Edwards v. Aguillard was a 1987 United States Supreme Court case that said that creationism was not science. The Supreme Court said that it was religion, and could not be taught in American schools, because the United States Constitution (the set of rules that all American government must follow) does not allow the government to support one religion more than other religions, and so schools run by the government cannot teach religion as being true. This rule is known as the Establishment Clause.
Frýdlant
Frýdlant (-Czech, German: "Friedland") is a town in the Czech Republic. About 7,600 people live there. It is located in the north of the historical region Bohemia.
Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al.
Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. is the full name of a 2005 American trial. It is also called the Dover trial, because it happened in Dover, Pennsylvania. It said that intelligent design was not science, and could not be taught as science in schools.
Intelligent design is the idea that the universe is not simple enough to be made by nature. Instead, people who believe in intelligent design think that a smarter force must have made everything, or at least important parts of it.
Evolution is the commonly accepted scientific theory that explains how all of the different kinds of life developed from a simple beginning. Intelligent design is another explanation saying that life was developed by a smarter being. A school district in Dover, Pennsylvania wanted to tell the students about intelligent design. They wanted teachers to tell their students about intelligent design at the same time they taught evolution. They were using a text book from the Foundation for Thought and Ethics called "Of Pandas and People" written by Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon. This book says it presents the scientific evidence for intelligent design and why it makes more sense than evolution. Tammy Kitzmiller and ten other parents did not want their children being taught intelligent design. They complained to the government, and a trial was held.
There was an earlier trial called "Edwards v. Aguillard". It was about teaching creationism in schools. Creationism is the belief that God (or something else) created the universe, like it says in the Bible or other religious books.
The United States Constitution is the set of rules that all of the government in the United States must follow. It does not allow the government to support one religion more than any other religion. Schools run by the government (public schools) cannot teach one type of religion as being true. In "Edwards v. Aguillard", the United States Supreme Court said that creationism was not science. It said it was religious, because it tried to explain things using stories from the Bible. The Supreme Court said that creationism could not be taught in public schools. But some people said intelligent design was not creationism.
During the trial, experts showed that intelligent design was an old argument for religion and not science. They looked at the authors' notes for the book, "Of Pandas and People", that the school was using. These notes included things that had been changed when the book was being prepared for printing. It had been changed from being about creationism to being about intelligent design. The authors did this by changing the words "created" to "designed" and "creationists" to "intelligent design proponents". In one version, the word "creationists" was even changed to "cdesign proponentsists" by mistake. The judge found this interesting. These changes were made just after Edwards v. Aguillard said you could not teach creationism in schools. The judge said this showed that intelligent design was creationism.
In one part of the trial, they spoke to Michael Behe. Behe was one of the people that helped create intelligent design. He said nobody could say how evolution made the immune system, the thing in your body that protects you from diseases. He said that some smarter force had to have made it. Behe was shown 58 articles, nine books, and lots of other things scientists wrote to show how the immune system could have been made by evolution. He said none of them was "good enough". The judge did not think this was true.
After the trial, the judge said that intelligent design was creationism, not science. Creationism had already been shown to be religious. The government is not allowed to support one religion more than any other religion. Therefore, schools can not teach intelligent design, as that would be saying one type of religion was true.
Psychometrics
Psychometrics is a science that tries to measure educational and psychological levels of people and groups of people. Areas that are studied in people include intelligence, skills, and personality traits. The science is mainly a part of the science of psychology.
Consolevania
Consolevania is an internet television program that is about video games. It also has funny stories, although not all of these are about games. It is made by Rab Florence and Ryan Mcleod in Glasgow, Scotland. "Consolevania" must be downloaded from the internet rather than watching it on a television set. "Consolevania" is named after a video game called "Castlevania" on the Super Nitendo video game console.
Rab and Ryan, also made a normal television show for BBC Scotland, called "videoGaiden". It has less swearing in it.
Some of the funny characters in "Consolevania" are:
"Consolevania" has a good reputation because the presenters care about video games and they sometimes makes fun of certain people who make video games. People also like the funny stories and swearing.
Drag (physics)
In fluid dynamics, drag (sometimes called resistance) is a force which tends to slow the movement of an object through a liquid or gas.
As a moving object pushes the liquid or gas out of its way, the fluid pushes back on the object. This drag force is always opposite to the object's motion, and unlike friction between solid surfaces, the drag force increases as the object moves faster.
Air resistance, also known as drag, is a force that is caused by air, the force acts in the opposite direction to an object moving through the air. It is where air particles hit the front of the object slowing it down. The more surface area, the more air particles hit it and the greater the resistance.
Things are often shaped to make less drag. For example, a truck with a flat front will experience high air resistance while a sports car with a streamlined shape will experience lower air resistance, allowing the car to go faster. This is why airplanes and other fast machines are streamlined, and the same is true of fish. A snowflake falls more slowly than does a drop of water of the same weight.
Drag can affect the quickest falling speed (the terminal velocity) of an object. The higher the drag, the slower the object falls.
Manatee
Manatees are large, fully-aquatic marine mammals of the order Sirenia. They are sometimes known as sea cows. The manatees form the genus Trichechus. There are three manatee species.
The name comes from the Spanish "manatí", which itself comes from a Carib word meaning "breast".
Christopher Columbus, who thought mermaids were real, went to the waters around Haiti, and wrote in his logbook that he had seen three mermaids. He said that they were not as beautiful as everybody said they were. Nowadays, people believe Christopher Columbus had actually seen three manatees. It is possible he saw them kissing one another, which is something they do when the meet each other in the water.