Mantled Howler

We just learned about the Black Bearded Saki.

Another type of new world monkey is the Mantled Howler or golden-mantled howling monkey.

These monkeys live in Central and South America.
They have mostly black fur and the grow to be about 22 pounds and about 2 feet long.

Just like you would think from the name, they make a loud sound, that is usually like a low grunting sound almost like a dog barking or a pig grunting.
It can be heard in the jungle from miles away.


(from: wikipedia - mantled howler)



Mantled Howler Monkeys (Alouatta palliata) - Colombia - Tim Forrester


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Siamese Cat

Middle Ear

We just learned about the Perilymph.

Another part of the ear is the Middle Ear.

We've learned about the outer ear that you can see on the outside of the body, and the inner ear that turns the sound into messages for the brain to understand.

The Middle Ear is in between the outer and inner ear, and helps take the sound brought in by the outer ear and turn it into sound waves for the inner ear to send to the brain.

(from: wikipedia - middle ear)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: T Cells

Honduras

We just learned about the country of Nicaragua

Let's learn a little about the country of Honduras!

This is a small country in Central America, bordering Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
It is about 43,000 square miles, and it has about 9.5 million people living there.
People in Honduras speak Spanish.


(from: wikipedia - honduras)

The flag of Honduras are three sideways stripes of blue, white and blue, with 5 stars in the middle of the white.
The blue stripes are for the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, and the stars are for the 5 other countries in Central America that once were part of a bigger country, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.


(from: wikipedia - flag of honduras)

To eat in Honduras you might have casamiento which is rice with red beans, usually served with a banana.

(from: wikipedia - honduran cuisine)

Visiting Honduras you might go to the Bay Islands and go scuba diving to see the fish and coral reefs.

(from: wikipedia - bay islands)

Long ago the Mayan people lived in Honduras, and there are still some old Mayan ruins and statues in a place called Copán.


(from: wikipedia - )


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Thurston Island

O Little Town of Bethlehem

We just learned about the song O Come All Ye Faithful.

Another famous Christmas song is O Little Town of Bethlehem.

The words for this song were written by a priest named Phillip Brooks in Philadelphia, after he traveled to Israel and saw the town of Bethlehem.

When he came back home he told the church organist Lewis Redner to write the music for it to be played a week later.
Redner didn't work on it all week and went to sleep Saturday night after not even writing a single note.

He said later that he woke up late in the night like he had an angel whispering in his ear, and he quickly grabbed some paper and wrote down the melody for the music.
The next morning he wrote the harmony part for the music on the way to church, and after that it was printed in a book called The Church Porch and became famous.


(from: wikipedia - o little town of bethlehem)



O Little Town Of Bethlehem - Cedarmont Kids

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Fall of Constantinople

Michelangelo - Piccolomini Altarpiece

We just learned about Michelangelo's sculpture of Bacchus.

Another famous sculpture by Michelangelo was the Piccolomini Altarpiece.

In 1481 AD a famous church leader named Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini wanted to make a really big sculpture with lots of statues to honor the Poccolomini family name.
It was supposed to have 14 sculptures on it, and he asked sculptor Andrea Bregno to do it.
He worked on it for 4 years, but then had to quit because the work was too hard for him at the age of 70.

Next the artist Pietro Torrigiano was hired to work on the altarpiece, but he only made one sculpture and then quit.

Tdeschini tried for another artist, and hired Michelangelo to make the rest of the sculptures.
At the same time, many other people saw the Pietà sculpture he had just finished and were so amazed and also wanted him to sculpt other things.

He started working on sculptures for this Piccolomini Alterpiece, but when he was offered the chance to make the statue of David he didn't spend much time on this altarpiece because he liked that other sculpture better.

After he had worked for a few years on the David sculpture, the person who hired him died.
When Todeschini died, his family asked Michelangelo to just do 4 sculptures so they could be finished.
He did sculptures of Saint Peter, Saint Augustine, Saint Paul, Saint Gregory.



(from: wikipedia - piccolomini altarpiece)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Vision of Peace - Carl Milles

Hindi - Hello and Goodbye

We've now learned a whole year of Swahili!
Wow!

Let's try another language now, how about Hindi?

This is the language spoken by hundreds of millions of people acros the world, mostly in the country of India.

Hindi uses a different alphabet than English, called Devanagari.
It has 14 vowels and 33 consonants, and doesn't look at all like the English alphabet.

Let's learn how to say hello and goodbye in Hindi!

To say hello in Hindi you would say Namaste 文A

In the Devanagari letters it looks like this: नमस्ते
It's made up of letters like न na म ma स् sa ते ta, and when they are all together it sounds like nuh-mah-stay.

To say goodbye you can also say namaste, or you can say Alavida 文A

In the Devanagari letters it looks like this: अलविदा
It's made up of letters like अ a ल la वि vi दा da, and when they are all together it sounds like ah-l-vee-dah.



(from: wikipedia - devanagari)

Swahili: Jambo, Hujambo, Habari, Mambo, Shikamoo

Russian: Привет (privet), Здравствуй (Zdravstvuy), Пока (poka), до свидания (do svidaniya)

Norwegian: Hei, Hallo, Ha det, Ha det brah

Greek: Γειά σου (Geiá sou), Χαίρετε (Chairete), Αντίο (Antío)

ASL: Hello and Goodbye

Italian: Ciao, arrivederci

German: Hallo, Auf Wiedersehen

Spanish: Hola! Adiós!

French: Bonjour! Au Revoir!

Display Refresh Rate

We just learned about the Display Resolution.

Another part of a computer monitor is the Display Refresh Rate.

When the computer screen is playing a video, or opening up a web page or showing something on the screen, it has to re-draw the screen for that picture very fast so that your eyes don't notice that it is changing, and so that it just looks like a real picture.

In old computers, the screen was drawn fresh every time starting from the top left, and going row by row from the top to the bottom.
Newer computers with LCD and LED monitors have smarter ways to redraw just some parts of the screen, but they still can only "refresh" the image on the page at a certain speed.

The speed that the screen can change and show a new image is called the Refresh Rate.
Our human eyes can only really tell if something is flickering if it is changing less than about 60 times per second.
If you think of that like a paper flip book showing an animation, you can usually see the flicker for those.
But if they were flipping so fast you couldn't tell, it would just look like an animated cartoon.

60 times per second is called the frequency, and is also the same as saying 60 Hertz or 60 Hz because Hertz means "per second".
Most monitors these days have a refresh rate of at least 60 Hz.


(from: wikipedia - refresh rate)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Piston Rod