Olivia Doyle
Mr. Ippolito
Core Biology
15 April 2017
Strickland, Ashley. "How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut's Health." CNN. Cable News
Network, 04 Feb. 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017
This week, I read an article entitled “Twins study: How one year mission affected astronauts’ health”. The article discussed a study that sought to answer the question: “What happens to the human body after a year on the International Space station, floating in zero gravity?” To do so, they took data from twins Scott and Mark Kelly. After spending one-year on the International Space Station (ISS) doing field tests for a possible future landing on Mars, Scott returned to Earth and both of the brothers’ health were tested in order to compare the results. Researchers studied immune response, bone formation, and the twins’ DNA in order to see if DNA was affected by living in space and what other changes occurred inside Scott’s body. It was found that “Chemical modifications to Scott's DNA decreased while he was in space, but they returned to normal once he was back on Earth.” This is a sign of how sensitive genes are to their surrounding environments. A study was also done on Scott’s telomeres, the sequences at the end of a chromosome to prevent it from deteriorating. It was found that rather than decrease in size (as they should have), the telomeres increased in size while in space. This change is thought to be linked to an increase in exercise and a decrease in calorie intake. Additionally, researchers found that Scott experienced declining bone formation, “but levels of a healing hormone that helps with bone and muscle health increased, most likely due to all of the exercises astronauts perform in space every day to combat bone and muscle loss.” Scott also experienced a decrease in reaction time and a suffering of the accuracy of his fine motor skills. In the future, scientists believe more training to help astronauts readjust to Earth’s gravity is necessary.
The information obtained from the results of Scott’s study is significant in the future attempts at landing humans on Mars. They show that a year in space is no more taxing than six months is, which raises an interesting question of how long a human could survive in space. From Scott’s results, scientists know that if humans were to land on Mars, they would struggle with “performing tasks quickly and efficiently, even if those actions would be vital to life support.” The studies done on the changes on Scott’s body greatly affect humanity as they show what astronauts experience when going into space and answer questions on the human body and how it is affected by its surrounding environment. It is a testimony to what the human body can endure, even without gravity. The article mentions the idea of sending humans to Mars, which brings about the question if there is life beyond earth, and if humans can survive someplace other than Earth. Overall, the article’s findings express how zero gravity affects the human body and what it means for a mission to Mars.
In my opinion, the article was very well-written, but was lacking a few key components. First, the article did a good job of talking about how the series of tests were performed on Scott and explaining the results of each test. I liked how the author opened up with a question, as it clearly displayed the article’s purpose and outlined what the rest of it is trying to answer. Additionally, quotes from NASA researchers further enhanced the author’s argument. However, the article did not go into depth on the comparison between Scott and Mark’s health. This would have been more interesting, as it is rare that you find twins’ data to compare-- especially if one went to space. In addition, there was a paragraph included on the sleep patterns of astronauts, which was slightly out of place and did not contribute to the author’s central argument. Overall, though, the article provided interesting results on the impact of space and zero-gravity on the human body.
Andrew Howson
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Biology Core Honors
16/4/17
Strickland, Ashley. "How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut's Health." CNN. Cable News
Network, 04 Feb. 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017
My classmate, Olivia Doyle, wrote a critique of “Twins study: How one year mission affected astronauts’ health” by Ashley Strickland. Her review was well written and touched on many of the points addressed in the article very well. She did a very good job at explaining the effects of a zero-gravity environment on the human body.
Despite this, I found there to be some minor errors, including the fact that she failed to mention the reasons that humans on mars would have problems “performing tasks quickly and efficiently, even if those actions would be vital to life support.” She also neglected to mention how the DNA of Scott Kelly was altered after being in a zero-gravity environment.
I found this article interesting; it showed what happens in humans when exposed to low gravity environments for extended periods of time. Hopefully, in the future, scientists can develop more methods of doing things that would combat the negative effects of zero-gravity environments.
Kevin Leka
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Core Bio H
April 16 2017
Strickland, Ashley. "How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut's Health." CNN. Cable News Network, 04 Feb. 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/astronaut-twins-study-preliminary-results-trnd/index.htm
For this week’s current event review, I read Olivia Doyle’s report on "How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut's Health." Olivia did a good job on the review that was precise and relative to a growing curiosity in society, living on Mars. She did a good job explaining and reviewing the article’s main points by addressing the study that was conducted and how beneficial it may be to future space explorations. Olivia introduced her article by speaking about data taken from twins Scott and Mark Kelly. She gave background to the one-year trip on the International Space Station (ISS) and explained the field tests conducted by the twin for a possible future landing on Mars. Although this research is fairly new and difficult to compare health of two individuals and their DNA, Olivia did a good job reporting on this study. Olivia used a rich vocabulary which showed her understanding of the article. While she was analyzing the article in her review, she used the same terms found in the article and explained how scientists were able to analyze the twin’s health when he returned to Earth. This scientific explanation further showed her understanding about the topic. Also, Olivia’s analysis was well done because her conclusion was carefully done, while giving good feedback towards the author of the article and areas of improvement.
Since she had written such a great review, Olivia could only improve in a few areas. She could have furthered the research and explained any potential drawbacks that the author did not mention. Although the author of her article refrained from discussing the importance behind the sleep patterns of astronauts and the comparison between Scott and Mark’s health, Olivia could have looked further into the subject and included this information. Olivia wrote a great paragraph on the data collected on the astronaut, “a year in space is no more taxing than six months is, which raises an interesting question of how long a human could survive in space.” She did not have any spelling or grammatical issues, however in her writing she could have discussed more information about the other twin and why it was important to compare the twins health.
While reading Olivia’s review, I realized what astronauts experience when going into space. This review was interesting to read because I had forgotten about the current situation and our nation’s interest in Mars. The review was very interesting and Olivia’s analysis was well done. Reading the review forced me to question the human body and how it can be affected by its surrounding environment.
Julian Thomet
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Bio IH D135
25 April, 2017
Strickland, Ashley. "How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut's Health." CNN. Cable News
Network, 04 Feb. 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/astronaut-twins-study-preliminary-results-tr
nd/index.html
Current Events 9
My classmate, Olivia Doyle, wrote a great review of the article “How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut’s Health.” The article was about twins Scott and Mark Kelly. They are identical, and, taking advantage of this fact, NASA sent Scott to the ISS for one year. After he returned, they performed tests on both of them. There were many things that were well done with the article. For one, it was extremely well written. Every idea flowed, and there were no grammatical issues. This made the review easy to read, and it made the information easy to comprehend. I also liked the fact that Olivia did not use any complicated terminology without explaining it to the reader. This also made it easy to understand the information being presented, which is something that many of these reviews fail to do. Finally, Olivia included a thorough section, in which she gave her opinion of the article. She did not seem to take the information at face value, naming several ways in which the article could have been improved. This shows that she thoroughly read the article and was able to form her own opinions on it, instead of blindly trusting it.
The review was extremely well done, so there are few things to improve upon, and they are very minor. One thing she could have done is elaborate on the idea that “six months in space is no more taxing than one year.” Though there was probably information in the article about this claim, it would’ve been interesting to understand what led scientists to conclude this. It also would have aided this article if Olivia had expanded on how exactly scientists studied the twins.
What struck me most about this review is the significance this has towards potential missions to mars. We often hear a lot of talk about the possibility of sending a person to mars, but this would be an endeavour fraught with difficulties. This research, conducted at the International Space Station, helps to accentuate, and bring to light, some of the difficulties that may still be in the way of such an achievement.
Marina Alfano
DeleteMr. Ippolito
4/24/17
Current Event 9
Strickland, Ashley. "How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut's Health." CNN. Cable News Network, 04 Feb. 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/astronaut-twins-study-preliminary-results-trnd/index.htl
My classmate, Olivia Doyle wrote a review on an article published by CNN titles “How One-Year Mission Affected Astronaut's Health.” This article explained a study conducted to determine the health effects human's face after being in the international space station in zero gravity for a long period of time. They took two twins w one stayed home and the other went to the space station to see what would happen. Olivia did an excellent job explaining the article's main points and making sure that the reader was informed on all of the important points. She did this by addressing the study that was conducted, and also explaining what this entails for future space travel. Oliva also stated all the results from the experiment and what each result meant, instead of just stating results without explaining what she meant. Olivias personal review on the article was also well done, because it shows that she thoroughly read the article and picked out the good and the bad things. Then, she gave constructive criticism to the author instead of just pointing out the articles flaws.
Since Olivia did such a good job explaining the article she read, the improvements she could make are very minor. One thing that I would have liked would be an explanation as to how we could adjust humans more to zero gravity and eventually decrease the health effects or if they could at all. Also, I think it would have been interesting to know all the controls that the twins had to live by because we know what changed but Olivia only briefly mentions the similarities between the two twins. Also, for readers that don’t understand why the study was conducted on twins, Olivia could briefly explain why twin studies are significant.
When I was scrolling through the blog, I saw this review and I knew I wanted to read it. Space travel is so interesting to me because it's relatively new and there is so much to be learned and discovered about space travel. We know so little about the solar system and the universe but we keep finding more and a space mission to Mars would be a huge step for space discovery. This study brings to mind not only the technical difficulties but also the psychical boundaries to which humans can endure in space.