Term 4

Well, term 4 begins tomorrow. I have science lessons on Thursdays and Fridays if I'm not wrong. It's nice to know that the lab lessons are back. I've always enjoyed the hands-on experiments and the entire lab experience. I've always felt that having science lessons only twice a week is not enough. However, not much is being gone through during science and science is really one of those topics that you have to read and understand the content by yourself.

The End of Year Examinations is just about a month away. I'll be starting my revision for science as early as tomorrow and plan to revise for one topic every 2 or 3 days. I'm interested to see what the final science paper will be like, especially with Sexual Reproduction, as it was not covered in our tests at all. I think it's good that we're being given past year exam papers to attempt, as they always serve as a preview for what to expect. You also get to compare what are some of the common questions that are being asked and use these type of little details to your advantage.

I'm hoping for an overall A1 in science and I believe I have what it takes to achieve that grade!

We'll see!

The Wonders of Coffee

A witty and interesting article I found on some of the amazing benefits of coffee

http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-scientific-ways-coffee-gives-you-super-powers/

Some interesting parts:

Drinking coffee also helps you to run faster! Studies have shown that after drinking coffee, you take one second less to run 20m. This would help athletes too!

A study of over 120,000 people found that death by liver cirrhosis disease decreases with coffee intake! Drinking two or more cups of coffee daily could reduce the risk of chronic liver disease by half! That's a lot!

The cirrhosis study also revealed that the rate of suicide drops by 13 percent for every cup of coffee consumed daily.

In conclusion, drinking coffee has been scientifically proven to be good for us in many different ways. It's really incredible how much difference a cup of coffee can make! Like the article says, it's like drinking coffee gives you super powers! I couldn't agree more!

Science Test Results Term 3

This term's science test consisted of Lenses and Ecology. I found the questions in the test paper rather easy to answer with the exception of one or two. With that said, I was slightly disappointed when I found out that I had only scored 31/40. I guess I expected to score a little higher! Lenses was a rather easy topic to cover and it required practice to master. Ecology on the other hand, was a large topic, and thus there was a huge variety of questions that could be asked.

Nonetheless, I am satisfied that I scored an A1. I am most certainly sure that I will not be given an exemption for Science, so I'll have to work hard for the EOY exams. It will be difficult having to study for so many topics, let alone for one subject.

My aim is to score an A1 for the EOY Science paper and I will work hard to make sure that I achieve this result.

Music helps us learn better!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3095807.stm

Music not only good for the ears, it has been proven to be good for the brain too!

It is believed that there are hundreds of benefits that music brings!

"You can activate different parts of the brain, depending on what music you listen to. So music can stimulate parts of the brain that are underactive in neurological diseases or a variety of emotional disorders". This is a huge discovery! Perhaps music can be used to help people with certain mental disorders or disabilities. That would make music a cure too!There has been CDs released that claim to benefit one's body upon listening to the songs included. Certain musical pieces can help to reduce blood pressure and pulse rate.

Personally, I listen to music very often. Sometimes, I listen to music to calm me down, and I've always wondered how it's able to do so. I never thought that listening to music actually had so many benefits! It's incredible! I'll definitely continue to listen to music more! This discovery has led me to wonder:"Does music cast negative effects on us too?"

Eyes take gossip to heart

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/74498/title/Eyes_take_gossip_to_heart

They say that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. But did you know that it is actually ugliness that allows the beholder to see a face more easily?

What I mean is that people find it particularly easy to see the faces of individuals about whom they’ve heard nasty or unpleasant gossip.

Scientists have conducted experiments and it has been proven true!

It's no wonder that I remember all the naughty ones in my class a few years ago but completely forgot about the better behaved ones!

Science Experiments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3szrdXqlbs

This answers the question I always had about how magicians could walk on glass barefooted and hardly get hurt! Well, the trick is that the glass used is sharp, but not sharp enough to pierce through our skin. There was a demonstration where the guy tried to pop the balloon using the glass, but the glass wasn't sharp enough to burst the balloon! It means that when magicians actually walk over glass, it's actually not that painful at all! I guess all it took was to convince onlookers that the magician was in pain, by putting up an act!

So there you go, a magician's trick revealed! All thanks to the wonders of Science.

Caution, Pollution!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8617258/Pollution-can-lead-to-brain-damage-and-depression-warn-scientists.html

After reading the article, I've realised the importance of keeping our environment clean and green. We should always clear litter in bins and not dump them on streets. As we can see from the article, it has its consequences.

It is very interesting that they carried out experiments using mice to determine if pollution does lead to depression.

Do remember, prevention is better than cure!