Stem Cells

The stem cells in the worm are quit amazing. Once one of their body part have been cut off, they can regenerate into two. Now that's amazing! Not too long ago I have heard some people speak of scientists trying to grow stem cells into human beings so that us humans would be able to spontaneously regenerating body parts we have lost. The regeneration happens quite rapidly, they would have half their body cut off on monday and they would have returned back to normal by Friday. However, with every strengths, there will be a weakness, so the weakness of the worms are that if they eat too much they will explode into many pieces, they can't regenerate then because they are already in so many pieces. So that's a mistake that our team made while doing our lab experiment

NAT 2.0

While using NAT 2.0, I have learned that my diet is not as good as it could be. By using NAT 2.0 I was able to find the amount of nutrients that i have been eating and putting into my body, it calculates the amount of calories, iron, vitamins, and etc.  What i have noticed through my week of eating is that my diet is very unbalanced, one day i have way too much calories and another day i don't have quite enough. So now i am trying to have a healthier diet and eat more vegetable.

Pandemic II

In this fun game, I learned about how a virus can spread and kill humans. The 3 main ways a virus can spread is through Air Travel, Sea Travel, and Animals. When a virus, or Bacterial travels, it spread and infect more and more people. A virus can develop over time as it get us to the environment, Symptoms may include things such as Fever, sneezing, coughing, Heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, and etc. While a virus like this spread through out the world, the humans are trying to create a vaccine to vaccinate against the virus. If a vaccine can be created in time before humanity gets wiped out, then its Game over

How Fermentation is a cooking method

Fermentation is an important part of life on earth. Without it, we can't do a lot of the things we want to do. A side from being useful in our daily lives, fermentation can be use for cooking as well. The two types of fermentation, lactic fermentation and alcoholic fermentation, can be used to make bread, root bear, and the popular korean vegetable Kimchi. For example our alliance group, we decided to try root beer for our fermentation. Root beer is consider as an alcoholic fermentation, over a period of time, the root beer will change into a delicious popular drink due to alcoholic fermentation

Cup Cake Baking

     When we tested out this recipe, we all though it was pretty easy. We mix, then pour, then bake, but only when we knew how much ingredient to use. If we didn't have the ingredient list, we could've had too much baking soda which will result in too much air pocket inside the cake. We could've also put too much or too less sugar. One problem we did have was that we had limited frosting which resulted in very little amount of frosting on the cakes. Overall, I'll say that this recipe is a success.
     Without the help of steps and instruction, I think we could've done fine because most of us have baked cup cakes before and we know the overall steps to making cupcakes.

Cup Cakes recipe

This is the Recipe we tested out

Cupcake Recipe:
-2 1/4 cups all purpose flour (532.3ml)
-1 1/3 cups sugar (315.5ml)
-3 tsp baking powder (14.79ml)
-1/2 tsp salt (2.464ml)
-1/2 cup shortening (118.3ml)
-1 tsp vanilla (4.929ml)
-2 large eggs (4.929ml)
Instruction:
Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit (176.667 C) . Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
Step 2: Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add shortening, milk, vanilla. Beat for 1 minute on medium speed. Scrape side of bowl with spatula.
Step 3: Add eggs to the mixture. Beat for 1 minute on medium speed. Scape bowl again. Beat on high speed for 1 minute 30 seconds until well mixed.
Step 4: Spoon cupcake batter into paper liners until 1/2 or 2/3 full.
Step 5: Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Step 6: Cool 5 minutes in pan then remove and place on wire racks to cool completely.
Step 7: Once cupcakes are completely cooled, frost with your favorite frosting recipe or decorate as you desire.
Step 8: ENJOY YOUR CUPCAKES!!!

Char Siu recipe

CHAR SIU

1/2 teaspoon 5 spice powder (2.5 gram)

2 tablespoons maltose or honey (30 grams)

2 tablespoons Shaoxing cooking wine (30 grams)

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce (15 grams)

1 tablespoon thai chili sauce (15 grams)

1 tablespoon Chinese dark soy sauce (15 grams)

1 tablespoon kiwi, pureed (15 grams)

2 teaspoons oyster sauce (10 grams)

2 cloves garlic, grated (around 35 grams of Garlic)

1.Mix the ingredients for the marinade together in a Ziploc bag. The maltose is a little tough to incorporate but it’s okay if there are some lumps as these will eventually dissolve, just make sure there are no big clumps.

2.If your pork belly has skin, use a sharp knife to remove it. Add the pork belly to the marinade and push out as much air as possible so the meat is completely surrounded by marinade. Let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 days, flipping the bag over every to ensure it’s evenly marinated.

3.To roast your char siu, preheat the oven to 275 degrees F and move the rack to the upper middle position. Set an elevated wire rack on a rimmed baking sheet and lay the marinated pork belly on the rack, saving the marinade for later. Put the pan in the oven and let it roast for 1 hour or until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F. Remove the pan from the oven, then move the oven rack to the top position and turn the heat up to “broil”.

4.Baste the pork with the reserved marinade, then broil it until dark and glossy with the edges just slightly charred. Flip the meat over and baste again, allowing the second side to color and char as well.

5.Slice your finished char siu and serve with rice or noodles.

Link: http://norecipes.com/blog/chinese-barbecued-pork-char-siu/

“Life is like a plate of Char Siu”

     My name is Bryan Kwong and I am a biology student in Ms. Malonek's class. I am currently a 9th grader at Alhambra High school. I enjoy photography, but mostly like landscape photography. I also like drawing, I won my first award as second place in 2009. I quite like science even though science was the reason why i didn't get straight A in eighth grade. I think my favorite part of science is anything that has to do with space.