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.

Current Event 12

Megan Barker 5/16/19

Bio C Odd Current Event 12

University of Leeds. "Nearly a quarter of West Antarctic ice is now unstable."

ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 May 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190516114601.htm>.

In the Article “Nearly A Quarter of West Antarctic Ice is Now Unstable” from the University of Leeds,  an experiment is described in which scientists were able to discover that nearly a quarter of West Antarctic ice is now unstable, and that much of this is due to climate change. The article begins by explaining how the experiment resulted in the finding that glaciers have thinned up to 122 meters, meaning that they are losing more mass than they are gaining through snowfall. The article also explains that since 1992, the thinning of glaciers is now five times faster than it was. The article then goes on to explain how the study was conducted. 800 million measurements of Antarctic ice sheets were measured between 1992 and 2017 by satellites, allowing causes of melting to be separated by changing weather patterns or legitimate climate change. They did this by measuring surface height change to simulated changes in snowfall, and attributing greater discrepancies to climate change. The researchers were then able to conclude that climate change is the leading cause of much glacial thinning. The article then adds how this has resulted in a rise in sea levels, and how satellites are important in determining how our environment is changing.

Climate change is incredibly problematic and impacts everything on the planet. The damage being done to the Earth through the use of factories, excessive greenhouse gasses, and lack of proper garbage disposal will result in irreversible damage. Although humans have generally believed that they were above animals and other beings throughout history, when it comes to climate change, all are equal. The Earth will be ruined and uninhabitable, no resources will be renewable, and most life will die off of the Earth if nothing is changed. The article proves how serious climate change is, by proving that climate change is the cause of thinning glaciers and rising sea levels.

This article was very thorough and well-explained. It goes through the experiment in a concise way that includes all of the main ideas, and explains the experiment’s significance. One critique of this article, though, is that the article mentions significant “signals of glacier imbalance that have persisted for decades” (Leeds), but fails to explain more about these imbalances. One suggestion for this article would be to include more context and explanation as to what these imbalances are and why they have persisted for decades. Including this detail would help to make the article more clear.

Ben Davis 
May 16, 2019 
Core Bio
Current Event 12

Ferreira, Becky. “Bedbugs Menaced the Dinosaur Age Before Moving Into Our Mattresses.” The 
New York Times, The New York Times, 16 May 2019, 
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/science/bedbugs-dinosaurs-evolution.html.

For this week's current event I read Becky Ferreira’s article, “Bedbugs Menaced the Dinosaur Age Before Moving Into Our Mattresses.” In her article, Ferreira discussed the origin of the infamous bedbugs. She wrote, “The team’s findings, confirmed that bedbugs originated at least 100 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed Earth.” This notion discredits the former belief of bedbugs and can help scientists anticipate the bugs next moves in an era of climate change and expansive human activity. Bedbugs are tens of millions of years older than humans their origins as past believed cannot be related to homo sapiens. Ferreira recounts the travels of researchers around the world. She states, “In addition to requesting specimens from hundreds of researchers, the study’s authors personally collected bedbugs around the world. The team braved knee-deep piles of bat feces in Texas, donning masks when carbon dioxide concentrations became too high. In one Kenyan cave, they took care to avoid contamination from the deadly Marburg virus, which can be transmitted to humans from fruit bats.” Scientists believe that bedbugs are closely related to the Cimicidae family tree and the Hopi folklore. It was originally thought that bats were the first hosts of bedbugs. That belief has since changed, Ferreira wrote, “It’s now clear that the parasites were sustained through the age of dinosaurs by more ancient animals. But the identity of the earlier host, or hosts, remains a tantalizing mystery, as fossil evidence is scarce, Dr. Reinhardt said.”

The article by Becky Ferreira is very relevant in today’s society. People around the world are scared of the thought of bugs in your bed while you are sleeping. As the old saying goes don’t let the bedbugs bite. Bedbugs are often found across the countries. They have been famously found in many hotels and motels across the country. If bedbugs are found in your hotel it will most likely be shut down. Sometimes that shutdown will be permanent. This article is also a breakthrough in evolution. We learn that bedbugs are not related to homo sapiens and have been around since the time of the dinosaurs. 

Overall Ferreira did a great job with her article. There are many things she did well and there are things she can improve on to make her writing better. One thing Ferreira did very well was incorporate quotes from experts on the study. Ferreira quoted  Dr. Reinhardt. who wrote, “To make a prediction about the next species that hops onto humans, we would have to look into species that were originally specialists, but then started to expand their host portfolio.” One thing Ferreria should have included her review was how bedbugs affect people. While her article was good it could have been a lot better if it had information about bedbugs interacting with humans. 

Current Event 11

Rachel Roberts

5/8/19

Patel, Neel V. “An Asteroid's Water May Offer Clues to the Origin of Life on Earth.” Popular

Science, 3 May 2019, www.popsci.com/asteroid-water#page-2.

For Current Event 11, I read the article, “An asteroid's water may offer clues to the origin of life on Earth” by Neel V. Patel. The article focused on an asteroid called Itokawa, which is 1,800 feet long and 1,000 feet wide and a remnant of a larger asteroid. Nine years ago, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA gathered samples of Itokawa and brought them down to Earth. And to scientists’ surprise, they found that the samples contained water. Maitrayee Bose, a cosmochemist at Arizona State University said, “Before we embarked on this work, our back of the envelope calculations showed that it is indeed possible for the Itokawa grains to retain the original water in the right proportion from when the asteroid formed” However, they found it unlikely as Itokawa has been heated up to 1,500° Fahrenheit and has been impacted by other rocks which would have made it extremely hard to preserve the water. Bose convinced JAXA to make five sample grains of the 1,500 available for study. In those five samples, two of them seemed to contain pyroxene which on Earth, is a mineral that holds water in its crystalline structure. This led Bose to believe that maybe asteroid pyroxene contained water as well. He used his university’s NanoSIMS instrument, an ion mass spectrometer with the ability to measure mineral grains with extraordinary sensitivity. They found that the pyroxenes in the asteroid were rich in water with a large amount of 0.1%. While this may not seem like much in comparison to the amount we see on Earth, it is much more than any scientist predicted as Itokawa is a very dry asteroid. The discovery of water in the small samples taken from Itokawa lead researchers to speculate if the asteroid could harbor more and how many other dry asteroids could contain water.

The information and research gained from discovering the 0.1% of water in the Itokawa asteroid samples could help scientists figure out how and why the Earth is rich in water. Scientists like Bose make their research aimed at how small bodies in the solar system acquire and sustain the building blocks for life. He said, “We find ourselves on this ‘pale blue dot,’ a planet full of water, rich in organics and supportive of life, we know of no other such planet. My aim is to find out how.” A theory for this issue is that asteroids and other small satellites could be able to send materials and life to planetary bodies. Bose said, “The most popular scenario is that water-rich asteroids delivered water on Earth from the outer solar system during different periods of planetary formation. Small asteroid bodies in the inner solar system could be a source of water for Earth and other planets. You can think of these small bodies… as being the fundamental building blocks of planets, bringing water and other materials, like organics, to the planets.” The discovery of water in Itokawa supports this theory as it shows how materials needed for life can travel on asteroids and brings us a step closer to discovering the beginnings of life.

When reading the article by Neel V. Patel, there were many good aspects of his writing. He explained the information in the article very well. I was able to understand it although I have very limited to no previous knowledge of the topic. Also, he integrated the story of Bose finding water in the asteroid into his article while also giving the main details of the research. This allowed me to get a full picture of how important this topic was and how it could affect research. While Patel did an excellent job explaining the research and the story, the article could use too many scientific terms without any explanations. It often confused me as I wouldn’t know what was being mentioned at the moment. It would be much better if there were information mentioned directly after or in parentheses so there could not be any confusion on the topics. When writing articles for a website that is open for anybody of any career or interest to look at, it is best to be specific when introducing new information and topics so more people would be able to understand it fully.  

The Lithium future

Chris Aherne
Mr. Ippolito
Core Bio
5-8-19

Gramling, Carolyn. “The Search for New Geologic Sources of Lithium Could Power a Clean Future.” Science News, 7 May 2019, www.sciencenews.org/article/search-new-geologic-sources-lithium-could-power-clean-future?tgt=nr.

Ever since the cars conception in 1893, humans have begun to rely on this piece of technology. However, we did not know that the fuel, that would later power every car across the planet, would not be a sustainable source of energy. From its high price to its destructive properties, gasoline would inevitably have to go. In the article "The search for new geologic sources of lithium could power a clean future", by Carolyn Gramling, she describes how the use of lithium batteries could solve our oil issues. Lithium batteries are our only current option to a clean renewable source of energy for everything we need. Although many people are skeptical of this new energy source, Gramling points out that lithium batteries have already been in high demand, since these are what powers our phones, and that people have nothing to worry about if they already carry around a phone all day. Because if people will carry these batteries with them everywhere they go, they should trust them in the hoods of their cars.

The most popular electric car to date is the Tesla, which has been using lithium ion batteries in all of their cars up until this year. Also occurring very recently, is the large boom of electric/ hybrid cars coming out of almost every car company on the market. And with more car companies making these cars, the more lithium batteries will be used. Gramling suggests that this is a very good thing for our environment, since automobile emissions are one fifth the total amount of pollution in the US. Even stating that with every gallon of gas used, 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other harmful gasses are released. It has become evident that these gas emissions are a large contributor to global warming, which will only further our planets decay.

I would say that overall Gramling did a great job with this article. She was very thorough and made sure that she included everything surrounding the topic.She also gave good reason for everything that she mentioned. However, I felt as if she could have given us more insight into what this would mean for the future of automobiles. For example, she never explained how this would affect the stock market, and she never once mentioned how much money would be saved or lost in the transition to lithium batteries. Overall, she did a great job and I learned a lot. 

Griffin Patterson

Core Bio

Current event 10

May 1st 2019

Singh, Maanvi. “Endangered Green Sea Turtles May Be Making a Comeback in the U.S. Pacific.” Science News, 26 Apr. 2019, www.sciencenews.org/article/endangered-green-sea-turtles-may-be-making-comeback-us-pacific.

For current event 10 I decided to read  “Endangered green sea turtles may be making a comeback in the U.S. Pacific” by Mannavi Singh. The author begins the article by stating that the “Beleaguered populations of green sea turtles living in and around Hawaii and American Pacific island territories are increasing in number”. These sea turtles have been non existent in  Hawaii and American Pacific island territories and now there population is increasing 8 percent per year. The author even says in the article” The number of green sea turtles spotted around Hawaii increased by an average of 8 percent each year, the team reports April 24 in PLOS ONE. Around American Samoa and the Mariana Islands, the turtles’ numbers increased by an average of 4 percent per year”. As you can see the number of so called “endangered” sea turtles are actually gaining populations in many places around the world. The number of sea turtles has been increasing the last two decades and we didn't even now. The author say in the article “ The number of green sea turtles nesting in Hawaii and some Pacific island regions has been slowly increasing over the last two decades. But until now, scientists have had little information on how hatchlings fare once they leave their sandy cradles and venture out into the ocean”.

This article is extremely relevant to society because we thought these rules were endangered but they are actually slowly increasing in population. These turtles are relevant in society because they clearly play important roles in marine ecosystems. ... Whether by grazing on sea grass, controlling sponge distribution, feasting on jellyfish, transporting nutrients or supporting other marine life, sea turtles play vital roles in maintaining the health of the oceans. We overall need these turtles because they balance the marine ecosystem. If the sea turtles where to go extinct it would cause declines in all the species whose survival depends on healthy sea grass beds and coral reefs. That means that many marine species that humans harvest would be lost.  As you can see, if sea turtles where to go extinct the marine ecosystem would be very off balance.

I think Mannavi Singh did a excellent job writing this article. the author was able to explain the importance of the sea turtles but also explain the growth in population of these animals. The author also did a great job explaining her point and supplying facts and data about the sea turtles growth. As this article was written well well, there is still room for improvement. There could have been some outside information from the people in the water with the turtles. If we had information from the people experiencing face to face action with the turtles more data could be created. Although, there was room for improvement this was a very well written article and I enjoyed reading it.    

Current Event 10

Tenzing Pixley

Core Biology C ODD

Current Event Review 10

Tuesday, April 30th, 2019

Murphy, Heather. “Sooner or Later Your Cousin's DNA Is Going to Solve a Murder.” The New

York Times, The New York Times, 25 Apr. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/golden-state-killer-dna.html.

In the article, Sooner or Later Your Cousin's DNA Is Going to Solve a Murder by Heather Murphy, the author documents the use of what is quoted to be an “unconventional technique that relies on DNA submitted to online genealogy sites,” investigators have solved dozens of crimes. The method involves the use of mostly female DNA samples acquired from genealogy sites. Through this, law enforcement officials have been able to cross reference with left-over, non fallacious DNA at the site of violent crimes. Although it can be used in more recent investigations, investigators primarily employed it in solving cases which have been left inconclusive, sometimes decades after work has ceased. And despite only using samples from distant relatives, it has been remarkably effective when used in the branch of violent crimes.

The use of cross referencing DNA from genealogy databanks, albeit knew, has profound effects on the way crime is and will be solved for the foreseeable future and even beyond. First and foremost, this method is being used to conclude many investigators wrote off as “impossible”. A prime example of this would be the notoriously dubbed “Golden State Killer”, Joseph James DeAngelo, a man responsible for at least 13 murders, 50 accounts of rape, and a minimum of 100 burglaries from the mid 70’s to 80’s. For decades the case went on without a single strong suspect, until in August of last year when investigators cross referenced DNA with that found online to catch DeAngelo, who fit witness descriptions perfectly.

Murphy did a great job writing the article for a multitude of reasons. Taking the spotlight would be how she provided many real-world examples of how it has been used, not just theoretical usages which may or may not occur in the future. One of these being the example of how they apprehended the Golden State Killer. This helped the article stay grounded in reality rather than the the realm of possibility. She also brought up how it can be used for sexual assault victims, not just violent crimes.