Ekos-Usa Blog

Question number one:  What is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light?

Hint: You might have one as a pet.

And the answer is………….

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Halloween is approaching, so I thought it would be appropriate to show a science video relating to spooky holiday.

Did you know…

• No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
• Knowledge is growing so fast that ninety per cent of what we will know in fifty years time, will be discovered in those fifty years.
• It is energy-efficient to turn off a fluorescent light only if it will not be used again within an hour or more. This is because of the high voltage needed to turn it on, and the shortened life this high voltage causes.

Wow, even I was amazed by this set of facts.

If you were crying because you thought there wouldn’t be an update this week, I’m here to save the day with a Bill Nye video all about tears…

There are three types of tears:

1. Basal tears = the normal tears that are used to keep our eyes moist.
2. Reflex tears = the tears that result from our eyes being irritated.
3. Crying tears = the weeping tears that are caused by being hurt, being stressed out, or overly emotional.

Click here to hide your tears.

Let’s test your knowledge with an ongoing trivia game.

Question number one:  What animal does NOT have a brain?

Hint: It lives underwater.

And the answer is………….

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You can’t use your Dragonfly Eyes without knowing a little bit about Flame Skimmers.

According to Yahoo! Kids,

The Flame Skimmer is a familiar dragonfly that can usually be seen patrolling lakeshores and slow rivers during spring and summer. Most of the dragonflies you see near water are males; they are looking for females that are ready to mate and lay eggs. Females are more numerous away from water, where they cruise over lawns and meadows feeding on smaller insects that they catch and eat in mid-air.

So The next time you’re with your friends and you see a dragonfly, you can impress them by calling it by its real name.

Did you know…

• The greatest tide change on earth occurs in the Bay of Fundy. The difference between low tide and high tide can be as great as 54 ft. 6 in. (16.6 meters).
• The highest temperature produced in a laboratory was 920,000,000 F (511,000,000 C) at the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor in Princeton, NJ, USA.
• The most powerful laser in the world, the Nova laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA, USA, generates a pulse of energy equal to 100,000,000,000,000 watts of power for .000000001 second to a target the size of a grain of sand.

The second most powerful laser in the world can be found in these.

In honor of the magnets used in Polarity, I decided to post a new Bill Nye video about magnetism.

Bill Nye is great because he can break things down, but keep everything fairly simple. I’m a bit of a nerd, so I watched the entire video. If you find it rather long, then just skip to these highlights:

2:05 - Bill describes materials that magnets attract.
3:48 - Bill talks about a HUGE magnet.
5:30 - Bill tells us what happens when you cut a magnet in half.

After I found the photos of the people playing Gift Trap, I wanted to see if I could find photos of people playing some of our other board games. Here’s what I came across…

A group of people sitting around a game of Abounding River:

And two young men playing Polarity at what looks like a gaming convention:

Happy Labor Day from the entire staff at Ekos-USA.

It’s a great day to get together with the family and play a little Gift Trap.

Look for more updates coming really soon.