Jaguar

We just learned about the Tigers.

Another type of wild cat is the Jaguar.

This is the third biggest kind of cat after the lion and tiger.
It can grow to be about 350 pounds, and six feet long, with a 2 foot tail.

They have spots all over their body, with different sizes and shapes.
On their head, feet and belly, their spots are mostly just all black.
Their bodies have things called rosettes, which sort of like rose shaped black marks that are darker brown in the middle, and sometimes have a dot in the middle.
Other than their spots they have brown heads, backs and legs, and their belly area has white fur.

Jaguars live in Central and South America, but don't usually come as far north as the United States.

Just like a tiger, jaguars usually live by themselves.
Baby jaguars will live with only their mother for about 2 years and then they go live by themselves.
They can live to be around 12 years in the wild, and if they are taken care of in a zoo they can live over 20 years.

Jaguars are strong swimmers, and can even hunt things like Caimans that live in the water and are like an alligator.




(from: wikipedia - jaguar)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Upside Down Jellyfish

Peripheral Vision

We just learned about the Field of View.

Another part of the eye is Peripheral Vision.

When you are looking straight ahead at something, you can still see things a little bit that are on the left and right sides of your head.

The word "peripheral" means on the outside or on the edge of something.
So peripheral vision is looking at things that are on the outside edge of what you are seeing.


(from: wikipedia - peripheral vision)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Taste Buds

Ross Sea

We just learned about the Weddel Sea.

Another part of Antarctica is the Ross Sea.

This sea is on the other side of Antarctica from the Weddel sea, and it is about 246,000 square miles.
Because it is further away from other land, many scientists see this place as the last place on earth that has not been hurt by pollution.

There are many scientists who go to the Ross sea to try and study the animals and ice there, without making any changes to the Ross Sea just so we can study what the earth was like a long time ago.

A lot of animals live in this area too, like penguins, whales and seals.
Because this place has not really been touched by humans, there are a lot of people trying to keep it safe and make sure it does not get polluted or ruined.


(from: wikipedia - ross sea)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Kilkenny Castle

Vikings and Christians

We just learned about the King Charlemagne.

Another part of early Christianity is Vikings and Christians and how they lived together.

Sometimes vikings would go do a raid, and attack another group of people.
They would steal food and things, but they would also sometimes steal people.

The people they brought back were either made to be slaves or taken as wives for the vikings.
A lot of the people they took were Christian, so just by doing these raids more and more vikings would get to live around Christians.

Just by being with Christians and living with them, many vikings became Christian, and that helped Christianity grow in countries like Denmark, Sweden and Norway.


(from: wikipedia - vikings)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Muratorian Fragment

Forever Free - Edmonia Lewis

We just learned about the The Woman of Samaria (Rebecca at the Well) - William Henry Rinehart.

Another famous American sculpture is Forever Free by Edmonia Lewis in 1867.

Edmonia was born in New York in 1844, while there was still slavery in America.
Her father was part African and Haitian, and her mother was part African and Native American.

When she grew up in America it was very difficult for her because life was not fair for women, African Americans or Native Americans.
She was not allowed to go to school or get jobs that men or white people were allowed to have.
When she was nine years old, her parents died so she went to Niagara Falls to live for a while with her two aunts that were Native American, and she changed her name to "Wildfire".

When she was 15 she was sent to a school in Ohio where they allowed women and African American people. She was still not treated very nice and at one point some people tried to put her in jail saying that she poisoned some other students. They did not even let her graduate school.

In 1864 when she was 20 years old she moved to Boston and started making sculptures.
The Civil War was going on, so she started making sculptures of Civil War heroes like Robert Gould Shaw.
Later on she saved up enough money to move to Rome where she could work with other famous sculptors.

Her statue called "Forever Free" was made in 1867, just after the Civil War was over.
It shows a man standing up who was in chains but is now free.
A woman is kneeling next to him praying, and she is dressed in nice clothes.
She had the woman in clothes because a lot of sculptures of women at the time had women not wearing much, and she thought that made people only think about what women looked like.

Her sculptures became so famous that President Ulysses S. Grant asked for her to come and make a sculpture of him.


(from: wikipedia - edmonia lewis)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Ellora - Hindu Caves

Russian - I am happy

Last time we learned that the Russian words for horse, sheep and duck are лошадь (loshad'), овца (ovsta), and утка (utka).

Let's learn how to say I am happy in Russian!

We can break it up into a few words.

In Russian you don't say "I am happy", you really just say "I happy".

I - Я (ya) - sounds like yah 文A

happy - счастлив (schastliv) - sounds like shah-ss-t-lih-v 文A

Together Я счастлив (ya shastliv) sounds like yah shah-ss-t-lih-v



(from: wikipedia - russian academy of sciences)

Norwegian: jeg er glad

Greek: Είμαι (Eímai) χαρούμενος (charoúmenos)

ASL: I am happy

Italian: Sono felice

German: Ich bin glücklich

Spanish: Estoy feliz

French: Je suis heureux

Valve Types

We just learned about the Poppet Valve, and we learned about the Ball Valve before that.

There are lots of different Valve Types out there that are made for different reasons.

A Globe Valve has a body that is shaped sort of like a globe, and has a disc that goes up and down to plug the hole and stop the flow of liquid or gas.

(from: wikipedia - globe valve)

A Butterfly Valve has a circle shaped disc in the middle that spins to open or close.


(from: wikipedia - butterfly valve)

A Gate Valve has a gate that goes up and down to open or close the hole.


(from: wikipedia - gate valve)

A Check Valve is a type of valve that stays closed unless the liquid or gas pushes hard enough to open it, and then it will close again using something like a spring.


(from: wikipedia - check valve)

A Control Valve is a valve that is controlled by a computer to tell it to open a little or a lot, so that it can control the amount of liquid or gas that is coming through.


(from: wikipedia - control valve)

Valves can have have a lot more than just two holes or ports also.
Many valves have three or four ports, and some have even more!


(from: wikipedia - four way valve)

There are a lot more types of valves out there. Pretty much any way you can think of to open or close a pipe, someone has made a valve for it.

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: V-2 Rocket

Tigers

We just learned about Lions.

Another big cat is the Tiger.

The tiger is the largest of the wild cats in the group of animals called "Felidae".

Tigers mostly live by themselves, except for the mothers when they are raising tiger cubs for about 2 years.

There are a lot of different types of tigers from different places.
Some have darker or longer fur, some are a little bigger, and some have stripes that look a little different.
Just like lions, there are also white tigers!
All the different tigers are in a group called "Panthera".

Tigers have stripes so that they can hide in the tall grass when they are hunting for other animals.
They have yellow irises in their eyes, and circle shaped pupils.

Boy tigers can grow to be 12 feet long, and weigh 675 pounds! Girl tigers are smaller, only growing to 9 feet and 360 pounds.
Their tails can be 2 to 4 feet long!

Tigers used to live all the way from the country of Turkey in the west to Japan in the east.
Now it mostly only lives in parts of India and China and a few other countries.
Tigers usually live in forest areas where there is water and other animals for them to hunt.

Even though we think about cats not liking water, tigers have no problem swimming, and can swim 18 miles in one day!






(from: wikipedia - tiger)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Crown Jellyfish

Field of View

We just learned about the Central Retinal Vein.

Another part of the eyes is the Field of View.

When we are looking forward with our eyes, we see the things in front of us, but not behind us.
We also can only see part of what is up, down, left or right without moving our head to see it all.

Some of this is because parts of our head that get in the way like cheekbones or eyebrows.
Part of it is because our eyeballs are pointed forward.
Some animals like a rabbit or a deer have eyes on the sides of their heads, so they can see almost all the way in front and in back of their bodies.

The whole space of things that you can see with your eyes without moving them is called your Field of View, or FoV.



(from: wikipedia - peripheral vision)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Lingual Papillae

Weddel Sea

We just learned about the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.

Another part of Antarctica is the Weddel Sea.

This is the water just to the East of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Some scientists believe this to be the clearest sea water in the whole world, and people have been able to see things down in the water over 250 feet deep.

The sea is about 1,200 miles across, and some sailors have said that it was the most dangerous sea on earth.
As people have taken their boats into this sea, sometimes the ice will flash freeze, and then melt again, and sometimes the ice will crush or tip over ships.

There are many animals who live in this sea, like the Weddell seal, killer whales, humpback whales, minke whales, leopard seals and crabeater seals.

There are also some penguins that live on the land in this area and swim in the sea.



(from: wikipedia - weddel sea)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Conwy Castle

King Charlemagne

We just learned about the Icons.

Another part of early Christianity is the rule of King Charlemagne, also known as Charles I or Charles the Great.

Around 770 AD a person named Charlemagne was the king over a lot of parts of Europe, like France, Germany and Italy.

There were a lot of people in those times fighting over who should be king or emperor, so Pope Leo III who was the head of the church in Rome told everyone to follow Charlemagne and that he should be the ruler over everyone else.

Charles loved reading, writing and music, so he helped make schools for people to learn and read the books of the Bible.
He also sent people to Rome to learn how to sing and they came back to the schools to teach people how to sing the Psalms of the Bible.

A lot of the writings of the Bible were in Latin or Greek, so Charles told people to make copies of them in other languages.
This made it so that everyone could read the Bible and learn about God and Jesus themselves.


(from: wikipedia - charlemagne)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Tetramorph

The Woman of Samaria (Rebecca at the Well) - William Henry Rinehart

We just learned about the sculpture Michigan Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument by Randolph Rogers.

Another famous American sculpture is The Woman of Samaria (Rebecca at the Well) made by William Henry Rinehart in 1861 in Washington, D.C.

Rinehart was born in Maryland, and gre up as a farmer working for his father.
He got a job as a stone cutter, and then started learning how to be a sculptor.

When he was 30 years old he moved to Italy to learn from some of the best sculptors in the world.
He made many marble statues and sent them back to America, mostly to Washington D.C. to be put around the nation's capital.


(from: wikipedia - william henry rinehart)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Ellora - Buddhist Caves

Russian - Horse, sheep, duck

We know that in Russian, dog is собака (sobaka)and cat is кошка (koshka),
cow is корова (korova), chicken is курица (kuritsa), and pig is свинья (svin'ya).

Let's learn more animals!

horse - лошадь (loshad') - sounds like loh-sh-ad 文A

sheep - овца (ovtsa) - sounds like ah-v-ts-ah 文A

duck - утка (utka) - sounds like oo-t-kah 文A


Also in Russia horses say И-го-го (ee-go-go), sheep say Б-е-е-е (beh), and ducks say Кря-кря (kr-yah).



(from: wikipedia - russian academy of sciences)

Norwegian: hest, sau, and

Greek: άλογο, πρόβατα, πάπια

ASL: horse, sheep, duck

German: Pferd, Schaf, Ente

Spanish:caballo, oveja, pato

French:French - cheval, mouton, canard

Poppet Valve

We just learned about the Ball Valve.

Another type of valve is the Poppet Valve.

This is a valve that is usually used to open and close for gas to come through.

In a car's engine there are valves used to help the fuel come in, and after it makes a big explosion there are valves to let the burnt up air out.



(from: wikipedia - poppet valve)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Bell X-1

Lion

We just learned about Cats.

The big cat known as the king of the jungle is the Lion.

Lions mostly live in Africa, but there are also some in the Middle East and Europe.

Lions are big cats that are part of the "Felidae" family.
The male lions have a big mane, and all lions have a hairy fluff of fur at the end of their tails.
They are usually 6 or 7 feet long, and they can weigh over 300 pounds!

Lions live together in a family that is called a "pride".
A pride is usually a few grown up males, then some females and little lion cubs.
When the little lion cubs are about 3 years old, the boy lions are sent off to live on their own, and the girl lions stay with the pride.
When boy lions are out by themselves, sometimes they will group together with a few other boy lions until they find a home where they join a new pride as a grown up male lion.

Lions can make a lot of sounds like purring and meowing, but they are best known for the lion's roar.
It is so loud that it can be heard up to 5 miles away.

There is one type of lion called a white lion, that has white or very light colored fur.







(from: wikipedia - lion)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Purple Striped Jelly

Central Retinal Vein

We just learned about the Central Retinal Artery.

Another part of the eye is the Central Retinal Vein.

The artery brings blood to the eye, and this vein in the back of the eye then takes that deoxygenated used up blood and brings it back to the heart.

(from: wikipedia - central retinal vein)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Specialized Mucosa

Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf

We just learned about the Ross Ice Shelf.

Another part of Antarctica is the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.

This shelf is about 430,000 square kilometers, which is bigger than the state of California.
It is about 600 meters deep, and below the shelf the water goes down another 1,400 meters.

In 1998 an iceberg named A38 split off from the ice shelf that was over 22,000 square kilometers.



(from: wikipedia - filchner-ronne ice shelf)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Château de Chambord

Icons

We just learned about the Muslim Conflict.

Another part of early Christianity is Icons.

In the old times of the church, people thought it was bad to use pictures of crosses, or even pictures of Jesus, Mary or any of the old leaders of the church.

The paintings were known as icons.

Because God said not to worship any idols, they felt that putting up artwork of something Christian was like worshipping an idol.

Later on people argued that having these paintings around was good because it helped people think about God and Jesus.


(from: wikipedia - byzantine iconoclasm)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Biblican Canon

Michigan Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument - Randolph Rogers

We just learned about the sculpture The Willing Captive - Chauncey Ives.

Another famous work of American sculpture is the Michigan Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument by Randolph Rogers in Detroit Michigan, 1867.

Rogers was born in New York, but grew up in Ann Arbor Michigan.
He started off doing most of his sculpture in wood, and then later worked with marble.

When he was about 40 years old he moved to New York City and then Florence Italy to study sculpture.
He didn't really like working with marble, so he would always make his statues out of something else like wood, and then have other marble sculptors make a copy of it in marble for him.

His civil war monument in Detroit is octagon shaped.
On top is a sculpture of a heroic woman called Michigania, or Victory holding a sword and shield.
There are four male sculptures for the Navy, Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery of the Civil War.
Four female sculptures are for Victory, History, Emancipation and Union.
By the bottom are eagles with raised wings, and four plaques with Union generals Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Farragut.


(from: wikipedia - michigan soldiers' and sailors' monument)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Sanchi Capital of Ashoka

Russian - Cow, Chicken, Pig

We just learned that black white brown and gray in Russian is черный (chernyy), белый (belyy), коричневый (korichnevyy), серый (seryy).

We already know that in Russian, dog is собака (sobaka) and cat is кошка (koshka).

Now let's learn about some farm animals!

cow - корова (korova) - sounds like kah-droh-vah 文A

chicken - курица (kuritsa) - sounds like koo-dree-t-sah 文A

pig - свинья (svin'ya) - sounds like s-vee-n-yah 文A

Also in Russian cows say Му-у-у (mooo), chickens say Ко-ко-ко (ko-ko-ko) and pigs say Хрю-хрю (khryoo-khryoo)!




(from: wikipedia - russian academy of sciences)

Norwegian: ku, kylling, gris

Greek: αγελάδα, κοτόπουλο, χοίρο

ASL: cow, chicken, pig

Italian: mucca, pollo, maiale

German: Kuh, Huhn, Schwein

Spanish: vaca, pollo, cerdo

French: vache, poulet, porc

Ball Valve

We just learned about the Valve Trim.

There are a lot of different kinds of valves.
One type of valve that is used a lot is the Ball Valve.

It's called a ball valve because inside the valve there is a ball.
The ball has a hole in the middle of it, and the valve handle turns the ball.
When the ball is turned one way, the water or gas can go through the hole in the ball.
When the ball is turned the other way, the ball blocks the water or gas, and keeps the valve closed.



(from: wikipedia - ball valve)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: World War II Rocket Weapons

Cats

We just learned about Jellyfish Ephyra, and a whole lot of other things about Jellyfish!

Let's learn a little about Cats, like the big tigers, lions and cheetahs.

The big cats in the world all belong from the same family of animals called "Felidae"
All of the Felidae cats have retractile claws, which means they can pull their claws back into their paws or push them out to attack.

They all have whiskers on their cheeks and above their eyes.
Their tongues are all rough with little sharp spikes on them, so they can brush their fur with their tongue.
They can all meow, hiss, snarl, growl and of course purr. Even big tigers and lions!



(from: wikipedia - felidae)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Jellyfish

Central Retinal Artery

We just learned about the Optic Disc.

Another part of the eye is the Central Retinal Artery.

This is in the back of the eye at the retina, where the fresh oxygenated blood is brought to the eye for it to use.

(from: wikipedia - central retinal artery)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Lining Mucosa

Ross Ice Shelf

We just learned about the Larsen Ice Shelf.

Another ice shelf in Antarctica is the Ross Ice Shelf.

This is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica.
It is about 500 miles wide, and 600 miles long, almost as big as the country of France.

It sticks up above the water up to 160 feet high, but most of the shelf is actually underwater.
In some parts it os over 2,000 feet thick, which is about half a mile.

Just like the Larsen Ice Shelf, this shelf sometimes has icebergs break off.
In the year 2000, the largest iceberg ever measured in the world broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf.
It was called Iceberg B-15, and it was about 183 miles long and 23 miles wide, about the size of the island of Jamaica.



(from: wikipedia - ross ice shelf)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Royal Palace of Madrid

Muslim Conflict

We just learned about the Church of the East in China.

Another part of early Christianity was the Muslim Conflict.

Around 610 AD, a man named Muhammad started a new religion called Islam, and the followers of Islam are called Muslims.

Christianity and Islam were both spreading around Europe, the Middle East and Africa all through the years 600 AD and 700 AD, and people fought over which one was true.

Most of the countries in the Middle East, northern Africa, and even Spain and Portugal became mostly Muslim.

Christianity was still spreading into Western Europe, but many countries that used to be Christian switched to Islam for hundreds of years.


(from: wikipedia - spread of islam)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Quartodecimanism

The Willing Captive - Chauncey Ives

We just learned about the Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Harriet Hosmer.

Another The Willing Captive by Chauncey Ives in 1886.

Ives was born in Connecticut, and when he was a teenager he started learning how be a sculptor.
After a few jobs he moved to Italy to learn from other masters there.

In 1886 he made a sculpture of a young woman who was captured by Native Americans. After staying with the Natives for a while, her mother came to take her back, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to stay with the Natives or go back to her mother.

There are true stories like these where Natives would capture young girls and raise them as their own, and sometimes the girls would decide to stay with the Natives instead of going back home.


(from: wikipedia - chauncey ives)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Indus Valley Civilization

Russian - Black, white, brown, gray

We just learned that in Russian, red, orange and yellow are красный (krasnyy), оранжевый (oranzhevyy), желтый (zheltyy),
and green, blue, purple, pink are зеленый (zelenyy), синий (siniy), фиолетовый (fioletovyy), розовый (rozovyy).

Let's learn some more colors!

black - черный (chernyy) - sounds like choh-r-nee 文A

white - белый (belyy) - sounds like bee-ah-lee 文A

brown - коричневый (korichnevyy) - sounds like kah-dree-ch-nee-yeh-vee 文A

gray - серый (seryy) - sounds like see-ah-dree 文A



(from: wikipedia - russian academy of sciences)

Norwegian: svart, hvit, brun, grå

Greek: μαύρο, λευκό, καφέ, γκρι

ASL: black, white, brown, gray

Italian: nero, bianco, marrone, grigio

German: schwarz, weiß, braun, grau

Spanish: negro, blanco, marrón, gris

French: noir, blanc, brun, gris

Valve Trim

We just learned about the Valve Spring.

Another part of the valve is the Valve Trim.

The valve stem, seat, disc and any parts that are inside the valve are all together called the Valve Trim.


(from: wikipedia - valve)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: The Rocket into Planetary Space - Hermann Oberth

Jellyfish Ephyra

We just learned about the Jellyfish Polyps.

Another part of a jellyfish is the Ephyra.

After the polyps grow for a little while, they start to grow parts that look more like a jellyfish.
It starts to get a bell shape, grow some tentacles and even mouth parts.
Eventually it floats away and is like a mini-jellyfish, not quite grown yet.

This part of the jellyfish's life is known as the Ephyra.

Later on it grows up a little more and is called a Medusae, which is the science word for the jellyfish species.


(from: wikipedia - ephyra)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Radula

Optic Disc

We just learned about the Opthalmic Artery.

Another part of the eye is the Optic Disc.

At the back of the eye there is a place where all the nerves come together and go out to the brain.
Because this spot has nerves, there are no rods or cones there, so it is like a blind spot in your sight.

There are some fun eye tests that you can do to actually show that you have a blind spot where things disappear from your sight!


(from: wikipedia - optic disc)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Masticatory Mucosa