Goal setting

“Goals equal success”, says Paul Shearstone in his article on goal setting. Studies have shone, he argues, that “only three percent of the population are engaged in some form of goal setting and only one percent, on average, write them down. … No wonder that one percent that write goals down are the richest people around the world.”

Goal setting is a powerful technique that can improve all areas of your life. By deciding on your goals and targets you will know what you want you want to achieve, what to concentrate on. In your studies it will help you to focus your efforts in search for professional skills and knowledge, and to organize your resources.

It's good to have big goals – a vision of what you want to achieve – and smaller and measurable objectives with exact time frames. By measuring their achievement, you will be able to see what you have done and what you are capable of. It will help you to move step-by-step towards your goal (to work towards your aim), at the same time improving your self-confidence.

But this is only possible if you follow a few simple rules in your planning process:

• Express your goals positively. The more positive instructions you give yourself, the more positive results you will get. 
• Avoid setting general and unclear goals, putting in dates, times and amounts.  Break big goals down into a number of small tasks. 
• Do not set goals too low or too high. It is important that you can achieve your goal without losing motivation. 
• When you have several goals, set priorities. 
• And most important of all: WRITE YOUR GOALS DOWN. 

«The difference between a goal and a dream is the written word.» – Gene Donohue

According to Gene Donohue what is a principal difference between a goal and a dream?

Dissecting Scientific Vocabulary

One of the toughest challenges in science is understanding the long, strange vocabulary terms. Science textbooks are full of crazy words like plasmodesmata, thigmotropism and chemiosmotic phosphorylation. It's really hard to learn science effectively when all these weird words are being thrown in your face. How did scientists come up with these words, anyway? Why do they have to be so unfriendly?

Most of the terms you see in science are combinations of word parts. This is especially true with technical terms. Scientists originally coined the terms by putting together word parts from the Greek and Latin languages. For example, the word 'thigmotropism' comes from a combination of two Greek words: thixis, meaning 'touch,' and tropos, meaning 'turning' or 'direction.' Thigmotropism is the word we use to describe the coiling growth patterns that some plants exhibit in response to touch. Think about vining plants like beans, grapevines and the common morning glory. These plants can climb fences and trellises by coiling their shoots around any object that they touch. You might think it strange that a long, weird word like thigmotropism was ever invented. But, imagine if you were a plant biologist trying to describe a morning glory. How would you talk about its coiling growth pattern? 'The morning glory climbs by using… its ability to turn the direction of its vine growth in response to a touch stimulus.' No, that takes too long! If you were a scientist, you would want to invent your own word to describe this concept. Then you could just say, 'The morning glory climbs by using thigmotropism.' That's exactly why scientists invented the word.

Breaking down scientific terms into word parts can help make them easier to understand.

Most scientific terms refer to Greek or Latin roots. But that doesn't mean you have to know Greek and Latin to understand science terminology. Many word parts are familiar to us in the English and other Romance languages. Take the word 'photosynthesis' for example. It comes from the Greek roots photo, syn and thesis. Photo means 'light,' as you probably already knew from other words like photography, photon and photocopy. The word partsyn means 'with' or 'together.' This might seem like a foreign definition to you. But think about familiar words like sympathy, synagogue, synchronize, system and symbiotic - all these words use a form of the Greek root syn to describe a togetherness of something. So, we've got photo and syn; what about the word part thesis? In Greek, this word means 'setting, putting, or placing.' So 'photosynthesis' means 'light-together-putting' or 'putting together with light.' In other words, photosynthesis is the process by which plants put molecules together using the energy they get from sunlight.

Word Parts and Combinations

As you can see, understanding the meaning of science terms is easier when you break them down into smaller components. This might be a good time to remember the three main parts of a word: the root, theprefix and the suffix. A word root is the primary unit of a word. It's often the longest, most central part of the word that carries the most significant meaning. Both prefixes and suffixes can be added to a word root in order to modify its meaning. Prefixes are word parts that appear before a root, like 'un-,' 'in-,' 'dis-,' 're-' and 'a-.' Suffixes are word parts that come after the root, like '-ed,' '-ing,' '-less,' '-ly' and '-ism.' When prefixes and suffixes show up in science words, they work the same way as they do in regular English. For example, the suffix -ism appears in the word 'thigmotropism.' You don't need to know that -ism is a suffix that indicates a noun. You already know plenty of similar 'isms,' like journalism, optimism and tourism. These are all nouns. So, thigmotropism must also be a noun, even if we're not yet sure what it means.

Try to build connections between words that you already know and words you're just learning. You'll start to get a sense of what the word parts mean, and then you can apply them to other words. For example, the word 'sympetalous' is used to describe a type of flower. Can you figure out what it means? Well, we know that flowers have petals, and we just learned that 'syn' or 'sym' means 'together.' It shouldn't surprise you to learn that 'sympetalous' describes a flower in which the petals are joined together.

Keep learning? Keep earning!

(1) College is just the beginning of a lifelong learning journey. With the rapid advancement of technology, changes in economy and society, you must adapt a learning mindset if you want to succeed. The key to lifelong earning is lifelong learning.

(2) As you embark on this path*, strive always to be a student. Be open to new ideas and information, and be able to adapt. These are essential skills for the new world of work. Some benefits of becoming a lifelong learner are:
 increased self-confidence when approaching new tasks or ideas;
 better decision-making and problem-solving skills;
 the ability to adapt and change with the times;
 greater personal satisfaction;
 higher pay and more employment opportunities.

(3) To become a student for life, start by finding out how you learn best. There are three main ways of learning people tend to follow: hearing (auditory learning), seeing (visual learning) and doing (kinesthetic learning). If you are not sure which type you prefer, ask yourself how you like to be given directions. If you are an auditory learner, you prefer to be told how to get somewhere. If you are a visual learner, you prefer to be shown. If you are a kinesthetic learner, you prefer to drive yourself there first. Another important aspect of learning is whether you are left- or right-brain dominant. “Left-brained” people are good with logic, analysis, math, language, writing and reading. “Right-brained” people are good with imagination, colors, graphics, music and rhythm. Of course, we do have the capability to think both ways. When we are able to tap into both sides* of our brains, we use our full brain potential.

(4) Many famous people used their “whole” brain. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was an artist and innovator. He sketched helicopters hundreds of years ago because he was fascinated by mechanics. He also used his knowledge of how the human body stands and moves to create extraordinary lifelike paintings.

(5) Strive to use your whole brain when studying, working and interacting with others. Also, be selective with what you feed your brain. As the adage says, “garbage in, garbage out.” The same holds true for the programs your brain uses. Only put in positive, healthy and educational programs. Your thoughts, along with the ability to add, change and discard them, are what define your mind.

(6) An ancient Chinese proverb says it best: “To gain knowledge, add things everyday. To gain wisdom, remove things everyday.” Just like a computer needs to delete files and information that are no longer useful, you have to discard old programs and information that no longer serve you. Knowing what is important and what is necessary to do will ensure that you have plenty of space left for learning the next new thing.

(Abridged and adapted from Keep learning? Keep earning! By Michelle L. Casto)

Comment on the saying “garbage in, garbage out”. 
Does it always hold true?
Why is it necessary to be selective while learning?

Father of bacteriology

1. On December 27, 1822, Louis Pasteur was born in the town of Dole, situated in Eastern France. His father was a tanner (дубильщик). In 1840, Louis earned his Bachelor of Arts degree and in 1842, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Ecole Normale. He had five kids out of which only two survived into adulthood. Typhoid was the reason for his children’s death. Pasteur’s personal loss led him study the cause for incurable diseases.

2. Louis Pasteur helped resolve the mysteries of several deadly diseases like chicken cholera, anthrax (сибирская язва), rabies and silkworm (шелкопряд) diseases. 

He also contributed to the development of the very first vaccines. Pasteur’s first vaccine discovery was in 1879 with a contagious disease called chicken-cholera. After unexpectedly exposing chickens to the weakened form of a disease, he proved that they became immune to the actual virus. Pasteur continued to extend his “germ theory” to formulate vaccinations for various diseases including anthrax, smallpox and cholera.

3. During Pasteur’s period, the souring (прокисание) of wine and beer caused huge loss of money for wine producers in France. Pasteur, along with other scientists, found that heating up the sugar solutions to high temperatures eliminated the bacteria to avoid spoilage (порча товара). Then he applied the same concept to other products like milk, cheese, and other foods. This is how he came up with pasteurization. Having the name of the inventor, the entire process of pasteurization is still extensively used throughout the world today.

4. Pasteur suffered from brain-strokes which started in 1868. He passed away on September 28, 1895, at Saint Cloud. He was buried in Notre Dame Cathedral. Later, his body was placed in a crypt just below the Pasteur Institute, Paris. Many of his techniques are still in use today.

Comment on
How did Pasteur prove that people became immune to the actual virus?

Blood. Red cells

1. The average adult has five litres of blood pumping around their body. About 20 per cent of this blood is in the heart and arteries, whooshing out through the aorta at 45 centimetres per second for a person at rest. It reaches lows of just 0.5 millimetres per second as it branches out into the maze of tiny capillaries which deliver oxygen to cells, tissues and organs.

2. The blood picks up speed again to around 25 centimetres per second as it returns to the heart in larger veins. The average speed of blood in the body is 28 centimetres per second, which equals about 17,000 kilometres in a week. The reality is far more complicated as blood pressure and heart rate (linked to how active you are, among other factors) affect blood velocity dramatically.

3. Blood is red because it contains iron, bound up in a ring-like chemical structure called porphyrin within haemoglobin – the protein responsible for carrying oxygen around the body. Haemoglobin is crammed into our red blood cells, making them red too. Red blood cells are round with a flattish, indented center, like doughnuts without a hole. They play an important role in your health, remove carbon dioxide from your body, transporting it to the lungs for you to exhale. Red blood cells are made inside your bones, in the bone marrow (костный мозг). They typically live for about 120 days, and then they die.

Red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets (тромбоциты) are the key components of blood, floating in clear plasma, but the sheer volume of red blood cells gives blood a red colour overall.

4. Oxygen-rich blood is a bright red, whereas deoxygenated blood is a darker brownish red. The veins in your wrists (запястие) may appear blue but they are red too – the blue colour is the result of the way light travels through your skin. While all vertebrates (позвоночные) share the same colour blood, blue blood does exist – eg horseshoe crabs have no haemoglobin, having opted (выбрав) instead for haemocyanin, a copper-based (содержащий медь) protein.

Do you know any other animals with blue coloured blood?

Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was one of the most brilliant and versatile figures of his time. His own law, Hooke’s Law, has to do with elasticity, but he brought a piercing intelligence and inventiveness to bear on a remarkable range of fields – anatomy, astronomy, geometry and geology among them.

Hooke proved the rotation of Jupiter on its axis and determined the rotation period of Mars. He discovered that light rays bend round corners (diffraction) and put forward the wave theory of light to account for it. He investigated the action of the lungs and identified the role of air in combustion. He studied the crystal structure of snowflakes and the honeycomb structure of cork. He was interested in music and acoustics, and he designed balance springs for watches. He suggested the manufacture of artificial fibres by copying the action of silkworms. He examined fossils and tried vainly to get the history of the Earth examined in a non-Biblical light.

Stephen Inwood’s recent biography, The Man Who Knew Too Much, shows Hooke interested in virtually everything. He devised improved scientific instruments – thermometers, telescopes, microscopes, pendulums and pumps – as well as a pedometer, a marine barometer, a depth sounder and various navigational instruments. He made advances in the study of insects and lectured on the medicinal properties of cannabis. He worked on machines for making cider and measuring the wind. He considered the possibilities of flying machines, long-distance signalling systems and bouncing shoes, which would shoot the wearer twelve feet up in the air. Not content with all this, he was also a practising architect who worked with Christopher Wren on the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666.

He  died a disappointed man.Because when Newton produced his theory of light and colour in 1672, Hooke claimed that what was correct in Newton's theory was stolen from his own ideas about light of 1665 and what was original was wrong. And this led to a bitter dispute with Newton. Hooke has been described as a:-... lean, bent and ugly man ... and so it was believed that he did not sit for a portrait. A possible portrait recently found at the Royal Society has now been established as being of someone else.

TED-Ed: Blood

Click the link below and see Diana's lesson about our blood.
Blood

To know more about blood follow the link How artificial blood works!
Follow the link and test your knowledge about blood Blood quiz.
Good luck!

Comment do you like this lesson?

Sexual reproduction

Vocabulary list

zygote - a single cell that develops into a person or animal, formed by the joining together of a male and a female gamete (= a cell that is provided by each parent)

blastula - a hollow sphere of cells

 

Animals that reproduce sexually begin life as a zygote. The zygote undergoes a series of divisions to form a blastula, a hollow ball of cells. The blastula folds in on itself, forming a single opening called a blastopore. The blastopore leads to a central tube that becomes the digestive tract. A protostome is an animal whose mouth is formed from the blastopore. A deuterstome is an animal whose anus is formed from the blastopore. The anus is the opening through which wastes leave the digestive tract.

During early development, the cells of most animal embryos differentiate into three layers, called germ layers. The endoderm is the innermost germ layer. The mesoderm is the middle germ layer. And the ectoderm is the outermost germ layer. 

  

Answer the questions:

What is the first stage  of a living being that starts his life as a result of sexual activity?

How is digestive tract formed?

Can you name three germ layers?