For this blog post, Mr. Kimbley had assigned us to read an  article called "The Physics of Santa Claus" and rebuttal articles of that article. I really enjoyed "The Physics of Santa Claus"  because it had some humor in it and the author gave really good details supporting his claim. In the article, the author's claim was that Santa Claus is real. He described how flying reindeer exist, how many children receive gifts from Santa, how long it takes for Santa to get to each house and deliver all the gifts AND eat all the snacks left for him, the weight of the gifts and sleigh, and so on. He gave some really good details, and exact (well, almost exact) calculations. It all sounds reasonable, but you never know if it would be really real or not! 
     I'm not really sure what my claim would be for this article. I'm kind of leaning on the yes side, but also a little bit on the no side. The reason for the yes side is because all those reasons that the author gave of that article is reasonable for the reason why we NEVER see Santa Claus. Even if we stay up to wait for him, he is too quick to spot even if he's totally overweight AND he has so many other things to do. And also, the author gave really good details about his idea like how quick Santa arrived to each house, and how quick he delivered the presents, which exactly explains why we never see Santa (except for at the mall.) So, I'm pretty iffy about it. My reason for leaning on the no side is because all those reasons might be  too good to be true. Anybody could come up with those calculations and bust out random numbers, but to actually support it, you would have to see it for your own eyes. That's why I'm kind of on the no side. When the author stated, "The sleigh is moving at 650 miles per. second.." I thought that was kind of ridiculous, but then again, he does have MAGICAL reindeer.  When he also stated that Santa doesn't go to kids that are Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, etc. that totally made me think he was fake because there are many kids who believe in those religions and they still believe in Santa AND they still receive gifts. I know that if I were a little kid, my claim would be that Santa Claus is awesome, and he is totally real. But now that I'm older, I still have second thoughts about it.... 

     The way DNA replicates before dividing is pretty simple. In science class, we had to build a model of DNA's double-helix. During that process, we also learned how the DNA replicates before it divides. So here's how it goes. First, the DNA stays as its usual self. Then the DNA splits right in the middle, and another strand that is complementary to the one that is left is attached to the old one. The new helix is the new copy of the DNA, and the old one is the original. I'm pretty sure that's how DNA replicates before it divides. I don't know to explain it any other way, so that is my description. We also had to write an essay about this blog topic on the day we took the science test. How DNA replicates is pretty simple, so if you want to learn more about it, you could always do extra research. I think that one helix that is taken away is attached to another DNA strand that is looking for a complementary side. 

     There is a lot of things to know about DNA structure. First of all, DNA is made out of nucleotides. Nucleotides contain of deoxyribose sugar, phosphates, and a base. Everything is identical except the bases. There are four bases: adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. They are often represented by the first letter of their name - A, T, G, and C. A and T are always paired up, while G and C are paired together. These are called "base pairs." The structure of DNA is in a spiral form, known as double helix. On both sides of DNA, there are the nucleotides and in the middle are the based pairs held together by H bonds. I actually had the experience to see and build DNA structure in science class. It was very cool because I was able to actually see how it works. I plan on learning more about DNA structure.