“Stem Cell Miracle? New Therapies May Cure Chronic Conditions like Alzheimer's”

          Recently a 26 year old unidentified patient has been offered the opportunity to partake in the first wave of patients to be treated for macular degeneration, a disease that destroys eye sight, by use of stem cells. Doctors have begun testing this controversial new treatment, which uses stem cells from human embryos and develop them into a specific cell that can be used to replace damaged cells. Stem cells can have been tested on people with macular degeneration, spinal cord injuries and scientist hope to test stem cells on treating diabetics, replacing drugs or surgery and curing Alzheimer’s patients. However there are unknown and possible risks with stem cells such as a person’s immune system rejecting the foreign cell. Scientist are planning to combat this problem by developing stem cells from the patient’s own skin. Although scientist are optimistic, they are not expecting the first wave of volunteers to fully see or walk again, but they hope to improve and learn more about the uses of stem cells.

          Stem cell research has the potential to cure many of humanities diseases and injuries of today. By replicating the more than 200 tissues in the human body scientist could replace damaged cells or provide the body with cells that it has been deprived of in order to combat a disease. Although stem cells seem to be the future cure to our medical problems, they could also be dangerous. When stem cells are injected into the body, they grow and if it gets out of control the stem cells could become cancerous. If stem cell research does succeed in the future, it could replace surgeries and drugs. And stem cells would bring an end to many medical problems such as diabetes, Alzheimers, macular degeneration and spinal injuries.

          I thought this article could have elaborated more on how stem cells are made and the possible dangers of stem cell. Also the title of this article talks about a cure for Alzheimer’s, however the article focuses on a patient with macular degeneration.


Park, Alice. “Stem Cell Miracle? New Therapies May Cure Chronic Conditions like Alzheimer's.” Time Magazine.(June 25 2011) October 10, 2011.

The New Science of the Teenage Brain

This article presents the new and surprising science of the teenage brain. National Geographic magazine documented a group of teenagers last fall in Austin, Texas. As they told their stories in pictures, the article talked about the new emerging science behind the development of the teenage brain.

The whole concept behind the development of the brain is a very long description. The brain’s axons gradually become more insulated with a fatty substance called myelin, which boosts the transmissions up to a hundred times. While this is happening, the little chemical junctures that the axoms pass notes around, called synapses, wither away from little use; forming the brain’s cortex- the outer layer of the grey matter where we do our most complicated thinking. While this layer becomes thinner, it becomes more efficient as well.

This process is called maturation, and it was once thought to be finished by the time a child finished elementary school. But now, it is being seen by a study started in 1990 that this isn’t the case. As we mature, it gets difficult to get the cogs of the developing brain to mesh with the more mature- resulting in a struggle to balance impulse, desire, goals, self-interest, rules, and ethics.

Teenagers are 45 percent more likely to take risks more than adults; and 25 percents of teens are more likely to feel a rush of the thrill in taking these risks. As Lawerence Steinburg, a developmental psychologist, states, “teenagers are more likely to rule with impulse, not thought.” Teens have always been ridiculed for making stupid or dumb decisions, and I thought this article portrayed the new science very well. Now, it has been proved that if we didn’t mature at the pace we did, we would end up dumber.

-National Geographic, October 2011

Citation

Dobbs, David “Beautiful Brains” National Geographic, October 2011 36-59

Salty Water and Gas Sucked Into Earth's Interior Helps Unravel Planetary Evolution

            The article has presented many new insights into planet Earth’s evolution.  Lead author Dr Mark Kendrick from the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences hypothesized that, “Inert gases trapped inside Earth's interior provide important clues into the processes responsible for the birth of our planet and the subsequent evolution of its oceans and atmosphere.” (Science Daily Dr. Kendrick and a team of researchers underwent an experiment, in which they collected serpentinite rocks from mountain belts in Italy and Spain. They found out that that the serpentinite rocks trap a large amount of seawater in their crystal structure and can be transported to great depths in the Earth’s mantle by subduction. Scientists understand the process of subduction as a process in which atmospheric gases are mixed into the Earth’s mantle, from such things as meteorites.

              This finding is important because the study has indicated that the gases throughout Earth may not actually be from Earth. This study disproves the theory that gases must escape and cannot be stored in the Earth’s mantle, but gases can become trapped. The significance of this study has far reaching implications for future studies. Scientists can now experiment on these trapped gases and can try to discover the gases true origins, which can thus provide us with more information about our planet’s evolution of the oceans and the atmosphere.

            From this article I have learned that our gases on Earth may not have come from Earth, but may have been transported here from space and got trapped in the mantle. This subduction process allows scientists to study the trapped gases to figure out when and where they came from. Before reading this article, I assumed that all gases are from Earth, but this article has broadened my prospective on Earths evolution.  I think that we, the people of the planet Earth, are one step closer into finding the origins of our planet, the universe, as well as help understand how we as a people have come to be where we are in the universe.

Bibliography

University of Melbourne. "Salty water and gas sucked into Earth's interior helps unravel planetary evolution." ScienceDaily, 26 Sep. 2011. Web. 27 Sep. 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110926095335.htm

Posted for A. Falcon

Australian Aborigine Hair Tells a Story of Human Migration

          This article was a synopsis of how scientists made a new discovery in the dating of Australian aborigines. A lock of hair collected from a British Scientist a century ago has been analyzed and is now suggesting that Aborigines migrated to Australia 50,000 years ago. The leader of the group who cracked the genetic code was Eske Willerslev. He is a highly regarded Scientist when it come to DNA.  Genetic dates are based on a mixture of statistics and best guesses, but the split times calculated by the Danish team are compatible with the more reliable archaeological dates, which record the earliest known human presence in Australia at 44,000 years ago. The Aborigines’ ancestors could have arrived several thousand years before this date.  There are many objections to this recent discovery. Primitive tools have been discovered and they have been dated back only about 6,000 years ago. These tools suggest that when they were used, it was the at the beginning of a civilization, but that wouldn't make sense because recent research shows that the Aborigines' migrated here around 44,000 years ago.  The dingo originated on the Asian mainland and became part of the Polynesian domestic menagerie along with the pig, the chicken and the rat. This ensemble had reached New Zealand by A.D. 1250. How the dingo arrived in Australia is an “enigma,” Dr. Savolainen writes, because none of the other elements of Polynesian culture are found there. The Dingos are said to have arrived from Polyensian Islands but what is strange is that the dogs were at that time Domesticated and only traveled with their master. So how did the Dingos end up there? Also, when did Aborigines actually migrate to Australia?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/science/23aborigines.html?_r=1&ref=science

  posted for W. Duncan

Women More Likely Than Men to See Nuance When Making Decisions

This article suggests that men and women view the world differently. New research suggests gender plays a role in categorical decisions because men tend to organize the world into distinct categories whereas women see things as more conditional and in shades of gray. At the University of Warwick, psychologist had 50 men and women judge where certain object was to fit in certain categories. The researchers reported that, “Men were more likely to see an object as fully belonging or not belonging to a category, while women more often judged that objects only partially belonged. The more intriguing finding, though, was that men and women were equally confident about their decisions. This means the gender difference was not due to men simply being more certain or women more uncertain about their judgments. Instead, it suggests men and women perceive the world differently.” These categorical judgments can have an influence on the types of professions people pursue. Which is partly the reason for why many professions are heavily male dominated. Research finds that men engage in more abstract thinking about many topics (using categories, generalizations) while women are more disposed to context-specific thinking (in terms of concrete situations and relationships). This article talks about how the morals of men and women differ.

These findings can help humanity understand the thinking of men and women. In specific, it can help women understand why men think how they do, and it can help men understand why women think how they do.

I thought this article was interesting. It was very well written and easy to read. By including specific tests done on men and women the information in this article can be verified easily. This article gave me a lot of insight on the psychology of men and women, which I think is a very interesting topic.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sex-roles-and-seeing-the-world-in-black-and-white

Harmless soil-dwelling bacteria successfully kill cancer

      This article explains bacteria that can destroy tumors and can possibly be used as medicine for cancer therapy. A scientist says that this can be tested in cancer patients in the year 2013 because of being sure with the testing.  Clostridium sporogenes is bacterium that is widespread in the soil, which is what is used for therapy. There are spores of the bacterium that are vaccinated into patients and only grow in solid tumors, where a specific bacteriological enzyme is formed. Professor Nigel Minton is the person who is leading this research and believes that this project will work in 2013.

       Many people who have worked in this research believe that this can be a simple and safe procedure for cancer patients. This therapy is said to kill all types of tumor cells, but for people who have a high risk may have to go through a surgical procedure. They have not completely been positive on this research, but the people that have been working on this for years are certain that with more tests, they can be able to cure cancer and stop the battle for people.

       Before I read this article, I only knew that there were people that have been working on curing cancer for years, but I did not know that there were researchers that were this close to finding the cure for cancer. After reading this, I feel like there was some good points that can help people believe in a better chance of hope in the future.

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2011/09/05/harmless_soildwelling_bacteria_successfully_kill_cancer.html

posted for T. Diaz 

How Far Will Dolphins Go to Relate to Humans?

This article talks about Denise L. Herzing, a dolphin researcher.  She studies the way dolphins communicate with each other, and is hoping that in the future dolphins will be able to communicate with humans. In the past, dolphins have taken commands from humans, and we have given the rewards of food, but there has never been a direct two-way communication.  Herzing has been documenting the actions of three generations of dolphins in the Bahamas.  She still documents these dolphins today, and has been since she graduated from Oregon State.  These videos have shown us many things about dolphins, including their courtship, how they play, and how mothers forage for food for their young.  Scientists have determined what the dolphin's different sounds mean.  They know that whistles are for identifying things, clicks are used to navigate, and Burt pulses are a mixture of the two.  Scientists hope this two-way communication system will be running by next year, and it will use an underwater computer that will both give off and identify sounds.  Divers will hold two objects, and when the computer plays a certain sound, they hope dolphins will identify certain objects with sounds. 

           

This is very important to our society.  Once we are able to communicate with them, we can better understand their habits like migrations, mating, and their food sources.  Once we understand these things, we will be able to protect them. 

            This article was well written, and it brought the most important points across.  I liked how it not only gave the main researchers comments, and it included the comments of other scientists.  This gave many different opinions on the topic, and it helped me understand it better.    I do think that the article could have talked a little more about the process of the communication, but overall, I think it brought across a very interesting topic.