Caroline Hulbert    

4.30.19

Bio 10H

Current Event 10

Schwartz, Alex. “Antibiotics Save Lives-but Misusing Them Could Lead to Millions of Deaths.” Popular Science, 29 Apr. 2019, www.popsci.com/antimicrobial-drug-resistance-deaths-2050.

For this current event, I decided to review the article, “Antibiotics Save Lives-but Misusing Them Could Lead to Millions of Deaths,” by Alex Schwartz. The author begins the article by describing something that has become a huge problem in the world, which is the overuse and misuse of antibiotics and antimicrobial medicine. According to the infectious disease unit of the United Nations, this could lead to “devastating infectious disease outbreaks in the coming decades.” The described overuse of antibiotics has led to infectious diseases, like tuberculosis, MRSA, and malaria harder to treat because they are becoming resistant to the drugs commonly used to treat them. Not only does this put healthy people at risk, but people undergoing medical procedures are under threat as well. Some of the suggested solutions to the growing issues were taking more holistic approaches to disease care, having countries put more regulations in place regarding the drugs, as well as doing research to create better versions of them and ending agricultural reliance on them. The article then goes on to talk about the fact that because of genetic mutation, microbes become resistant to drugs over time, which is why its overuse is such a huge problem.

This article is extremely relevant to society, as it discusses an issue that endangers millions of people around the world. Antibiotics have always been thought to save lives and while they do, there are also many people suffering from the misuse of them. The article mentions, “around 700,000 people die from drug-resistant diseases each year—that number could skyrocket to 10 million if countries don’t take action.” Having more coverage about this issue in media will hopefully make people more aware of the harm that the overuse of antibiotics has caused and the immediate need for action.

I think that this article was very well-written. The author was able to describe a complex subject matter in a way that made it easy for readers to comprehend, while still being sophisticated and using advanced vocabulary. Including details and statistics about the issue at hand helped establish its severity and make a connection with readers. However, Schwartz jumps right into discussing the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial medicine at the beginning of the article. It would have helped make more of an impact on readers if he had included some background information about the topic first or describing the good aspects of antibiotics. It also would have helped if he had provided more details about where the antibiotic issue is most prevalent in the world. Despite these areas of improvement, I thought that Schwartz’s article was very detailed and touched on a serious issue in the world that many people are unaware of.

Will Grant

04/22/19

Core Bio

Current Event 9

“Gene Therapy Restores Immunity in Infants with Rare Immunodeficiency Disease.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 17 Apr. 2019, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190417171019.htm.

After reading, “Gene Therapy Restores Immunity in Infants with Rare Immunodeficiency Disease,” I learned about a trial that changed science. This trial involved 8 infants that had inherited disorders that cause immune cells too not fight disease as well. The trial performed gene therapy on these infants and the results were incredible. They found that the gene therapy corrected the immunodeficiency in the infants. After the therapy infants immune systems started growing and working normal in just two years. The immune system growth in infants is trivial as this is a time where they are weakest. That's why this clinic trial is a major step for immunodeficiency.

This will have a major effect on society as it had on the 8 infants. With proper training doctors everywhere will be able to help infants with immunodeficiencies much better than what was previously possible. Infants are subject to many disease as the immune system is not fully grown yet. This means immunodeficiency could mean death if not treated for infants. Not only is this gene therapy saving time, it's also saving lives.

This article was a very good read. One of the strengths I saw with it, was its way of explaining the effect on society that the trials had. Sometimes these articles say things that sound important but don’t mean anything but this article did not do that. One of the weaknesses though was some of the thing that were said could have been explained a little better. I know these articles might not be written for a high schooler, but next time if they could go more into depth about certain genes and immune diseases that were not explained

Current Event 9

Ava Chiang

April 22, 2019

Biology Odd / C

Current Event 9

Schwartz, Alex. “Archaeologists Unearth More Evidence That When a Civilization Drinks Together, It Stays Together.” Popular Science, 22 Apr. 2019, www.popsci.com/beer-ancient-civilization-wari-empire-sustainability#page-4.

The article I read for current event 9 is called “Archaeologists unearth more evidence that when a civilization drinks together, it stays together” by Alex Schwartz. This article explored the importance of alcoholic beverages and how most ancient civilizations have their own type of alcohol that’s often used as currency, offering for gods, and ceremonial offerings. For example; there’s rice wine from China and barley beer from Iran. Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations would also use wine and beer as offerings to deities and ancient Egyptians used beer to pay workers that built the pyramids. In fact, mortars found in Israel in 2018 suggested that human ancestors from 13,000 years ago brewed beer; this was before cultivation of crops for bread. The researchers for the study featured in this article looked at the “Wari empire, an ancient Peruvian civilization that predated the Inca” with sophisticated “advances in agriculture, art, architecture, and warfare.” The empire collapsed before European settlers arrived in South America but they had important cultural impact on the development of the Inca Empire. Ryan Williams, an archaeologist at the Field Museum in Chicago stated that the purpose of this study was to try to “to understand how Wari civilization sustained itself for so long” and how they united “ otherwise disparate groups of people throughout their territory” through beer. The Wari type of beer is called chicha and is still made today, the best preserved brewery to date is at Cerro Baúl and had survived for four centuries. Its created by fermenting corn or pepper berries (a type of fruit that survives droughts). The availability of the material and the ease at which it can be produced makes drinking chicha a unifying experience throughout the Wari empire despite the wide variety of environment. Therefore, its less likely that getting drunk off alcohol together was what made different communities get along, it's the shared cultural concept that mattered.

This article is very relevant to society today because even in modern times, the shared experience of consuming alcohol unites people regardless of their backgrounds. It’s a common drink in many social setting, both formal and informal, and it’s often used to celebrate happy times. Not to mention that certain types of alcohol have very high cultural and/or monetary values. This shows that alcoholic beverages is a shared cultural concept that can be found through history and in multiple cultures.

This article was a very interesting read and I enjoyed it very much. It incorporated examples from many cultures (ex: Greek, Israel, and China) but there was also a more detailed research that the article focused on. However, despite all this I find that there can still be room for improvement. For example, the subtopics of this article was a bit scattered. It went from the context of the Wari empire, to examples of alcohol throughout history, to how to brew Wari chicha. I wished it was a bit more organized but otherwise the grammars great and the information learned was very interesting.

Ben Davis

April 21, 2019

Core Biology

Current Event 9

Giaimo, Cara. “Watch a Flower That Seems to Remember When Pollinators Will Come Calling.”

The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Apr. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/science/plants-moving-memory.html.

For this week’s current event I read Cara Giaimo’s article “Watch a Flower That Seems to Remember When Pollinators Will Come Calling.” In her article, Giamo educates the reader about a plant known as the Nasa Poissonian found in the Peruvian Andes. Giamo states, “These plants can gymnastically wave around their stamens — the organs they use for fertilization — to maximize the distribution of their pollen.” She goes on to talk about a study that found that individual plants can adjust the timing of these movements based on their prior dealings with pollinators. The study adds to a previous interest of scientists known as plant memory. Next, Giamo goes back to talking about the history of the Nasa Poissonian. Nasa Poissonian belongs to a subfamily of plants called Loasoideae. They're known for their polychrome blooms, as well as for the “really painful” stinging hairs on their stems.” Loasoideae plants differ from other plants in the regard that most plants curl their leaves or catapult their seeds. However, many species of Loasaceae move their stamens: long, skinny filaments that are capped with pollen. As a result of flowers like the Nasa Poissonian can have fresh pollen for pollinators faster than other plants. Giamo ends her article talking about an experiment that figured out that Nasa Poissonian can anticipate when pollinators would visit. The Nasa  shows scientists how “exquisitely tuned plants are to their environment.”

This article as important implications on our society. So many people are allergic to pollen and plants like the Nasa Poissonian increase the amount in the air. This is thus making peoples spring much more difficult but better for the environment. Pollen allergies cause sore throats, itchy eyes, and runny noses. Another connection this article has to our society is that it shows how smart plants truly are. This article showcased the ability of plants to have memories. Maybe one-day plants will become even more advanced and do even more than they do for human life.

Overall I thought Giamo wrote a very strong article. She did a very good job including quotes and studies from various plant experts. For example, she quoted scientists from Botanical Gardens and wrote about an experiment done by Dr. Henning. Other things she did well was include background on the plant. This was important because it is easier to read about something when you are more familiar with the topic. Giamo talked about the origin of the Nasa Poissonian specifically where it can be found and the plant family it belongs to. I think Giamo could have done a stronger job explaining large vocabulary words that the common reader would not be familiar with. She used words like stamens and could have let the reader know more about pollen. This could be improved upon by asking someone not very educated on the topic to read her article and ask her questions.

Current Event 8

Megan Barker 4/7/19

Bio 10H C Odd Current Event 8

Association for Psychological Science. "Screen time -- even before bed -- has little impact on

teen well-being." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 5 April 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190405080922.htm>.

In the article “Screen time -- even before bed -- has little impact on teen well-being,” the author explains a new study which explains that technology usage, even before bed, has almost no impact on adolescents, contrary to popular belief. The article began with quotes from Amy Orben, a Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and College Lecturer at the Queen's College, University of Oxford, who worked on the study. These quotes described the findings of the study, and how the findings go against what people once thought. The author then goes on to describe how the study worked. They describe three sections of the study; how researchers found how long adolescents spent on screens, how they then examined their psychological functioning, depression symptoms, self-esteem, and mood, and how “the researchers publicly documented the analyses they would run before they analyzed the data” (ScienceDaily). The article then described how it was important to be completely transparent with the data of such a controversial study. They discuss how the UK government’s White Paper on Online Harms legislation compares with the data found in the study. Then, the author describes how data was used from Ireland, the UK, and the US, and how much data was used from each place.

This article was very relevant to society today. Teens spend so much of their time on screens, whether in school, doing homework, or relaxing. The fact that there is probably no correlation between screen time and well-being is probably relieving to most adolescents. Additionally, many adults blame the increasing rates of teen anxiety and depression, but this study suggests that there are other explanations.

There are many good aspects to this article, although there could be some improvements made to it, as well. For example, the article is thorough. It explains the study, how it was conducted, who was surveyed, and its impacts and importance. However, the article was also repetitive. For example, it stated that teens from Ireland, the UK, and the US were surveyed in two different paragraphs. It also could have been structured better; it was somewhat illogical to write about the participators of the study after writing about the study, what it found, and its importance. If the author were to move the last paragraph, which explained where the data came from, and put it before the paragraph which explained how the data was analyzed, both issues would be fixed. There would be no need to repeat the sentence about where the teens that provided data for the study lived, and the article would be structured logically. The article “Screen time -- even before bed -- has little impact on teen well-being”, although there were a few slight issues in its structure and repetition, a great article, as it was relevant to society and very thorough.

Chris Aherne
Current Event 8
Mr. Ippolito
4-7-19

Chodosh, Sara. “A Girl with Measles Exposed 200 People to the Virus in a Single ER.” Popular Science, 5 Apr. 2019, www.popsci.com/hospital-measles-exposure-vaccination.

For current event number 8, I decided to take a look at a recent incident involving an unvaccinated girl and her affect on those around her.  In the article "a Girl with Measles Exposed 200 People to the Virus in a Single ER" by Sarah Chodosh, Sarah explains how 200 people got affected by one person in an ER. A young woman was brought into a hospital on March 17th with respiratory symptoms normal enough not to raise any red flags. However, she was later discovered to be carrying measles, a highly infectious disease that requires complete isolation in order to be contained. The young woman was complete open to all patients in the ER, which would later be seen as a grave mistake. The girl was also unvaccinated, a very controversial issue which was recently brought to light again after many people speculated that vaccinations gave people autism. This belief is very widespread and is affected people globally. However, unlike most other cases, the hospital didn't know she was unvaccinated, which would later spread measles to over 200 people. 

This article is very relevant to a global debate that is occurring at this very moment about vaccinations. As stated before, many people believe that vaccinating children will give them autism. Although this claim has no statistical evidence to back it up many people still believe it. This belief has only brought about harm to the general population, as seen in this case. Not vaccinating children puts other kids they come into contact with in danger, along with themselves. Measles, a disease that was eradicated once vaccination became accessible, is now popping up again all over the world, because of a lack of vaccinations.

Sarah did an amazing job bringing this subject matter into light once more, and showing people just how dangerous this can be. Although she did many things right, there is one major critique I have. That is that her article was very vague. There were many places where it felt as if she was making everything up because of how little detail there was on this instance. I feel her article would have been far stronger and more compelling if she had added more substance to it.