Archive for General
61 Days to go
They sentence you to life, and thats what they take. (Shawshank Redemption)
Parent Teacher Conferences
Parent teacher conferences will be held Thursday, Sep 8 from 4:30 to 8:00pm. Come discuss your student’s progress!
Welcome Back to School
Summer is over. No one is sorrier to see it go than I am, but I am looking forward to being your science teacher. Science was the subject I liked the most in high school (many many many years ago) and the one I pursued in college. That does not mean I always got A’s! I struggled in math and science and I know what it’s like not to know what the teacher is talking about. I hope to be able to make science easy for you and that we both have a great year.
Metal Water Bottles May Leach BPA
Consumers who switched from polycarbonate-plastic water bottles to metal ones in hopes of avoiding the risk that bisphenol A will leach into their beverages aren’t necessarily any better off, a new study finds. Some metal water bottles leach even more BPA — an estrogen-mimicking pollutant — than do ones made from the now-pariah plastic. Read the full story.
Chimp Recognizes Human Words
Panzee doesn’t talk, but she knows a word when she hears one — even if it’s emitted by a computer with a synthetic speech impediment. That’s not too shabby for a chimpanzee. Raised to recognize 128 spoken words by pointing to corresponding symbols, Panzee perceives acoustically distorted words about as well as people do, say psychology graduate student Lisa Heimbauer of Georgia State University in Atlanta and her colleagues. Panzee thus challenges the argument that only people can recognize highly distorted words, thanks to brains tuned to speech sounds. Read the full story.
Greenland Ice in Danger of Thaw
Scientists have uncovered a potentially potent risk to Greenland’s ice sheets during the next century and beyond: rapidly warming deep water. The subsurface ocean off Greenland is now expected to warm at roughly double the rate that is projected for such waters globally, including off the coast of Antarctica.