Room 613 Student Blogs - 2005/2006

Muslims all around the world are angry. They have been protesting, for about a week, because, there have been cartoons that are showing the muslims prophet Muhammad in a bad way. The cartoons first started in a newspaper last September, in Denmark. Then, other newspapers in Europe started printing them. Muslims do not allow anyone to publicate pictures of Muhammad. Muhammad was born in 570 in Mecca, which is now Saudi Arabia. Muslims beleive the angel Gabriel, gave Muhammad the words of god, which are now in the Koran. The Koran is the Islam holy book.

Every 11 years the sun will reverse its magnetic field causing a cycle of solar flares, sunspots, and magnetic storms having effects on earth. Scientist[s] think that the next solar cycle will be in the late 2007 or early 2008. The storm will be 30 to 50 percent stronger then the last. These storms can effect satillite orbit, disupt telecommunication, and can take down electric power grids. The scientist[s] predicted this by using a new computer made by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Using this computer Scientist[s] said that “For the first time, we can predict the strenght of the 11-year solar cycle.” The other time we had a solar cycle peak was in 2001. This new model can predict when the next solar cycle will come.

I found my information from this website.

We all know the Maldives as small little islands, but they have a huge history. Some of that history is what you will learn right now.

Here is one historic event that happened. (About how they got a republic government.) First, the Maldives went under a British protection in 1887, and were a dependency of the then-colony of Ceylon(now known as Sri Lanka) until 1948. Although the independence agreement with Britian was signed on July 26, 1965. For centuries before the island was adopted by a republican form of government in 1952, but the country was restored by 1954. Later, in 1968, a result of a referendum, the republic was once again established in a recently independent country(the Maldives). Also, in 1978 Ibrahim Nasir (authoritarian president since 1968) was removed and replaced from office. Ibrahim Nasir was replaced by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. (A more progressive person.) Gayoom was later elected to the sixth, five year term in 2003.

On December 26, 2004, a really powerful tsunami occured in the Indian Ocean, which devastated twelve Asian countries. The Maldives soon reported 82 deaths. Also, they suffered enormous damage. Seventy-nine islands were left with unsafe water. Last, a Parliament was voted in June, 2005 to shift to a multiparty democracy, President Gayoom agreed and supported the move.

So that’s a story of the Maldives history. More information of the Maldives is that the capital is Male. Also, the people speak 2 different languages in Maldives, which are, Maldivian Divehi and English. Speaking of people, the population of the Maldives is probably more than 300,000! That’s a lot! Anyway, here is a picture of the Maldivian flag.

I got my information at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107755.html. Another site you could go to for other information about the Maldives is http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mv.html.

(more…)

 These black scavengers live in Tasmania, Australia, and this is their only habitat. In the 1990’s there were 140,000 of these fox sized creatures, today it has decreased to 80,000. Scientists believe that this is due to Devil Facial Tumor Disease. This desease creates grotesque tumors on the Tasmanian Devil’s snouts, which leads to starvation. Some scientests believe this is a contagious disease that is spread when they bite eachother when they are fighting over carcasses,which is a natural behavior. When they bite eachother it’s usually on the face. A cytogeneticist, Anne-Marie Pearse found out that the chromosomes in the cancer cells were the same in every tumor. “Finding a vaccine would be the ultimate goal” said Pearse. She suspected that the continual line of cancer cells would attract researchers of human cancer. The only cancer that was like this one happened in dogs, but it was overcome by the dogs immune system. The devil’s desease cannot be overcome by it’s immune system though. Then a pathologist professional Conrad Muller said, that it was too early to tell what the ramifications of the discovery would be. Muller also said, “if the tumors are all common, then one potential approach would be some sort of vaccine therapy”. Hopefully they can find a cure and fast!

I Found this information at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183755,00.html#top

an unhealthy tasmanian devil

Find a healthy Tasmanian Devil at the website too, their really cute!!

You can’t keep a good horse down, especially a horse named after a super bowl team. This pacer (kind of horse) survived a Novemer car crash-the trailer he was in got rear-ended. Steeler (the horses name) got loose and galloped on the highway-and has finished second twice in the three 2006 starts. Of course, second isn’t what the other Steelers are after.

For more information and a video about Steeler, click here.

The horse olympics are very fun to enjoy watching and going to them! I have only watched the olympics on tv I have never really have gone to the olympics but I really want to some time. They are really cool. The riders need to have a lot of stength to ride in the olympic games. A lot of the olympics are in greece and that is where I saw them. the only olympics I have really known about were the jumping olympics. But there are dressage olympics and enderance and lots more. The next olympics will be held in august this year. THe offical Name for the riding olympics is the equestrian events.The pictures below is of jumping olympics! This is the cource for the olympics last year!!

It sure take a lot of effort to jump all thoughs tramendisly high jumps!! Picture Below

But sometimes you fall off!! Picture below

So stay up and running and do your best. And jump like you have never jumped before!!! Picture below

By: ~Ali R.~

The Bird Flu is a deadly disease to all birds and the bird population. Right now the disease is in Asia and Europe. It’s interesting but in 2003 Asia had the Bird Flu as well, sweeping out the poultry and wild bird population. Now the Bird Flu is back and the United States is doing reserch to help our people and birds in need. Ron DeHaven of Animal and Plant Health Inspection service says “We’re going to increase surveillance of migratory birds because we know that is a potential pathway”. Animal and Plant Health Inspection think that migrating birds are spreading the Flu and they’re going to be studing and testing them to see if it’s true. They will also be testing commercial poultry so that they might be able to find a cure.The testing cost a good amount of money; wild birds cost between $35 to $80 and commercial poultry cost between $30 to $35. Testing can cost a lot of money especialy with a lot of birds. Well the the Bush fondation asked congress for $91 million to put towards monitoring wild birds, vaccines for poultry, and to come together with other countries to help our birds survive this awful desease. By Maya K.

Can you believe that on January 28 an earthquake stuck Eastern Indonesia? Well at 1:58 a.m it hit the Banda sea in Eastern Indonesia. The earthquake had a 7.7 magnitude,but a depth of 212 miles which made the impact less on the Earth’s surface. Even though you may think that this earthquake caused lots of damage it didn’t and there is no chance that a tsunami would occure.”Although it was quite strong, it was deep, so the possibility of casualties and damage is relatively small,” Yusuf, an official at the national earthquake center in Jakarta, told Reuters on Saturday. Earthquakes are common in Indonesia and its 17,000 thousand islands are located around the Pacific ring of fire,so that is why there are so many earthquakes! Now you know about the earthquake in Eastern Indonesia.

Ref:http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_international.asp?id=125629

Hi, I’m here to tell you about (the) space dust collected! I wasn’t one of the people chosen to do the news blogs, but I thought I would anyway because not many people in 6h did them so I thought I might help out a little! On January 15th, the space craft, “Star Dust” returned to earth after a seven year journey that had a mission to collect dust from space to learn how our solar system was created which was 4,550 million years ago. They also obtained dust from the close encounter with a comet! It will be interesting to see the data that the scientist(s) obtained from this experiment. I know this is a little bit short but it still gives good and interesting information.

(second photo by Mr. H)

On January 19, 2006 at 2:00pm a space probe started it’s 3 billion mile journey to Pluto. It left the Earth going 36,000 mph. It was powered by 24 lbs. of plutonium. It was supposed to reach Jupiter in about a year. The space probe will use the gravity of Jupiter like a catapult to get some speed. Because of the distance the scientists will not be able to be given any information about Pluto until July, 2015. The trip is going to take about a decade. I found this interesting because I never knew it was possible to go to Pluto!

I found the information for this article at http://www.foxnews.com