WATER - drink or fuel?

We all know what water is. We all use it for drinking every day. Its properties are well known all around the world since always. All of them? Of course not. Trough a simple machine, we can transform an everyday drink into the third most explosive gas in the world. How? 

The machine is often called “hydrogen cell generator”, discovered by William Nicholson in 1800, who used it for lighting. It’s based on the electrolysis effect, which consists of applying electricity to water. The materials used are the following ones: 

• Stainless steel from fizzy drinks cans
• A glass container with its cap (as Nescafe or Nutella ones)
• Some wires and a plastic tube.
• An electric battery (9V). 

1.-To begin with, obtain two stainless steel plates from fizzy drinks cans. Make sure they fit inside the container. You must make them a hole in each of them in order to connect them to the wires.

2.-Secondly, drill the cap of the container so that the plastic tube and the wires enter inside it. You can fix it with cello tape or superglue.

3.-Then, fill the container until the top with tap water. Add a bit of one of these products to improve water conductivity: salt, sodium bicarbonate or bleach. Beware of them!

4.-Finally, submerge the steel plates inside the water and close the container with its cap. Make sure the steel plates are not in contact inside the water. To switch it on, connect both wires to the battery. The result must be something similar to this:

Through the plastic tube, Hydroxy gas will start to emerge. The yield of the machine depends on the voltage of the battery and the size of the steel plates. You can watch a professional explanation of this machine in this video. It has several uses that can be adapted depending on the needs. Its main use is as fuel. Does it pollute? It doesn’t. In its combustion, only water vapour is released to the atmosphere. Actually, some people adapt this machine to their cars, so that they replace gasoline fuel and save some money on their fuel bills. Moreover, Hydroxy gas is also used for filling floating balloons. Check its power in this amazing video!

In conclusion, we can obtain an easy, cheap and environmentally-friendly fuel from one of the most abundant substances on Earth: WATER. The end of the gasoline era is coming!

SWIMMING IS FOR EVERYBODY

 Swimming can be practised all around the world. It is very simple and not very difficult as most people are taught to swim when they are young. It doesn’t need much material, just a towel, a swimsuit, goggles, a swimming cap and a pair of flip flops. Apart from that, if you want to develop your muscles more, you can use oars and swimming flippers that are not too expensive.

Swimming is a very healthy sport because it mostly makes the whole body work. It also relaxes. However it is not the best sport; it can be dangerous if you start to swim before you haven’t finished your digestion. Therefore you can get injured if you don’t properly make some movements of the arms or legs, or if your posture is not correct, you can acquire serious problems in your back.

To practice this sport in our country and province, we have several levels of difficulty and also of speed. If you are just starting with it, there are short courses in which you are not told to swim much and that take few hours every week. If you are more advanced, in these short courses there are also levels in which more hours every week are added and the number of meters you have to swim increases. If you think that your level of swimming is higher than this, you can go to the school of swimming in which you pay a fee for four months and you swim one hour everyday of the week, from Monday to Friday. Moreover there is a higher level than this, it is the club of swimming, in which you pay the same as the last one but you swim two hours every day of the week and in which you can compete with the rest of the provinces of Castilla y León and within the rest of the communities in Spain. Actually this is where I swim.

It is a bit hard, but it is worth it because you end with the satisfaction that one day when you compete you can win some medals and also you can get to be the best swimmer of our country. Here in Soria there are a lot of people who swim that are really good and that win a lot of medals and are good people. Swimming here doesn’t mean that you leave your studies, because it is surprising that with the number of hours that we spend swimming, they have really good academic results. Being here means to be good at swimming, be a hard worker, and a good student (or at least trying to be). Here we can find people of all ages, from 11 or 12 years old to people of 18 or 20 years old.

All in all, swimming is great; you can have a really good time without spending a lot of money and you can be healthy. For the ones that haven’t tried it yet, I advise them to try it. It is worth it and they can get a lot of advantages. 

I hope you have liked it. BYE!!

LAKE NATRON: THE LAKE THAT WILL PETRIFY YOU

It is said that there is a lake in Tanzania that petrifies every animal that submerges in its deadly water. Is that true?

If you tape Nick Brandt, Lake Natron in Google, you will be shown an amazing collection of balck-and-white photographs of a decadent grey moor. Probably it willl remind you somehow of a 19th century poem, or even of death. It is grey, dark and quite sinister.The photo is dominated by a prettified animal, probably a bird. Also grey. Spooky, isn’t it? It feels cold: as if a death had arrived there like a deadly breeze.

But if you only type Lake Natron in Google (and you omit the pictures by Brandt) you will see a bright red lake surrounded by yellow hills and a bright blue sky. You will also see flamingos, lots of flamingos. I’m not cheating you. It is just the same lake, the same époque. I will also add that the photos by Brandt are not false, nor retouched. 
Lake Natron is a salt lake located in North Tanzania, In the border with Kenya. It covers between 600 and 100 square kilometers depending on the season It is very near to a volcano: Doinyo Lengai (translated as God’s Mountain). This is a major factor. The volcano releases minerals and compounds to the lake: chlorine, sodium, magnesium and sodium carbonate.They are all very alkaline compounds. This sodium carbonate is very abundant in the lake. Sodium carbonate is a salt that, in reaction with water, creates a very alkaline solution. This salt helps the process of conservation of corpses –in ancient Egypt it was used in the process of mummification. This solution rises the PH of the lake’s water up to 10.5. Taking into account that caustic soda’s PH is 13.5 we can assume that this is an extremely alkaline (and hostile) environment. This alkaline water scalds and ocular damages to undapted animals, but that’s all. No animal is petrified by the lake, although some people argue that it does, especially after watching Brandt’s work. The animals were not killed by the lake, they died accidentally, naturally… And the compounds of the lake petrified (calcified) the corpses.

The environment is extremely alkaline, so Whow can flamingos live in there? Well it also has a scientyfical explanation: The redish color that paints the lake is not a mineral, but organic. An algae called Spirulina (adapted to the alkaline water) releases red pigment that paint the water. this red pigment attract the 2,5 million flamingos that live in the lake. They are well adapted to the environment, and they feed on the Spirulina. As well s they have a great place to brred, safe from predators. To avoid the alkaline water they stand on the mud or salt islets.

The artist also had a trick. He did not find the corpses as they appear in the photos. He found the calcified animals on the shore of the lake but he admitted that he moved the corpses to create an illusion, and I think it was quite effective.

SCHOOL DRAMA!

On the 16th of April, we started the Easter holidays! Well... you could call it holidays but really, with all the studying/homework/preparing for our third and last term, we couldn´t relax.

On the last week of the second term we arrive at class and we are bombarded with homework for the holidays. OK, one teacher gives us something that’s easy, another something that can be done in 30 minutes. We don’t mind. But if you add; the little amount of homework that “that” teacher gives us, plus the little amount of homework that “that” teacher gives us, plus the easy homework that “that” teacher gives us, plus the easy homework that “that” teacher gives us, and so on, IT ISNT A SMALL AMOUNT OF HOMEWORK!! For me, seriously, the worst part is when our teachers say, enjoy your holidays, after giving us the enormous list of homework.

Some of us do our homework at the beginning of the holidays; others of us leave it for the last minute. These problems are ours, but still... I agree totally with homework, because if we didn`t have homework, well, we would forget most of the things we have learnt in school, but...

Perhaps all of the teachers should have a meeting before the holidays to put in common the amount of homework we are going to be sent so that it balances out. 

I talk for every teen when I say this; how do our teachers want us to enjoy our holiday when they give us so much homework?

The importance of music in our life

 Music is an art which improves the cerebral development and furthermore it improves skills such as the reading and the mathematics. It develops intelligence, the brain, hearing and sensorial organs. As this, it improves concentration, coordination, attention, the memory, interaction with people, language, as I have said before, Mathematics. You can also learn about the history of music.

In addition, music makes us to feel emotions and also it controls our mood. Music is like the "soundtrack” of our lives; we have favorite songs which remind us people and also it can remind moments that we want to keep forever.

The musical training for playing an instrument establishes neural connections that also improve other aspects of human communication. That is why children with musical training have better vocabulary and reading skills. It also explains why the musicians are better able at hearing conversations when there is background noise. 

Apart from that, music also has importance in the integration of people in society; it makes people express themselves in a different way because music helps to win autonomy and also makes us to look after ourselves. 

Of course, that music has different uses. The best form is to develop everything, as said before, by playing an instrument and studying how music is formed. Also listening to classic music and learning the basics of music develops some capacities a lot. Because of this, some pregnant mothers listen to classical music and some studies say that pregnant mothers that listen to that type of music have intelligent children.

Our feelings and our way of being is usually represented by the music we listen to. Music provides us calmness and happiness. It helps to clear our head when we have depression or an annoyance. Music is like a pleasure which makes us feel better, not only listening to music, but also dancing and singing. 

The musical preferences of each individual define their personality. Consequently, depending on our mood, we choose a different type of music just to listen to or maybe to dance or sing to. For example, when we are in love with someone, and in some moment we feel that love, we prefer to listen to romantic music. In a party or to celebrate something we look for music which motivates you or funny music. 

Of course, those those types of music can be very different. Romantic music is not the same than jazz, pop, rock or rap. For instance, people who prefer jazz and blues the most are likely to be intelligent, tolerant, liberal, an open to new experiences. The ones who prefer heavy metal are also intelligent, but they are curious, athletic and usually the heads of a social group. The features that prevail in people who prefer funky and hip-hop are extroversion, energy and a very high self-esteem. But this is just an example. 

In conclusion, the importance of studying music at schools is very high because makes children to develop some capacities needed in the day by day.

Flyboard

This summer, when I went on holidays to Peñiscola, I saw a man, over the sea, that was flying. I did not believe what my eyes were seeing. The person could go up because he wore an object that, with the pressure of the water, and the air could go up very high, but he had to have a lot of balance, because he could fall into the water. I didn’t have the opportunity to use it, because it happened on the last days I stayed there for holidays.

When I arrived in Soria, I had a lot of curiosity about this sport. I had never seen it before. This new sport is called Fly board. Nowadays, it has become very famous. With this object, you can fly over 12 meters high, but at first it is a bit difficult because you have to have a lot of balance. Also, it allows you to submerge under water. 

The board has two nozzles to provide balance. The first ones are located under the feet to promise drive, and the other ones are located in the hands, to secure balance as if you were using ski canes. This object is like a board, where one stands on. It has to be connected to a watercraft by a very large tube, because you need another person to control along with you the pressure of the water and the air. This sport needs two people; one on the board and another on the watercraft to help the other with the pressure he wants, giving speed to make the board go higher.

If you want to do this alone, you have the opportunity to do it by another method where you control the pressure you want for the board, but doing it alone is a bit more expensive. If you want to rent it with the help of another person the price is around 100 euros for 20 minutes.

RUGBY IN SPAIN

Rugby es one of the most popular sports in England. England´s team plays in the 6-nations cup, which means that England´s team is in the elite. Meanwhile …. this sport in nearly estingushed in Spain . I am one of those rare Spanish rugby playes. Furthermore, I am a girl.  That means that it is really hard to find other girls to play with. Let's say Rugby is not seen as a very femenine sport, and it is quite impopular. After some years, our team, Ingenieros de Soria, has reached our goal; to createm a femenine team. After all, we have created two teams, one for senior players and another one for girls under age. We are more than twenty girls ready to play our favorite and unpopular sport. Now, the most dificult thing is to find girls and teams to fight with.  We play in the Aragon League of Rugby, but there are only there teams so we can barely play matches.

Although there are barely any teams to play with, we have managed to play some matches. On December  we played against  Fénix in Zaragoza, on their pitch. But last Saturday we played in our  home, in Soria, in “Los Pajaritos” in our pitch. We were ready to win; we had been preparing for that  match for ages.

It was raining. We played in a grass pitch. It was full of mud. It was cold. Freezing cold. We fought an we won.

After all we wan. This twenty girls who prefer studs and rugby balls to heels. These twenty girls that tried to practise a very unpopular sport have won a match. And we will try to make it popular; this, our beatiful, favorite, noble and femenine sport.

-“Good night, my little princess with studs”

And my dreams come …..., as a victory over the Fénix girls. Understanding that Rugby is a worderful sport. Just like English people say.

Keep fit!

Hi bloggers ;)

I´m going to talk about exercise, food, weight… and all those topics we teenagers are obsessed with.

I´m going to start with some tips for having a healthy diet:

As you know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. For having a good breakfast you may mix dairy products (a glass of milk or a yogurt), fruits (or low sugar content juices) and bread (toasts or whole grain bread). You must have a lot of energy for the whole morning.

At 11 o´clock more or less, you should eat a piece of fruit or a small sandwich that will help you to finish the morning.

For lunch, eating three different plates is the best. The first one could be a salad (3 or 4 days per week), legumes(3 or 4 days per week) or pasta (1 or 2 days per week). I recommend that you don't add a lot of fat on the second plate, with a piece of white fish, chicken, beef or (sometimes) pork it is enough. The dessert is the perfect moment for adding another fruit because they are very healthy and they are loaded with vitamins. If you prefer, a youghurt it is also fine.

At mid-afternoon you might have a snack, low calorie content (of course).

When you arrive home at the end of the day for dinner you should eat less than you have eaten for lunch. Salad or veggies and fish will be perfect.

All in all, this healthy diet isn´t so healthy if you don't drink two litres of water each and every day, because water cleans our body outside and inside. With this diet and the low calories content you won´t lose weight all the way around, you will stay healthier than ever and you will avoid all those fat, additives and transgenic products that are making our lives shorter and shorter. If you have a healthy diet you won´t need to lose any weight, no matter what you think of it, and for people that really need to lose it, or for the ones that love sports, here are some excellent apps and advice you will adore.

LIFESUM: It is an amazing FREE app. It controls your weight, the calories you can eat everyday and if you do something wrong a big red notification will punish you. It is amazing because you can introduce the information about the food you eat everyday and it calculates the calories. If it doesn´t find the type of food, you can scan its bar code and the app will recognize it. Isn´t that incredible? The app itself can send you healthy recipes, remember what you have had for breakfast and repeat it daily, etc.

NIKE APPS: Nike has developed five apps for training wherever you are. Nike Running controls you when you go out for running, it records every single place you pass through and how many kilometers you have done. Nike Training Club is another app that contains more than one hundred trainings and exercises. You can decide what to do, to tone up, cardiovascular training… There are plenty of trainings with plenty of exercises inside them and videos that explain every movement.

They are really good and free, which is a good point.

For more information visit the App Store or the Games Store.

If you are very lazy and you don´t know how to play some sports because you prefer to stay at home, I recommend Wii games like Rumba or Just Dance, which are really funny and you would like the music a lot. I also recommend to follow @FITNESSpics on twitter for motivation, interesting tips and information about food like: chocolate that doesn´t make you gain weight but helps you have flat abs.

That is all for today, I hope you like the apps and you decide to play more healthy sports, at least twenty-five minutes everyday. If you have any doubt you can inquire it in the comments and I will answer. Here are some links about exercise and healthy food for you to look at.

If you want to try some exercises these ones are the best for starters and I have added some others that are a little bit more difficult. I have found them on a very interesting website:

http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_eating_diet.htm
http://www.safeandhealthylife.com/health-and-nutrition-tips-how-to-keep-up-your-energy-levels/

Thanks for reading our blog, I wish you like it and don´t forget to share it with your friends.

Bye :)

Gorillas in the Mist

Recently, it was the 82nd anniversary of the birth of Dian Fossey. This reminded me of the film Gorillas in the Mist, which it tells the interesting life of this American anthropologist. 

In the film, she travels to Africa to study the life of the mountain gorillas. During her stay there, she starts to know more about the animals of the jungle. She observes how the few animals that remain are massacred by hunters. She dedicates the rest of her life to protect and take care of them.

She establishes a national park in the mountains. She becomes famous thank to the informative documentaries about gorillas that she records for the National Geographic. She has a really close relationship with Digit, the dominant gorilla from the first group she studied. The death of this gorilla at the hands of poachers was a great sorrow for her.

Finally, Dian Fossey is brutally murdered in her bedroom at the cabin by an unknown attacker. Her life had a tragic ending, but she died fighting for the freedom of the gorillas.

Are we going back in time?

This is something everybody has asked themselves at least once. Sometimes, while we are shopping with people older than us, they tell us that they had the clothes we want to buy when they were young.
 

If we have a look at the photos of the time when our grandparents were young, we can see that the fashionable clothes and accessories of their decade are almost the same as the ones in ours. A clear example is “Ray-Ban Wayfarer” sunglasses. Those glasses were designed in the 60’s. Despite that, they are still being worn.

Due to that, most of the fashion world moves around vintage and retro styles. These two words can be easily confused. To distinguish them we have to consider that vintage and retro don´t mean the same thing. The term vintage refers to something which was designed and manufactured for the first time many years ago, for example in the 60´s. However, the term retro involves the imitation of clothes and styles which were used in the past. 

To make this clear: if you wear the sunglasses that your grandma used to wear when she was young, it is considered that you are wearing vintage sunglasses. Nevertheless, if you buy a new pair of sunglasses similar to the original ones of your grandmother, you would be wearing retro sunglasses.   

All things considered, it would be a good idea to keep the clothes that you use daily, because they might become fashionable again in the future.

Dirt Jumping

Dirt jumping, probably one of the most underrated and least known sports in the world, although, in my opinion, the sport that requires the most hard work, determination and skill than any other. You most likely don't know what it consists of, so let me explain.

First of all, a bike is needed, preferably a mountain bike or bmx. These days there are special dirt jump bikes made specifically for the sport, which are basically a hybrid between a bmx and a mountain bike, even though they are rare and very few shops sell them.

The locations of these trails are usually hard to find or hidden, due to the fact the the people who build them don't want them to be found and receive the tragic effects of vandalism. However, many people can easily find them while having a walk in the forest or exploring the outside. The one thing that dirt jumps need is a LOT of space. In preference, the dirt must be humid and abundant, with barely any stones and rocks. Too many roots can also slow down the process of building some awesome trails!

Most trail sites start off being one or two poorly made small jumps, made by hand by a few teenagers, but gradually built up to being an exquisitely crafted and looked after maze of huge precise connected dirt jumps. Sometimes, you can find lines of up to even 20 jumps.
 

This is a photo of me having fun on the local dirt jumps of Soria (Las Batuecas), next to the train station.

As you can see, the two jumps are closely placed one in front of another so as to create a flow and continuity between them, also to keep up enough speed to clear the next jump. The trees give a great shade for those hot Spanish summers that we are used to. Also, the trees create a much nicer photo!

Here are a couple of quick videos if you're interested:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaaX0tfd-mU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFvx2WMKrIc&list=FLk6rZNadhbrv7Kg9Ho4hmEA&index=12

Hello!

Hello to everybody. This is You'll Never Post Alone, a blog formed by students from the High School Virgen del Espino in Soria (Spain). All of us are between 15 and 16 years old and we would really like to make you part of our world by sharing our interests, hobbies and experiences with you...

We hope you enjoy your stay with us. You are welcome to be one of us!