“What Will Happen When COVID-19 and the Flu Collide This Fall?”

Caroline Hulbert

10.5.20

Hesman Saey, Tina. “What Will Happen When COVID-19 and the Flu Collide This Fall?” Science News, 23 Sept. 2020, www.sciencenews.org/article/covid19-coronavirus-flu-season-fall. 

For this current event, I decided to review the article “What Will Happen When COVID-19 and the Flu Collide this Fall?” by Tina Hesman Saey. The author begins the article by discussing the average impact of the flu each year. She describes the “perfect storm” that will likely occur this flu season. The factors that will make this season particularly dangerous include the fact that people will be spending more time inside, become exposed to seasonal influenza, and become increasingly fatigued with wearing masks, social distancing, and cleaning routines. Additionally, symptoms of the flu and COVID are similar, and one would require testing for each virus, though COVID test results currently have slow turn-around times. It is also possible for a person to become infected with both viruses at once, increasing the severity of their symptoms. The author then describes how flu seasons in other regions of the world can be used to predict the outcome of the US’s flu season this year. The Southern Hemisphere tends to begin seeing flu cases towards the beginning of summer, lasting until October. Australia, South Africa, and Chile together reported a flu test positivity rate of 0.06 percent, lower than previous years, whose average positivity rate was 13.7 percent. It is believed that the flu season may have been cut short due to measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. However, it is worth noting that COVID cases have skyrocketed in these regions.

This article is extremely relevant to society as the coronavirus continues to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Having this information available to the public is especially important to teenagers, who have begun to return to school and ignore social distancing guidelines outside of school. With more knowledge and predictions about what this fall will look like, it will hopefully convince people to be especially careful. It also highlights the importance of getting flu vaccinations, which would help slow the spread of the flu.

This article was very well-written and informative about current issues. The author included insights from numerous medical experts in different fields and locations about the upcoming flu season. She described contrasting viewpoints regarding what the season will look like, each supported with reliable information. I thought that the author could have done a better job making the article more relatable to readers. If readers were able to connect more to the article, they would be more likely to follow its recommendations. This connection could have been achieved by including examples of specific people impacted by COVID-19.

Current Event 14

Tenzing Pixley

Core Biology C ODD

Current Event 14

Wednesday, June 5th, 2019

Tarabay, Jamie, and Genevieve Jia Ling. “He Was Looking for Opals. Instead He Found a New

Dinosaur Species.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 June 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/world/australia/lightning-ridge-dinosaur-fostoria.html.

In the New York Times article, He Was Looking for Opals. Instead He Found a New

Dinosaur Species by Jamie Tarabay and Genevieve Jia Ling, it focuses on one of the most startling scientific finds by a normal person in the several decades. Years ago, in 1984, an Australian miner by the name of Bob Foster was searching for opals but found something much more surprising. The remains of a dinosaur which was previously unknown, Fostoria, which is now named after him. One of the main identified remains was that of a vertebrae and that the organism ranged anywhere from 10 to 16 feet in length.

Aside from the fact that it was discovered unintentionally, the finding leaves great percussions on science as a whole. It shows us that there are still ancient species we have yet to discover, and just how little we know of the prehistoric world. It also shows that you do not have to be a “top-notch” archaeologist to make a big scientific discovery, and that these things can be found by chance, albeit on extremely rare occasions.

When reading the article, I found it very straightforward. Not in a bad way, as the information was presented in a way which made it easy to take in. It started off simple and cut straight to the point, which was executed very effectively. However, there were some downsides. One of which was a lack of further research. It mainly presented the key points of the finding, yet didn’t go in depth on theories about the creature’s habitat during its lifetime.

Current Event 14

Rachel Roberts

5/29/19

Field, Katie. “Ancient Fungi May Have Laid the Groundwork for Complex Life.” Popular

Science, 28 May 2019, www.popsci.com/fungi-fossils-foundation-life#page-2.

   For current event 14, I decided to view Katie Field’s article, “Ancient Fungi May Have Laid the Groundwork for Complex Life.” Field discusses the new findings of fungi fossils that completely changed how scientists viewed the time fungi been on Earth. Before this discovery, the oldest evidence of fungi was from 450 million years ago. While this still makes fungi extremely old, this new evidence gave proof of them living almost 500 million years earlier than expected, doubling their age. The fossilized fungi were extracted from Arctic Canadian fungal spores and hyphae, which are thread-like tubes. This “plug the gap in the fossil record and suggest that fungi may have occupied land well before plants.” Although it is challenging to find fungi fossils due to environmental damage, Field describes their discovery as “The fungal fossils were found in rocks that were probably once part a shallow-water estuary. Such environments are typically great for fungi thanks to nutrient-rich waters and the build-up of washed-up organic matter to feed on. The high salinity, high mineral, and low oxygen content of these ancient coastal habitats also provided great conditions to perfectly preserve the tough chitin molecules embedded within fungal cell walls that otherwise would have decomposed.” This discovery of fossil evidence doubles the age of fungi to billion years and helps bring insight to the timeline of life on Earth and where the fungi fit in.

The discovery discussed in this article has given us insight into how Earth’s biosphere has evolved. Field wrote, “The first plants to emerge onto land 500 million years ago formed intimate partnerships with fungi. Lacking roots, these early plants relied on their fungal partners to grow inside them and spread outwards into the primordial mineral soil.” They relied on each other by using the process of biological weathering. Fungal hyphae would release organic acids to dissolve rocks and extract the nutrients within them. Then, the plants would transport the nutrients created through photosynthesis to the fungi. This exchange of resources between plants and fungi induced the “growth, evolution, and diversification of Earth’s flora into ever more complex species, communities, and ecosystems, and remains the norm today.” For example, over 90% of plants interact with a “fungal partner.” Also, the cooperation of plants and fungi had effects on the atmosphere as plants were able to evolve more efficient mechanisms for photosynthesis. Plants were able to have better control over carbon dioxide and water, which increased oxygen concentrations and the absorption of carbon dioxide. This supported the “emergence of much larger, more complex animal life than the tiny insect-like forms that previous oxygen levels could support.”

When reading this article, I found that there were many good aspects of her writing. She was able to explain the information used in the article very well, especially since I did not know much of the subject before reading it. For example, her explanation of biological weathering was helpful, and it allowed me to explain what it was in this review. Also, while there was not much of a background story following the person who made the discovery, Field was still able to make the article very interesting by creating the storyline of the evolution of fungi and plants. Although the story was captivating, there were some choppy areas of the article. It transitioned quickly between topics which would sometimes confuse me. For example, the article went from focusing on how the discovery will help the environment, to how the discovery brings insight to the relationship between fungi and plants, then back to how it will help the environment. There were slight transitions at the end of the paragraphs but not enough to fully cue the reader in that topics will shift. While most of the article was well written, it would be much easier to read if there was a clear order of information.

Current Event 13

Caroline Hulbert 5.27.19

Bio 10H Current Event 13

Wetsman, Nicole. “Here's Exactly How Restricting Abortion Harms Public Health.” Popular Science, 16 May 2019, www.popsci.com/restricting-abortion-public-health#page-2.

For this current event, I decided to review Nicole Wetsman’s article “Here's Exactly How Restricting Abortion Harms Public Health.” In this article, the author discusses how the recent laws passed by states such as Alabama and Georgia will have negative consequences to public health and safety. She starts by mentioning that abortions will become less safe as fewer clinics will mean women will begin having abortions later in their pregnancies, increasing their risk of complications, while currently, an average of only .75% of abortions have complications. Additionally, carrying a baby to term is much more risky than having an abortion, especially for women of color, who already experience more complications and higher risk of death from pregnancy. Wetsman concludes with the fact that unwanted pregnancies increase the risk of domestic violence and financial insecurity within households, noting that when women are unable to receive abortions, it can “tether them to violent men” and increase the amount of abuse they face.

I feel that this article is extremely relevant to the events currently occurring in our country. Abortion is an extremely controversial topic and the recent restrictions put in place by politicians has caused a lot of conflict between members of different political groups. I think that the points this article covers are very important when considering if these new laws are valid and that they should be looked into more.

I thought that this article was very well written and that the author did a good job including many statistics and specific pieces of evidence to support her argument and strengthen her writing. Aside from this, I think that she should have included arguments from lawmakers and and people who are in favor of abortion restrictions. Even though she does not necessarily agree with their opinions, including them would have made her article even more well written by including both sides of the abortion argument and appealing to a wider range of readers.

Current Event 13

Will Grant                                                                                                                                     5/27/19
Core Bio                                                                                                                         Current Event 13

University of Texas at Austin. “Massive Martian Ice Discovery Opens a Window into Red Planet's History.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 22 May 2019, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190522141747.htm.

The University of Texas at Austin's article, "Massive Martian ice discovery opens a window into Red Planet's history," tells of Mar's secret ocean. The team at Texas University found that there is a reservoir of ice on Mars in the north pole that sits under the surface. Using radars and other scientific materials the team discovered that there is enough ice beneath the surface at this pole that if it were too melt it would cover the entire planet in 5 feet of water. This is not that much, but it is crazy too think about because just 5 years ago we didn't even know if there was water on Mars. They also discovered that the polar ice caps had survived as they had thought to be gone.

The importance of this is that Mars has a lot more water than we thought. Water also means life and maybe human life. The amount of water there would be not enough but it is another step in the colonization of planets that may come. This also gives us reason to believe that these same things might be occurring in other planets in our solar system or even the entire galaxy. These discoveries also give space agencies more reason to put an astronaut on Mars and collect data on these pools of ice.

This article was a very interesting read and gave me much insight on the discovery going on in space. One of the strengths of these article is its use of primary sources from the team that made the discoveries. One weakness though is that the article was a little hard to follow as they talked as if I already knew the entire structure of Mars. I think they could improve by making the article simpler for non-experts.

Griffin Patterson May 23rd 2019

Biology Current Event 13

Chodosh, Sara. “A Bad Diet Really Can Raise Your Risk of Cancer. Here's How.” Popular Science, 22 May 2019, www.popsci.com/how-diet-affects-your-cancer-risk.

For Current event 13 I chose to read “A bad diet really can raise your risk of cancer. Here's how” by Sara Chodosh. This review was about how bad diets can affect you later life and eventually cause cancer. In This article, the beginning was very strong when the author said “However much we might like to believe that a detox tea or a super-berry will prevent us from getting cancer, the truth is a more bitter pill: anyone can get cancer no matter what kind of lifestyle they follow, but eating healthy foods and exercising regularly is the best way to lower your risk. This shows the reader and really made me jump because cancer is a growing disease in this world and the fact that it can come into your life that quick really shocked me. Anyways in this article the author talked about the statistics of cancer and how often people really get it. “Roughly two out of every five cancer cases in America are preventable by a modifiable risk factor, from alcohol consumption to physical inactivity and, of course, cigarette smoking. That’s more than 659,000 cases annually. Of those, a new study in the journal JNCI Cancer Spectrum estimates that more than 80,000 (at least in 2015) were attributable to suboptimal diet. Yes, 80,000 people a year get cancer because of not eating healthy. Overall, things such as dairy products, whole grains and even red meats can give u cancer.    

This study was very interesting and eye opening to me because it showed me, how even a bad diet can cause such a life threatening disease to come into your life. For example, when the author said “And yet the truth is that just as many cancer cases are caused by poor diet as by drinking alcohol, and even more are tied to the excess body weight that comes with eating that poor diet”. This really opened my eyes to how bad cancer is and how often and easily you can get it.

I think this article was a very good read and the author really got her point across well. The author did a great job persuading me to how bad cancer is and how a bad diet can cause it. The author also ended the article very well with a tip for not getting cancer. She said “And while cutting down on sugar and upping fiber intake isn't a magical cancer prevention method, good nutrition definitely won't do you any harm. The author really helps the reader recognize that good nutrition can really help a person in life, not only for there bodies but for not getting cancer as well.

Current event 12

Ava Chiang                                                   5/17/19

Biology Odd / C                                      Current Event 12

Citation: Uppsala University. "Owning a dog is influenced by our genetic make-up." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 May 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190517081636.htm>.

   

The article I read for current event 12 is called  "Owning a dog is influenced by our genetic make-up" and was written based on the materials provided by Uppsala University. The article talks about how Swedish and British scientists collaborated on an study of genetic concordance of dog ownership within twins by using the Swedish Twin Registry. Twins are often used to differentiate between the effects of epigenomes and genes because “identical twins share their entire genome, and non-identical twins on average share only half of the genetic variation.” They found out that “concordance rates of dog ownership to be much larger in identical twins than in non-identical ones.” Which means that if one identical twin own a dog, the other is more likely to own one compared to a non-identical twin. Therefore, this “demonstrate for the first time that genetics and environment play about equal roles in determining dog ownership.”

This study is interesting because it can help researchers understand many issues regarding the relationship between pets and owners. For example, dog ownership is associated with lots of psychological and physical health benefits but we don’t know why. If this study continues then we may be able to figure out how human interaction with animals affect their epigenetic makeup.

I think this article was a very good read, the author was concise about the experiment and it’s result. He or she also talked about where this research could lead and what can be improved about it. However, I would’ve liked to know more about the process. For example, why was this research suggested? What purpose does it serve. I think they should’ve waited until there’s more information and results before publishing an article about this subject because although the research was interesting, the information included wasn’t very informative.