current event 12

Amir Yaghoobi

12/28/18

Bio

Current event #8

University of Colorado at Boulder. "Chemical synthesis breakthrough holds promise for future antibiotics." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 December 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181220080006.htm>.

For current even # 12 I took an interest in a article that revolved around experiments overseen by the University of Colorado. Their study, conducted by graduate students Aaron Hinds and Wyatt Powell as well as CU Boulder postdoctoral researcher Siddhartha Akasapu, discovered a new methodology in fighting Antibiotic-resistant infections. In order to combat these life threatening illnesses claiming the lives of 23,000 U.S. citizens yearly, Akasapu and his team had to invent a new process that synthesizes these antibiotics. To achieve this, they studied previously identified thiopeptides, an antibiotic compound that occurs naturally, and discovered a means of mass production. The team was then able to invent a catalyst to speed up the reaction causing these naturally occurring thiopeptides. As a result of this discovery, two new antibiotics were created micrococcin P1 and thiocillin I. Although these new Antibiotics are still in their early testing phases, there is a significant likelihood that they will save the lives of many people in the years to come.

The rise of Antibiotic resistant infections has resulted in a worldwide demand for a new kind of Antibiotic. With these infections affecting over 2 million people yearly, it is clear that something had to be done to prevent further fatalities. That is where Akasapu and his team comes in, their new antibiotics are not only effective, but are environmentally sound as well. The manufacturing of this new green antibiotic only results in one waste product, water. In conclusion, this new Antibiotic will not only save lives, it will save our environment as well.

Overall, this article was well written and covered the majority of the necessary information. However, I was left feeling that I missed a rather significant portion of the details. Such information would include, the dates of these new discoveries, and how long the experiments lasted for. With the inclusion of those details, my appreciation for the discoveries would have been a lot greater than it currently is. Despite my grievances with this article, I can say with full confidence that the information covered within it was of the utmost importance in our current predicament. As a result, I would suggest any of you that are interested to read the article, but also keep in mind that there is more information that should have been elaborated upon.

Human Pathology/History of Science Projects

Students were given the choice of preparing a PowerPoint Presentation, a Web Site presentation,
an original 3-D model, a comic strip, a storyboard, or almost anything they could think of to do. 

They could choose to examine how a particular disease affects one of the human organ systems. You should describe how the disease stops the normal function of the system. Explain the cause of the disease, is it genetic or environmental. And finally describe how it is treated now and how future scientific advances may make treatment more efficient. or result in a possible cure. 

They could also opt to choose a scientist or group of scientists that made an important discovery and describe how they developed their hypothesis and proved their concept. You should explain how their approach differed from those of other workers at the time.

 C. Golimbu's Presentation examined Tourette's Syndrome

 S. Ozaltin's Presentation examined AIDS

O. Conniff's Presentation examined Arteriosclerosis

 B. Mandanas' Presentation examined Huntington's Chorea

 B. Samios' Podcast examined Alzheimer's Syndrome

G. McCormick's Presentation examined Diabetes

E. Wardell's Presentation examined Glaucoma

E. Conway's Presentation examined Epilepsy

E. Poulos' Presentaion examined Gigantism

A. Doukas' Presentation examined Heart Disease

K. Haggerty's Presentation examined Hypertension

I. Bouvard's Presentation examined Lactose Intolerance

J. Wagner's Presentation examined Vision Loss

K. Formato's Presentation examined Hearing Loss

M. Brinster's Presentation examined Multiple Sclerosis 

I. Beit's Presentation examined Parkinson's Disease

W. Murray's Presentation examined Morbid Obesity

A. Yaghoobi's Presentation examined Lupus

 

     Elaina Poulos                                                                                                               12/16/18
     Biology Per. 3                                                                                                Current Event Review

     Temming, Maria. “A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup.” Science News, 11 Dec. 
2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/desalination-saltwater-fresh-water-sunlight?tgt=nr.

          The article that I have read for my current event review is titled " A New Way to Turn Saltwater Fresh Can Kill Germs and Avoid Gunk Buildup" by Maria Temming. This article revolves around a new sun-powered invention that can turn saltwater into freshwater. The author explains to the readers how the invention works. She writes " The trick boils down to preventing a device's components from touching the saltwater. Instead, a lid of light-absorbing material rests above a partially filled basin of water, absorbing sunlight and radiating that energy to the liquid below." She continues to explain that the water will proceed to evaporate to create pure vapor which can be condensed into freshwater. After this, Tremming tells his readers that this new device marks an improvement in inventions like this (sun-powered desalination devices). She describes how this device is more advanced and better because unlike the old devices where sunshine-absorbing materials floated on top of the water, in this device there is a separation between the light-absorbing lid and the water's surface. This contributes to keeping the lid clean and it allows it to generate vapor tens degrees hotter than the water's boiling point. The lid consists of three main components, which Maria explains as "a top layer made of metal-ceramic composite that absorbs sunshine, a sheet of carbon foam and a bottom layer of aluminum. Heat spreads from the sunlight-absorbing layer to the aluminum, from which thermal energy radiates to the water below. When the water temperature hits 100 degrees Celsius, vapor is produced..." She continues further explains the process in depth. Temming included a quote from a Chinese materials scientist, Jia Zhu from Nanjing University in China. Jia Zhu said that the idea of a device that is able to produce superheated steam and kill germs and prevent gunk buildup is "a very innovative idea".  After that, the author gives us an example of an experiment that was conducted using the new desalination device. She wrote that under a lamp that mimics sunlight the invention was able to evaporate 100 grams of saltwater without any salt getting on the underside of the lid. In October researchers used a curved mirror to direct sunlight onto the light-absorbing layer of the device to produce a steam hotter than 146 Celsius. Maria Temming concludes her article by mentioning the affect something like this device can have on society. In addition, she includes from two engineers explaining why this device can be such a great use for humans.

         This article had many connections to society. The author made sure that we would leave the article with knowing some reasons as to why this device could benefit society. Temming writes "That evaporates the water to create pure vapor, which can be condensed into freshwater to help meet the demands of a world where billions of people lack safe drinking water." This line demonstrates a contribution to society because it is saying that this device could help save the lives of billions, yes billions. This is such an important connection because if this device gets finalized one day it can really be a game-changer. In addition, the author interviewed Thomas Cooper who is a mechanical engineer at York University in Toronto. He said "When you access these temperatures, you can use steam for things like sterilization, for cooking, for clearing, for industrial processes." This shows how versatile the things to do with the water are. This ultimately proves the relevance of the device because it is showing us how useful and hopeful it is. Temming also goes on to how this sun-powered technology could also provide an ecofriendly alternative to reverse osmosis. She quoted Qiaoqiang Gan who is an engineer at Buffalo University. What he had to say was "For resource-limited areas, remote areas or people who live on small islands, this [new device] might be a very good option for them to address their freshwater needs."  Lastly, this article consisted of many connections to society. This device can help bring freshwater water to the people who need it. Clean freshwater everyday is like a necessity. We are so lucky to live in a time where this is being discovered and could hopefully be put out to the market so that more underprivileged people will get a chance to receive clean water.

          The author, Maria Temming wrote a great and very informative article. Maria clearly has strength in being detailed and adding a good amount of detail. She didn't include too much that it would eventually get boring, nor did she include too little. Another strength of hers was adding quotes from professionals. I believe that gives the article a sense of professionalism along with credit. By including accredited individuals in the report it gave the report a greater sense of legitimacy as well. Also another strength of Maria Temming's is that her article was right to the point, but it had many details. A weakness of the author is that she didn't include a proper conclusion. I didn't like that because I feel like she should had included at least a small one of two to three sentences summarizing the main points of the article. If I were her next time I would write a conclusion to wrap everything up at the end instead of ending my article abruptly. In addition, I wished the author would have described the state the invention was in and in how many months would it be released out in the public, if it's going to be released anyway. I believe she should have done that because I was wondering throughout the article when is this ground-breaking drive going to be released, but she didn't go into that. All and all I truly believe Maria Temming wrote an extremely nice and informative article about a new desalination device.

 


                      

Bjorn Samios 12/16/18

Bio Current Event 11

Gramling, Carolyn. “New Research May Upend What We Know about How Tornadoes Form.” Science News, 14 Dec. 2018, www.sciencenews.org/article/new-research-may-upend-what-we-know-about-how-tornadoes-form?tgt=nr.

For my review, I read the article “New Research May Upend What We Know about How Tornadoes Form,” by Carolyn Gramling. The classic idea of a tornado formation in most people’s minds, but new research could disprove this. The formation of tornadoes has been mostly scientifically unclear because they are formed so fast, usually in under a minute which makes it very difficult to study. Also, it is very difficult to pin down where a tornado is forming in time to study it accurately. But utilizing a “Doppler radar mounted at the back of a truck,” (Gramling, 2018), a team of scientists were finally able to collect data on the formation of four tornadoes. They found that the wind rotation actually began first at lower altitudes, 20 meters above the ground. 60 seconds later the radar recorded rotation at about 3.5 kilometers, proving that tornadoes actually form from the bottom up.

Understanding the formation of dangerous tornadoes is very important for science, as Americas tornadoes are progressively worsening. Twisters today stay on the ground for longer than those of a few decades ago did. If scientists can learn how they are formed, there will be great advances in tornado detection, and save more lives. A study proved that the total gigawatt output of tornadoes in the USA is increasing every year by 5.5%, meaning that these storms are only going to get worse. More moisture in the air is created by global warming, allowing tornadoes to gain more power and create more destruction.

This article was extremely well written, keeping the reader hooked on the subject matter of the article. It had great strengths as well as its weaknesses, and pointing out weaknesses of anyone’s work is more effective to their writing than complements. Gramling did a great job explaining how this will affect us and why we should care. She also was good at explaining why tornadoes are getting worse and how they actually form. The first noticeable flaw was the lack of defined terms. She used terms such as “supercell,” and “tornadogenesis,” without explaining to the reader what they meant. It would have been much easier to understand if she had simply added a sentence or two to explain to the average reader what certain scientific words mean.

Riley Morgan Bio Mr. Ipp

Current event 9 review 11/6/18

Ancient space crystals may prove the sun threw heated tantrums as a tot

You can learn a lot from 4.5-billion-year-old rocks.

By Neel V. Patel July 31, 2018

https://www.popsci.com/space-crystal-meteorite-early-sun

The Popular Science article “ Ancient space crystals may prove the sun threw heated tantrums as a tot” written by Neel Vatel claims that Many newborn and toddler stars are not all that different from  newborn and toddler humans. He says that they are both “prone to bouts of cranky energy” and often have loud and violent temper tantrums. Reel says that stars also vomit, and cry just like human toddlers. Scientists wonder if the sun ever acted or does act in this way, but there has been little evidence to prove it.  The article’s main focus is about how “blue crystals from space, seems to suggest the sun emitted a much higher flux of cosmic rays in its early history than we once thought.” These blue crystals are called Hibonite and have made its way down to the earth the same way that meteorites do. Hibonite is the first material found from the solar system that is created by cooling gas from the sun. Levke Kööp, a cosmochemistry researcher at the University of Chicago says that “We think hibonites like those in Murchison formed close to the young sun, because that is where temperatures were high enough to form such minerals,” The research team does not have an exact date on how old the Hibonites are but they are inferring that they are about 4.5 billion years old. The research team uses highly sensitive mass spectrometer which is located at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. They melt the grains of hibonite using a laser. The spectrometer measured and confirmed that there were helium The research team studied the hibonite crystals using a highly sensitive mass spectrometer at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, melting the grains of hibonite down with a laser while the spectrometer measured and confirmed the presence of helium and neon concentrations. and neon concentrations found. The team noticed that helium and neon were not present in younger crystals. This means that something changed throughout the years. Although scientists are not sure why, they are eager to find out because of the fact that “This sort of insight might augur later into a better understanding of how the roles star evolution plays in the creation of elements and materials that later on assemble into planets and other celestial bodies”

a better understanding of how the roles star evolution plays in the creation of elements and materials that later on assemble into planets and other celestial bodies. Andrew Davis who is co author on the study said that it is hard to measure the helium and neon traces and conduct a real analysis on hubonite because of how small they are. He says scientists are working on a new instrument to study the isotopic compositions of the hibonite grains. They are doing this to get a better understanding of “how different sources of dust were mixed in the early solar nebula.

This article has a huge impact on society. These Hibonite crystals, if properly studied could mean huge things our knowledge on the solar system. Our whole society is fascinated with the solar system and almost everyone is eager to learn more about it. It is possible that these discoveries could lead to more discoveries about the sun and the stars too. Our solar system, especially the sun does not just affect our society but it affects our whole world and that is why this has such a big impact.

I loved how this article was not extremely lengthy. It said all of the points it needed to say in a few paragraphs. Although short it has a lot of detail and was jam packed with information.  Although it did have a lot of information I wished the article talked more about the relevance of these crystals other than the big impact of the sun. I also wished there was some background information given about how scientists discovered these crystals. Lastly, in the first sentence of the article, Reel writes how “Many newborn and toddler stars are not all that different from newborn and toddler humans—prone to bouts of cranky energy, loud and violent tempers”. I did not find the relevance in this statement and do not believe it benefited the article in any way. To improve this article I would include a little bit more background information, along with state the exact relevance and how the crystals will be used. I would also make sure that every sentence that is written helps to backup your information and has relevance to your topic.

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