Debunking Anti-Vaxxers and Rebutting Their Claims

Gavin Mercado and Grace Baer

Vaccinations are a heated topic that has been building fire in recent times. While many follow the guidelines doctors have recommended for years in order to reduce the spread of deadly diseases, some are skeptical or even outright confrontational regarding the science. The truth is, many of these anti-vaxxers are misinformed and are putting their beliefs before doctors and scientists who have studied diseases and successfully used vaccines for hundreds of years.

Sorry, Sharon, crystals are not going to cure your child’s measles, and no, crystals are not going to cure your child’s flu. Now let’s get to some scientific evidence.

Many anti-vaxxers claim that vaccinations are unsafe because they contain a substance called Mercury or (Hg). A vaccine used to contain 25 micrograms of mercury. This may seem like a lot, however, a normal serving of fish contains 40 micrograms.

Global Warming Is NOT A Fraud!

Gavin Mercado

There is something that the world has been steaming about in controversy recently. That’s right, I´m talking about global warming.

Now, President Trump has been quoted multiple times on saying ¨global warming is a fraud.¨ I would like to ask, well, how? Trump claims that scientists are lying about this to gain political interest. However, I would like to ask, how is this fake?:

This is a prime example of indirect animal cruelty. The people who have sponsored Trump’s for presidency support this. They support deaths of countless numbers of animals living at the poles.

Did You Know?: Human Edition

Ashley Wolf and Gwyndalynn Kent

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Did You Know? This week’s article is about . . . Humans!

• • The main reason for our noses is to smell things, and we can smell a lot of them. In fact, the nose can remember up to 50,000 scents.
  • The femur is as hard as concrete, sometimes harder. It takes over 4,000 newtons to break.
  • You have no sense of smell when you are truly sleeping.
  • Like fingerprints, each tongue is different. So could they track criminals down with their tongues?
  • The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting.
  • The smallest bones in the human body are the ones in the ears. It is only about 1/26 of an inch long.
  • There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in an adult human body.
  • It would take 8 pounds of pressure to break your jawbone. Those Jawbreakers don’t stand a chance against your jaws of steel.
  • Bananas and humans share about half of the same DNA. Wait, does that mean humans are half banana or bananas are half human?
  • The average human body contains 0.2 milligrams of gold. Wow, humans are worth a lot.
  • In order to live, you have to have blood in your body. One way we get this is through the heart. The heart pumps 2000 gallons of blood each day.
  • When awake, the human brain produces enough electricity to power a small lightbulb. So theoretically, if we found a way to actually hook our brains up to a small machine, we could power it.

Find the Flavor in Food, Not Vapor

Juneau Resnick

Last week on April 27th, during Friday’s adjusted schedule, Dr. Victor DeNoble came and talked to grades six through eight about the dangers of smoking and vaping. He helped us realize how these addictions affect our bodies and what can happen if we keep up the behavior.

Sure, we’ve all been warned about smoking and vaping. Our parents and teachers all tell us not to do it, but up until now, we didn’t know why. DeNoble was able to explain what happens to the body when the brain gets addicted to a certain substance like nicotine. Now, if given the opportunity, we will know what will happen.

DBL Decision?!?

Kevin Luu

DBL (Design-Based Learning), a sixth-grade elective here at Stacey, is learning about ecosystems, landforms, and history. As a team, the students have debated about their landforms and what their priorities were.  They used percentages to help them with their decision. The students created landforms for science, history, and math. 

This project furthers their learning about ecosystems in science. Their goal is to learn how land and ecosystems affect civilization.

The three teachers involved are Ms. Winemiller, Mrs. Kleen, and Ms. Faulkner. Mrs. Winemiller teaches the students how the ecosystem is affected by land. Mrs. Kleen teaches the students how to use ratios and area to design the land, and Ms. Faulkner helps by teaching how the land affects trade in history.

Did You Know?: Animals

Ashley Wolf

Welcome to my brand new series! For the next couple weeks, each week there will be a new story with a new category of facts. Enjoy!

This week you will be getting fascinating facts about . . . . Animals! So let’s get started.

• Like 10% of the world, All polar bears are left-handed, unlike most other animals who can be both.
• A snail can sleep for three years. I wish I could do that, their dreams must be like full movies.
• A scorpion can hold its breath for 6 days. They aren’t built for swimming, but some varieties can stay underwater for up to 48 hours.
• Cows have best friends and get stressed when they are separated. If they get in a fight, how do they MOOOO-ve on? I’m funny.

Tech Trek

Avalyn Walton

Students at Stacey Middle School value different things and excel in different things. Some students value the arts more than anything, whereas some value athleticism. However, many students have made math and science their number one priority and will take any opportunity to advance in those subjects.

Luckily for a chosen few, a science camp called Tech Trek just might give an opportunity to advance their learning. Of course, it isn’t open for all kids at Stacey Middle School. For starters, it’s only open to seventh graders. Second, it’s a girls-only camp. Whether that’s because the students will have to share dorms with one another or to aid the female empowerment movement is unknown, but one thing is for certain, there will be no boys at this camp.

The Future Belongs to Robots

Juneau Resnick

Stacey’s robotics classes are having a lot of fun building the technology of the future. They’ve even built robotic crocodiles! Yes, that seems random, but that’s what they wanted to create. With this class being offered at Stacey, we could make robots to better the world we live in.

There was an article in the news that Raju Institute of Technology built a robot for people with arthritis and strokes. It was specifically made to help these patients read books without the struggle.

Dif-Eye-ing Eye Colors – Poll

Averi Farren

Here at Stacey Middle School, we have 935 students. If you multiply that by two you would get roughly 1,870 pairs of eyes here at Stacey. Everyone hears this quote all the time, “No one’s the same, everyone is unique.” but when it comes to eyes is that true? Are each pair of eyes unique in their own way?

Yes, it is true. Eyes are very unique. No two eyes have exactly the same iris patterns. Look in the mirror at both of your eyes. Just like fingerprints, identical twins don’t share the same iris swirls and patterns, so each of their irises is also unique. The irises in both of these eyes are unique from the others.

The color in your eye is the result of variations in the amount of melanin, a pigment found in the front part of the iris of the eye.

The lack of this pigment results in blue eyes, some pigment gives green and lots of pigment gives brown eyes. So light brown eyes just have a bit less melanin than darker brown eyes.

Common Flu, More Like Deadly Viruses

Kevin Luu

The flu also called influenza, has been a common disease since the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic, the 1957 “Asian flu”, and in 1968 “Hong Kong flu”. All of these were tragic, especially the Spanish flu. The European Scientific Working group of Influenza states that “Of all pandemics, the one that began in 1918 is generally regarded as the most deadly disease event in human history.

At least 40 million and likely closer to 100 million deaths worldwide have been attributed to the virus, most of them occurring in the 16-week period between September and December 1918.”

So, many were dying because of the flu between the 1900’s and the 1970’s, but what are the symptoms of the flu now and how do people treat it?