The Biology of Bubble and Crash

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/the-biology-of-bubble-and-crash.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

A New York Times article titled “The Biology of Bubble and Crash” by John Coates introduces human biology and how it changes when faced with stress and risk. In severe cases of “outrageous success or terrifying failure” our body’s chemistry changes. The body’s natural homeostasis is thrown out of whack when certain hormones are produced at a higher level, which can “destabilize financial markets and wreak havoc on the wider economy.” When a trader is deciding whether or not to take a risk in order to make money a serge of steroids is released into their blood stream which effects the way that they think and move. Trader’s testosterone levels, men’s and women’s, clime in preparation for the trade ahead. Adrenaline and cortisol are released by the adrenal glands, which causes the release of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine  “one of the most addictive drug known to the human brain” alters the thinking of a trader and sometimes causes them to make irrational decisions. The author of the article quit his job on Wall Street in order to study the effects that these hormones have on traders and the market. He runs controlled experiments with both male and female traders and found that increase levels of testosterone leads to taking greater risks. He than offers a fix to the problem by encouraging banks to balance their employees between men and women, both young and old in order to balance risk.

            As we saw with the latest recession the financial world affects us all. Whether you work on Wall Street or depend on retirement income from investments if people make poor decisions when trading stocks because of increase hormone levels it can have a devastating effect. Millions of people lost their jobs when the financial markets collapsed and it’s hard to believe that some of it could have been due to too much testosterone.

            This article is very interesting because it touches on a piece of trading that is never discussed. The uncertainty tied to trading stocks and the stress it causes can actually affect a person’s judgment and that’s pretty scary. I found it fascinating how he quit his job to study that fact that people can be influenced by chemical produced in their body. The article is well written, although the experiments that the author ran seemed a bit small. In order to make his findings more valid he should increase the number of test subjects and add a control group to make shore that other factors are not affecting their hormone levels.       

                   

New Treatment for Alzheimer's

                Researchers have found a new physical therapy method for elders with Alzheimer’s or dementia. They do this by generating a new human neuron from adults in the right brain. "The ultimate goal we have in mind is that this may one day enable us to induce such conversion within the brain itself and thus provide a novel strategy for repairing the injured or diseased brain” says Johannes Gutenburg from the University of Mainz. The cells that are able to make this great leap are called paricytes. They are closely associated with blood vessels and keep the blood brain barrier stable. In the scientists research they discovered that the new neurons were able to interact with other neurons thus possibly making chains to work with each other. These discoveries of the pericyte could possibly lead to the damaged part of a dementia patient being fully cured.

            This article shows the phenomenal things scientists are producing to save the sick, and elderly people. Dementia and Alzheimer’s are horrible and depressing diseases for the people with the disease and their family around them. Watching someone die with Alzheimer’s, and seeing them forget who you were is hard. So this discovery is something that will be well respected with the world and the community of the people suffering from Dementia or Alzheimer’s and their family members.

            The only problem that I have with this article was it didn’t have many quotes from the scientists or the researchers working on this project. I would have liked to hear more about what they are saying this discovery is like and their thoughts on what should come after. Overall I liked this article and found the information useful and interesting.  

posted for M. Huncke

A New Tooth, Made to Order in Under an Hour

I read the article “A New Tooth, Made to Order in Under an Hour”, from the New York Times science section. The article begins with a guy who broke his tooth and seems happy and surprised to have an artificial tooth so fast.  It is about a new system that a company called Sirona is creating to sell to dentists. What this system does is allow crowns which replace teeth to be created much faster and implanted in just one hour. Usually the implantation of teeth can take up to 2 visits in order to find the shape needed and get it in to the office and then implant it. Before dentists would cut the tooth down fill the mouth with paste to find the paste. Then the paste would be sent to a lab for the artificial part to be implanted with glue. Now an easier method is offered. The dentists will place a camera that takes a 3d picture inside a tooth. Then it will send the image to a machine that will then create the replica out of porcelain. Another new thing is that artificial roots are created attaching the tooth with a screw to the roots. This creates a better attachment for the patient. However the CAD/CAM technology is trying to spread and is told to be better than the old method of fixing teeth.

            I think that this new CAD/CAM technology will impact all of society especially for those who do not take good care of their teeth or who are involved in dangerous physical activity. It will be easier to get the fix on the go. You will not have to go through 2 weeks waiting for the tooth to be made because it will be made right there. Also the cost will not be more so it simply makes it better. Also the artificial roots are said to be stronger by Dr. Campbell. With a new stronger and faster to be made fix I think that this could go worldwide.

            I actually thought this article was particularly interesting out of the other ones I read because not only is it an interesting invention but I believe it has a good chance of becoming very popular. The idea of this becoming a new part of our world makes it more interesting. The article was very repetitive, saying the process was very easy and explaining why in various parts in the article. However the topic was very interesting and the author did a good job pulling in the reader and explaining this new amazing system!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/a-new-tooth-made-to-order-in-under-an-hour/?ref=science

May the Force Be With Them: Deep Sea Acorn Worms Named After Yoda

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121007140704.htm

One of the three new species of deep sea acorn worms or Enteropneusts discovered 2,500m or around 1.5 miles below the surface of Atlantic Ocean is named Yoda purpurata.  Yoda purpurata is named by a University of Aberdeen-led team of scientists who found these three new species during a voyage to the mid-Atlantic.  Acorn worms or Enteropneusts are a hemichordate class of invertebrates which do not develop a vertebral column.  Their body is made up of three main parts: an acorn-shaped proboscis, a short fleshy collar that lies behind it, and a long, worm-like trunk.  Now, after studying the specimens, scientists have officially named the three new species identified as belonging to the Torquaratoridae family.

They are perceived as an evolutionary dead end, having been surpassed by their cousins, the fishes which acquired tails became fast swimmers, conquered the oceans and gave rise to reptiles, mammals and birds. Whilst they are not strictly a missing link in our own evolution they give an insight into what the lifestyle of our remote ancestors might have been like.

It is only 10 years since the first species of deep sea torquaratorid acorn worm was found in the Pacific Ocean.  Now we have three new species from the Atlantic it seems different species will be found throughout the deep sea.  There is much interest in these deep sea hemichordates since they are close to the evolutionary link between vertebrates and invertebrates.

This article interest me cause I never thought there are still species we haven’t found with nowadays’ technology.  Their colors are also very beautiful- at present, we only found them in three colors, pink, purple and white.  The color is the only difference between them from present observation.  Let’s look forward to how scientists address the role they play in the deep sea ecosystem.

Purple species

Pink species

White species

Water

Slave rebellion in Ants

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2012/09/26/slave_rebellion_is_widespread_in_ants.html

                                In this article entitled Slave rebellion is widespread in ants I learned quite a bit in how ants behave  and how they react with other ants. Supposedly, ants that are held hostage in other ant species nests damage the other ants by acts of sabotage.  Professor Dr. Susanne Foitzik of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany carefully explained in detail that this is a widespread characteristic and occurs often in the ant world. This was first discovered in 2009. Interestingly enoughthere are three different ant populations in the United states of West Virginia, New York, and Ohio. In these states Slave ants such as "Temnothorax longispinosus'" ant workers were seen neglecting and killing the offspring of  "Protomognathus americanus" slavemakers. Now only average of only 45% of the parasite's offspring survived the so called tragedies of the ant world. This act reduces the numbers of the parasites in the area and then increases the chances of survival for the neighboring colonies of ants populated by the slave ants' relatives.  

                       More than half of all animal species exploit their hosts.The American slave-making ant "Protomognathus americanus"  is a social parasite that is dependent on the other ant species for survival. Slave working ants have to  attend the brood in parasite nests and bring food to their higher ups and feed them, and also defend the nest. These ants become slaves when working ants attack the nests of the host species "Temnothorax longispinosus", kill the adult ants, and steal the brood. In the masters' nest, which is located in hollow acorns, nutshells, or twigs, the brood behavior of the emerging slave workers is exploited to the advantage of the slavemaker species. 

            "Probably at first the slaves cannot tell that the larvae belong to another species," explains Foitzik. As a result, 95 percent of the brood survives the larval stage. But the situation changes as soon as the larvae pupate. "The pupae, which already look like ants, bear chemical cues on their cuticles that can apparently be detected. We have been able to show that a high fraction of the slavemaker pupae are killed by slave workers." The pupae are either neglected or actively killed by being attacked and torn apart. Several slaves at once may assault a pupa, which is unable to move or defend itself during the pupal stage and is also not protected by a cocoon." This was a copied quote with more information explaining Fiotziks theories about the slave and working ants. Now you know the extremely difficult and long names of ant species and really what ants act like and how they survive if need be. 

Images of 300 million old insects revealed, Science is phun yo!

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2012/09/26/images_of_300_million_old_insects_revealed.html

I read the article, “Images of 300 million old insects revealed”. This article was very interesting to me because I take an interest to paleontology. The story came from Philip Withers a professor at the University of Manchester. The scientists used a CT scanner to reconstruct the image of an insect 305 million years old. The insect was a fossilized rock with three-dimensional holes in it. The scientists put the fossils in the CT scanner and took 3,000 x-rays from various angles. This formed 2,000 different slides showing the fossil in cross section, which is the intersection of a 3 dimensional body with a plane. Using these slide they made a 3D digital reconstruction of the insect. From this they could determine the biology and diet of the insects. The paleontologists suspect the insect fed from the rotting litter of the forest floor. They are a new species and genus which no longer exists; even though it is extinct it is closely related to the cockroach. They both belong to a group called the Polyneoptera, which consists of roaches, crickets, and grasshoppers.

I found this article very interesting mainly because I always find it fascinating when a group of scientists discover something so old, yet well preserved. The method of technology is also very interesting because this year we learned about electron or SEM microscopes. Although the CT scan and the SEM scan aren’t the same I find them very similar, because they both create a 3D image. This article was mind blowing for me and I was very surprised to hear that they found a new species that lived millions of years ago; I personally find it very impressive.