Global Warming:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html
         
          This article gives us an insight on what global warming is doing to our planet. In this article, the author speaks about how global warming is preventable because it is the men and women of society creating global warming by burning forests and creating greenhouse gases. Specific study was done on Cancun, Mexico to test the global warming issues on climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a group of people working to reduce the global warming. With the auspices, or the help of, the UNFCCC, in Cancun they are measuring the temperature change and working on the impact on the warming of the planet. The international debate is struggling with the difference between rich and poorer countries over who is going to pay to try and fix this global issue.
   
           The scientists studying global warming record temperatures consecutively to measure the change in temperature for a specific place. When the scientists recognize the global warming change in temperature they try to conclude what is causing this change. When they figure out what the problem is they talk the UNFCCC and the people of the community with global warming and tries to make a difference. Many people and their habitats are affected by global warming and it was important that people learn how to prevent this horrible climate changing issue. That is why many articles have been presented explaining what we can do to prevent the large amounts of pollution throughout the societies.
   
          Our current president, Barrack Obama promised as a candidate to have the United States put on a path to recognize the climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants. However when Obama presented to the issue of climate change to the congress they failed to act upon the major issue. When Obama rejected a proposed rule that the E.P.A. or the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States of America, that would have reduced a large amount of the ozone pollution. He rejected the proposal because it would cause an extreme burden on the industry and local governments in a time of economical distress.

Breakthrough: A robot brain implanted in a rodent

          I found the article Breakthrough: A robot brain implanted in a rodent, to be very interesting. Scientist Matti Mintz, of Tel Aviv University, has recently used technology to implant a robotic cerebellum, a part of the brain that is responsible for movement, into the skull of rodents with brain damage. This allowed the rodent to gain back ability for movement. This cyborg cerebellum consists of a computer chip that is electrically wired into the rat’s brain with electrodes. The chip was then programmed to take in sensory information from the body, interpret it, and communicate messages back out to the brain stem and as well as the rest of the body. Matti says, “It’s proof of the concept that we can record information from the brain, analyze it in a way similar to the biological network, and then return it to the brain”.

            

          The information that is retained in this article affects humanity in general. The ability to now reactivate and restore a part of the brain will in the future make it possible to prolong and preserve many lives. This new outbreak could alter the future of medicine and lead to many new inventions to help humanity. This new breakthrough may be able to save cancer patients and others who have lost parts of their brain in serious accidents.

       

          I believe this article was very well written; it had all the main ideas captured to understand the concept of this new breakthrough. The article did so in a very simplistic way so that no background knowledge was necessary before reading the article. Although it would have been nice to have some sort of knowledge on how it led them to this discovery and more about what it will do the medicinal technology in the upcoming years, it was a very good article. Maybe this new breakthrough will lead us the answer to cancer. 

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2011/10/03/breakthrough_a_robot_brain_implanted_in_a_rodent.html

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/09/27/roborat-israelis-create-rodent-with-robot-brain/

“Stem Cell Miracle? New Therapies May Cure Chronic Conditions like Alzheimer's”

          Recently a 26 year old unidentified patient has been offered the opportunity to partake in the first wave of patients to be treated for macular degeneration, a disease that destroys eye sight, by use of stem cells. Doctors have begun testing this controversial new treatment, which uses stem cells from human embryos and develop them into a specific cell that can be used to replace damaged cells. Stem cells can have been tested on people with macular degeneration, spinal cord injuries and scientist hope to test stem cells on treating diabetics, replacing drugs or surgery and curing Alzheimer’s patients. However there are unknown and possible risks with stem cells such as a person’s immune system rejecting the foreign cell. Scientist are planning to combat this problem by developing stem cells from the patient’s own skin. Although scientist are optimistic, they are not expecting the first wave of volunteers to fully see or walk again, but they hope to improve and learn more about the uses of stem cells.

          Stem cell research has the potential to cure many of humanities diseases and injuries of today. By replicating the more than 200 tissues in the human body scientist could replace damaged cells or provide the body with cells that it has been deprived of in order to combat a disease. Although stem cells seem to be the future cure to our medical problems, they could also be dangerous. When stem cells are injected into the body, they grow and if it gets out of control the stem cells could become cancerous. If stem cell research does succeed in the future, it could replace surgeries and drugs. And stem cells would bring an end to many medical problems such as diabetes, Alzheimers, macular degeneration and spinal injuries.

          I thought this article could have elaborated more on how stem cells are made and the possible dangers of stem cell. Also the title of this article talks about a cure for Alzheimer’s, however the article focuses on a patient with macular degeneration.


Park, Alice. “Stem Cell Miracle? New Therapies May Cure Chronic Conditions like Alzheimer's.” Time Magazine.(June 25 2011) October 10, 2011.

The New Science of the Teenage Brain

This article presents the new and surprising science of the teenage brain. National Geographic magazine documented a group of teenagers last fall in Austin, Texas. As they told their stories in pictures, the article talked about the new emerging science behind the development of the teenage brain.

The whole concept behind the development of the brain is a very long description. The brain’s axons gradually become more insulated with a fatty substance called myelin, which boosts the transmissions up to a hundred times. While this is happening, the little chemical junctures that the axoms pass notes around, called synapses, wither away from little use; forming the brain’s cortex- the outer layer of the grey matter where we do our most complicated thinking. While this layer becomes thinner, it becomes more efficient as well.

This process is called maturation, and it was once thought to be finished by the time a child finished elementary school. But now, it is being seen by a study started in 1990 that this isn’t the case. As we mature, it gets difficult to get the cogs of the developing brain to mesh with the more mature- resulting in a struggle to balance impulse, desire, goals, self-interest, rules, and ethics.

Teenagers are 45 percent more likely to take risks more than adults; and 25 percents of teens are more likely to feel a rush of the thrill in taking these risks. As Lawerence Steinburg, a developmental psychologist, states, “teenagers are more likely to rule with impulse, not thought.” Teens have always been ridiculed for making stupid or dumb decisions, and I thought this article portrayed the new science very well. Now, it has been proved that if we didn’t mature at the pace we did, we would end up dumber.

-National Geographic, October 2011

Citation

Dobbs, David “Beautiful Brains” National Geographic, October 2011 36-59

Salty Water and Gas Sucked Into Earth's Interior Helps Unravel Planetary Evolution

            The article has presented many new insights into planet Earth’s evolution.  Lead author Dr Mark Kendrick from the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences hypothesized that, “Inert gases trapped inside Earth's interior provide important clues into the processes responsible for the birth of our planet and the subsequent evolution of its oceans and atmosphere.” (Science Daily Dr. Kendrick and a team of researchers underwent an experiment, in which they collected serpentinite rocks from mountain belts in Italy and Spain. They found out that that the serpentinite rocks trap a large amount of seawater in their crystal structure and can be transported to great depths in the Earth’s mantle by subduction. Scientists understand the process of subduction as a process in which atmospheric gases are mixed into the Earth’s mantle, from such things as meteorites.

              This finding is important because the study has indicated that the gases throughout Earth may not actually be from Earth. This study disproves the theory that gases must escape and cannot be stored in the Earth’s mantle, but gases can become trapped. The significance of this study has far reaching implications for future studies. Scientists can now experiment on these trapped gases and can try to discover the gases true origins, which can thus provide us with more information about our planet’s evolution of the oceans and the atmosphere.

            From this article I have learned that our gases on Earth may not have come from Earth, but may have been transported here from space and got trapped in the mantle. This subduction process allows scientists to study the trapped gases to figure out when and where they came from. Before reading this article, I assumed that all gases are from Earth, but this article has broadened my prospective on Earths evolution.  I think that we, the people of the planet Earth, are one step closer into finding the origins of our planet, the universe, as well as help understand how we as a people have come to be where we are in the universe.

Bibliography

University of Melbourne. "Salty water and gas sucked into Earth's interior helps unravel planetary evolution." ScienceDaily, 26 Sep. 2011. Web. 27 Sep. 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110926095335.htm

Posted for A. Falcon

Australian Aborigine Hair Tells a Story of Human Migration

          This article was a synopsis of how scientists made a new discovery in the dating of Australian aborigines. A lock of hair collected from a British Scientist a century ago has been analyzed and is now suggesting that Aborigines migrated to Australia 50,000 years ago. The leader of the group who cracked the genetic code was Eske Willerslev. He is a highly regarded Scientist when it come to DNA.  Genetic dates are based on a mixture of statistics and best guesses, but the split times calculated by the Danish team are compatible with the more reliable archaeological dates, which record the earliest known human presence in Australia at 44,000 years ago. The Aborigines’ ancestors could have arrived several thousand years before this date.  There are many objections to this recent discovery. Primitive tools have been discovered and they have been dated back only about 6,000 years ago. These tools suggest that when they were used, it was the at the beginning of a civilization, but that wouldn't make sense because recent research shows that the Aborigines' migrated here around 44,000 years ago.  The dingo originated on the Asian mainland and became part of the Polynesian domestic menagerie along with the pig, the chicken and the rat. This ensemble had reached New Zealand by A.D. 1250. How the dingo arrived in Australia is an “enigma,” Dr. Savolainen writes, because none of the other elements of Polynesian culture are found there. The Dingos are said to have arrived from Polyensian Islands but what is strange is that the dogs were at that time Domesticated and only traveled with their master. So how did the Dingos end up there? Also, when did Aborigines actually migrate to Australia?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/science/23aborigines.html?_r=1&ref=science

  posted for W. Duncan

Women More Likely Than Men to See Nuance When Making Decisions

This article suggests that men and women view the world differently. New research suggests gender plays a role in categorical decisions because men tend to organize the world into distinct categories whereas women see things as more conditional and in shades of gray. At the University of Warwick, psychologist had 50 men and women judge where certain object was to fit in certain categories. The researchers reported that, “Men were more likely to see an object as fully belonging or not belonging to a category, while women more often judged that objects only partially belonged. The more intriguing finding, though, was that men and women were equally confident about their decisions. This means the gender difference was not due to men simply being more certain or women more uncertain about their judgments. Instead, it suggests men and women perceive the world differently.” These categorical judgments can have an influence on the types of professions people pursue. Which is partly the reason for why many professions are heavily male dominated. Research finds that men engage in more abstract thinking about many topics (using categories, generalizations) while women are more disposed to context-specific thinking (in terms of concrete situations and relationships). This article talks about how the morals of men and women differ.

These findings can help humanity understand the thinking of men and women. In specific, it can help women understand why men think how they do, and it can help men understand why women think how they do.

I thought this article was interesting. It was very well written and easy to read. By including specific tests done on men and women the information in this article can be verified easily. This article gave me a lot of insight on the psychology of men and women, which I think is a very interesting topic.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sex-roles-and-seeing-the-world-in-black-and-white