The other day, I was listening to some tunes and it got me thinking. There is a lot of music, like Despacito by Luis Fonsi, that makes me want to get up and dance. Other songs, like God's Plan by Drake, can calm me down and relax me. I want to know why this happens, and if it happens to other living things too! First I wanted to know about music and plants. I plan on doing a long-term science experiment to study their reaction to different types of music. I googled this question and found a very interesting article from NPR. What happens is that the vibration in the music produces movement in plant cells, which stimulates the plant and allows it to produce more nutrients. For my experiment I have three plants and three dome covers to separate them. One will have no music, one will have soft, relaxed music playing, and one will have heavy, aggressive music playing. I'm excited to see what happens! I know that sound waves stimulate plant cells, but will different types of waves stimulate the plant differently? My thoughts are that the heavy metal will effect the plant a lot more than the soft jazz because of the amount of vibration it creates. I think it's really cool how the human brain reacts to music. Every time I listen it gives me amazing feelings. Sometimes it makes me sad, sometimes it makes me happy. Sometimes it really chills me out. Researchers says that in some cultures, it's actually used to heal pain!
Humans are hard-wired to respond to music because every human has a natural rhythm taught by their mother's heartbeat. It's cool to know that we react to music in a similar way to the the way plants react to it! I'm off to go check on my plants - stay tuned to hear the results!
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When I'm in class I hear it. On the bus I hear one. Since they got put out I've heard one nonstop. For every annoying second that it spins and twirls, I know I'm next to a kid with a fidget spinner. All that ruckus made me want to do some research on whether fidget spinners are actually good for students with ADHD. I read articles from Time, NPR, and Scientific American, which all had interesting information! One thing I have noticed is that teachers and principals have showed up in several articles saying how they strongly dislike fidget spinners. Finally one middle school teacher had enough and put up a sign saying do not bring in fidget spinners. This might be because it distracts the kids in the class and it also might distract the teacher. As a student I think that fidget spinners are bad in class, but it will be fine if you use them at recess or even in your room. NPR said that retailers market this toy as a tool to help people focus, and help with controlling things such as PTSD, anxiety and ADHD. But according to Scott Kollins, a clinical psychologist and Professor at Duke University said there's no evidence to support the claim that they help people. Scott also said that there been no research shown that proves fidget spinners are effective at addressing any of those issues. Scientific American said that psychology research about sensations seeking tells us that people often seek to adjust to the right level of simulation. It sounds like the people that do the research says that they don't really help. Different people function well under different circumstances. Some people like to work in quiet and other people like to work in a noisy place. As a student though, I think it should be a quiet working environment in school. In the school that I'm in I went to several different classes with a survey and we put "be honest" but quite frankly I did not trust some of the papers I got. I even had some of the teachers fill out a survey. Here are the questions: 1) Do you think that fidget spinners helped you concentrate in class? Be honest! 2) If you were in class and the student next to you was spinning a fidget spinner, would it distract you? Be honest! Out of 16 people from three different classes and age groups, 14 responded "No" to question 1. FIFTEEN out of 16 responded "Yes" to question 2. My guess is the people who responded the other way are lying. This data shows me that even students know that spinners aren't helpful for school!
In conclusion, it seems like students, teachers and the experts all agree that fidget spinners don't really help in a classroom setting. I still think they could be good for home or recess, but they're too distracting for class. BitcoinSo most of us have probably heard of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, right? You've probably been told it's either a magical way to get fast cash or it's fake. Well it's certainly not fake - as of this writing it's worth $2733 - is that real enough for you? WARNING: BITCOIN IS STILL AN EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEM AND IS A RISKY INVESTMENT! The process of Bitcoin mining: so there's this thing called the block chain. It's a public ledger of all of the bitcoin transactions that have ever been executed. If you are contributing to the mining process you will work with the block chain. First you have to make sure the transaction actually happened. Then you bundle the transactions in a block. Select the header of the most recent block and insert it into the new block as a hash. Then you do the big math problem and when the solution is found the block is then transferred to the local block chain propagated to the network. You will be rewarded with 12.5 bitcoins which amounts to 32675.00 U.S. dollars. It takes a very long time to find anything, but don't start mining just yet! You need certain requirements in order to even run the program properly. Here they are: -Disk space of 125GB -A good internet connection -Upload 5GB/day (150GB/month) -Memory (ram) 1GB -System requirements: desktop/laptop some ARM Chipsets - operating system: Windows 7-X,Mac OS X,Linux -Plus a one time 100GB download the first time you start bitcoin You don't need to mine them though. You can buy them and let them grow. But that's also risky because the price could drop at any moment. If you decide to buy in to them I suggest selling them right when it starts to drop $100 or more.
Bitcoin is one part of a larger cryptocurrency market that is growing bigger every day. I plan to cover as many as I can find. Next I will be covering Ethereum which has been enjoying a very steady growth. This is Generation News - news for our generation. OK, so we have all seen a movie trailer while we were looking up the latest funny cat fails compilation or something like that. Have you ever noticed how the trailer makes the movie look way better than it really is? Well I'm here to tell you why. Good trailers try to ask a question, but they never answer it to build suspense even before the real trailer starts, They use a lot of different strategies that draw the viewer in. The first I'll talk about it is music that goes with the movie - if its a romance it will be slow, if it's an action movie it will be fast and intense. STRATEGY 1: Music and Voice-overs A good example of music/voice choice is when the girl from "Rings" climbs out of the well in the creepiest way possible and they use what sounds like scratching guitar strings and static to create a tense mood. They also use specific voice-over tones for different types of movie. For instance, a deep, gravelly male voice could be used to bring a certain feeling of authority to a suspenseful action trailer. An upbeat female voice would work well for a romantic comedy. See below for a comedic look at the voices used in movie trailers. STRATEGY 2: Playing with Your Emotions Movie trailer creators clearly try to manipulate your emotions. If it's a sad movie, they are obviously trying to show how that movie will make you feel sadness. If it is an action movie, they might try to make you HATE the bad guy so you go see the movie just to watch the bad guy lose. If it's a happy movie, the trailer will show some funny or happy clips that tell the story. These are all done to tell the viewer what the movie is about, but also to make the viewer feel an emotion when thinking about the movie. STRATEGY 3: Teasers Teasing the story is definitely important because it leaves the viewer wanting more. Trailers usually give enough information to make you curious but then don't answer the questions. This makes you want to pay your hard earned money to find out more! Your brain always wants answers to questions so these trailers basically try to trick your brain into going to the movie. Some teasers come out up to a year before the movie is supposed to come out, and some don't even tell the name of the movie or what it's really about! This adds even more intrigue to the viewer's brain. "Interstellar" was a great example of this, where the teaser came out a long time before the movie and no one even knew what it was about. That created a lot of talk about the movie which probably helped sales. I gave the internet a good search and independent.co.uk was the only good source I could find. Here are some things i think should always be in a movie trailer: 1. Good music 2. Male voice-over (is action or horror) 3. Fast scenes (if action or horror) 4.Female voice-over (if romance or comedy) 5. Slow scenes (if romance or comedy) 6. Teasers for sure 7. Some sort of emotional play Clearly the stuff that people put in movie trailers doesn't happen by chance. Everything is done for a reason.
Leave a comment telling us what strategies you would use! Link to any Youtube videos you think are good examples. Thanks! I have searched all three corners of the internet in all its glory, and surprise! It's pretty difficult to find information on the infamous hacker known as Guccifer 2.0. I did find some information, though, but if you want to know more you should probably try DMing him on Twitter. He might just respond with something like this, courtesy of the BBC: For those who don't know, Guccifer 2.0 (we think his name is Marcel Lazar Lehel) is allegedly behind the hacks of the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic National Party, which were then leaked to WikiLeaks. The most recent hack of the Democratic Party influenced the 2016 Presidential Election. In these hacks, Guccifer 2.0 used a Russian proxy server so people suspect that he has ties with Russia, but Guccifer denies this and says he "doesn't care about that country." Although he is interested in the U.S. Government, he claims to be of Romanian descent. The world is skeptical of this because it appears he is not fluent in the Romanian language. Mike Wendling of the BBC had a great interview with him via Twitter, where he attempted to answer some interesting questions. It seems like Guccifer 2.0 looks at Julian Assange (founder of WikiLeaks) as an ally. And while it may seem like he is a Trump supporter, Guccifer responded to the question above by saying "I don't vote for Trump." I thought it was interesting that Wendling then called Guccifer out and asked if he was Russian or Romanian, how can he vote in America? Guccifer responded - "I vote for freedom."
Hello and welcome to the Tech/Science section! Today we'd like to review three popular VR headsets from a middle schooler's perspective. I think VR is cool because you can do almost anything you want in virtual worlds, and in the future they will only get more elaborate and complex. Pretty soon we'll have entire customizable virtual multiplayer worlds! You will be able to interact in ways you wouldn't be able to on any other gaming platform. On that note, here we go: Personally, I prefer the Playstation VR because it is the cheapest of my three options. Amazon has pricing at around $400, bringing the total to somewhere around $800 with the Playstation console. As a middle schooler price is a huge selling point for me, so that makes this the clear winner. Playstation is also my personal favorite among major consoles, so I'm a bit biased. Next would have to be the HTC Vive, because it is one of the options that links to a PC. It comes with a hefty price tag of $799, but it also comes with motion sensing controllers so you can see and use your hands in some games and applications. One of the disadvantages is that the system requires you to put mounts in the ceiling, meaning you will probably have to dedicate a whole room to it. Finally we have the Oculus Rift. The Rift was created by Palmer Luckey, a 21 year old college dropout who's now worth millions! This headset runs at $599, but while it is cheaper by itself it also requires a powerful PC to run games and programs. This ends up costing $1500+ and is the most expensive option overall.
Thanks for reading our VR review! If you're interested in VR we hope you take our advice, and stay tuned for more interesting Tech/Science articles from a middle schooler's perspective |
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