Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Explorers Blog Entry 3

I am going to the Sahara desert in Africa. The countries that border the Sahara Desert are Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ethiopia. A lake that borders the desert is Lake Chad. The GPS coordinates of the Sahara Desert are 19˚13'23.66" N 3˚25'53.81" E. It is very dry and hot in the Sahara Desert. Most of the landscape is brown and sandy. There has been big fights at the desert and it supports lots of wildlife because it is the biggest desert in the world. The distance between Mojave Desert to the Sahara Desert is 7,033 miles. The trip costs around 5,000 dollars.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Explorers Blog Entry 2

I am first going to the Nevada Desert in the America. The capital of the America is Washington D.C in Maryland. Canada and Mexico border America, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean border America too. The GPS coordinates of the Nevada Desert 38˚37'03.33" N 115˚58'04.33". It is very dry and there are a lot of cacti in the desert. This location supports many species of wildlife and has been around for millions of year.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Explorers Blog Entry 1

My name is Donkey and I am 13 years old. I am going to visit the Nevada Desert, Tabernas Desert, Atacama Desert, Sahara Desert, Australian Desert and the Gobi Desert. I am going to these locations because I just had the feeling to and I am feeling great about going to all of these locations. My parents are happy that I am getting out of the house.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Malaria

Around the world about half a billion people get infected with malaria each year. Nearly a million people actually die from malaria each year. Most cases of malaria occur in countries in Africa. 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite that is mosquito-bourne. Plasmodium is the infectious parasite (which is the most deadly parasite) of malaria that infects the red blood cells. In areas like the brain, liver, kidneys, lungs and other organs can have tissue die due to lack of oxygen from the infected red blood cells. The name meaning “mal'aria” (meaning “bad air” in Italian), was the term shortened to “malaria” in the 20th century.
A disease resembling malaria or malaria has been noted for about 4,000 years. DDT was synthesized in 1874 by Othmer Zeidler but not discovered until 1939 by Paul Muller in Switzerland. Charles Louis Alphonse Laveren was the first to discover parasites in the blood of patients suffering from malaria in 1880. In 1890 Giovanni Grassi and Raimondo Filetti first introduced the names Plasmodium vivax and P. malariae for the two of the malaria parasites infecting humans. In 1896 Ronald Ross was the first to demonstrate that malaria parasites can be transmitted from the infected patients to mosquitos. In the 1930s the U.S. recorded millions of malaria cases. Transmission of malaria had been halted in the 1950s.
Malaria should be considered a medical emergency and be treated accordingly. The leading cause of death from malaria in the
United States is delay in diagnosis and treatment. Patients can have definitive diagnosis in laboratory tests if the tests demonstrate the malaria parasites or their components. Sometimes malaria can be fought in the spot it is transmitted with bed nets, insecticides and anti-malarial drugs. Nets treated with insecticides and draped over beds can cut malaria infections by half and children deaths by a third. In Zambia sprayers apply a film of DDT inside some mud houses and the insecticides lingers around for few months, repelling and killing mosquitos, to treat malaria before it is transmitted.
The female mosquito is of the genus Anopheles, the only insect that is capable of carrying the human malaria parasite. In the night the mosquito alights on a patch of exposed skin, hunches over in a head-lowered posture. Then the female Anopheles mosquito plunges her stiletto mouth parts into the human flesh. The plasmodia swim through the blood stream until they get to the liver. When they get to the liver the plasmodia burrow into a single cell. Flooded cars are good places for mosquitos to lay their eggs when the waters recede into pools.
Symptoms of malaria include the chills, flu-like symptoms, fever, diarrhea, vomiting and jaundice. There can be four to six hours of shaking chills with malarial attacks.
In conclusion, malaria is a very terrible disease and hopefully will never flourish in the U.S. Africa on the other hand will probably have malaria lurking around for a couple more years though unfortunately. After researching malaria I think it would really stink to have malaria.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Medieval occupation Entry 5

Compared to my life, Zeus's life is hard because he has to clean more than me, work more and all around do more chores than me. Today not as many people have the name Zeus so that is something new. Our government doesn't have laws like the Canon law which I don't agree with. Back then they had jousts but in modern time we don't have anything like jousts.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Medieval occupation Entry 4

Today we had a jousting tournament with the visitor of King Edward III. The joust happened in the castle courtyard in the afternoon. People wanted to have something fun to happen so the town voted on a joust. There were two knights each had a long pole and they were on horses. They ran at each other and hit each other with the poles and one of the knights won I can't remember what his name was though. Everybody including me thought the event was pretty cool and everybody was sitting in bleachers. Unfortunately one of the knights died because the other knight hit him in the head with his jousting pole.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Medieval occupation Entry 3

In the castle my family and I have some really good friends by the name of Billy Parcher (my friend), Julius and Eve Parcher which are my parents friends. We usually do fun activities like ride horses around the field in the castle with the Parchers. Personally I could eat Lamb for every dinner of the year but we only have Lamb for a couple dinners a month unfortunately. All around the castle are hills and mountains so it will take days or weeks to get to the next big city or town.