Alex Doukas
Mr. Ippolito
Core Biology
November 28, 2018

Hayden, Sally. “Nearly 80 Rescued Migrants Forced off Cargo Ship in Libya.” CNN, Cable News Network, 20 Nov. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/11/20/africa/libyan-migrants-forced-off-ship-intl/index.html.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/20/africa/libyan-migrants-forced-off-ship-intl/index.html

For my current event I read the article "Nearly 30 Rescued Migrants Forced off Cargo Ship in Libya." In this article Sally Hayden describes how almost 80 migrants have been forced off a cargo ship after it docked at a Libya port following an eleven-day standoff. This standoff began on November 10, when dozens of migrants and refugees, who tried to reach Italy on a rubber boat, were rescued and returned to Libya by the Nivin, a cargo ship with a Panamanian flag. Many refused to leave the ship after it docked at the Libyan port city of Misrata. Some of them told CNN they would rather die than go back to Libya where they said they had been tortured and simply want to be taken to a safe country. The migrants remain hopeful that they will not have to return to the inhuman treatment they experienced in Libya, yet it in unsure what the future will hold. This is an important topic to be studying and reviewing because several migrants and refugees were tortured and hurt and that action has impacted them in various ways.
This article has an affect on society because it creates the need for new jobs and places to live for the migrants. Libya also creates harsh living circumstances for these people making it an unsafe area to live. Because of these certain living conditions, the people compared living there to death, concluding that it was very difficult to withstand. One boy described what it was like briefly and what he saw and how he coped. He added that his brother had died in his own arms. If this issue continues to occur, many people with certainly die or come very close to it.
One thing in particular that I thought was very strong in this article was that the author used real life victims that were some of the only people that went through this tragic incident. I think that it is very important to use quotes or information from a first hand witness or victim because it it the truth and actual emotions that they felt while going through this trauma. The author also got into great depth about the current situation and how it has unfolded which gives insight to the reader about whats currently happening. I think that something the author could have done better was expand even more on the background information. Specifically about how this happened and what will be the next steps for these people. A way to improve upon that is ending the article with a closing sentence which ties everything together because i felt as if she just ended on how these people were feeling and not about the overall topic. But I think overall the author did an exceptional job. 

“This Heart Patch Studded with Tiny Needles May Help Heart Attack Survivors Recover“

Kathryn Haggerty
Mr.Ippolito
Core Biology
November 28, 2018
Current Event Review 9

Temming, Maria. “This Heart Patch Studded with Tiny Needles May Help Heart Attack Survivors Recover.” Science News, 28 Nov. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/patch-studded-tiny-needles-may-help-heart-attack-survivors-recover.

    For this week's current event, I read Maria Temmings article called “This Heart Patch Studded with Tiny Needles May Help Heart Attack Survivors Recover.” This article focused mainly on a new invention of a patch that could help heart attack survivors clean up the damaged tissue after having a heart attack. Each bandage is made out of a thin film that provides healthy molecules to heal the damaged tissue around the heart after a heart attack. The entire sheet is filled with tiny needles that deliver vaccines to the heart without having to stick anything on the skin. This in turn aids in minimizing scarring and preserving the overall health of the heart when pumping blood to the rest of the body. In addition, the patch is coated in a gel that contains cardiac stromal cells. These cells aid in the growth of the muscle cells surrounding the heart. According to Ke Chang, a biological engineer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the patch cells are considered to be little pharmacies surrounding the heart. In order to test his claim, he attached these patches on rats and pigs. “Three weeks after researchers induced rats to have heart attacks, the animals with microneedle patches had roughly 40 percent healthy tissue in the regions of their hearts affected by the heart attack, whereas as untreated rats had only about 10 percent.” This remarkable point just points to how successful these technological discoveries could be in the near future. Even on pigs, the result of wearing the patch was overwhelming compared to a pig that did not have one. “For the pigs, the researchers tracked heart health by measuring how much blood was pumped from the animal’s left ventricle to the rest of its body with each heartbeat. Four hours after a heart attack, each heartbeat released about 56 to 57 percent of all the blood in the left ventricle, in both treated and untreated pigs. But 48 hours after the attack, the results began to diverge: Hearts treated with microneedle patches pumped about 60 percent of the left ventricle volume, while untreated hearts pumped about 50 percent.” This just points to how efficient this patch really is.

    Overall, I feel that Maria Temming did a great job in informarming the population of the remarkable discoveries scientists are making all around the world. Especially with a condition that affects most of our population, she provided hope to people out there that your heart can indeed heal after experiencing a heart attack. In other words, this bandage that exudes proteins and other molecules that promote muscle cell growth could one day prevent the recurrence of heart attacks on the human heart. In addition, Temming used knowledge from respected scientists in order to prove her claim. This not only strengthens her knowledge on the topic but sets her up for later success on future scientists experiments.

I enjoyed reading this article because it got straight to the point and the facts needed to understand the overall topic right in front of you. Instead of trying to make the article longer, she summed up her points in an orderly fashion and got right to the point. However, I believe that Temming could’ve b spent more time explaining the overall causes of the heart attack and maybe even the results of placing the patch on others animals. This in turn would point to how the patch would affect a human heart. In addition, Temming could’ve done more research and gotten the opinions from more scientists on what they thought of the patch as a whole. In the end, I believe that Temming did a great job in discovering something that greatly affects everyone who suffers from heart attacks. I hope to read more of her articles in the future.

“Hemp Fields Offer a Late-Season Pollen Source for Stressed Bees.”

Olivia Conniff

Core Bio 10H

11/18/18

Current Events #8

Milius, Susan. “Hemp Fields Offer a Late-Season Pollen Source for Stressed Bees.” Science News, 19 Nov. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/cannabis-fields-offer-late-season-pollen-source-stressed-bees.

For Current Event #8, I chose to read “Hemp Fields Offer a Late-Season Pollen Source for Stressed Bees” by Susan Milius. Hemp is a “no-high” variety of cannabis that is grown specifically for industrial use. They do not offer nutrients such as nectar to insects and therefore rely solely on the wind in order to spread pollen. However, recently a large number of bees gathered in experimental hemp plots that were being studied by Colton O’Brien of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. He discovered that bees in 23 out of the 66 genera known to live in Colorado ended up in O’Brien’s trap. O’Brien and his adviser, Arathi Seshadri, think that this is the first survey of bees in cannabis fields. “You walk through fields and you hear buzzing everywhere,” O’Brien said. The reason that so many bees flocked to the hemp was because of a minimal food supply. While hemp does not provide many nutrients it serves as a rare food source for the hungry bees, that have really been struggling lately with their health, and are threatened by extinction. O’Brien urged crop scientists now developing the pest-fighting strategies for outdoor hemp to be mindful of bee health.

This article is extremely successful in informing the reader about the dangers that bees are facing in regards to not having enough pollen to sustain themselves and their young. The number of bee colonies per hectare has declined by 90 percent since 1962. The bees cannot keep pace with the winter die-off rates, habitat loss, and mass food consumption. Conservationists worry about the fates of the many, less-studied wild bees.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article because it was very easy to understand, using simple, but not boring, words and phrasing. Milius explained very well the main idea of the article as well as stayed focused on what the reader should take away from it. I was able to clearly understand what the article was about and why it was written despite the fact that I had little to no knowledge on the subject. The article was very well done, however, I do have a few suggestions as for how to improve it. First, I found that it was a bit repetitive. Because of this, it tended to be confusing at times, and harder to comprehend. A way to fix this is to make sure everything that you are writing is essential to the review, if it is not it can be removed, to help keep the article from being too repetitive and confusing. Also, I think that if a few quotes more from the article were included in the article the reader would be able to better understand it, and see it from a different perspective.

The Milky Way Feasted on a Smaller Galaxy 10 Billion Years ago

Isabella Bouvard

Core Biology 10H|Block C-Odd/Mr. Ippolito

11/7/18

Current Events #7

Grossman, Lisa. “The Milky Way Feasted on a Smaller Galaxy 10 Billion Years Ago.” Science News, Magazine of the Society for Science & the Public, 1 Nov. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/milky-way-feasted-smaller-galaxy-10-billion-years-ago.

In this article, Lisa Grossman describes the research that was recently conducted as to the Milky Way’s inhabitants. It was concluded that the Milky way, during its younger days, devoured a smaller galaxy. Two research centers were used in order to conduct this study, one in space and one on Earth. Amina Helmi of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands analyzed the speeds and positions of tens of thousands of stars in the Milky Way within about 33,000 light-years of the sun, using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope. This is a space observatory of the European Space Agency designed for astrometry. Based on this data, it was calculated that a group of about 30,000 stars seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, instead of rotating around the galactic center with the sun and the rest of the stars in the Milky Way. This was continued at the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, or APOGEE, which was conducted in an astronomical observatory in New Mexico. It used the spectrum of light that stars emit to infer their chemistry and ages. The stars that had been previously measured by the Gaia telescope were further inspected, and it was observed that the backward-moving stars had fewer heavy elements than stars like the sun. “It was just so clean. You immediately knew these stars really formed elsewhere.” Helmi notes. The final conclusion of the research was that this collision occurred ten billion years ago and explains why the Milky Way is currently split into different components. The galaxy was later given the name of Gaia-Enceladus, after a Greek Myth describing a giant buried under a large mountain in Italy.

Lisa Grossman provides very useful insight into the galaxy that our earth inhabits. The study conducted serves as a foundation of new knowledge in terms of the Milky Way. There is so much that surrounds our Earth that we have yet to discover, and this advancement broadens our spectrum of how we understand the universe. This might cause humanity to invest more into space exploration, as we now know that our galaxy contains so much more than we originally intended. While we have only recently discovered that these two galaxies once merged, it gives ordinary people much more of an idea based upon the possibilities of our universe and reasons as to why we should continue to explore it. This also might give us insight as to additional galaxies that are elsewhere in the universe. I think that it is important that we have the ability to be aware of our surroundings, not just speaking in terms of the environment but the galaxy that surrounds us.  

In general, I think the author did a very good job of providing the right amount of information to get the point across to the reader. Grossman provided multiple quotes from the experiment itself that makes it less difficult and very clear for the reader to understand. Her writing is very sophisticated, as this topic is not an easy one to explain while making the article very interesting. However, I feel as if there are a few areas in which Grossman can improve upon. When reading about the Gaia space telescope and the Apache Point astronomical observatory, I was confused as to what each of them meant while she did not provide direct background information. In order to obtain the correct definition of each of these, I had to do further research. I feel like if this information was included, it would make it easier for the reader to understand. Although Grossman generally did a good job of explaining certain terms, both of these were crucial to the experiment and it would really enhance her writing if such background information was included. Also, the general organization of the article was not as refined, and sometimes when mentioning a new topic the author seemed to discuss another topic in the next paragraph about something discussed prior in the article. This could be fixed simply by switching the order of some of this information or making it more concise. Overall, this article was extremely interesting to review and I hope to see where this new research takes route in further studies.  

Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?

Mcneil, Donald G. “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Nov. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/health/dogs-malaria-mosquitos.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront.

For Current Event #7, I read the article “Dogs Can Detect Malaria. How Useful Is That?” written by Donald G. Mcneil. In this article, the author talks about how a small pilot study showed that dogs could detect socks worn by children infected by malaria parasites. Later in the article, the author explains how dogs were able to find  bladder cancer in urine samples, lung cancer in breath samples and ovarian cancer in blood samples, and how a dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human. And near the end of the article, the author talks about how the trial was only a feasibility study, and how the study actually did to find out that dogs can detect malaria. But the dogs can only detect malaria 70% of the time, instead of being accurate all the time.

This article is relevant because malaria has become a big problem in today’s society, because it kills a lot of innocent children around the world. But now that dogs apparently can detect this disease, they could be used to detect it in children, or they can be used to prevent it from spreading in a part of the world where this disease does not exist. Dogs could also be used to help find a reliable cure to this disease, and could be even used to learn more information on how the disease spreads and works.

I think this article was well written because the author talked a lot about the experiment, and how the experiment worked. Furthermore, I think the author clearly explained why this discovery was important, but I do wish she had included more examples on how this discovery could be used. Also, I think the author could have used simpler terms and language, because I had trouble understanding what the author was trying to say. Overall though, I think this article was well-written.

Maya Brinster

Mr. Ippolito | Core Bio 10H

Current Event #7

November 5, 2018  

Eschner, Kat. “Humans Have Altered Almost the Entire Planet-We Need to Save What's Left.”

Popular Science, 1 Nov. 2018, www.popsci.com/preserve-wilderness.

For this week’s current event, I reviewed the article entitled “Humans Have Altered Almost the Entire Planet - We Need to Save What’s Left.” In this article, author Kat Eschner explains the irreversible implications of humans’ actions: “[The] majority of the planet has been influenced by humans to a degree that’s disrupted natural ecosystems.” According to recent studies, 77% of land and 87% of oceans on earth have been altered due to human activity. Humans have destroyed ecosystems which took hundreds of years to build and evolve around, which impacts almost all aspects of life. There are, however, a few places on earth that remain fully intact which need to be preserved. Countries have already begun to do so; 70% of the Amazon is located in Brazil, and president Michel Temer has stated that he will work to conserve as much as he can. Study author Oscar Venter of the University of Northern British Columbia also says that an upcoming biodiversity conference in Egypt will discuss ways to protect as much wildlife as possible.

Author Kat Eschner is an extremely influential writer. Her article made me realize how damaging people's’ actions can be to wildlife. Her writing impacts society by making everyone more aware of how their actions are impacting the life around us. Many people do the bare minimum to care for our earth by following “no littering” laws, or doing other minor actions. However, once people read this article, they (like me) will become even more interested in protecting our world and our environment, and will begin to take even greater steps towards this goal. If humans become more conscious of this, pollution and other destructive behaviors will greatly decrease, helping to preserve the world and make it a better and healthier place for all plants and animals.

This article was extremely compelling because Eschner’s writing is strong and sophisticated. She uses sentences that illustrate the decaying state of the planet, which greatly affect the impact of her writing: “In the ocean, areas that are free of industrial fishing, pollution, and shipping are almost completely confined to the polar regions.” I also love how she provides statistics from recent studies, which provide solid evidence towards her arguments and make them even more reliable. Although Eschner is an exceptional writer, there are still a few areas in which she could improve upon. I feel as if she should’ve provided even more background information on the world and how there are only a few untouched places on the earth. This would have drawn the readers in even more. I also feel as if her conclusion wasn’t as impactful as it could have been. To improve upon this, she should end her article with a strong concluding sentence that sums up everything she talked about. Overall, however, this article was extremely interesting to read and made me more aware of how damaging my actions really are.