05.07

The article I decided to read was about glow worms. Glow worms’ name practically describes them. These worms live almost everywhere in the world, but their main locations are in caves. These slimy creatures are wrapped in larvae until they reach about 25 mm. they also have little bioluminescent or light at their bottoms that make caves look like the night sky twinkling with stars. These insects are very beautiful when seen in a dark cave, but people especially other insects should not be deceived by the glow worms’ beauty.  Glow worms look like the most harmless creatures until they want to eat. The worms stay on the tops of caves and make long sticky strings of  mucus that reach up to two feet long and hang from the caves like beautiful ice sicles, and there’s not a couple of these strings, there are hundreds of them in caves. Once the glow worm finishes making these mucus strings, their lights are used to lure other flying insects into the mucus traps. Once trapped, the worms pull up their meal and have a feast. When I read this I didn’t quite understand what the writer was talking about, so to get more information I looked up other information on the worms and I looked up a video. I must say that the video really helped me out in visualizing this creature’s action and I was stunned to see such beautiful insects be so graciously vicious! I think the author’s intention on writing this article was to inform readers and it was great to see the author use organization patterns such as, classification and cause and effect.

04.08

The article I decided to read was about the “killer cone snail” or the Conus snail. The Conus is a large predatory sea snail and known for its powerful venom. These creatures are typically found in warm and tropical seas and oceans worldwide but are adaptable to different climates. Eventhough the Conus snail has a beautiful spiral shell and covered with radiant colors, it is very deadly. These snails have such powerful venom that it can kill a human instantly. Cone snails use a hypodermic-like modified tooth and a venom gland to attack and paralyze their prey in an instant. Then they slowly reel their meal back into their mouths and settle into the sea floor. While reading this, I knew this was going to be an interesting thing to see, so like always, I found a video to see the creature in action. I was so fascinated by this and kept looking up more and more videos of the snail! When I read the article of the Conus snail, I knew from the beginning of my reading that the author wanted to inform their readers about these wonderful creatures. And I also recognized the use of the writers’ classification organization.

02.07

For my reading material I decided to read an article on the rough-skinned newt. The rough-skinned newt or, (Taricha granulosa), is an amphibian normally found in the Northern Americas and known for its strong poison. The newt has a rough, bumpy back that produces toxic poison when begin attacked or eaten. But in the rough-skinned newt’s defense, when they see a predator coming, they tilt their heads back and curl up their tails showing their bright colored under-bellies and giving their predators a warning that they are not to be messed with. I found a video of the rough-skinned newt and it was one of the most amazing things I ever seen! There was the newt minding its business, and then a frog slurped the newt up, not knowing he just committed suicide. The toxin binds reversibly to sodium channels in nerve cells and interferes with the normal flow of sodium ions in and out of the cell. This has the effect of inducing paralysis and death. Thus the frog was paralyzed to his death and the newt was able to crawl out of the frogs’ mouth in freedom. If I were able to create notes on this article, it would be in Outline style. Making outlines has always been less difficult for me to do and it’s easier to write in short hand.

03.07

I chose to read an online article about the amphibian, Surinam sea toad. This toad is best known for its remarkable reproductive habits. These sea toads are flat leaf-like creatures, and are found in South America. Amazingly the toads do not have a tongue or any teeth and are about eight inches long, when fully developed. Unlike the majority of toads, the males of this species don't attract mates with croaks and other sounds often associated with these aquatic animals. Instead they produce a sharp clicking sound by snapping a bone called the hyoid bone in their throat. Once the female is attracted, her eggs get embedded into her skin and forming pockets making the momma toad’s back appear to be a brown honeycomb. Once the babies are finished being developed, they push through the holes of their mother’s skin and are ready to start their little toad lives. My first reaction to this article was, “wow that sound so gross, but cool”. So I decided to look up a video of this creature and the video was very interesting, it was even better to see it in action! I thought that the author of this article wanted their readers to be informed on the information given and it was great to see organization patterns such as: classification and a little of cause and effect and compare and contrast. I’m glad I read this article, not only did I learn something, but I was also interested and intrigued by the reading selection.

:)

My results for, “What Kind of Reader Are You?” were that my first favorite book genre was comedy and my second was fiction. I totally agree with my results because they greatly matched my style of reading and they also corresponded with my personality. I'm more of a funny, fairy tale type of person and my results proved this!

The last thing I read was an email from the University of South Florida. The college just wanted to thank me for visiting with them on their college and housing tour. They also stated that they hoped I had great insight on their housing halls and they told me how I can contact them by email if I had any questions. They also asked me to complete a quick survey to get feedback on what will help out with their tour prsentations. I apreciated them emailing me being that they were the only school that thanked me for touring their college out of all of the schools that I visited. Now I'm definately looking forward to applying to this school!