Melaninology
Like chlorophyll and carotenoids, melanin is a natural _________ that is made by and provides color for a living organism.
What is a pigment?
Meteorologists study the _________ by using physics, environmental science, computer modeling, and direct observation.
What is the weather?
Penguins belong to a group of warm-blooded theropod dinosaurs constituting the class Aves, also known as ___________.
What are birds?
This main structural support of a tree transports water
and nutrients between roots and leaves. It consists of several layers:
bark (protection), phloem (transports sugar), cambium (growth
layer), xylem/sapwood (transports water), and heartwood (support).
What is the trunk?
A ________ is a visible mass of condensed water vapor floating in the atmosphere, typically high above the ground.
What is a cloud?
This element that makes up much of the Sun is named after Helios, a sun-god from Ancient Greek mythology.
What is helium?
Melanin's primary function is to protect the body's cells from harmful __________ radiation by absorbing and scattering the Sun's rays.
What is ultraviolet or UV?
The three phases of matter that meteorologists most commonly interact with are _________, _________, and __________.
All birds grow _________ made of the structural protein keratin, the same substance our fingernails and hair are made of.
What are feathers?
These parts of trees act as "factories" that use sunlight and carbon dioxide to
produce food.
What are the leaves?
When a gas loses enough energy (cools) it can __________ and turn into a liquid.
What is condense?
All _____ on this planet relies on the Sun's light and energy.
What is life?
Melanin is synthesized in the epidermis by specialized pigment-producing cells called _______________.
What are "melanocytes"?
Liquids can become gasses if energy is _______ to them.
What is added?
All birds have ________, though some use them for flying and others may use them for swimming or other purposes.
What are wings?
Flowers, fruits, and seeds are the ____________ components of a tree.
What are reproductive?
True or false: A cloud floats because it is more dense than the air around it.
What is false?
The Sun is a huge ball of fusion-fueled explosions held together by its own _________.
What is gravity?
Disruptions in melanin production can lead to conditions such as __________, characterized by little or no pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes.
What is albinism?
This is the average kinetic energy (vibration or movement) of particles.
What is the temperature?
Most birds have hollow or pneumatized bones filled with pockets of _______. This aids in flight by making their skeletons lightweight but very strong. Penguins don't have hollow bones. Their bones are denser to help with diving and swimming.
What is air?
In the process of photosynthesis, leaves take in this gas and release oxygen.
What is carbon dioxide?
True or false: Though a cloud floats, it can have a mass equal to a herd of elephants.
What is true? (Though a cloud can have as much mass as a herd of elephants, a cloud takes up much more volume, spreading out the mass making it far less dense. It would be cool if elephants could float though.)
Of the following regions, this one emits the most visible light: the interior regions, the photosphere, the chromosphere, or the corona.
What is the photosphere?
True or false:
We all have about the same number of melanocytes, but those cells make different amounts of melanin.
What is true?
The planet's reuse of H2O through evaporation, condensation, and precipitation is known as the ________.
What is the "water-cycle"?
True or false: Birds are cold-blooded.
True or false: Most trees have root systems reaching twenty or more feet down.
What is false? The roots of most trees only go three to four feet deep but can reach far greater lengths horizontally.
One way that precipitation can form is by teeny-tiny droplets bonking into each over and over and combining until a droplet large enough and heavy enough to fall forms. The sticking-together property of water that makes this possible is called __________.
What is cohesion?
Of the following regions, this one is the Sun's expansive outer atmosphere which can still be seen during an eclipse: the interior regions, the photosphere, the chromosphere, or the corona.
What is the corona?