Rick Riordan - The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson is going on a field trip with his friend Grover. They are at a museum on a tour with Mr. Brunner. Percy pushed (or used water to pull) a girl into a fountain. Percy's math teacher, Mrs. Dodds, asks Percy to follow her. They go into a Greek and Roman section of the museum that is deserted, and Mrs. Dodds transforms into a shriveled monster with bat wings and leaps at Percy. Mr. Brunner then throws a pen at percy, which he grabs, and it turns into a sword. Percy slices Mrs. Dodd's arm off and she turns to dust. Percy was then alone in the room, left to wonder if what he had seen was real. I believe that this book is odd, over-exaggerated, and easy to read. It is also the perfect book for me to read for the last few weeks of school.

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

Jack believes that religion and science do not conflict as much as many would think. Science, he says, can be proven wrong, whereas spiritualism cannot be proven wrong. On a different note, Horner goes on to say that embryos of all four-legged creatures, also called quadrupeds, are very similar. All have a spine, which can grow into a tail. they all have eyes that can develop differently. Therefore, Jack Horner believes it is possible to achieve reverse evolution. Overall, this book has been very fascinating and has brought up many valid and thought-provoking points. I have enjoyed this book, but hope to read a more exciting and fantastical book for the remainder of the school year.

Pages 200-220(END)

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

The structure of a tail is actually much more complex than the structure of a limb or even that of a wing. This is due to the tail having 2 more major components than the tail, the central nervous system and the notochord. The notochord and central nevous system allow the tail to be used to balance a creature and to allow it more movement. Tails contain vertebrae just like a spine, and vertebrae are derived from somites. To me, the tail allowing creatures to balance is interesting, because without it, a T. Rex would just be a clumsy giant, unable to run as fast and often tripping.

Pages 180-200

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

The digits (fingers and/or toes)of humans are seemingly derived from those of early fish and tetrapods. Though, these creatures most likely could not walk on land, only on the ocean floor and in shallow water. Digits could, in theory, be modified during their initial growth, as evidence shows that this is what happens during evolution. Therefore, (once again theoretically,) it should be possible to modify digits of creatures, giving them the characteristics of their ancestors. In other words, reverse evolution. All of this does (mostly) make sense to me, and seems reasonably fool-proof, though it has not yet been performed.

Pages 160-180

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

Mice and insects are used in scientific experiments because their body systems are so similar to humans. Also, i believe another reason small animals are used for testing is because they will process anything introduced into their body much more quickly, due to faster heart rate and smaller size. Smaller sizes of chemicals would need to be used too, so money and materials can be conserved. Since DNA is so similar in every organism, and is made up of proteins, which can alter external as well as internal physical features, by modifying DNA devolution, or reverse-evolution, is theoretically possible. I believe that it is thought provoking, having DNA similar to a fly's yet being completely different in almost every other way.
Pages 140-160

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

Similarities in the vertebrae, pelvis, hind limb, and pectoral arch show that birds may very likely have descended from dinosaurs. Many fossils have been discovered with a "wishbone" and evidence of feathers, showing a link between dinosaurs and birds (even though these dinosaurs most likely could not fly). The best example of a bird-dinosaur hybrid was found in China, incredibly preserved with it's last meal still in it's stomach, and feathers still intact!

Pages 120-140

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

Molecules can become fossils just as bones can, Peggy Ostrom, a biochemist at Michigan State University. Biochemicals within bones can be extracted and then crystallized. This is called mass spectrometry, and has been used to determine many things, like that horses are exactly the same as they were 42,000 years ago. This process does seem useful, but i believe it is also one-sided and can only tell whether genes of animals now are the same as genes of animals long ago or not.

Pages 100-120
(This entry was to be written on Sunday, but was not)

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

These cells found inside the T. Rex fossil were still flexible, meaning they were not fully fossilized. The red blood cells allow scientists to learn a lot about how the blood of a T. Rex flowed throughout its body. Also, polymerase chain reaction, a process of turning a fragment of a fossil into dust, allows scientists to gather chains of DNA from the dinosaur. This is all very strange, because it makes movies like Jurassic Park seem very possible, with preserved dinosaur DNA and recent advances in cloning.

Pages 80-100

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

At the dig, the scientists are using methods that allow them to determine that one of the T Rex fossils that they found was a female, and pregnant. The processes used to do this were part of the Paleohistology branch of science, or the study of ancient tissue. Similar processes were also used to determine that many dinosaurs are actually warm-blooded. In certain bones of dinosaurs, red blood cells and hemoglobin are still present. I find all of this very interesting, because i did not know that most dinosaurs were warm-blooded, I have never even heard of Paleohistology before, and i never would have thought that red blood cells and hemoglobin could still be present in a bone millions and millions of years old

Pages 60-80

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

Mammals all began as small, mouse-like creatures. But, as time went on, mammals became more and more diverse, from quick, deer-like creatures, to slow great sloths. Many of these mammals were wiped out by hunting more than 13,000 years ago, mostly by the Clovis people. During the year 2000, Jack and a team of other experts began digging at the Hell Creek formation. That year alone, they found five T Rex skeletons. I am now enjoying this book slightly more, as it is actually beginning to describe the digging and fossils.

Pages 40-60

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

Jack Horner begins by describing how the age of a fossil can be determined, through the surrounding soil and with scientific equipment. Jack and other scientists are looking for the ancestor of all dinosaurs. Multiple mass extinctions, where meteors struck near Hell Creek formation (where they are digging) make finding fossils in the area more difficult. The way it can be determined where a meteor hit is by analyzing the soil for high Iridium levels. I believe that, so far, the author of this book is not focusing on "How to Build a Dinosaur" and more on how to find the fossil of a dinosaur. But still, this book is interesting and i will continue to rad it.

page 20 - page 40

Jack Horner - How to Build a Dinosaur

This book is about a process called reverse evolution. This entail experimenting with a creature's embryo to give it traits similar to it's ancestors. Though this has not yet been successfully completed, significant advances have been made in experimenting with chicken embryos. Also, because this process does not involve use of dinosaur DNA, it is an easy process to repeat.To find scientists to help him work on this project, Jack (the author of this book) traveled to Bozeman, a town in Montana just east of the Rockies. Near this town lies Hell Creek Formation, which contains sediment that dates back to the dinosaurs. Jack hopes to find scientists in Bozeman and Jordan, another nearby town, to assist him.

H.P. Lovecraft - Through the Gates of the Silver Key

- 4 men are sitting around a table in a very strange room
- The men are there to talk about Randolph Carter, a man who disappeared into the woods while carrying a strange key from an ancient box in his attic
- Carter used this key to travel back in time and live as a young boy once again, a one of the men named Swami Chandraputra says
- The now young Randolph Carter walked into a very peculiar cave
- Carter then used the silver key to travel to what would appear as an alternate dimension of some sort
- Carter knows that he will have to find the Guide, so that he may become familiar with this land
- Randolph finds the Guide; It is a heavily cloaked figure about half the size of a human
- The Guided is all knowing
- Carter wants to follow the Guide to the Ultimate Gate, a portal to a place far stranger even than Randolph's current surroundings
- The Guides leads Carter to a tables surrounded by other cloaked figures, and the Guide takes out a strange metallic sphere
- This sphere emits a strange, rhythmic noise
- The sphere begins to glow and move, guiding Randolph Carter's path in the abyss of this dimension

Pages 492-412 Necronomicon