#scientists say

[scientists-say-stuff]

Scientists say I’m laying down on the flaw of my argument and taking a nap

[thelemonslifegivesyou]

my latest invention is a ray gun that turns anything I zap into a lemon

nothing is safe

not even you mom 😔

[entertainmentnerdly]

Andromeda's Halo of Gases Is Bumping Up Against Our Own, Scientists Say via /r/space https://ift.tt/3jHxlx6

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Scientists Say: Echolocation

This word describes a method that some animals use to sense their environments by making sounds and listening for their echoes.

Echolocation (noun, “EK-oh-lo-KAY-shun”)

This word describes a process that some animals use to sense their environments with sound.

Many animals depend on sight to find food and survey their surroundings. But a handful of creatures — such as bats, dolphins and shrews — use sound to sense the world around them. Sound travels through the air or water in waves. When these sound waves bump into an object, they bounce off it.

To use echolocation, animals first make a sound. Then, they listen for the echoes from the sound waves bouncing off objects in their surroundings. The animal’s brain can make sense of the sounds and echoes to navigate or find prey.

With echolocation, bats can fly through dark caves and locate insects in the dark of night. Whales make clicks that help them find food in the deep, dark ocean. And even some humans echolocate. Some people who are blind click with their tongues to make sounds. They can make sense of the echoes to avoid bumping into an obstacle.

A few technologies mimic the way animals echolocate. For example, submarines use what’s called sonar to navigate. Sonar systems send out pulses of sound and detect the echoes. And ultrasound, a technology used in medicine, uses sound waves to take pictures inside of the body.

In a sentence

To stay submerged longer, whales recycle air that they’ve used to make echolocation clicks.  

Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

[ink-em-dan0]

New Study Is Guaranteed To Tick Off Gender-Fluidity Champions

A new study indicates that contrary to the position of social justice activists, gender differences may be very real indeed.

Duh, people judge attractiveness against socially-defined, learned standards of what is considered attractive in a person of the gender they perceive them to be. I'm a scientist!!!!

Finding out that people do what society trains them to do is considered a discovery? This says absolutely nothing about "gender-fluidity," whatever they think that term means.

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Scientists Say: Deforestation

Trees slurp up carbon dioxide and help keep our planet cool. But deforestation cuts those trees down in large numbers.

Deforestation (noun, “DEE-for-es-STAY-shun”)

This is the act of cutting down trees across a wide area. Some people also use words like clearance, clearing or clearcutting for deforestation. Forests cover a third of the world’s land. But humans cut down 26 million hectares (64 million acres) of those forests every year. That’s an area the size of the United Kingdom, or just larger than the state of Oregon.

Deforestation removes the trees in an area so the land can be used for something that’s not a forest. That can be farms, homes or businesses. Ranches in the Amazon, for example, get their space from deforestation.

Forests take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That’s especially important because people are producing so much of it. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that works like a blanket to keep in heat. Trees have been able to remove of some of our carbon dioxide. But as deforestation continues, they take in less and less.

In a sentence

Too much deforestation means that tropical forests are now producing more greenhouse gases than they absorb.

Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Scientists Say: Microgravity

Gravity is a force that brings objects together. But when those objects get far away, the force feels small. It feels like microgravity.

Microgravity (noun, “MY-crow-GRA-vih-tee”)

Microgravity is the experience of gravity that is only a fraction of the force we experience on Earth. Gravity is a force that attracts anything with mass to anything else that also has mass. The more mass, the greater the gravity. You stay on the surface of the Earth because the Earth’s mass is attracting your own mass to it and holding you here.

“Micro” means something small. So microgravity is what happens when the experience of gravity seems very small. Though we may say that astronauts are weightless in space, what they’re actually experiencing is microgravity.

Microgravity isn’t the absence of gravity. There is gravity, even in space. It just becomes weaker with distance from the object exerting the gravitational force. So when people go into space, they experience weaker gravity. So do the objects around them.

Astronauts study microgravity while in space to find out what it does to organisms over time. For example, our bones and muscles develop the strength to keep our bodies upright against the force of Earth’s gravity. It’s like strength training you’re not even aware of. After too long in microgravity, our muscles and bones become weak. They no longer need to keep the same level of strength. Plants also grow differently in microgravity. That’s important for scientists learning how to grow crops in space for long-term space travel.  

In a sentence

Scientists studied Scott Kelly as he spent a year in space, comparing his life in microgravity to that of his Earth-bound twin, Mark Kelly.

Check out the full list of Scientists Say.

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Scientists Say: Prairie

Prairies are flat, fertile grasslands in North America. They are their own unique ecosystem.

Prairie (noun, “PRAYR-ee”)

A prairie is a very large stretch of grassland. Prairies have very few trees, and only small hills. They may not get a lot of rain. But they’ve got plenty of grass — more than 40 different species can grow there. Prairies are a type of temperate grassland, similar to savannahs or steppes. Temperate grasslands are cooler than those in the tropics, but warmer than those in polar areas. Usually, when scientists talk about prairies, they are referring to the grasslands in North America. There, prairies stretch from the area east of the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River.  

Prairies are more than big fields of grass. Hundreds of animal and plant species call prairies home — prairie dogs, bison, ferrets, birds such as grouse, plants such as prairie clover and cone flowers, and many, many more.  Prairies make a good place to live because they’ve got lots of soil, which the grass keeps from washing away. When the grass dies, bacteria and fungi break it down on the spot, putting nutrients right back in the soil. Prairies catch on fire fairly often. The burning keeps trees from growing — and also burns up old plants, returning their nutrients to the soil, too.

This all makes prairies very fertile places. That means they can grow lots of plants, which can support large, plant-eating animals such as bison. It also means that prairies make good farmland for corn, wheat or cattle. That has put prairies in danger, as people have plowed under many grasslands to grow crops. In fact, grasslands in the United States have decreased by 79 percent since the early 1800s.

In a sentence

Shallow ponds — called potholes — on the prairie serve as nesting sites for half of the ducks in North America.

Check out the full list of Scientists Say.