fossils throw up individuals commonly referred to as 'missing-links'. However, to characterize such an individual as a 'link' is to assume the once existence of a chain from which it was a part - but that is to assume the very thing for which the evidence does not exist i.e. the reality of such chains of organic change.

Darwin's Theory was consistent with the overall structure of the then (1859) known fossil record - but the concern he expressed in 'The Origin' that 'Geological research...has done scarcely anything in breaking down the distinction between species, by connecting them together by numerous, fine, intermediate varieties' is as true now as it was in 1859. Couple this with the parallel fact that there are no sequences amongst the living corresponding to descendants of his 'inconceivably great' numbers of 'intermediate and transitional links', and it seems that Darwin's proposed huge sequences of organic change have no more correspondence to a demonstrable physical reality than do faces seen in the clouds.

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There are a number of 7th grade science project ideas that a student can choose from to demonstrate concepts learned in class. A few such projects include:

• Collect water from a nearby stream or pond and view a drop of it under a microscope. Note what kinds of things you see and make drawings of them. Which are plants and which are animals? What is greater in your sample, plants or animals? What factors might affect the numbers of each that you find?

• Draw a cell and label all of its parts. What function does each part of the cell serve? Are there differences between plant and animal cells? If do, what are they?

• Name the four different blood groups found in humans. What type is the rarest? The most common? How does the blood type of a person's parents affect the outcome of their own (i.e. if a person with type A blood marries someone with type O, what type will any offspring have)?

• Draw a picture of a red blood call from a human and label all of its parts. Now draw a picture of the red blood cell from an animal, like a cow and label all of the parts. Are there any differences? If so, what part do you think these differences play in the function of the cell?

• Build a 3D model of a single-celled animal from cake. Use different tints of frosting to make the different structures inside the animal. Licorice laces can be cut up to represent the cilia. Before the cake is eaten, hand out a sheet that has the different parts labeled with call-outs, but not filled in. Allow people to view the cake and fill in the papers as to what each structure is. Just before the cake is cut, put out a poster that shows what everything is. Let the person who has the most right answers for these 7th grade science project ideas have the first piece of cake.

• Take a sample of cells from the inside of the mouth and view them under a microscope. Stain the material with a drop of food coloring. Describe what you see. Make a drawing of any clear cells and label all of the structures present.

• Plankton is made up of several kinds of single cell plants and animals. Find out what they are and make drawings of several different kinds of each. What animals use plankton as a food source. What kinds of changes in the environment could change plankton's survival in the water? Has plankton levels risen or fallen in recent years? Why?

• Different bacteria exist all around us. Where are they found? What role do they play? In what cases should bacteria be encouraged to grow? In what cases should they be discouraged? Give an example of how or why they should be encouraged, and why they should be discouraged.

With a little bit of careful thought it is possible to find any number of 7th grade science project ideas that can be turned into a science project for the inquisitive student.

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When you look at delicious food, you are experiencing a conditioned response. In other words, your thoughts say "Wow! That looks delicious and tasty!". Your thoughts then stimulate your brain which tells your digestive organs to get ready for some action.

When you smell food, what happens in your nose is entirely physical. The alluring aroma of tasty food gets transmitted by molecules which come off the surface of your food. These molecules settle on the membrane lining of your nostrils and stimulate the receptor cells on the olfactory nerve fibers. The olfactory nerve fibers stretch from your nose all the way back to your brain. The receptor cells communicates with your brain "Hey, there is good food here!".

Your brain will then send messages which alerts your mouth and your digestive track. The message your brain sends to your mouth is to start the saliva flowing. It will send a message to your stomach to warm up the stomach glands and will also send a message to your warm up your small intestine. Basically, the sight and scent of food can make your mouth water and your stomach hungry.

But wait a minute! What if you hate what you are smelling or seeing? For some people even the thought of liver and onions can make them want to vomit, or at least leave the room. At the current time, your body is trying to protect you. You are experiencing an rejection reaction. Which is similar when babies are given something that tastes sour or bitter. Your mouth sags and your nose wrinkles trying to keep the food as far away as possible. Your throat will also tighten and your stomach will turn. Not a very pleasant moment. But if you like what is on your plate, go ahead and take a bite.

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