Blogging is a way to communicate with the outside world. Whether it's about a good book you read or a good article that you read and wanted to tell people about. Through this year I have learned what genre of books that I really like. Realistic fiction has become  my personal favorite. I also learned that my favorite non-fiction article is science.

      I have benefited in many ways this year from the blogs this year. One way I have benefited this year is my improvement in writing. My teacher helped me this year become a way better writer thanks to what she has taught us. I have also benefited because I have benefited by realizing that when you write about a book that you read that you remember it way more.

        Writing online is different than writing in your notebook because you realize that you have to write more online and that you have to come up with more complex thoughts. Online writing can be liberating because you have instant access to different sources. I don't think that people are more real online. I think that usually you are way less real.  

      I think that teenagers do abuse their freedom on social media. I also believe that people say things to others that they wouldn't say to their face. Which is called cyber bullying.  I think social media can be good but it can also be bad. I can imagine keeping this blog or creating a new one in high school. I think I could start a blog about sports, especially baseball. I like blogs and I like to read them to.

Non fiction critical analysis

   In the article Strange New State of Hydrogen Created the author Jesse Emspak explains how a new type of hydrogen was made. They have now found a new state of hydrogen. This new way is through crushing the hydrogen with very high pressure. The scientists who were a team of doctoral students at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland were able to solidify the hydrogen at room temperature (around 80 degrees). This is the first time people found a way to solidify hydrogen in such warm temperatures.

      The author talks about shattering diamonds a little more and what happens when the pressure is turned up more. “To have been certain hydrogen took a metallic state (without a conductivity test), the team would have needed to reach even higher pressures, at least up to 400 to 450 gigapascals, the scientists said.

Those pressures might surpass the limits for diamond anvils, which can shatter,” Gigapascals is another way of measuring, the students used 384 gigapascals which is about 55 million pounds per square inch. The team plans to see how far the anvil diamonds will go before they shatter. There are other techniques besides the anvil diamonds do exist, but don’t tend to work well with hydrogen.

        Being able to crush the hydrogen is what the team was really looking to do. “When the pressure hit the 325-gigapascal mark, or 47 million psi, the hydrogen became a solid, with the atoms forming layers that alternated between orderly and jumbled arrangements.” The team took it a step forward in reaching what I previously said 384 gigapascals. Liquid hydrogen is created quite easy to produce at cryogenic temperatures. Nobody yet has been able to cool the element enough for it to be solidified.

     People have tried to make hydrogen into a metallic form but it isn’t completely proven that someone has done it. “In 2011, a team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, said they had created metallic hydrogen, but that claim later came under some fire from other scientists and was never fully confirmed.” The main student that conducted the experiment said that they came close to making metal but were not quite able to. even though solids and liquids are the most familiar but there are many other phases that appear under more extreme conditions.

       Knowing more about hydrogen and how to make more different ways to use this. This new way to solidify hydrogen could help scientists discover more mysteries about space and even more things about our own planet. The author did a good explaining the team that did it, how they are trying to solve more topics, and what limitations  might be set on what they try to accomplish. This topic has vast possibilities and might have a big impact on science.

The Caffeinated Lives Of Bees

      The Caffeinated Lives of Bees, by David Frank and James Gordon, the author describes how caffeine affects bees in a powerful way. When bees come in contact with caffeine it improves the bee’s memory and learning. Caffeinated bee’s comes back to the flower with the caffeine more often than the bee’s that gets regular nectar from the flowers. When a honeybee finds a really good nectar source they go back to their hive and communicate by dancing.

     

In the article, the line “What she found was that bees were drawn to caffeine like office workers to a coffee cart and that the favorite drug of so many human beings changed how bees evaluated nectar quality”. This quote shows that Margaret J. Couvillon, who studies bees, thinks that they have a strong connection with humans. Both humans and bees are drawn towards caffeine.

“Honeybees communicate with the rest of the hive about the sources of nectar they’ve found by shaking their abdomens in what is called the waggle dance. They don’t always dance; it depends on how good the nectar source”. Abdomens are the part of the body of a vertebrate containing the digestive organs; the belly. In humans and other mammals, it is bounded by the diaphragm and the pelvis. I got this from dictionary.com. If a honeybee finds a good nectar, they would go back to the hive and dance to show the bees they found a good nectar. Bees often have a number on their backs, and they shake their tails and that is called  the waggle dance. Waggle dance is common to bees that finds caffeine in the nectar.

The line, “In effect, Dr.Cauvillon said, caffeine “causes the bees to overestimate the quality of the resource.” I think this means that when you put caffeine in the nectar flower, it’ll make the nectar stronger and taste more better than regular nectar.That’ll cause the honeybee to come back to the flower more times than when another honeybee would go back to a flower if it was just regular nectar.

This article shows me that in life, we can be compared to lots of other things. For example, we can be compared to bees because some humans really enjoy the taste of caffeine. Once someone drinks it at first they probably wouldn’t like it. But as more as you drink it you’ll get use to it and at one point you’re going to get attached and drawn to caffeine all the time. Like the bees in the article.

What is the What

   In the book What is the What the author Dave Eggers talks about a “lost boy” from Sudan. The boy’s name is Achak Deng but when he moved to Atlanta he started to use his christian name Valentino. The book walks you through Achak’s life. The book is set in America. Achak was the son of a somewhat powerful father. He escapes the Sudan genocide and goes to a refugee camp. The book talks about Achak’s struggles through mostly flashbacks.
   Achak moved to Atlanta and is staying with another Sudanese man. He has had many jobs. Currently he is in school. However many people make fun of him for being from Africa. One night a women knocks on his door. She asks if she can use his phone. He gives her permission, this was not a good idea. She when into his room and locked the door. She starts to rob Achak. Her accomplice who is a man comes in and ties up and beats up Achak because he talks. While they are robbing him Achak has flashbacks of walking through the desert with 100 other boys. He talks about how some of them were attacked by lions. Also how he saw people infant of him get shot to death. 
     When the robbers leave Achak is unconscious. When he wakes up he sees a boy sitting on the couch watching tv witch was too heavy for the robbers to take. He tries to talk to him but he throws a book. He keeps trying to talk but he never responds. During this Achak has different kinds of flashbacks. He has flashbacks about his earlier life. Such as meetings he attended with his father before the war started. Also one about when the baggara attacked the town and Achak and his mom fled.
       The book shows the struggle and suffering of the victims of the Sudan genocide. There will be a part 2 because I haven’t finished the book. The author does a good job  transitioning from flashbacks to the present. The book is a must read.

   In the book "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien the author talks about a person's life and the Vietnam War. The book is narrated by the person who's life is described. The book talks about how during his time in the military he was a leader of a unit during the Vietnam war.  He had once been deeply in love with a girl named Martha. Martha distracted him from the war so he burned all the photos he had of her. The book goes into flashbacks most of the time and about his life before and during the war.

   The book starts off with a war story. He talks about each person and there backgrounds. During the war the narrator shows struggle through the war and how tragedy's happened at random times and that they were unpredictable. He talks about one time were he was looking at a photo of Martha and he let a soldier named Ted Lavender use the restroom. Ted Lavender was then shot and killed. He took full blame for this and this is why he burned all of his photos of Martha. 

  He had always been in love with Martha. At some points in the story it seems as if he to in love with her. He describes intimate imaginations of him and her. He has very vivid memories of her. There is one memory of when they first met. Martha always thought of him as a friend but he thought otherwise.  Even when he had to stop loving her however he still thought of her.

There was a flashback of what happened before the war. He had gotten a draft notice and was really scared. When he was 21 years old he got home and received a draft notice. He drove to very northern US and went to a hotel. The hotel was very old and rundown. He became good friends with the owner. Even though the owner didn't talk much he felt very close to him. During this time his emotions rolled out and he had no idea what to do.

This is a very emotional book. It does a very good job at describing the hardship and struggle during the Vietnam war. The book however did not do a good job using transitions, often times the story would just switch from one story to another. This is a very interesting book.

  West Antarctica's ice sheet maybe melting quicker than anticipated. Scientists used to think that it would take hundreds, if not thousands of years, for the ice to melt, but now global warming may cause the ice sheet to melt in the coming century. This would cause the sea level to rise about three feet. Scientists old predictions have been shattered by new ones.
   Two or three years ago what scientists thought could be the worst outcome in 150 years, might be happening in 100 years. After 100 years researchers found that the situation could grow far worse. By the middle of the 22nd century water levels could raise up to 1 foot per decade. Scientists had documented such rates of increase in the geologic past, when far larger ice sheets were collapsing, but most of them had long assumed it would be impossible to reach rates so extreme with the smaller ice sheets of today.

   This is not necessarily going to happen. However there is a good chance that it will. This is why people have to make a bigger deal about it. 

The long term effect of this could be the drowning of major city's. This is because of the rising water rates. It could drown city's on the coast such as Miami, New Orleans, London, Venice, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Sydney, and New York city. All these city's are vulnerable because of water rising. They could possibly drown in the next 300 years. 

  This article is very important. There are multiple reasons. This proves that global warming is true. Also how The worlds largest city could crumble. THIS ARTICLE does a good job exlplaning all these reasons and gives you insight on the world's water crisis.

  The U.S said that it may no longer need Apple's help to break into an iPhone that belonged to the shooter in San Bernardino, Ca. This led the judge to postpone the court hearing. The F.B.I are temporarily avoiding the issue. This has been a battle between a powerful nation in the world and a powerful company in the world. The government now possibly has a third party with a way into the phone and open new boundaries in the case.    However the article doesn't include any information on how they might be able to access the phone. This is good for the F.B.I because they will be able access all the information that is on the phone without the help of Apple. This is bad for Apple because their consumers privacy and their first amendment rights could be threatened.    Regardless of what happens with this case it could pose a bigger threat to US citizens in the future. Even though this could help the F.B.I with the case it would also allow the government to access all iPhones with ease in the future. If this case goes on then eventually congress would have to get involved.   The F.B.I is exploring all their options to find a better way into the phone. They are getting the argument from a document called the All Writs Act. The lawyers from the F.B.I are using the writs act which says that it is a order for them to give over the information on how to get into the phone. This act is very vague because it doesn't say if they are allowed to access all of the iPhones instead of one.    The government might be able to access the phone through the third party and postpone the case. Yet Apple still has kept same position, that is to keep the consumers' information private. Despite the third party the case still remains a big deal for Apple, The government, and all consumers.