Is it possible to make a less allergenic peanut?

Thomas Bender

Mr. Ippolito

Biology

12/19/16

Khamsi, Roxanne. "Is It Possible to Make a Less Allergenic Peanut?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2016. Web. 19 Dec. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/magazine/is-it-possible-to-make-a-less-allergenic-peanut.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share>.

This week i read the New york times article “ Is it possible to make a less allergenic peanut?” by Roxanne khamsi. This article is about the reasons that peanuts can be allergenic, and how those reasons can be taken away on a genetic level. The article starts out by explaining how the proteins that are responsible for the allergic reactions are found. According to the article, mashed up peanuts are “dumped into three-foot-tall tubes containing a thick cellulose mixture to help isolate proteins. The isolated proteins were ultimately transferred onto pieces of paper and soaked in blood serum from peanut-allergic patients. The goal was to figure out which proteins would bind to molecules in the serum, an indication that the particular protein was responsible for creating an allergic immune response” this procedure showed that there were over fifteen proteins that are responsible for the allergic reaction that is found in roughly 2% of all americans. After finding this, the scientists involved in this study treated the peanuts with the enzyme called Alcalase. Alcalase is an enzyme that can break down almost all of the proteins responsible for the allergic reactions. by doing this, the scientists were able to make to make peanuts that are safe to eat for people who generally have peanut allergies. The reason that these new peanuts have not been appearing in stores yet is that the taste of the peanuts is altered in the enzyme treatment stage of the peanut production, and because the process is tedious and difficult to do on a large scale as of now.

This new form of peanut is fantastic in theory but it is unlikely that hypoallergenic peanuts will be popping up in stores any time soon. That being said, if these peanuts are eventually mass produced, the peanut related death in the U.S. which are currently about 120 people per year, could plummet. On top of this, the new peanuts could reduce the amount of peanut related hospital visits, and also make schools safer.

The main strength of this article is that it contains almost any fact that one could want to know about the subject matter, I rarely had to google what anything was because everything was explained in the article. Although the detail of this article was fantastic, the constant explanations and definitions made it difficult to read at times. The best way to counteract this problem would be to take out every definition or explanation that might not interest the reader, this is because if a reader is interested in the subject then it is likely that they are willing to google a few definitions.

Pregnancy Linked to Long-term Changes in Mom's Brain

Jay Burstein
Mr. Ippolito
Bio D Odd
12/20/16


Sanders, Laura. "Pregnancy Linked to Long-term Changes in Mom's Brain." Science News. N.p., 19 Dec. 2016. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pregnancy-linked-long-term-changes-moms-brain?tgt=nr

This article, "Pregnancy Linked to Long-term Changes in Mom's Brain" by Laura Sanders explains how a women's brain is altered by pregnancy. This article is broken down by two sections which includes, how the women's brains were tested and the findings in the aftermath of the testing process. In order to test the impact of women's brains as a result of pregnancy, researchers at Leiden University led by Elseline Hoekzema who is a neuroscientist their used "detailed" anatomy scans of 25 women who wanted to get pregnant with their first child. In addition, the scans took place two months after the women gave birth to their child to compare if there were any changes in the women's brain as a result of pregnancy. 
The results from the scans revealed that the women's brain does indeed change. Certain regions in the brain had less "grey matter" after pregnancy. The grey matter is what forms your brain to function efficiently. The fact that the grey matter shrinks allows for the new mother to be more responsive to their infant child. 
This research benefits society in that we have a better understanding of the changes that women undergo in their brain as a result of pregnancy. Now, we know why women see the world differently after giving birth. Overall, this knowledge illustrates to us why mothers care so much for their children and how women are viewed more as "caring" and "nurturing". An important result in the study to make this point even more clear is that how scans were done on the brains of newborn fathers and how there was no change to their grey matter. 
In this article, the main strengths are how this test is simple and straightforward. Moreover, the information from Laura Sanders is presented very clearly. In addition, there are other scientists that offer their perspectives and agree with the findings of the test. The author has written a more valid piece as a result. In contrast, the main weakness is that there are many variables in women's bodies throughout pregnancy and it is hard to infer whether these changes are solely related to pregnancy. Also, the author should build off the findings of the test by having the researchers continue to scan women's brains after other pregnancies and compare the images. 

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Monkeys Could Talk, but They Don’t Have the Brains for It

Sophia Sulimirski

Mr. Ippolito

Bio D Odd

12 December 2016

Zimmer, Carl. "Monkeys Could Talk, but They Don’t Have the Brains for It." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Dec. 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/science/monkeys-speech.html?action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront>.

The article “Monkeys Could Talk, but They Don’t Have the Brains for It,” by Carl Zimmer, describes the new studies seen recently through which conclusions have been made regarding the reason why monkeys are unable to speak like humans. Dr. Lieberman, a professor at Brown University, Dr. Fitch, a student of Dr. Lieberman, and Dr. Ghazanfar, a neuroscientist collaborated to look further into the specific movements of a monkey’s vocal tract. Using three dimensional rendering, the scientists were able to map out the sounds monkey’s could make if air was pushed through this area. It was determined that monkeys could make vowel sounds, however do not have the brains to do it, as in, their brains are wired differently to that of a human. Dr. Ghazanfar states that “If they had the brain, they could produce intelligible speech,” however this ability is one only seen in humans as a result of thousands of years of evolution. If they had the brains to do it, monkeys would be able to speak using vowels, however not consonants. Without the use of certain sounds, such as a long e, the language monkeys could have would be a lot less elaborate than that of a human, however vowels alone are a good starting point.

Although this information applies to a different species altogether, this discovery may allow for a deeper understanding of the human evolution process. Learning about how monkey vocal chords have developed differently to those of a human can allow us to trace the human species back in time, to see how we branched away from our monkey ancestors. Speech is one of our most extraordinary features, and understanding why primitive species are unable to talk may allow us to understand how humans were able to develop the ability to speak.

This article was very well written, and written using simple language, allowing for all readers to understand its topic. It provided background into various experiments conducted by scientists that tested the ways in which monkey vocal chords work, in order to provide a detailed argument for why monkeys can't talk like people. Although this was good, the organization of the article was slightly confusing. The order in which the experiments were described made it confusing to understand the overall point being made in the article. It the article itself were a little longer, with more information given about each experiment, it would be a lot less confusing.

Keep It Moving

Sean Sullivan 
Mr.Ippolito 
Current Event Review 
12/11/16

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/well/move/keep-it-moving.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fhealth&action=click&contentCollection=health&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Reynolds, Gretchen. "Keep It Moving." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Dec. 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.

In this article titled "Keep It Moving," by Gretchen Reynolds, she expresses the needs for exercise and the negative repercussions sitting and inactivity can have on a persons health. Physical inactivity has been correlated with six percent of all heart disease cases across the world and eleven percent of premature deaths in the United States. Physical activity is one of the factors that contributes to cancer and a way to help suppress the growth of cancerous tumors s by exercising. The American Journal of of Physiology — Endocrinology and Metabolism, was one of the first organizations to compare the differences from those whom are more active and those who sit for extended periods of time and still exercise. People who sit for long periods of time but do one day of intense exercise tend to not counter the affects long sitting may have on a person. Conversely walking frequently and working out regularly does suppress the risks. Researchers at the university of Texas at Austin asked seven healthy men to wear monitors and spend four days in a row being active and four days in a row being sedentary. On the active days the subjects sat on average for eight hours, and on the sedentary days they sat for approximately fourteen hours. On the fourth day they ran for about an hour and the following morning they had a high sugary breakfast. In their earlier studies they concluded that this workout led to significant drop in triglycerides, fats associated with heart disease that enter the bloodstream after meals. When the men were active and running their activity brought down the harmful risks they endured by consuming such a meal. However on their sedentary day the running did not bring down the high levels of triglycerides. ' “So much sitting seems to have made the men’s bodies exercise-resistant,” ' Coyle says, it was concluded that inactivity altered the men's metabolism that prevented it from breaking down fat. 

This article connects to society because in today's world most of our time is spent sitting. Students sit for approximately 8 hours a day in very uncomfortable and not supportive seats. Even with recess and physical education to try to counter the harm they are doing to their bodies, we now know that it does nothing. The same goes for other professions where men and woman sit for long periods of time. Even those that exercise daily can now know that it doesn't matter as long as their not being proactive. Hopefully this will force people to consider changes in society's daily routine sponsoring more active activities and getting students to move more. 

This article was very well written. It got right to the point not leaving a lot of un-answered questions. However the study that they conducted, doesnt seem to be adequate to me. They only tested 7 already fit men, instead of woman and people of different physiques. I think they should test men woman and adolescents of all different fitness' to see how the triglyceride levels react to the different genders and age groups. 

That Thing With Feathers Trapped in Amber? It Was a Dinosaur Tail. The New York Times.

Sarah Whitney

Mr. Ippolito

Biology D-Even

11 December, 2016

St, Nicholas. "That Thing With Feathers Trapped in Amber? It Was a Dinosaur Tail." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 Dec. 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/science/dinosaur-feathers-amber.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront>.

    In 2015, Lida Xing found a remarkable artifact. He found a feathered tail of a dinosaur in what looked like golden glass. Turns out it was trapped in amber which preserved the soft tissue and eight vertebrae. The bones are what indicated that the feathered tail belonged to a dinosaur and not a bird. This also helped in the research in the evolution of feathers. Dr. Xing and his colleagues performed a CT scan which revealed that the vertebrae were not merged into a rod unlike modern birds. Due to this discovery, these scientists infer that the tail belonged to dinosaur that was similar to a T-rex but think that it was only the size of a sparrow. The reason the tissue, bones, and feathers were preserved for so long is because the dinosaur’s body was most likely covered in tree resin after death which can harden into a plastic-like substance(amber) that can last for millions of years. Dr. McKellar, an amber expert was puzzled after looking at the feather structure under a microscope. Modern birds have something called a rachis which can be compared to a stem of a plant. Branching out from the rachis are barbs, and off barbs, barbules. What left Dr. McKellar confused is that the feathers of the dinosaur did not have a rachis. Dr. McKellar stated, “It shapes our view of how feathers came to develop in modern birds, and it gives us a rare glimpse of what dinosaurs looked like and potentially what feathers were being used for in the mid-Cretaceous.” These findings propose that barbs and barbules evolved before the rachis. This also leads scientists to believe that this species of dinosaur could not fly since the rachis aids in flight. Mark Norell, a paleontologist stated that there is no question that the feathers belonged to a nonavian theropod dinosaur which cannot fly as opposed to a prehistoric bird.

    This article is relevant because it helps scientists study the evolution of feathers and also gives people more insight into the study of dinosaurs. “The feathers most likely belonged to a baby nonavian theropod, meaning it looked more similar to a velociraptor or Tyrannosaurus rex than to a modern bird. That said, it was probably only about the size of a sparrow.” This statement may lead readers to believe that sparrows or other birds evolved from this species. Also the realization that rachis came after barbs and barbules can open multiple other studies on the structure of feathers and how they emerged.

    This article had many strengths, first, it gave a clear and consistent summary that clearly explained the importance of this discovery. Also it was different from other articles because it described the role of each scientist to help differentiate them. Though there were strengths, there were also a couple weaknesses. First, the article did not explain what some things were. For example, Mark Norell mentioned a “nonavian theropod dinosaur” which many people may not know what it is. Also the article says “central shaft called a rachis; think of the ink rod in a quill pen.” This can be an unclear example for people who do not know what a quill pen looks like and can leave them confused on what a rachis is. Improvements that can be added to strengthen this article are to give clear definitions of words that many people may not know and to maybe find a way to connect the topic with modern day research or discoveries.

Great Barrier Reef Threatened by Climate Change, Chemicals and Sediment

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/world/australia/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

Innis, Michelle. "Great Barrier Reef Threatened by Climate Change, Chemicals and Sediment." The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 Dec. 2016. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.

In this article titled “Great Barrier Reef Threatened by Climate Change, Chemicals and Sediment” the New York Times author Michelle Innis discusses the developing dangers of climate change and its effect on the Great Barrier Reef located near Australia. Recently the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies reported that the reef had suffered the worst coral bleaching and die-off ever recorded, with stretches of its northern reaches dead after the coral was bathed in warm summer waters. This is not good news to the Australian Government Department of Environment and Energy’s plan to prevent environmental danger to the Reef until 2050. A concerned Ian Chubb who was formerly Australia’s chief scientist reacted strongly to this growing concern, “The major impacts on the reef will most likely result from the long-term release of substantial quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere...This year saw the most significant coral bleaching event ever recorded for the reef”. After this growing concern of the reefs health, The United Nations stepped in and asked for an updated report and for evidence of the plan’s effectiveness. Reef 2050 (name of the project) responded that they plan to halt the nitrogen runoff from farms and fine sediment that leaches into the ocean to improve the water quality and allow the reef to better withstand the impacts of climate change and shocks from severe weather like cyclones. If Reef 2050 doesn't act quickly on these growing complications of climate change, the Great Barrier Reef might be ruined forever.

    Climate Change to many people pose as the largest threat to humankind as well as the planet itself. Growing amounts of greenhouse gases are said to be destroying our ecosystem and is increasing the heat of the planet. Earth’s hottest years have been the last 6 years, 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2015 set records as the hottest years earth has ever experienced. These very hot years lead to ice melting on the north and south pole of the planet, increasing water levels can lead to flooding and serious weather storms. Thankfully, some projects have popped up in order to prevent such a thing happening as well as protecting earth’s greatest locations. Projects like Reef 2050 strive to keep the Great Barrier Reef heathy from any unwanted dangers, but the recent discovery of the worst coral bleaching and die off ever recorded in the Reef has many scientists and ecologists scared and questioning Reef 2050’s effectiveness. Hopefully Reef 2050 can put some plans together in order to prevent something like this happening again.

This article opened my eyes to the dilemma of Climate Change happening in the Great Barrier Reef as well as all around the world. The article does a great job at explaining the threats the Great Barrier Reef has and might have in the future. However, the article could have done a better job at explaining what Australian Government Department of Environment and Energy’s plan to prevent environmental danger to the Reef until 2050 really was and what were their main goals, Instead, the article just mentions the project with little to no background on how it was set up. In order for me to understand what it Reef 2050 was, I had to search up the project and read more about it on a separate article. If the article explained what the project was, the reader would have gained extra knowledge about the cause instead of just not being completely aware of what the project was.

posted for A. Saralegui

Magic Mushrooms' Compound May Treat Depression in Cancer Patients

Rachael Rettner. "'Magic Mushrooms' Compound May Treat Depression in Cancer Patients." Live Science. N.p., n.d. Web.

http://www.livescience.com/57049-magic-mushrooms-psilocybin-depression-cancer.html

In the article ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Rachael Rettner writes about how Magic mushrooms can help cancer patients who have depression. She starts off by saying that some of the chemicals in the hallucinogenic are proven to release stress in the cancer patient. “The cloud of doom just seemed to lift,” says Sherry Marcy, one of the patients of this chemical. These chemicals can positively affect 40 percent of all cancer patients. This seems very good but the chemical does have negative side effect including higher blood pressure. For a long time mushrooms were considered to not have any good effects until recently. Researchers at NYU deduced that the chemical is actually more effective than the standard placebo. The placebo did not have any reports of improvement in life while the mushroom chemical did. If these studies continue then they can do great things for many people.

This article is very important because it shows the impact that modern medicine has on so many lives. So many people suffer from cancer and it has taken more lives than mosquitoes. One in every four deaths in the US is from cancer which is scary to say the least and knowing that modern medicine is getting to the point of almost curing cancer is incredible. In a couple of years cancer might be cured and so many lives will be saved. This mushroom discovery is but another piece in the puzzle to stopping this global epidemic.

This article was very good at summarizing the discoveries made with the mushroom chemical and how it relates to cancer treatment. This article fits a lot of information in a relatively short amount of space. This is good because the reader does not have to go out of their way to read more than they have to. The author also did a good job in finding credible sources to back up her information. Without credible sources your statement means nothing. One of the weaknesses this article has is that it goes off in tangents. For example, when the article is talking about the history of the “Magic Mushroom” they only have one paragraph in the section about the history of the magic mushroom and the rest is present day. This show that the author wanted to give the history of mushrooms but did not have enough information so she slipped some more information on top of it. She can fix this by doing more research on the history of the magic mushroom. Another weakness of this article is that it does not stimulate the reader to wonder enough. The information she presents may be solid but it does ask the reader any substantial question that will challenge the reader. This can be fixed by writing a well thought out final paragraph that ends with a rhetorical question or some other form of intellectual stimulation.

Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of Elements

St, Nicholas. "Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of Elements." The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 Dec. 2016. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/science/periodic-table-new-elements.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

After reading this article published by Nicholas Flueler titled, “Four New Names Officially Added to the Periodic Table of Elements,” it discusses the how four new elements that were added to the periodic table in January of this year are being named. The new elements being put into the periodic table are Nihoniun, Moscovium, Tennessine and Oganesson. The numbers for these elements are 113, 115, 117 and 118. These elements were synthesized between 2002 and 2010, but it took till 2015 for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to officially recognise them. Now, all four of the new elements have names and symbols with Nh, Mc, Ts and Og. The namers of these elements, according to Fleur, are, “A trio of research institutions - the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, in Russia; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California.” The elements named were synthesized using nuclear reactors and particle accelerators. These elements are highly unstable, do not last long enough to study, and do not exist in the natural world, but can only be made in a controlled area.

The addition of these elements to the periodic table and their naming have a strong impact on the scientific community as well as students of chemistry. With these four elements filling the 7th period, the periodic table will no longer look like it has gaps. In addition, these elements are significant because they represent the progression of scientific technology. With the creation of nuclear reactors and particle accelerators designed to synthesize new elements, it shows that it is possible to create more elements, even if they are extremely heavy and do not last. Soon, students of chemistry will be researching these elements and try what properties these new elements may have.

I feel that this article is very well written and includes all of the major details about the discovery of these elements as well as the naming of these elements. Another thing this article did well was giving context to readers who may not know a lot about chemistry, and educate them so they can understand how important these new elements are. Although this article was good, it was not perfect. The small size of this article limits the amount of information the reader can take in about this subject, and at times, I found myself briefly researching the topic to further understand all the details about this discovery. If the article was longer, it would give more information to the reader.

2015's Record Heat: It Will Soon Be 'normal

Tommy Purdy

Mr. Ippolito

Biology D-Even

2 December, 2016

Citation

Sumner, Thomas. "2015's Record Heat: It Will Soon Be 'normal'" Science News for Students. N.p., 30 Nov. 2016. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.

Hyperlink

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/2015s-record-heat-it-will-soon-be-normal

2015’s record heat: It will soon be ‘normal’

   

    In the article, “2015’s record heat: It will soon be ‘normal’,” by Thomas Sumner, the reader learns many interesting things about how the odd winter heat in 2015 will be a normal part of our lives as soon as the 2020’s. In the article, Sumner talks about the known reason for global warming, which is that greenhouse gasses are being “dumped” into air which is creating the average temperatures to rise. Scientists are claiming that these new temperatures the, “new normal.” Sophie Lewis, a climate scientist in Australia, and her team have been conducting a lot of research to learn the truth about the future of earth's climate. They knew that the temperature in the future depends on the amount of greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxides. By figuring out the amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere, they could were able to make a rough estimate about what the climate will be like in upcoming years. They learned that, if the carbon dioxide levels stay at the place they are, winters will be as warm as 2015’s almost always. They also learned that even if carbon dioxide levels are drastically cut, by 2040 the winters will be just like that of 2015. Another interesting idea to think about that Sumner ends at the end is that completely warm winters will be not that uncommon in the 2020’s if everything goes the way it should.

    After completing this article, it makes me think about how different society will be in the 2020’s if everything happens as it’s supposed to. The data that Lewis collected is just one more proof that the climate is changing because of greenhouse gases, and it is changing a lot faster than originally believed. Now that we know Lewis’s data, people should expect the climate to change very fast. If the data ends up being true, we can expect winter coats to be almost never worn in areas such as the East coast because the winters will feel like autumn, like the last one. Another interesting thing to think about is how climate change will affect this upcoming winter. If it is as warm as the last, maybe the climate is warming up even faster than originally believed. Also, on the article, there is a diagram of the whole world’s winter last year. According to it, about 80% of the world last winter was warmer than usual, and about 15% of earth had its warmest ever winter. This means that climate change isn’t happening in only industrialized areas, but throughout the whole world in every single society across it.

    Overall, this article was pretty good, however, it did have some issues worth mentioning that could have been better. One aspect of it that was good was its ability to translate Lewis’s experiment into something that average people can understand. Often, scientific articles use words that nobody understands which leads to a lack of knowledge learned or a misunderstanding. This article, however, keeps the words easier to understand. Another good aspect of the article is that it mentions if the data by Lewis doesn’t go to plan. In articles about an experiment done, they never say what would happen if the information is false. In this article however, Sumner does mention what would happen if the data from the experiment was much less then thought, the warmness of the 2015 winter will be regular in the 2040’s. One bad aspect of the article was the length of it. Sumner could have made the article longer and went into deeper information about the experiment that Lewis conducted. If he had done that, the overall quality of the article would have been much better.