Valve Stem

We just learned about the Valve Seat.

Another part of a valve is the Valve Stem.

This is the part that sticks up out of the valve, and is used to help open and close the valve disc which lets gas or water go or stop.

There is a valve stem on a bicycle tire that sticks out.
If you hook a pump up to the valve stem, it will push in a pin which will allow air to go in or come out.


(from: wikipedia - valve stem)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Nell Rocket - Robert Goddard

Velarium

We just learned about the Jellyfish Statocyst.

Another part of some jellyfish is the Velarium.

For the box jellyfish, underneath the edge of the bell on the inside it folds in, kind of like a little shelf.
This makes it so that when they squish their bell to swim, it makes it like a torpedo and pushes water out faster than normal.

Because of this these are the fastest jellyfish in the world, and we already know they are one of the most dangerous because of their sting!
They can swim up to 20 feet per minute.
That's still not even one mile per hour, but for a stinging jellyfish that's pretty quick.


(from: wikipedia - box jellyfish)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Cephalopod Skin

Fovea

We just learned about the Photoreceptor Cells.

Another part of the eye is the Fovea, sometimes called the fovea centralis, central fovea or fovea of the retina.
The word fovea just means a pit or a depression, and there are other parts of the body that have small pits so sometimes people have to say fovea centralis of the retina to make sure everyone knows which fovea they are talking about.

In the back of the eye by the macula on the retina is a small pit that is full of the cones we talked about.

This part of the eye is where the best sight comes from, when you are focused on looking at something while reading a book or driving a car.


(from: wikipedia - fovea centralis)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Periodontal Ligament

Transantarctic Mountains

We just learned about the Antarctic Peninsula.

Another part of Antarctica is the Transantarctic Mountains, sometimes just called TAM.

This mountain range goes from one end of Antarctica to the other, and splits it between the East and West sides.
It is about 3,500 kilometers long,
The high summits and low valleys of the TAM are some of the only places on the continent that are not totally covered up by ice.


(from: wikipedia - transantarctic mountains)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Mysore Palace

Gregorian Chant

We just learned about the Christianity in Britain.

Another part of early Christianity is Gregorian Chant.

This is a type of singing that monks or people in church would do, where choirs would sing very slowly with not a lot of different notes.

It was very popular in the churches for choirs to learn songs in Gregorian chant and then sing them during service.
They were usually sung in the Latin language.

Many people have believed for a long time that Pope Gregory I was the one who came up with this and told everyone to learn it, but other historians now think maybe it was someone else.

The legends say that a dove came down and spoke into Gregory's ear and told him what to do.


(from: wikipedia - gregorian chant)


Gregorian chant - Deum verum - Callixtus


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: The Great Fire of Rome

The Rescue - Horatio Greenough

We just learned about the Statue of Freedom by Thomas Crawford.

Another famous American sculpture is The Rescue by Horatio Greenough in 1850, built to be by the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

In the early years of America, there were many wars between the American settlers and the Native Americans.

This statue shows a scared American pioneer woman holding her child, and a Native American warrior holding a tomahawk.
A large pioneer man is holding on to the Native American to keep him from attacking the woman, but also trying not to hurt the Native American.

In those days people were afraid of Native Americans and thought they were just savages that only wanted to kill Americans and did not know anything about the world like books or science or church.

So this statue was a way to show that the powerful Americans would come in and stop the Natives from killing people, and also help teach them how to be smart and good like Americans.

After the wars with the Native Americans were over, people looked at this statue again and did not like it anymore, because people felt differently about the past.

Many Native Americans were killed in the wars, and all of the land was taken over by Americans.
So when people looked at this statue they saw it as an American being cruel to the Native Americans.

In 1958 the statue was removed from the Capitol and put into storage, and later on in 1976 when it was being moved it was dropped and broken into many pieces.


(from: wikipedia - the rescue (statue))


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: The Great Buddha of Kmakura

Russian - Six, seven, eight, nine, ten

We learned in Russian that 1-5 is раз (raz), два (dva), три (tri), четыре (chetyre), пять (pyat').
Now let's count up to ten!

6 шесть (shest') - sounds like she-s-t 文A

7 семь (sem') - sounds seh-m 文A

8 восемь (vosem') - sounds like voh-seh-m 文A

9 девять (devyat') - sounds like deh-v-yah-t 文A

10 десять (desyat') - sounds like deh-s-yah-t 文A



(from: wikipedia - russian academy of sciences)

Do you remember how to say it in other languages?

Norwegian: seks, syv, åtte, ni, ti

Greek: έξι, εφτά, οχτώ, εννέα, δέκα

ASL: Six, seven, eight, nine, ten

Italian: sei, setto, otto, nove, dieci

German: seis, sieben, acht, neun, zehn

Spanish: seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez

French: six, sept, huit, neuf, dix