In this article California’s Department for fish and wild life is considering bringing back grizzlies to California. A lot of people are disagreeing with this, but most scientists and wild life experts are encouraging them to do it. Local people say, ” People out of town are already scared of the black bears and grizzlies”. Grizzlies haven’t been seen in California for 90 years and if they were to be brought back it would make a huge change in people’s lives. If grizzlies were brought back to California there would be double the amount of bears here. Grizzlies need up to 9,000 square miles of space to roam, right now in Yellowstone they only have 3,400 square miles of space.

My opinion about this is that we should give the grizzlies back their land. They were there before us and it’s unfair to them if we don’t allow them to live in the amount of land they need. If we keep acting afraid of wild animals and killing them because we’re mad or afraid most animals will start to go extinct just like how wolves and grizzlies are endangered. My classmate Jake said, ” I agree with you that we should give the grizzlies back their land instead of killing them and kicking them out of their own habitat.”  The authors opinion was that if they were to bring grizzlies back then they should put them somewhere else because of all of the people there. ” If there was a place to put them, I would be arguing very strongly not to put them there”.

A disease has killed many sea stars, but scientists have found the cause

Since last years millions of sea stars have died. There is an epidemic and the sea stars are suffering. Scientists say they have never seen a disease this bad in the ocean. The sea stars started dying in Washington in 2013. This disease spread south and began killing millions of innocent creatures. Whatever this virus is it’s out of control.

This virus is not new. Sea stars that scientists have colleceted from over 72 years ago have it. This means the virus has been in the Pacific for over 72 years. Earlier this virus was killing small amounts of starfish. No one knows what made it spread this fast in the past year. This disease is called wasting syndrome. Over 20 species of sea stars have it.

Scientists figured out what this virus was but they still haven’t figured out what they’re looking for. What caused this disease? What caused it to spread so fast? All of these questions are still unknown.

The author in this story was unbiased.

My opinion on this story was that some diseases in the ocean were caused by us. We need to stop polluting the ocean and start caring about others living creatures besides ourselves.

My friend Nico says, “I believe that this is just another reason to stop polluting the oceans.”

Dogs could get a medicine to keep them with us longer

Scientists in Seattle are looking for a type of chemical that helps pets age a lot slower. They found on that they think might work, it is called rapamycin. They have tested it on mice and it shows that it can delay some diseases and help them be more active. Many scientists want to test it on humans, but it would be very expensive and it would take over ten years to get any results. They tested it on mice and now they want to test it on dogs. Austad, a scientist in Alabama, said, “It may not work on dogs, but if it did boy it’s going to be huge.”

The scientists working on this project want to figure out why some dogs live longer than others. Most dogs die from cancer or heart failure, this occurs in mostly big dogs. The chemical rapamycin slowed cancer development in mice, if it did the same in dogs it could also work in humans. The scientists plan to work on an experiment with 30 middle aged dogs some with cancer and some with a failing heart. They are hoping to see signs of slowing cancer development or preventing heart failure. If this chemical helps it could be a huge help for the elderly in the human race.

In this article the authors opinion is that scientists should help dogs or any types of pets live longer. He said, “Every year my dog gets slower and slower it might be possible to help pets live a little longer.”

My opinion is that it would be good if this chemical works, but we should let animals live their life without trying to force them to live longer.

My friend Cierra says, “I really hope this works but their not completely sure and we should hope for the best.”

We’ve all heard of the Space Race, but how did it start? The Space Race started because of the Cold War, when many things were changing. The president at that time was Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose policies promoted investment in inventions and the Space Race. Without the Cold War causing the Space Race and the policies of the federal government, we wouldn’t have landed a man on the moon with Apollo 11.

The Cold War began after WWII, when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R emerged as the world’s two competing super powers with opposite economic and political systems. The Space Race began on August 2, 1955 when U.S.S.R began working on sending a satellite into space. The U.S. responded quickly and began working on one as well. The U.S.S.R was ahead most of the time and eventually they were able to send Sputnik, the very first satellite, into space. The U.S. was very disappointed and frustrated, but President Eisenhower decided to press on and keep working. Eisenhower wanted to keep on working and get further knowledge than the U.S.S.R ever did. The race had begun and we weren’t going to give up until we could surpass Russia.

As a result of the tension of the Cold War, Dwight D. Eisenhower was able to get support to create N.A.S.A, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is the government agency that is responsible for the space program in the U.S. This group got us into space by working day and night to beat Russia by landing a man on the moon.

Because of the federal investment into N.A.S.A and the diehard attitude and the work ethic of N.A.S.A, the U.S. was the first country to land a man on the moon. The spacecraft that landed them on the moon was Apollo 11. The three crew members that made it onto the moon were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin investigated for any life and collected over 47 pounds of lunar material. While they were collecting materials, Michael Collins was piloting the spacecraft alone until Armstrong and Aldrin finished collecting lunar materials. When they finished they went back to the spacecraft and awaited a four day trip back to earth. The whole world listened to Neil Armstrong’s famous words when he set foot on the moon: ” That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The Space Race caused all of these events to happen. It led to N.A.S.A which had a huge impact on the U.S. and caused the spacecraft Apollo 11 to be created. All of these things happened because of the president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was changing many things in the U.S. during the 1950’s. With him as president during the Space Race we were able to get ahead of Russia and in the end win the Space Race.

Bears get an equal education 

In Yosemite for years black bears have been terrorizing people and ruining their cars. If you leave even the smallest amount of food in your car they will smell it and break in. Recently they have been behaving much better. In 1998 over 1,500 people reported black bears breaking into their cars. Now only 120 people have reported anything happening. They say this is due to training bears to stay away from humans.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s black bears were an extreme problem. Back then Yosemite had open trash cans which attracted bears and brought them near people and their cars. To solve the problem they brought in more experts to star working with the bears. They also began putting their food in bear proof lockers which prevented them from coming near people. Also the park set up people around campsites to scare away the bears. All the people that stayed overnight camping were forced to put all of their food in bear proof containers. This helped out a lot during that time and the bears started to behave better. After all of this a study found out that bears were eating much less human food and were staying away from people. They have been doing this all the way up to modern day and the bears have almost completely stopped bothering humans that visits Yosemite.

My opinion about this article is that I think the park did a great job of keeping them away from people without making them leave their own habitat. Also it is good that the bears are getting used to eating wild food instead of human food. My classmate Toby Tobias agrees with me and thinks, “I think it’s one of the best ways to solve animal problems because no wildlife and humans are getting hurt and the bears are getting smarter”. The author is unbiased. 

As Arctic ice thaws

The Arctic area around the North Pole is melting, scientists are trying to figure out why. Temperatures are rising twice as fast in the Arctic than anywhere else on the globe. The drastic rise in temperatures is causing the permanently frozen soil to thaw. This will cause a lot of changes in the Arctic. In Northern Russia giant craters are starting to form. Scientists are trying to figure out and explain more about what’s causing them.

The frozen soil (permafrost) is melting and is changing the environment. The trees in the soil are starting to sink because the soil is turning into mud. The nickname for these trees is “drunken trees”. In the Arctic entire forests are now leaning to one side. The melting permafrost is causing even more problems. The mud is starting to create huge slumps some even a kilometer across that are sliding across the terrain. If this continues the entire arctic terrain will be changed and the animals living there will be forced to leave.

My opinion is that we should just let the earth do what it does. If we keep trying to change the weather were just going to make it worse. My friend Jake’s opinion is that, “we need to get more energy efficient and try to do more than what we are to try and save the world.

In the 1920’s lots of people were buying and selling alcohol illegally. They were doing this illegally because of Prohibition. Prohibition was a law passed by the 18th Amendment that prohibited anyone from buying, selling, and manufacturing alcohol. The 18th Amendment was passed on January 16, 1920. This amendment was passed because many people thought alcohol was bad. Even though the law was supposed to help, it caused more problems.

Prohibition caused people to waste a lot of money. People would go to saloons after work and spend their entire paycheck on alcohol. When they went home they would be without any money for their families. Another cause of Prohibition was that people would get drunk and not show up to work or show up to work drunk and make a lot of mistakes. The men would still get paid but they weren’t making as many products so there was less to sell and was a waste of the owner’s money.

Before the 18th Amendment was passed groups all over the U.S. were fighting for Prohibition. The Women’s Temperance Union was the biggest and the most persistent. The Women’s Temperance Union was a group of women that were fighting for Prohibition and also thought drinking was a sin because their husbands would come home drunk and beat them and their children. People thought that drinking during WWI was unpatriotic. They thought this because alcohol was made from grain and they used grain for food for the soldiers. Many people were even committing crimes while they were drunk and would get arrested. Fifty percent of crime in the United States was because of alcohol.

Prohibition was  supposed to help America become a better place. But after Prohibition started there were a lot of crimes being committed. Even average citizens were committing crimes! Some people were bootleggers, who would hide small bottles of alcohol inside of their large boots. Rumrunners would fill up their vehicle with alcohol and drive across the border. Some people that weren’t rumrunners or bootleggers owned speakeasies. Speakeasies were secret underground bars that people would go to get alcohol and then bring it back to sell. The people that owned them were average citizens that couldn’t give up drinking.

Organized crime also started to rise. Once Prohibition began gangsters realized that people didn’t want to give up drinking, and they took the opportunity to illegally sell alcohol. The main supplier of alcohol was Al Capone. From 1925 to 1931 Al Capone bootlegged whiskey from Canada, operated illegal breweries in Chicago, and owned over 10,000 speakeasies. He made $100 every minute from doing all of this. Also, from the speakeasies he made $60,000,000 annually (history.com). However, the only thing the police were able to convict him of was tax evasion and he was in prison until Prohibition ended.

During the time of the Prohibition experiment the economy was going down rapidly. The government wasn’t getting the money that they used get to from the people buying alcohol constantly. Still they wanted people to stop drinking even though there were more crimes and overall more problems than before Prohibition started. The government began to poison any alcohol they found so lots of people died after drinking it. But this just got the citizens even more angry. Prohibition cost the government a total of $11 million in tax revenue and $300 million to enforce.

Then finally after 12 years, the 21st Amendment was passed to repeal Prohibition. Prohibition was actually an experiment that went horribly wrong. There were more crimes being committed than ever before and the government wasn’t making any money. Also, the most important thing was that people were still drinking even after the law was passed. This finally made the government want to get rid of the law and make things back to normal.

In early 1918, a virus struck Haskell County,Kansas. It was known as the “Spanish Flu”. The virus spread like wild fire throughout the world. People didn’t take it seriously but it was obviously a big deal.

WWI had just ended and it was early 1918. A virus had struck Kansas and was spreading fast. It was the Spanish Flu. Many people did not take the disease seriously but, it was obviously having a huge affect  on the world. They needed to act fast before the virus wiped out the entire world. When the flu was still spreading three places were having to deal with it at the same time, India, China, and Russia. The virus was called a pandemic because it infected people across many nations.

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Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a shadow
With no caster

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams disappear
Life is lonely
With no point or reason

Should the United States enter World War I? The U.S. should join the Allies in the war or they could lose and we would be ruled by the Germans. The United States joined the war three years after it started. When Russia left the war Germany only had to fight on one front but when the U.S. joined they lost on the Western Front. The U.S. should have joined the war because Germany sunk the Lusitania and because of the Zimmerman Telegram. Woodrow Wilson did the right thing by keeping us out of the war before, but now it’s time to fight alongside the Allies.

We need to enter the war before the Germans sink more ships, and kill more innocent lives. The Germans have been using unrestricted submarine warfare. This is when a ship that is not your own trespasses into your territory and you sink it without warning. They were doing this because Great Britain was also using unrestricted submarine warfare. This is what Germany did and this is what they did to the Lusitania. The Lusitania was blown up near Great Britain by Germany for trespassing into their waters. The Germans thought that the Lusitania had ammunition and it did. Countries shouldn’t be allowed to use this, it gives them an unfair advantage. The U.S. needs to stop them and help end the war.If the U.S doesn’t join the war the German Submarine Blockade won’t allow Great Britain to receive any supplies from other countries and they will have to surrender.

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