Witchcraft of the Middle Ages

People were very superstitious during the Middle Ages. They used useless spells to accomplish things like to regain a lost lover or to get rid of enemies. Can you mach these spells/curses to their solutions???

1) To cure madness

2) To cure aching bones

3) To find out which suspect is a criminal

4) To cure a mad dog

5) To cure a headache

6) To cure an animal's sickness

7) To cure a heartache

8) To make someone fall in love with you

a) Cross garters over their ears and mutter a spell

b) Feed them paper with a charm written on it

c) Jump in a river

d) Release a live bat into their room

e)Scatter rose petals in their path

f) Write their names on pieces of paper and place them one at a time inside the Bible

g) Boil some of their hair in urine and throw in on a fire

h) Tie herbs to their tail or tap them with a magic wand

Answers: 1d, 2c, 3f (note: the Bible will shake when the guilty name is put in), 4b, 5g, 6h, 7a, 8e

Reference: The Wicked History of the World by Terry Deary and Martin Brown

The Nine Essential Amino Acids

Lysine- found in all proteins (wheat, rice, maize, meat, etc)
Histidine- found in animal proteins
Isoleucine-most dietary proteins
Leucine- found in most common proteins
Methionine- is found in all meats
Phenylalanine- found in many foods, especially meat and dairy
Threonine- found in all proteins
Tryptophan- found in protein-rich foods
Valine- found in all proteins

SKIN ERUPTIONS

I'm sure we all agree that skin is nice, but if it's unhealthy skin, It's pretty unpleasant. You can sprout blisters and warts the size of quarters, scratch so much that your skin is red and raw, and get viruses whose symptoms can really irritate your outer layer. But first, know your skin eruption lingo!

MACULE- a flat splotch of color.

PAPULE- a small bump.

PLAQUE- a raised, flat patch of skin.

BULLAE- a large, fluid-filled blister.

And now we know all these big words, lets get to a few derma-dramas.

ECZEMA- your skin gets dry, red, and cracked, and blisters pop up, too.

MOLES- happen when a lot of nevus cells band together. My little sister once had a mole removed becuz the Doctor said it might lead to melanoma.

SUNBURN- is caused by too much sun, as we all know.

And that is what I chose to write about on the topic SKIN ERUPTIONS.

Annalisa’s 10 Rules To Live By

Rule 1: When in the presence of your superiors, respect them, and obey any customs required. If you are someone’s superior, act as you should, with grace and poise.

Rule 2: Be kind to animals, whatever they may be. If they be your own, Care for them greatly and kindly.

Rule 3: If someone is talking to you, do not plug your ears, hum, or remain silent if a question is directed to you, or in any way create the illusion that you are ignoring somebody.

Rule 4: When speaking, say no swears you are not permitted to, and try to keep from criticizing anyone.

Rule 5: In life, it is imperative to maintain a good sense of humor.

Rule 6: Do not use words if it is lost to you what they mean.

Rule 7: If you are lacking in money, use resourcefulness to make and find things you would otherwise buy.

Rule 8: If you are learning something new, do not anger at your tutor out of frustration.

Rule 9: When out of doors, respect the wildlife around you.

Rule 10: Keep your clothes neat, your body washed, and your hair combed, and you will impress all you meet.

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

The Egypt Game

This book made me feel many different things. In chapter one, I was excited because I was starting a new book. Nothing really gripped me in the beginning, but after a few chapters I was enveloped! I felt scared in chapter eight because a girl was murdered. I was afraid because I thought it was going to be one of the Egypt Game members next. I felt shocked in chapter twenty because April (the main character) almost got murdered! There was a better feeling in chapter twenty-one, when the murderer was caught. In chapter twenty-three, the Professor (the dude who owned the land the kids played the Game on) gave the kids keys back to "Egypt". In the beginning of that chapter, I didn't know or have an idea of what was going to happen. I would rate this book three and a half stars for action, suspense, and humor.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder Has written a sequel to this book called The Gypsy Game.

Tuataras

Tuataras are a really cool lizard that I read about in a very interesting science book called Oh, Yuck! by Joy Masoff. She also has another yucky book out about history called Oh, Yikes!. They are very interesting, and not boring or too disgusting, and I learned a lot of cool things. Anywho, the most interesting thing about tuataras is that they have a third eye at the top of their heads that is covered by a flap of skin. It is used by tuataras to sense light, not to see. Here are some more interesting facts about tuataras:
-Female tuataras lay eggs once every four years. The eggs themselves take over a year to hatch.
-Tuataras can live 4 up 2 a hundred years.
-Tuataras are very slow creatures.
-Tuataras are the closest living relatives to dinosaurs.
I hope that you learned a lot about tuataras, and I hope that you will either rent or buy one (or both) of those Joy Masoff books that I mentioned earlier.
On a closing note, I would like to thank this site for the picture: http://nzphoto.tripod.com/animal/tuatara.htm
Bye! If you liked this post, more coming soon (not necessarily about lizards, though)!!!

One Interesting Fact About Spices

My Mom wanted me to work on my narration skills, so she made me read a few paragraphs on the history of spices. I found out a lot of interesting things about spices. Did you know that getting spices was what was really on Christopher Columbus's mind when he set off towards the West?Anyway, one interesting thing about spices. Here it is. Did you know that spices were worth a lot when the Arabs were trading spices? They only were able to until Marco Polo traveled to China and found out where the Arabs got the spices and then the Europeans took over supplying themselves with spices. Well, that was one fact, right? My work is done here. Toodles!

Author of the Century

There is probably no person in the world who is unfamiliar with J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, the first person to become a billionaire from writing books, and winner of many awards, but not a lot of people thought she could be a writer at first. She didn't have a very special childhood to begin with. She was born in Chipping Sodbury, on July 31, 1965, the same birthdate as Harry Potter. Her family moved a lot when she was young. After Chipping Sodbury, her family moved to Yate, and then Winterbourne, and around when she was 9, to Tutshill. J.K. spent the rest of her childhood there. When she grew up, she gradualted from the university of Exeter in 1986, and took several secretarial jobs after becoming a writer. It was 1997 when her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (in British), was published. From then on, J.K. Rowling has been writing and the world has kept reading.

Old post on the new blog

Well hello, everybody!!! You may have visited my other blog, DragonGirl in Training, and that's where I keep all my nonrelated to school posts. But on this blog, this is where I keep all my nonfiction posts. I just wanted to not have everything on this blog clogging up the stuff on my other blog. OK, that's it. Bye now!

Horseshoe Crabs

Horseshoe crabs are really very fascinating creatures, but most people underestimate Horseshoe crabs are really very fascinating creatures, but most people underestimate them. Take, for example, the horseshoe crab’s blood. When not exposed to air, it is a cloudy white. When it is, it turns bluish. It is used to clean medicines and other things by clotting up the bacteria and endotoxins and turning it into a gel. If the clots occur, the medicine is deemed unhealthy. This process is also used on blood donations and anything going in or out of a patient.The horseshoe crabs are caught in shallower water using a clam rake, and in deeper water using a dredge. If any horseshoe crabs are harmed in the process of catching, they are returned to the water immediately.Horseshoe crabs are not crabs, as their name suggests. They actually belong to a group called arthropods, and are more closely related to insects, spiders, scorpions, and ticks than crabs. They live an average of 17-18 years. Their diet consists of marine worms, algae, dead fish, and small clams. They chew by mincing their food up with their legs!Some people call them living fossils, because they have been around since the dinosaurs. Though they have survived so much, horseshoe crabs may not survive to the end of the century. Will we be seeing these beauties forever, or will they become extinct and join their other mates?You can find more information about horseshoe crabs here:

http://www.beach-net.com/horseshoe/Bayhorsecrab.html http://www.amnh.org/sciencebulletins/biobulletin/biobulletin/story788.html

http://www.ocean.udel.edu/horseshoecrab/History/biology.html