current event 12

Amir Yaghoobi

12/28/18

Bio

Current event #8

University of Colorado at Boulder. "Chemical synthesis breakthrough holds promise for future antibiotics." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 December 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181220080006.htm>.

For current even # 12 I took an interest in a article that revolved around experiments overseen by the University of Colorado. Their study, conducted by graduate students Aaron Hinds and Wyatt Powell as well as CU Boulder postdoctoral researcher Siddhartha Akasapu, discovered a new methodology in fighting Antibiotic-resistant infections. In order to combat these life threatening illnesses claiming the lives of 23,000 U.S. citizens yearly, Akasapu and his team had to invent a new process that synthesizes these antibiotics. To achieve this, they studied previously identified thiopeptides, an antibiotic compound that occurs naturally, and discovered a means of mass production. The team was then able to invent a catalyst to speed up the reaction causing these naturally occurring thiopeptides. As a result of this discovery, two new antibiotics were created micrococcin P1 and thiocillin I. Although these new Antibiotics are still in their early testing phases, there is a significant likelihood that they will save the lives of many people in the years to come.

The rise of Antibiotic resistant infections has resulted in a worldwide demand for a new kind of Antibiotic. With these infections affecting over 2 million people yearly, it is clear that something had to be done to prevent further fatalities. That is where Akasapu and his team comes in, their new antibiotics are not only effective, but are environmentally sound as well. The manufacturing of this new green antibiotic only results in one waste product, water. In conclusion, this new Antibiotic will not only save lives, it will save our environment as well.

Overall, this article was well written and covered the majority of the necessary information. However, I was left feeling that I missed a rather significant portion of the details. Such information would include, the dates of these new discoveries, and how long the experiments lasted for. With the inclusion of those details, my appreciation for the discoveries would have been a lot greater than it currently is. Despite my grievances with this article, I can say with full confidence that the information covered within it was of the utmost importance in our current predicament. As a result, I would suggest any of you that are interested to read the article, but also keep in mind that there is more information that should have been elaborated upon.

Human Pathology/History of Science Projects

Students were given the choice of preparing a PowerPoint Presentation, a Web Site presentation,
an original 3-D model, a comic strip, a storyboard, or almost anything they could think of to do. 

They could choose to examine how a particular disease affects one of the human organ systems. You should describe how the disease stops the normal function of the system. Explain the cause of the disease, is it genetic or environmental. And finally describe how it is treated now and how future scientific advances may make treatment more efficient. or result in a possible cure. 

They could also opt to choose a scientist or group of scientists that made an important discovery and describe how they developed their hypothesis and proved their concept. You should explain how their approach differed from those of other workers at the time.

 C. Golimbu's Presentation examined Tourette's Syndrome

 S. Ozaltin's Presentation examined AIDS

O. Conniff's Presentation examined Arteriosclerosis

 B. Mandanas' Presentation examined Huntington's Chorea

 B. Samios' Podcast examined Alzheimer's Syndrome

G. McCormick's Presentation examined Diabetes

E. Wardell's Presentation examined Glaucoma

E. Conway's Presentation examined Epilepsy

E. Poulos' Presentaion examined Gigantism

A. Doukas' Presentation examined Heart Disease

K. Haggerty's Presentation examined Hypertension

I. Bouvard's Presentation examined Lactose Intolerance

J. Wagner's Presentation examined Vision Loss

K. Formato's Presentation examined Hearing Loss

M. Brinster's Presentation examined Multiple Sclerosis 

I. Beit's Presentation examined Parkinson's Disease

W. Murray's Presentation examined Morbid Obesity

A. Yaghoobi's Presentation examined Lupus

 

     Elaina Poulos                                                                                                               12/16/18
     Biology Per. 3                                                                                                Current Event Review

     Temming, Maria. “A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup.” Science News, 11 Dec. 
2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/desalination-saltwater-fresh-water-sunlight?tgt=nr.

          The article that I have read for my current event review is titled " A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup" by Maria Temming. This article revolves around a new sun-powered invention that can turn saltwater into freshwater. The author explains to the readers how the invention works. She writes " The trick boils down to preventing a device's components from touching the saltwater. Instead, a lid of light-absorbing material rests above a partially filled basin of water, absorbing sunlight and radiating that energy to the liquid below." She continues to explain that the water will proceed to evaporate to create pure vapor which can be condensed into freshwater. After this, Tremming tells his readers that this new device marks an improvement in inventions like this (sun-powered desalination devices). She describes how this device is more advanced and better because unlike the old devices where sunshine-absorbing materials floated on top of the water, in this device there is a separation between the light-absorbing lid and the water's surface. This contributes to keeping the lid clean and it allows it to generate vapor tens degrees hotter than the water's boiling point. The lid consists of three main components, which Maria explains as "a top layer made of metal-ceramic composite that absorbs sunshine, a sheet of carbon foam and a bottom layer of aluminum. Heat spreads from the sunlight-absorbing layer to the aluminum, from which thermal energy radiates to the water below. When the water temperature hits 100 degrees Celsius, vapor is produced..." She continues further explains the process in depth. Temming included a quote from a Chinese materials scientist, Jia Zhu from Nanjing University in China. Jia Zhu said that the idea of a device that is able to produce superheated steam and kill germs and prevent gunk buildup is "a very innovative idea".  After that, the author gives us an example of an experiment that was conducted using the new desalination device. She wrote that under a lamp that mimics sunlight the invention was able to evaporate 100 grams of saltwater without any salt getting on the underside of the lid. In October researchers used a curved mirror to direct sunlight onto the light-absorbing layer of the device to produce a steam hotter than 146 Celsius. Maria Temming concludes her article by mentioning the affect something like this device can have on society. In addition, she includes from two engineers explaining why this device can be such a great use for humans.

         This article had many connections to society. The author made sure that we would leave the article with knowing some reasons as to why this device could benefit society. Temming writes "That evaporates the water to create pure vapor, which can be condensed into freshwater to help meet the demands of a world where billions of people lack safe drinking water." This line demonstrates a contribution to society because it is saying that this device could help save the lives of billions, yes billions. This is such an important connection because if this device gets finalized one day it can really be a game-changer. In addition, the author interviewed Thomas Cooper who is a mechanical engineer at York University in Toronto. He said "When you access these temperatures, you can use steam for things like sterilization, for cooking, for clearing, for industrial processes." This shows how versatile the things to do with the water are. This ultimately proves the relevance of the device because it is showing us how useful and hopeful it is. Temming also goes on to how this sun-powered technology could also provide an ecofriendly alternative to reverse osmosis. She quoted Qiaoqiang Gan who is an engineer at Buffalo University. What he had to say was "For resource-limited areas, remote areas or people who live on small islands, this [new device] might be a very good option for them to address their freshwater needs."  Lastly, this article consisted of many connections to society. This device can help bring freshwater water to the people who need it. Clean freshwater everyday is like a necessity. We are so lucky to live in a time where this is being discovered and could hopefully be put out to the market so that more underprivileged people will get a chance to receive clean water.

          The author, Maria Temming wrote a great and very informative article. Maria clearly has strength in being detailed and adding a good amount of detail. She didn't include too much that it would eventually get boring, nor did she include too little. Another strength of hers was adding quotes from professionals. I believe that gives the article a sense of professionalism along with credit. By including accredited individuals in the report it gave the report a greater sense of legitimacy as well. Also another strength of Maria Temming's is that her article was right to the point, but it had many details. A weakness of the author is that she didn't include a proper conclusion. I didn't like that because I feel like she should had included at least a small one of two to three sentences summarizing the main points of the article. If I were her next time I would write a conclusion to wrap everything up at the end instead of ending my article abruptly. In addition, I wished the author would have described the state the invention was in and in how many months would it be released out in the public, if it's going to be released anyway. I believe she should have done that because I was wondering throughout the article when is this ground-breaking drive going to be released, but she didn't go into that. All and all I truly believe Maria Temming wrote an extremely nice and informative article about a new desalination device.

 


                      

Bjorn Samios 12/16/18

Bio Current Event 11

Gramling, Carolyn. “New Research May Upend What We Know about How Tornadoes Form.” Science News, 14 Dec. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/new-research-may-upend-what-we-know-about-how-tornadoes-form?tgt=nr.

For my review, I read the article “New Research May Upend What We Know about How Tornadoes Form,” by Carolyn Gramling. The classic idea of a tornado formation in most people’s minds, but new research could disprove this. The formation of tornadoes has been mostly scientifically unclear because they are formed so fast, usually in under a minute which makes it very difficult to study. Also, it is very difficult to pin down where a tornado is forming in time to study it accurately. But utilizing a “Doppler radar mounted at the back of a truck,” (Gramling, 2018), a team of scientists were finally able to collect data on the formation of four tornadoes. They found that the wind rotation actually began first at lower altitudes, 20 meters above the ground. 60 seconds later the radar recorded rotation at about 3.5 kilometers, proving that tornadoes actually form from the bottom up.

Understanding the formation of dangerous tornadoes is very important for science, as Americas tornadoes are progressively worsening. Twisters today stay on the ground for longer than those of a few decades ago did. If scientists can learn how they are formed, there will be great advances in tornado detection, and save more lives. A study proved that the total gigawatt output of tornadoes in the USA is increasing every year by 5.5%, meaning that these storms are only going to get worse. More moisture in the air is created by global warming, allowing tornadoes to gain more power and create more destruction.

This article was extremely well written, keeping the reader hooked on the subject matter of the article. It had great strengths as well as its weaknesses, and pointing out weaknesses of anyone’s work is more effective to their writing than complements. Gramling did a great job explaining how this will affect us and why we should care. She also was good at explaining why tornadoes are getting worse and how they actually form. The first noticeable flaw was the lack of defined terms. She used terms such as “supercell,” and “tornadogenesis,” without explaining to the reader what they meant. It would have been much easier to understand if she had simply added a sentence or two to explain to the average reader what certain scientific words mean.

Riley Morgan Bio Mr. Ipp

Current event 9 review 11/6/18

Ancient space crystals may prove the sun threw heated tantrums as a tot

You can learn a lot from 4.5-billion-year-old rocks.

By Neel V. Patel July 31, 2018

https://www.popsci.com/space-crystal-meteorite-early-sun

The Popular Science article “ Ancient space crystals may prove the sun threw heated tantrums as a tot” written by Neel Vatel claims that Many newborn and toddler stars are not all that different from  newborn and toddler humans. He says that they are both “prone to bouts of cranky energy” and often have loud and violent temper tantrums. Reel says that stars also vomit, and cry just like human toddlers. Scientists wonder if the sun ever acted or does act in this way, but there has been little evidence to prove it.  The article’s main focus is about how “blue crystals from space, seems to suggest the sun emitted a much higher flux of cosmic rays in its early history than we once thought.” These blue crystals are called Hibonite and have made its way down to the earth the same way that meteorites do. Hibonite is the first material found from the solar system that is created by cooling gas from the sun. Levke Kööp, a cosmochemistry researcher at the University of Chicago says that “We think hibonites like those in Murchison formed close to the young sun, because that is where temperatures were high enough to form such minerals,” The research team does not have an exact date on how old the Hibonites are but they are inferring that they are about 4.5 billion years old. The research team uses highly sensitive mass spectrometer which is located at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. They melt the grains of hibonite using a laser. The spectrometer measured and confirmed that there were helium The research team studied the hibonite crystals using a highly sensitive mass spectrometer at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, melting the grains of hibonite down with a laser while the spectrometer measured and confirmed the presence of helium and neon concentrations. and neon concentrations found. The team noticed that helium and neon were not present in younger crystals. This means that something changed throughout the years. Although scientists are not sure why, they are eager to find out because of the fact that “This sort of insight might augur later into a better understanding of how the roles star evolution plays in the creation of elements and materials that later on assemble into planets and other celestial bodies”

a better understanding of how the roles star evolution plays in the creation of elements and materials that later on assemble into planets and other celestial bodies. Andrew Davis who is co author on the study said that it is hard to measure the helium and neon traces and conduct a real analysis on hubonite because of how small they are. He says scientists are working on a new instrument to study the isotopic compositions of the hibonite grains. They are doing this to get a better understanding of “how different sources of dust were mixed in the early solar nebula.

This article has a huge impact on society. These Hibonite crystals, if properly studied could mean huge things our knowledge on the solar system. Our whole society is fascinated with the solar system and almost everyone is eager to learn more about it. It is possible that these discoveries could lead to more discoveries about the sun and the stars too. Our solar system, especially the sun does not just affect our society but it affects our whole world and that is why this has such a big impact.

I loved how this article was not extremely lengthy. It said all of the points it needed to say in a few paragraphs. Although short it has a lot of detail and was jam packed with information.  Although it did have a lot of information I wished the article talked more about the relevance of these crystals other than the big impact of the sun. I also wished there was some background information given about how scientists discovered these crystals. Lastly, in the first sentence of the article, Reel writes how “Many newborn and toddler stars are not all that different from newborn and toddler humans—prone to bouts of cranky energy, loud and violent tempers”. I did not find the relevance in this statement and do not believe it benefited the article in any way. To improve this article I would include a little bit more background information, along with state the exact relevance and how the crystals will be used. I would also make sure that every sentence that is written helps to backup your information and has relevance to your topic.

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Alex Doukas
Mr. Ippolito
Core Biology
November 28, 2018

Hayden, Sally. “Nearly 80 Rescued Migrants Forced off Cargo Ship in Libya.” CNN, Cable News Network, 20 Nov. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/11/20/africa/libyan-migrants-forced-off-ship-intl/index.html.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/20/africa/libyan-migrants-forced-off-ship-intl/index.html

For my current event I read the article "Nearly 30 Rescued Migrants Forced off Cargo Ship in Libya." In this article Sally Hayden describes how almost 80 migrants have been forced off a cargo ship after it docked at a Libya port following an eleven-day standoff. This standoff began on November 10, when dozens of migrants and refugees, who tried to reach Italy on a rubber boat, were rescued and returned to Libya by the Nivin, a cargo ship with a Panamanian flag. Many refused to leave the ship after it docked at the Libyan port city of Misrata. Some of them told CNN they would rather die than go back to Libya where they said they had been tortured and simply want to be taken to a safe country. The migrants remain hopeful that they will not have to return to the inhuman treatment they experienced in Libya, yet it in unsure what the future will hold. This is an important topic to be studying and reviewing because several migrants and refugees were tortured and hurt and that action has impacted them in various ways.
This article has an affect on society because it creates the need for new jobs and places to live for the migrants. Libya also creates harsh living circumstances for these people making it an unsafe area to live. Because of these certain living conditions, the people compared living there to death, concluding that it was very difficult to withstand. One boy described what it was like briefly and what he saw and how he coped. He added that his brother had died in his own arms. If this issue continues to occur, many people with certainly die or come very close to it.
One thing in particular that I thought was very strong in this article was that the author used real life victims that were some of the only people that went through this tragic incident. I think that it is very important to use quotes or information from a first hand witness or victim because it it the truth and actual emotions that they felt while going through this trauma. The author also got into great depth about the current situation and how it has unfolded which gives insight to the reader about whats currently happening. I think that something the author could have done better was expand even more on the background information. Specifically about how this happened and what will be the next steps for these people. A way to improve upon that is ending the article with a closing sentence which ties everything together because i felt as if she just ended on how these people were feeling and not about the overall topic. But I think overall the author did an exceptional job. 

“This Heart Patch Studded with Tiny Needles May Help Heart Attack Survivors Recover“

Kathryn Haggerty
Mr.Ippolito
Core Biology
November 28, 2018
Current Event Review 9

Temming, Maria. “This Heart Patch Studded with Tiny Needles May Help Heart Attack Survivors Recover.” Science News, 28 Nov. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/patch-studded-tiny-needles-may-help-heart-attack-survivors-recover.

    For this week's current event, I read Maria Temmings article called “This Heart Patch Studded with Tiny Needles May Help Heart Attack Survivors Recover.” This article focused mainly on a new invention of a patch that could help heart attack survivors clean up the damaged tissue after having a heart attack. Each bandage is made out of a thin film that provides healthy molecules to heal the damaged tissue around the heart after a heart attack. The entire sheet is filled with tiny needles that deliver vaccines to the heart without having to stick anything on the skin. This in turn aids in minimizing scarring and preserving the overall health of the heart when pumping blood to the rest of the body. In addition, the patch is coated in a gel that contains cardiac stromal cells. These cells aid in the growth of the muscle cells surrounding the heart. According to Ke Chang, a biological engineer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the patch cells are considered to be little pharmacies surrounding the heart. In order to test his claim, he attached these patches on rats and pigs. “Three weeks after researchers induced rats to have heart attacks, the animals with microneedle patches had roughly 40 percent healthy tissue in the regions of their hearts affected by the heart attack, whereas as untreated rats had only about 10 percent.” This remarkable point just points to how successful these technological discoveries could be in the near future. Even on pigs, the result of wearing the patch was overwhelming compared to a pig that did not have one. “For the pigs, the researchers tracked heart health by measuring how much blood was pumped from the animal’s left ventricle to the rest of its body with each heartbeat. Four hours after a heart attack, each heartbeat released about 56 to 57 percent of all the blood in the left ventricle, in both treated and untreated pigs. But 48 hours after the attack, the results began to diverge: Hearts treated with microneedle patches pumped about 60 percent of the left ventricle volume, while untreated hearts pumped about 50 percent.” This just points to how efficient this patch really is.

    Overall, I feel that Maria Temming did a great job in informarming the population of the remarkable discoveries scientists are making all around the world. Especially with a condition that affects most of our population, she provided hope to people out there that your heart can indeed heal after experiencing a heart attack. In other words, this bandage that exudes proteins and other molecules that promote muscle cell growth could one day prevent the recurrence of heart attacks on the human heart. In addition, Temming used knowledge from respected scientists in order to prove her claim. This not only strengthens her knowledge on the topic but sets her up for later success on future scientists experiments.

I enjoyed reading this article because it got straight to the point and the facts needed to understand the overall topic right in front of you. Instead of trying to make the article longer, she summed up her points in an orderly fashion and got right to the point. However, I believe that Temming could’ve b spent more time explaining the overall causes of the heart attack and maybe even the results of placing the patch on others animals. This in turn would point to how the patch would affect a human heart. In addition, Temming could’ve done more research and gotten the opinions from more scientists on what they thought of the patch as a whole. In the end, I believe that Temming did a great job in discovering something that greatly affects everyone who suffers from heart attacks. I hope to read more of her articles in the future.

“Hemp Fields Offer a Late-Season Pollen Source for Stressed Bees.”

Olivia Conniff

Core Bio 10H

11/18/18

Current Events #8

Milius, Susan. “Hemp Fields Offer a Late-Season Pollen Source for Stressed Bees.” Science News, 19 Nov. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/cannabis-fields-offer-late-season-pollen-source-stressed-bees.

For Current Event #8, I chose to read “Hemp Fields Offer a Late-Season Pollen Source for Stressed Bees” by Susan Milius. Hemp is a “no-high” variety of cannabis that is grown specifically for industrial use. They do not offer nutrients such as nectar to insects and therefore rely solely on the wind in order to spread pollen. However, recently a large number of bees gathered in experimental hemp plots that were being studied by Colton O’Brien of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. He discovered that bees in 23 out of the 66 genera known to live in Colorado ended up in O’Brien’s trap. O’Brien and his adviser, Arathi Seshadri, think that this is the first survey of bees in cannabis fields. “You walk through fields and you hear buzzing everywhere,” O’Brien said. The reason that so many bees flocked to the hemp was because of a minimal food supply. While hemp does not provide many nutrients it serves as a rare food source for the hungry bees, that have really been struggling lately with their health, and are threatened by extinction. O’Brien urged crop scientists now developing the pest-fighting strategies for outdoor hemp to be mindful of bee health.

This article is extremely successful in informing the reader about the dangers that bees are facing in regards to not having enough pollen to sustain themselves and their young. The number of bee colonies per hectare has declined by 90 percent since 1962. The bees cannot keep pace with the winter die-off rates, habitat loss, and mass food consumption. Conservationists worry about the fates of the many, less-studied wild bees.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article because it was very easy to understand, using simple, but not boring, words and phrasing. Milius explained very well the main idea of the article as well as stayed focused on what the reader should take away from it. I was able to clearly understand what the article was about and why it was written despite the fact that I had little to no knowledge on the subject. The article was very well done, however, I do have a few suggestions as for how to improve it. First, I found that it was a bit repetitive. Because of this, it tended to be confusing at times, and harder to comprehend. A way to fix this is to make sure everything that you are writing is essential to the review, if it is not it can be removed, to help keep the article from being too repetitive and confusing. Also, I think that if a few quotes more from the article were included in the article the reader would be able to better understand it, and see it from a different perspective.

The Milky Way Feasted on a Smaller Galaxy 10 Billion Years ago

Isabella Bouvard

Core Biology 10H|Block C-Odd/Mr. Ippolito

11/7/18

Current Events #7

Grossman, Lisa. “The Milky Way Feasted on a Smaller Galaxy 10 Billion Years Ago.” Science News, Magazine of the Society for Science & the Public, 1 Nov. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/milky-way-feasted-smaller-galaxy-10-billion-years-ago.

In this article, Lisa Grossman describes the research that was recently conducted as to the Milky Way’s inhabitants. It was concluded that the Milky way, during its younger days, devoured a smaller galaxy. Two research centers were used in order to conduct this study, one in space and one on Earth. Amina Helmi of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands analyzed the speeds and positions of tens of thousands of stars in the Milky Way within about 33,000 light-years of the sun, using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope. This is a space observatory of the European Space Agency designed for astrometry. Based on this data, it was calculated that a group of about 30,000 stars seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, instead of rotating around the galactic center with the sun and the rest of the stars in the Milky Way. This was continued at the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, or APOGEE, which was conducted in an astronomical observatory in New Mexico. It used the spectrum of light that stars emit to infer their chemistry and ages. The stars that had been previously measured by the Gaia telescope were further inspected, and it was observed that the backward-moving stars had fewer heavy elements than stars like the sun. “It was just so clean. You immediately knew these stars really formed elsewhere.” Helmi notes. The final conclusion of the research was that this collision occurred ten billion years ago and explains why the Milky Way is currently split into different components. The galaxy was later given the name of Gaia-Enceladus, after a Greek Myth describing a giant buried under a large mountain in Italy.

Lisa Grossman provides very useful insight into the galaxy that our earth inhabits. The study conducted serves as a foundation of new knowledge in terms of the Milky Way. There is so much that surrounds our Earth that we have yet to discover, and this advancement broadens our spectrum of how we understand the universe. This might cause humanity to invest more into space exploration, as we now know that our galaxy contains so much more than we originally intended. While we have only recently discovered that these two galaxies once merged, it gives ordinary people much more of an idea based upon the possibilities of our universe and reasons as to why we should continue to explore it. This also might give us insight as to additional galaxies that are elsewhere in the universe. I think that it is important that we have the ability to be aware of our surroundings, not just speaking in terms of the environment but the galaxy that surrounds us.  

In general, I think the author did a very good job of providing the right amount of information to get the point across to the reader. Grossman provided multiple quotes from the experiment itself that makes it less difficult and very clear for the reader to understand. Her writing is very sophisticated, as this topic is not an easy one to explain while making the article very interesting. However, I feel as if there are a few areas in which Grossman can improve upon. When reading about the Gaia space telescope and the Apache Point astronomical observatory, I was confused as to what each of them meant while she did not provide direct background information. In order to obtain the correct definition of each of these, I had to do further research. I feel like if this information was included, it would make it easier for the reader to understand. Although Grossman generally did a good job of explaining certain terms, both of these were crucial to the experiment and it would really enhance her writing if such background information was included. Also, the general organization of the article was not as refined, and sometimes when mentioning a new topic the author seemed to discuss another topic in the next paragraph about something discussed prior in the article. This could be fixed simply by switching the order of some of this information or making it more concise. Overall, this article was extremely interesting to review and I hope to see where this new research takes route in further studies.  

Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?

Mcneil, Donald G. “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Nov. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/health/dogs-malaria-mosquitos.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront.

For Current Event #7, I read the article “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?” written by Donald G. Mcneil. In this article, the author talks about how a small pilot study showed that dogs could detect socks worn by children infected by malaria parasites. Later in the article, the author explains how dogs were able to find  bladder cancer in urine samples, lung cancer in breath samples and ovarian cancer in blood samples, and how a dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human. And near the end of the article, the author talks about how the trial was only a feasibility study, and how the study actually did to find out that dogs can detect malaria. But the dogs can only detect malaria 70% of the time, instead of being accurate all the time.

This article is relevant because malaria has become a big problem in today’s society, because it kills a lot of innocent children around the world. But now that dogs apparently can detect this disease, they could be used to detect it in children, or they can be used to prevent it from spreading in a part of the world where this disease does not exist. Dogs could also be used to help find a reliable cure to this disease, and could be even used to learn more information on how the disease spreads and works.

I think this article was well written because the author talked a lot about the experiment, and how the experiment worked. Furthermore, I think the author clearly explained why this discovery was important, but I do wish she had included more examples on how this discovery could be used. Also, I think the author could have used simpler terms and language, because I had trouble understanding what the author was trying to say. Overall though, I think this article was well-written.