The Lost World

By Andrea Parisca

"The Lost World" may sound like a fictitious title of an adventure book but in realitly, "The Lost World" is a nickname given to a mountainous region in Indonesia. The Foja Mountains are covered with a thick rainforest that has many unexpected clifs, which makes it almost impossible to reach. This has allowed many species to evolve protected by the mountains and rainforest. When scientists finally reached and begun research in the lost world, they found at least a dozen new species of animals. These new species include the Pinocchio frog and the world's smallest wallaby.



The Bee-like bat: One of the new species found in the lost world was a bee-like bat. This blossom bat is nocturnal, like most of the mammal on the island. It is not much bigger than the average North American bat. The bat uses a long tongue to collect nectar in flowers, used as food, but while it does this it rubs pollen on other flowers. it's a pollinater, similar to a bee, hence the name "Bee-like bat".



"Pinocchio" Frog: This strange new species of frogs, found in the lost world as well, was named after pinocchio for a reason. The frog has an
odd shaped nose. It's elongated, similar to Pinocchio's nose. The frog is believed to be a tree frog but since barely any were found scientists aren't 100% sure. When the frog calls the nose points up and when it doesn't the nose is relaxed hanging on its face. The reason for the strange phenomenon is unknown.


The World's Smallest Wallaby: The smallest wallaby recorded was found in the Foja mountains. Local woodsmen, who helped the scientists, came back to camp with a rabbit-size wallaby. Other wallabys were also spotted in the forest moving about. It is known that it is the smallest wallaby but it might even be the world's smallest in the kangaroo family.


The Tree Mouse: The new species is like any other mouse except for the fact that it lives and travels in the trees way above our heads. The mouse is very small and rarley has to touch the ground.


Bent-toed Gecko in Lost World: This species has an orange eyeshine that was noticed when a flashlight gleamed over it. Many of these geckoes were seen in trees and a few were caught for further investigation. The locals, although rarely afraid of anything would not catch or touch this gecko but the scientists added that they did not understand why. The species has very strange, almost deformed toes.

Horses

By Judith Ventaja

Diagram of a horse skeleton with major parts labeled.

This is a horse,  equus ferus caballus. The horses are mammal perissodactyle,
family Equidae, herbivorous, quadruped and long arched neck.

Curiosities

1-Horses spend more energy lying than standing.


2-The horse uses his facial expressions to communicate.

3-The horse is able to drink 37 liters of water per day.


4-Foals are usually born at night. At birth only need 1-2 hours to stand on their feet and walk.

5-There are over 350 breeds of ponies and horses (Equus caballus).

6-To determine the age of a horse you only need to see its teeth.

7-A horse can walk, trot, canter and gallop half.

8-A horse's heart weighs about four and a half kilos.

9-Horses usually live 20 to 25 years.

10-No matter which way the mark appears in front of a horse, it is always called star.

11-A breed of horse from Russia called Akhal-Teke can withstand several days without food and water.

12-On average a horse's head weighs a little more than 5 kilos.

Google pollutes

By Andreu Ribes & Ivon Zavala

A study supervised by Alex Wissner-Gross from Harvard University says that two searches on Google pollute the same amount as making a cup of tea: 7g of CO2 for each search. Google disagrees and says that it only produces 0.2 g of CO2 for each search.

Can o can’t we help to save the planet?

By Kyle Pearson

Nowadays the world has a big problem: pollution. Some people think that it’s a question of politicians, that the problem can be solved by everyone, that what a single person does is insignificant, but that is the wrong position to take, because can we really believe in politicians, after CiU scrapped the Ministry of Environment?

Well, here I propose a few things than can help to save the planet from global warming:

-Don’t leave the charger of the mobile phone, computer, iPod,... connected to the plug when you aren’t charging them, because you continue to use electricity.

-Use double glazing because this does not let heat get out of the house in winter. This avoids up to 350 kg of CO2 and reduces heating costs by 15%.

-Using buses is also more ecological because a bus transports the same amount of people as ten cars and contaminates as much as 5 cars.

-Don’t use dryers because these use a lot of electricity and they damage your clothes.

-Take showers instead of baths because when you take a bath you use up more water than if you take a shower.

-Having a swimming pool uses up a lot of water but if you do have one, use filters and chlorine so you don’t have to change the water so often.

-Using stairs instead of lifts saves a lot of energy, because 15 seconds in a lift consumes the same as 60 min of a 60-watt light bulb. And it is also good exercise.

-Use natural light instead of artificial light and paint walls white or blue because these reflect more light.

-Don’t use plastic bags, because these take 150 years to disappear and every year thousands of animals die for this reason. So, next time that you ask for a plastic bag think if you want to contribute to killing an animal. The perfect solution to this problem is using recyclable bags.

-Use a bike or walk because, apart from making you slimmer and stronger, this does not contaminate.

Climate change

By Pere Cases

All human beings live on one Earth. This is our home and we need to keep it healthy and clean. Over the last hundred years industry and cars have polluted the air and the seas. There are some signs that indicate that we have to do something if we do not want to destroy the environment. What we call global warming is a phenomenon that includes a continuous increase in the Earth’s temperature and a continued disappearance of the ozone layer from the atmosphere. This gas protects us from the harmful rays of the sun.

Global warming is associated with climate changes; one of these changes is the greenhouse effect. This phenomenon is so called because it causes an increase of temperature, just as greenhouses do. The gases in the atmosphere act like the glass of a greenhouse and all the heat of the earth that should go into space turns into gases and comes back to us. The temperatures of the seas are increasing and the icebergs on the south and north poles are melting. If icebergs continue melting, the level of the sea will go up and some cities and countries will disappear. Scientists say that the temperature of the sea is also responsible for the increase in droughts, floods, hurricanes and other climatic phenomena that destroy agriculture and buildings. If this goes on, poverty on Earth will kill lots of people.

To stop this, we need to change our way of living and we have to reduce pollution and CO2 in the atmosphere. Many countries had a meeting under UN supervision to talk about how they can achieve this. They decided to reduce CO2 gases step by step. Some countries did not want to sign the agreement, because they say they will lose a lot of money, but others are trying to push them to sign it. This regulation was called the Kyoto protocol.

If we cannot use petrol, coal and other fossil energies, we need to find new energies that do not pollute and will not be extinguished; these energies are called renewable energies. They use solar energy, wind energy and the energy of the sea waves.

If every country used renewable energies and stop polluting the Earth, we will be able to live for millions of years on the Earth.

Environtment in Danger
By Denice Arandia

On April 20th, the BP oil company caused the contamination of the sea in Luisana, Alabama and Florida area. There is an oil layer in the deap sea which kills all the species which live there. You can see them floating on the surface of the water, or arrive to the coast.

The British Petroleum will pay all the damages caused to solve this problem. It costs 77 milions € on average to clean beaches and coasts. They also put a tube, 1500 metres long, in the bottom of the sea to try to take out the oils. People think that it isn't possible to recover the marine environtment because the picture that a satellite took showed an oil slick of 8.800km2 in the sea.
The oil slick didn't arrive to the coasts of the affected places, it's 48 km far. The British Petroleum company is working to clean and improve the sea.

Recycling and rubbish
By Nicolás Ordax

I'm going to talk a little bit about recycling in Barcelona.
Barcelona is a very big city with a lot of people. Such a big city generates a lot of rubish and dust which must go somewhere.

In Barcelona there are a lot of dustbins and containers, but it seems they aren't enough. If you make a little trip through the city, you'll find so much rubbish you'll really think that there aren't enough containers. That isn't true because the containers and bins aren't usually full. The great problem is the people of Barcelona don't care about if the streets are dirty or not. You always find someone throwing his chewing gum away, even if he is a half meter from a bin.

But not all the people are like this. Day after day, people become more and more conscious about the environment, recycling is more important every day. Recently, the recycling containers for organic waste have been installed. There are also recicling containers for paper, plastic and glass.
If we continue like this and everyone recycles all their rubbish, I think we'll finally arrive at what everybody wants: a sustainable environment.