Well, considering sheep wouldn’t evolve for millions of years, probably not. But scientists do think they may have had a need for them. You are probably used to imagining dinosaurs roaming around in tropical forests that were warm and hospitable to the prehistoric beasts. But scientists have discovered that this wasn’t always the case. Dinosaurs also lived in some very unlikely places, including the South Pole!

Hundreds of millions of years ago, when these giant (and some not so giant) beasts roamed Earth, the continents were not in the same locations they are now. The continents are actually plates of rock that glide on a plastic-like molten layer found underneath them. The science of the movement of these plates is called plate tectonics. Look it up on the Net if you want to learn more about it. It’s pretty cool. If it sounds unbelievable, don’t worry. No one believed the first scientist that came up with the theory either!

But now, back to dinosaurs… When dinosaurs lived, Australia and Antarctica were actually linked together. They weren’t separate continents as they are now. During that period of time, the climate was warmer than it is now, but it still wasn’t very balmy in Antarctica! But despite this fact, scientists have found fossil evidence that dinosaurs did roam near the South Pole. The fossils scientists found were actually fossilized footprints of a type of dinosaur called a theropod (a group of upright dinosaurs that included the ferocious T.Rex). Scientists think that these dinosaurs must have had special adaptations to withstand the cold, as well as super night-vision that helped them see during the dark Antarctic winters. Cool! Or should I say, Cold!?

You’ve probably heard of “bring your kid to work” day. This is where parents bring their child to work so they can see what they do every day to bring home the bacon. But have you ever heard of “bring a worm to work” day? Californians have. But in their case, it’s more like “bring lots of worms to work” day! But unlike kids, who just get to scope out the surroundings and maybe mix up a few papers, these worms are put to work! Not paper shuffling mind you, but real get-down dirty work. They’re getting rid of after lunch garbage!

It turns out that the state of California encourages workers to bring worms to work in order to reduce the amount of garbage that comes out of offices each day. A lot of this waste is food waste, leftover sandwich crusts, apple cores, and what have you. The worms are placed in their own special dirt and newspaper filled composting bins. They get to work as soon as the first limp lettuce leaf falls.

Of course, you can’t just keep any old worms in a bin for ages and expect them to be happy. Usually a special type of worm, known as a red wriggler, is used for office and home compost bins. Of course, not all offices are keen on having wrigglers wriggling around their office, but many are. At the Environmental Protection Agency office in Sacramento, California, hundreds of thousands of worms happily munch up 5 tons of leftovers each and every year. Go worms!

Hmmm. If that isn’t a great name for a cheesy sci-fi movie, well, I don’t know what is. It definitely brings up images of alien plants with long green tentacles dripping with a green glow-in-the dark substance that turns everything that tries to get in its way into slime! Does that sound pretty far-fetched to you? Well, it’s closer to reality that you might think. And if you are a plant living in a wetland in the US… Be afraid, be very, very afraid. The Phragmites are coming! In fact, they are already here.

Right, well since you’re not a marsh plant, you’re probably not packing up a portable supply of swamp water just yet, but what are Phragmites, and how are they threatening the lives of marsh plants? Phragmites australis is one of the most invasive plants ever to hit North American waterways. It is sometimes known by the alias “common reed.”  It is an alien. Not to the planet, but to the continent of North America. Its real home is in Asia, but it’s not content to stay there.

And this is one nasty alien. It likes to “whack off” its neighbors with its secret weapon, an acid that is so strong that it turns the roots of the plants around it to mush. And it’s fast; in less than half an hour we’re talking total pudding here. These alien plants have a plan, and it is no less that total, complete world domination. One of its favorite landing pads is the state of Delaware, where it has taken over tens of thousands of acres of wetlands.

Of course, scientists are on the alert. In a secret lab (so secret we can’t reveal its location even to our mothers), they are busy creating an antidote. So far they’ve had success in the lab, but until they can fight Phragmites in the wild, marsh plants will still be shaking in their mud for some time to come.

What causes the most accidents on the road? Bad weather? Drunk drivers? Faulty cars? Nope, nope, and nope. Instead the answer is people—people not paying attention, falling asleep, chatting on their cell phones, and just being average, not-too smart people. Well, we all know people are hard to change, so what’s the answer to making our roads safer? Enter the really smart car…

How smart are these cars? Smarter than a lot of human drivers it seems. Safety-smart cars aren’t on the road yet, but they may soon be. And when they are, they are going to be ultra cool! Safety-smart cars are still in the experimental stage, but one day soon, they will be able tell a driver to stop at an intersection and even “talk” to other cars on the road by way of wireless technology. That way they can tell a driver if a car is approaching or if there is an accident ahead. Now that’s smart.

The cars will even be able to pick up signals from road signs, and possibly even the road itself. This is especially important because 70% of all fatal (causing death) traffic accidents take place at intersections. This is because drivers have to pay attention to a lot of things at intersections: people crossing the street, traffic lights, and the behaviours of other drivers who may not be paying attention very well! It’s not a surprise that intersections are dangerous places to hang out, but safety-smart car technology may change all that in the future.

Could we be on our way to a crash-free future? Hmmm. Maybe cars already know the answer to this question.

Well if the last blog post about two-headed turtles wasn’t impossible enough, check out today’s post. Today’s question is, “How in the world can you read a book if you can’t see the words?” Sounds like a question right out of a Harry Potter book. In Harry’s world, it would probably be easy to do. But in our boring old world of non-magic Muggles, is it possible?  Logic would have you say no. But then, logic doesn’t always seem to apply when it comes to science!

To find the answer to this mysterious question, we need to travel to the land of Harry Potter himself, England, to a strange building shaped like a donut, the Diamond synchrotron facility. And this isn’t just any little donut; it’s a donut that’s the size of five stadiums! But what does it have to do with reading books with no visible words? A lot. This building is a synchrotron, and a synchrotron is a particle accelerator. It sends particles whizzing around its donut ring at super high speeds. When particles travel this fast, they create a powerful beam of light, a beam so powerful that it is ten times stronger than the light produced by the Sun!

Sounds cool but what can it do? You probably already know the answer to this question. It can read books with invisible words of course—old books where the words have worn or faded away! How does it do this? This beam of light acts like a special x-ray beam. It creates a 3-dimensional image of the text that helps scientists “see” the words that were once there. It can even read old books that are too fragile to open. Now that’s some real magic!

You’ve probably heard the saying that two heads are better than one. But is this always the case?  What if the two heads are attached to the same body? That might cause a few problems instead. But isn’t the idea of a person or animal with two heads straight out of a science fiction movie?  Nope, it can really happen. Here’s how…

Sometimes, an organism (this could be an animal or even a human being) is born as an identical twin. Babies are created in their mother’s womb when a sperm (a male sex cell) joins with an egg (a female sex cell). After the egg is fertilised (an egg and sperm join), the egg starts to divide. Usually, the egg divides to create one embryo (a group of cells that will develop into a baby). But sometimes, it splits to form two identical embryos. These embryos typically develop into separate identical twins. Every once in a while something goes wrong in the division process though, and it doesn’t complete properly. As a result, some twins are still joined together when they are born (this is called “conjoined”). They even share certain organs, such as a heart. Sometimes the twins can be separated by surgery and go on to live normal lives. Other times they can’t and must live as best they can as conjoined twins.

What does all this have to do with a two-headed turtle? Animals can be born as conjoined twins as well as humans. When this happens in natures, the twins rarely survive. But if a human cares for them, they can live to a ripe old age. That’s just what’s happening in an aquarium store in Pennsylvania. An aquarium collector brought a conjoined, two-headed turtle into the aquarium store. It is a species (type) of turtle called a red-eared slider. It is only three months old and is still very tiny, even though it has two heads. With proper care, the little fellow (or fellows) can live to be 20 years old.  The aquarium store hasn’t given the turtle a name yet. I guess they are still trying to decide if they should give it two names or one!

If you are a Harry Potter fan you probably know that Madame Pomfrey can magically regrow bones, even if they have been completely removed by a fumbling wizard professor. (Can’t remember that? Check out Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to refresh your memory!) But what if his entire arm was missing? Could she grow a new arm for Harry? A lot of creatures in nature, like salamanders and starfish, can already do this, and they don’t have any help from magic…Unless you consider Mother Nature magic, which she may well be considering all the amazing feats she performs!

How do creatures like salamanders grow new limbs? No one knows for sure, but scientists would love to find out. This knowledge could be applied to human beings and one day growing new bones may be no big deal. And scientists now think they may have a clue to help them solve the mystery. The answer may lie in single protein called nAG. Proteins are molecules that are found in all parts of your body, such as your heart, muscles, and brain. But they can also act as messengers or signallers. In the case of the salamander, the nAG protein signals special cells called stem cells to start dividing to make new cells, and eventually a new limb. (In other words, nAG nags the stem cells to get going!) Stem cells are very special cells because they can transform into any other type of cell. All animals have stem cells, including human beings.

Can the nAg protein help regrow human limbs in the future? Only time, and science, can tell. But I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Would you?

Well, we’ve got some great news for you broccoli haters out there on today’s blog post. If you hate the taste of broccoli and are sick and tired of people telling you to eat it because it’s good for you, this is your lucky day indeed. According to scientists you can now get the health benefits of broccoli without having to eat it. Wow—if that’s not the scientific discovery of the year, I don’t know what is.

Whoa! Wait a minute. How do you wear broccoli? As a hat? Nope, as sunscreen. No joke! It turns out that your mom was right—broccoli is good for you. It is full of compounds that protect against diseases such as cancer. And it turns out that these compounds don’t just work if you eat them. Scientists have found that by applying a chemical produced by broccoli sprouts (it’s called sulforaphane), you’ve got an amazing sunscreen.

This broccoli sunscreen is 100% natural and protects the skin from the damage caused by dangerous UV rays from the Sun. In fact, this new broccoli powered sunscreen shouldn’t really be called sunscreen at all. Instead of blocking the Sun’s rays like a sunscreen, it is absorbed by skin cells. Once inside the cells, it does its magic. It increases the amount of protective enzymes (compounds that cause a chemical change to occur) that prevent UV damage in our cells. And on top of that, this increase lasts for several days after sulforaphane enters the cells. Wow! Not bad for a vegetable that lots of people love to hate!

If you’ve seen the movie Ice Age, you probably know what a saber-toothed tiger looks like. We’re talking fangs that grew up to 20 cm long (about 8 inches) and a seriously nasty set of claws. Not to mention a powerful, muscular body that was built more like a bear than a cat! Of course they lived thousands of years ago, so you don’t have to worry about one taking a chomp out of you with those fangs today. But were those fangs really so dangerous? Sure they look like monster chompers, but scientists are starting to doubt whether that could have really done the sort of damage we imagine they could.

So what gives? Well, it turns out that when it comes to the strength of their bite, modern day lions have saber-toothed tigers beat, despite those fearsome fangs. Scientists now believe that the saber-toothed tiger’s bite only had about one third the power of a lion’s bite. How do scientists know that this puss had a wussy bite? They used a computer program to show what would have happened to the saber-toothed tiger’s skull if it bit down on a moving target. It turns out that its skull was not strong enough to stand up to the force of such a bite. On the other hand, modern lions can bite into their prey and bring it down while it is running.

What does this mean for saber-toothed tigers? Did they go extinct because they couldn’t catch their meal? Nope, not at all. But it does mean that they probably used those ferocious claws and big muscles a little more than we realized. Fangs or no fangs, those claws and biceps could still kick some serious butt!

Here’s a high-tech story that is going to put a smile on your face—or at least that’s what the makers of this new gadget are hoping. What kind of gadget are we talking about here? The kind that knows how important a smile can be. Guess the answer yet? It’s a camera! But not just any camera. This little marvel is stubborn. It won’t actually snap the photo until someone in the shot smiles.

Could this be the end of sad face photos in photo albums around the world? It just may be. But how does the camera know when someone is smiling? The answer lies in special software. This software is specially programmed to focus on faces and scan for a change in contrast on the faces. What does this mean? Well, when a person isn’t smiling, their face is all one shade. But teeth are white (or they are if you brush them!), so as soon as someone cracks a grin, the software notices the difference. This is its go-ahead to snap the shot.

Pretty cool—but do you think this camera can be fooled? Most gadgets can, so you never know. And what if you are taking a serious photo of someone? Or what if you are taking a picture of a mountain, which isn’t all that likely to crack a smile? Does that mean the camera will refuse to take the picture? Hmm, let’s hope it has an on/off switch for this function.

What do you think? Will this be the new future trend in cameras? It just may be. At least until we decide we really liked those grumpy family photos after all!