Acid rain is yet another form of pollution. Caused by burning coal, driving cars, erupting volcanoes, and other means – both natural and man-made, acid rain can cause serious harm to the animals and people around it. Acid rain is caused by an excess of nitric and sulfuric acids in the atmosphere. When it falls down in the form of rain, or is combined with dust, it affects the environment around it in negative ways. When you add acid to ponds and lakes, aquatic life is put into danger. Fish die out and those that eat them must starve. When acid lands in soil, many plants cannot survive, and herbivores do not have enough food. The effects of acid rain snowball out of control, like a wave of dominoes. Acid rain can destroy a whole way of living for the animals living in one area. However, many scientists are trying to figure out ways of preventing this big problem. Acid rain is an issue we must all try to change.
When gasses such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and substances like lead and other air pollutants are released into the atmosphere, acid rain is produced. Acid rain is the product of this pollution: an excess of nitric and sulfuric acids is spread over large areas of land through rain (in wet places) and dust (in dry places). There are many reasons why acid rain is caused – both man-made and natural. Erupting volcanoes and rotting plants can cause the toxic gasses to go up into the atmosphere, but the majority of acid rain is caused by humans. When we drive cars and ride in planes and trains and boats, we release carbon dioxide and other dangerous substances into the air. Acid rain can fall in two categories: wet deposition and dry deposition. Wet deposition occurs when acidic chemicals are blown into wet areas, which results in acidic water. Dry deposition happens in very dry areas, where there isn’t very much rain. The acid chemicals end up being distributed in dust and dirt, instead of water. Both of these ways of releasing acid rain into the environment are very harmful for people and animals.
Acid rain can affect both humans and animals, but it is most dangerous towards aquatic life. As acidic water flows downhill, it deposits aluminum in nearby streams, rivers, and lakes. When it settles in a lake, the pH of that lake goes down, becoming more and more acidic. This means that even as more acid is being added to underwater ecosystems, toxic aluminum is being deposited there as well. Many fish and other marine animals cannot survive in areas of low pH. At a pH of five, most fish eggs will find it impossible to hatch, and at any pH lower than five, many more adult fish will die. Some animals, such as frogs, have developed a tolerance toward acid. However, the insects they depend on for food may not be able to withstand water with a low pH. So even if a particular species can survive in acidic conditions, the prey they catch cannot, so they will die anyway. Not only is the livelihood of frogs and fish damaged, but birds are affected, too. Snails find it difficult to survive in areas of high acidity, because they depend on calcium found in soil. Much of this mineral is lost when it is replaced by acid. If snails don’t find enough calcium in their habitat, they cannot survive, and die out. This causes a problem for the birds. Snails are a high source of calcium, and eating them helps birds to lay strong eggs. When there aren’t enough snails for birds to eat, then the eggs, the birds can’t get enough calcium in their systems, and they are forced to lay eggs with very thin shells. Many eggs are unable to hatch because of shell breakage and other accidents. If the population of birds is depleted, then there is less food for predators who depend on birds to eat. This, in turn, affects the carnivore population. It is one big chain reaction.
There are many good things being done to help reduce the amount of acid rain produced by factories and cars. According to the website epa.gov, instruments such as catalytic converters help reduce the amount of harmful gasses released into the atmosphere when we drive. Also, “scrubbers” are used to reduce the amount of nitric acids that escape from factory smokestacks. Not only can we try to reduce the amount of nitric and sulfuric acids we produce, but we can also attempt to prevent them from reaching the air. We can do this by using alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. These are examples of “green” energy sources, and they have very minimal negative impacts on the environment.
Acid rain is a serious issue that we all need to be aware about. It is an overdose of nitric and sulfuric acids in the atmosphere that become absorbed into the natural environment. It is caused by cars, factories, and other sources that produce exhaust. Acid rain affects the natural habitats of animals and people around it in very negative ways, and can damage a whole way of living in an ecosystem. Fortunately, scientists are learning how they can help prevent the spread of acid rain, and, in doing so, help our environment.
Works Cited
“Acid Rain.” Protecting the Home we Live in: Environmental Issues. Novi Meadows Elementary, 2002. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. <http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/acid_rain.htm>.
“Acid Rain.” US Environmental Protection Agency. US EPA, 24 Mar. 2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. <http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/index.html>.
“Acid Rain/Prevention.” PB Works. PB Works, 2007. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. <http://acidrain.pbworks.com/w/page/1319114/Prevention>.
-There are many many kinds of STDs that people do not know about, and the best way to protect yourself from them is ABSTINENCE! (Not having sex.)
There is a theory that sooner or later, the male gender will become extinct. This is because old research has said that the male Y chromosome is genetically decaying, which means that there will no longer be men on this planet in five million years. However, that was the old research. In 2005, scientists compared the human Y chromosome with those of chimpanzees, who evolved away from humans six million years ago. Now, they have also compared human Y chromosomes with those of the rhesus monkey, which have been a separate species from humans for 25 million years. These studies show that the Y chromosome has only lost one gene in the last 25 million years. Its genetic decay is very, very slow, if it has not stopped yet. Men will be on this planet for many more millions of years to come.
So far, this movie has taught me a lot about genetics, and since it's pretty interesting, what I learn sticks in my brain. One really important thing that I learned from this movie is that even just one wrong letter in your DNA can decide whether you will grow up to have schizophrenia, a deathly disease, cancer, or some other horrible illness. Just one out of all the millions of A's, C's, G's, and T's in your DNA can determine how your life will end. One example of a rare but horrible disease that is caused by two parents passing two of the same recessive alleles to their child was showed in the movie. One pair of parents each had the Tay-Sachs gene in their bodies. Both of them passed this gene on into their child, and their child developed this disease. The father's identical twin brother had just resolved that he had to be his brother's rock and support him, when he discovered that his child, too, had Tay-Sachs. It was such a sad story because Tay-Sachs is such a rare disease. Even if one parent has the allele for it, they won't be able to pass it on so that it harms their child, and if both parents have it, there is only a 25% chance of their kids getting the disease. 
From these experiments, Mendel became the first investigator of genetics. The parent plants were both purebred short and tall pea plants. When they were mated to produce F1 offspring, each parent plant passed on one allele. (An allele is a form of a gene that changes is in charge of changing only one aspect of a trait.) The tall plant passed on an allele for being tall, and the short one passed on an allele for being short. If the dominant or tall allele is represented by a capital T and the short or recessive allele is represented by a lowercase t, then the alleles for the F1 offspring looked like Tt. What Mendel began to discover was that a recessive allele will only be visible in an organism if it is the only allele for that trait present. If there is one tall and one short allele, then the plant will be tall. If there are two tall alleles, then the plant will be tall. The only way the plant will be tall is if it has two short alleles. This is why none of the F1 offspring were able to be short, because they always had one short and one tall allele. However, when Mendel mated F1 offspring with each other to make F2 offspring, he noticed something strange: approximately 1 in every 4 pea plants created by two F1 offspring were short. This was because, although all the F1 offspring were tall, they each had one short and one tall allele. When two of them were mated, there was a small possibility that, out of Tt and Tt alleles, a seed would be generated that would be tt. 
In science class, we conducted a lab to figure out whether or not food coloring from skittles was polar or non-polar, and whether or not food coloring has more than one color in it at a time. The way we did this was we dropped some water on different colored skittles to get the color out. Then, we dabbed the color onto coffee filter paper. After that, we put the paper in water. Water traveled up the paper, and the idea was to see if the colors would travel up, too. Since water is polar, and polar substances wash polar substances, if the colors rose, then they would be polar. The coffee filter paper is non-polar, and since non-polar sticks to non-polar, we knew that if the color stayed, it was non-polar. Also, if there were many different colors in one dye, they should have risen so that there was one color on top of another. As you can see in the picture above, the experiment was done properly, and you can see that there are multiple colors. The colors that rise the most, will be the most polar, as they will have traveled the furthest with the water. The colors at the bottom near their dots are not as polar, because they have not followed the water up so far. 
As you can see in the picture to the left, we started out by putting the color on the dots. However, we could not get enough dye to go on, or it was too diluted by water, so the colors are not very clear. 
2.) The second molecule we made was water, or H2O. The pink candy represents the oxygen atom, and the two gummy circles represent the hydrogen atoms. The x's are the hydrogen atoms' electrons, and the dots are the oxygen's electrons. As you can see, both hydrogens are sharing their electrons with oxygen, so oxygen has the use of eight electrons. Therefore, it is stable. 
4.) The last molecule we made was CH4. The picture doesn't show it, but there were really four gummy bears surrounding the Turkish Delight, not three. Each gummy bear represented one hydrogen atom, and the Turkish Delight represented the carbon atom. We drew the diagram incorrectly. Correctly drawn, all the hydrogen atoms would have only one electron, which they would be sharing with the carbon atom. That way, the carbon atom, which already has four electrons, will end up having eight - one more from each of the four electrons. However, each hydrogen atom has five electrons, so just ignore that and pretend that they each only have one. 
