The Understatements of the Dodo Bird, discovery of a forgotten species

Angelinna Faisca                                                                                            5/12/21

Anthes, Emily. “The Smart, Agile, and Completely Underrated Dodo Bird.” The Atlantic,             Atlantic Media Company, 8 June 2016, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/the-dodos-redemption/486086/

The article that I reviewed was “The Smart, Agile, and Completely Dodo Bird.” This article first starts off with the stereotypical ideas and thoughts of the dodo bird: Clumsy, naive, fat, walking straight into the arms of hungry Dutch settlers. However, this story has been told like that over and over, even hearing it in my younger years in school. However, most recently scientists have learned that this wasn’t the case at all. Emily Anthes, the author of this article, then goes into the origin of the dodo bird. About 8 million years ago, the ancestors of the dodo bird, which is part of the Pigeon family, arrived on a small volcanic island and lost its flight and took a big, flightless bird image, one we are familiar with seeing as we speak of the dodo bird. The first record of the dodo bird was in 1599. After this, in less than a hundred years, the dodo bird died out. To make things especially harder, taxidermies were not something that was done efficiently, so many dodo specimens were not saved, bringing the myths even closer to utter false facts. Going far into the future from 1599, in 1865, a fossil deposit was found, and in the 20th century, only one full skeleton was made. In 2011, a paleontologist named Leon Claessens travelled to the island to thoroughly look through the skeleton, along with two of his students. After printing a 3-D model of each bone, they were able to find that the bones of the dodo bird were made to run through  dense forests and rocky hills. After all of this research, they saw that the dodo bird was not a total useless oddity, as they had found that they had also used their small wings for balance. What was also found was that dodo birds had enlarged olfactory bulbs, which might have enhanced their sense of smell, helping them with finding food sources. Overall, this article goes through  the different factors of the myths that were surrounding the dodo bird, when all in all, it was probably one of the most useful and evolved birds in its time. 

In connection to our current life, there were  so many  things that none of us knew about this bird, especially amongst the myths that we have been told. Which leads to the question, what else can  we learn  about extinct animals? The answer is quite a lot, as the dodo bird has been extinct for over 300 years, yet we are still able to even comprehend what its brain size was and even knowing what its sense of smell was. This leads scientists to wonder and explore what other things they can figure out about other extinct animals and how they could have been beneficial to our current Earth.  

Finally, although I don’t think the article really needed anything, since it was a really  good article in my opinion, I think it could have included images, as it didn’t include any throughout the article, which  just made it seem wordy, and less engaging to some degree. However I thought it was a very good article, as it spoke of all the functions that were questioned about. Overall, Emily Anthes article was very  informative and gave me a lot of information about the myths of the dodo and what the dodo bird was really all about.

“COVID-19 Can Affect the Brain. New Clues Hint at How.”

Annabelle Krause

5/4/21

AP Bio

Current Event 21

Sanders, Laura. “COVID-19 Can Affect the Brain. New Clues Hint at How.” Science News, 26 

Apr. 2021, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-brain-coronavirus-symptom-stroke-anxiety-depression. 

In the article, “COVID-19 Can Affect the Brain. New Clues Hint at How,” Sanders discusses what is colloquially known as long COVID, or the long term symptoms and effects of COVID-19.  She begins with the short-term brain-related symptoms “the loss of smell … headaches, confusion, hallucinations and delirium … depression, anxiety and sleep problems.”  This emphasizes that we know that COVID-19 impacts the brain.  However, she further states that “Researchers are still trying to figure out how many people experience these psychiatric or neurological problems, who is most at risk, and how long such symptoms might last.” Very little is known at this point since COVID-19 is so new, and Elyse Singer, a neurologist at UCLA, notes that “It’s going to take us years to tease this apart.”  There are studies going on currently in order to try and understand long COVID and its effect on the brain.  One such study found that “one in three people had experienced a psychiatric or neurological diagnosis” based on the health records of “more than 236,000 COVID-19 survivors.” Although this is definitely noteworthy, the researchers have only proven correlation, not causation.  Most of the diagnoses were for “depression and anxiety, ‘disorders that are extremely common in the general population already,’ points out Jonathan Rogers, a psychiatrist at University College London.”  Beyond that, “About 1 in 50 people with COVID-19 had a stroke” and with those who reported other brain-related symptoms “1 in 11 had strokes.”  Despite early worries, researchers are pretty sure that the virus does not directly affect the brain.  However, it does affect the brain, possibly through blood vessels.  Avindra Nath, a neurologist who studies central nervous system infections at the NIH, found small clots in blood vessels, thick and inflamed walls of vessels, and blood leaking from vessels into brain tissue.  Nath concluded that all of these factors could have contributed to long COVID brain damage.  A last possible reason for long COVID brain damage is inflammation.  Emily Troyer, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Diego, cautioned that “We … know that COVID causes inflammation, and inflammation has the potential to disrupt neurotransmission, particularly in the case of depression.”  Overall, there are many possible justifications for long COVID brain damage, and it is unclear what exactly is the cause, or if long COVID is causing psychological damage.

This is extremely relevant to our lives.  As time progresses, long COVID will become more and more prevalent.  It is important to understand all of the risks of COVID, as well as understand the root of these risks.  As doctors begin to decipher the causes of long COVID, they will be better equipped to treat it and help society move past COVID.  As citizens, it is integral that we continue to be diligent to avoid long COVID and further spreading COVID.  It is more than likely that we will continue to grapple with COVID and its effects for many years, so we must research and understand it.

The article was very clear and was not overly complicated. The author cited many different studies and scientists, which made her article much more convincing and gave her legitimacy. It was also helpful that she explained a rebuttal to each of her assertions at the end of each subsection. This made it clear how little is known about COVID and long COVID. However, I do believe that the author took on too many theories with one article. It would have been easier for me as a reader to fully digest the knowledge she was sharing if she had chosen one idea, such as inflammation causing long COVID, and only focused on it. That would have greatly improved my overall understanding and deepened my understanding of one area, which I believe would be more useful.

Hugh Duffy

Mr. Ippolito

AP BIO

4/25/2021

Mitch Leslie Apr. 15, 2021, et al. “Lab-Grown Embryos Mix Human and Monkey Cells for the 

First Time.” Science, 15 Apr. 

2021,www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/lab-grown-embryos-mix-human-and-monkey-c

ells-first-time. 

    Scientists have recently combined human and monkey cells in hopes of replacing organ donorship with ones grown in a lab. The article states that this discovery is significant because it opens doors for creating additional chimera cells of different species such as humans with pigs or cows. It is already understood that pig and cow hearts can be used as replacements in surgery with high efficacy rates. When grown in a lab, scientists could specifically tailor an organ to its recipient, negating the possibility of organ rejection - where the immune system recognizes a transplanted organ as a foreign body and dangerously attacks it. “ These chimeras could help scientists hone techniques for growing human tissue in species better suited for transplants, such as pigs.” (Leslie 1) There is hope that these experiments will work in humans as they did with mice, “In 2017, researchers reported growing pancreases from mouse stem cells inserted into rat embryos. Transplanting the organs into mice with diabetes eliminated the disease.” (Leslie 1) This has worked with mice because of their relation to rats, however the biology seems to fail when it comes to combining species that differ greatly in genetic makeup. As of now, combinations between humans and pigs, as well as humans and cows have all gone terribly wrong. Cells of this nature were instantly undergoing apoptosis, detecting an error in their DNA and terminating themselves. It is unclear if this research will ever come to fruition and benefit modern medicine as it is predicted to.
    
    One aspect I wish the author had expanded upon was the lack of emphasis on human and pig trials. There was a clear focus on the concept or idea of those trials, without actually regarding them in any seriousness. I would have liked to learn more about the potential for growing organs in a lab, and if this were to occur, would organ donation still be necessary? And would the free market seize this opportunity to capitalize on said organs? Selling them? In that scenario, the idea becomes grim.


    I chose this article because I found the title interesting. I am personally against most forms of stem cell and combination research, as I find it appalling, however this study seemed promising. As long as individuals aren’t capitalizing on the health needs of others, this could be a brilliant discovery for humanity and - as it did in mice - aid in eliminating chronic illnesses like diabetes.

Current Event 20

 Caroline Hulbert     4.25.21

AP Bio C Even Current Event 20

Grossman, Lisa. “NASA's Perseverance Rover Split CO2 to Make Breathable Air on Mars.” Science News, 23 Apr. 2021, www.sciencenews.org/article/nasa-perseverance-rover-mars-oxygen-air.  

For this current event, I chose to review Lisa Grossman’s article, “NASA's Perseverance Rover Split CO2 to Make Breathable Air on Mars.” Grossman begins detailing the experimental device on the Mars Perseverance rover, which recently Split carbon dioxide molecules into their component parts, creating around 10 minutes’ worth of breathable oxygen. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, abbreviated to MOXIE, is “about the size of a toaster” and breaks oxygen atoms off of carbon dioxide, which is the primary component of Mars’ atmosphere. Because of this, researchers like Michael Hecht at MIT have called it “an electrical tree.” MOXIE was sent with Perseverance to Mars and arrived there on February 18th. On April 20th, MOXIE warmed up to around 800℃ and ran until it produced five grams of oxygen. Grossman then clarifies that the primary focus of producing oxygen on Mars isn’t for breathing, but rather for the return to Earth. The burning of fuel requires oxygen, so astronauts traveling to Mars in the future will either have to bring oxygen with them or produce it there. According to the article, 25 metric tons of oxygen are needed to lift a rocket with a few astronauts off of the planet’s surface. MOXIE is a prototype for the device astronauts could use to make fuel in the future. It can create only 10 grams of oxygen per hour, running for around one Martian day at a time. A scaled-up version, however, could run continuously for 26 months. Because it is powered by Perseverance, MOXIE cannot run continuously, as the rover needs to use its power to continue the mission of searching for signs of past life on Mars.

This article is extremely important to the future of space travel, and opens the door for future research and missions. The success of this technology could set the stage for a permanent research station on Mars, and brings us even closer to human travel to Mars. 

This article was very well-written and informative about current scientific research and developments. The author included opening details that hook the reader in and introduce the discussed topics that may be unfamiliar to some readers. She often sourced other ScienceNews articles, but it would have made her more credible to include information from other sources, like NASA. I thought that it would have been interesting if she had explained how MOXIE actually works and how oxygen is extracted from the carbon dioxide molecules.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover extracts first oxygen from Red Planet.

 Erin Foley

AP Biology C Block Odd

Current Event 20

April 25th, 2021

Grossman, Lisa. NASA. “NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover extracts first oxygen from Red 

Planet.” April 21, 2021.

On April 21st, NASA’s Perseverance rover split carbon molecules to create oxygen on Mars. Carbon dioxide molecules are made up of two oxygen atoms and a carbon atom, thus when the rover split them into their component parts, it created 10 minutes worth of breathable oxygen. There was actually enough oxygen to make tiny amounts of rocket fuel. The rover’s ability to perform this mechanism comes from its instrument called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), which scientists like principal investigator Michael Hecht of MIT have called an “electrical tree” that breathes in CO2 and pumps out oxygen. Oxygen is necessary for most fuel-burning activities on Earth, from burning gas in a car to burning a log in a fireplace. In space travel, oxygen is also needed for rockets to fly to and from Earth. Since Mars’ atmosphere is primarily composed of carbon dioxide, which we now have the ability to convert to oxygen with MOXIE, astronauts could potentially create enough rocket fuel to power a trip home to Earth. To create this amount of fuel (about 25 metric tons of oxygen) would save astronauts from having to take such a massive amount with them on a trip to Mars. Although MOXIE would need to run continuously for a very long time in order to create such a large amount of oxygen, this innovation makes a human trip to Mars seem much more attainable.

The successful use of MOXIE proves that we are closer than ever before to achieving a trip to Mars. For years, a human trip to Mars has seemed too dangerous to ever pull off. Mars’ atmosphere is thick enough to burn a spacecraft up upon entry, its temperatures are extreme and dangerous, and its dust storms ensure that no traveler to Mars will be welcomed with open arms. However, one obstacle to traveling to Mars - the large amount of fuel required to lift off from Mars - has been broken down with the innovation of MOXIE. When human travel to Mars is achieved, the benefits to us on Earth are endless. As climate change ramps up around us, more and more land is becoming uninhabitable for crops, but we may find out how to overcome these conditions by learning how to grow food on Mars. Moreover, as researchers try to figure out how to make Mars’ atmosphere habitable using microbes - a practice called “terraforming” - they may come to understand how we can use microbes to clean up air pollution and oil spills on Earth. Finally, the prospect of 3D printing on Mars’ zero-gravity surface has led scientists to believe that printing out body parts would be possible if done on Mars. According to a researcher at Techshot, Dr. Bolan, with zero gravity, “we can print complex structures and they will stand up. If you print here on the ground, it’s a puddle”. By traveling to Mars, humans will have a world of research opened to them, and in a hundred or so years, could find a way to make Mars habitable. The invention of MOXIE will not allow us to immediately pack our bags for the Red Planet, but it speeds up the mission by at least a decade.

This article was informative and engaging, albeit a little lacking in background information. The author, Lisa Grossman, effectively opens up the article by saying that “NASA’s Perseverance rover just created a breath of fresh air on Mars,” which really drew me into the rest of the article. Moreover, Grossman demonstrates high-level writing as she notes the successes of MOXIE as well as its room for improvement. She writes that “MOXIE can’t run continuously” and that its oxygen production didn’t make “enough to breathe for very long,” but clarified that MOXIE is a prototype, allowing the reader to see how improvements to MOXIE can be made in the future. However, Grossman did not really discuss the societal impact of MOXIE past the fact that it will allow astronauts to create fuel for their return rather than bringing it on their trip. This in itself is obviously a huge impact, but if she wanted to make a greater impression on the reader, she should have discussed why a trip to Mars would be such a big deal to humans - that it’s not just another box to tick off on the space race's list of goals. Still, Grossman’s summary of the events of last Friday illustrates how the movement of humans closer and closer to Mars has been propelled by oxygen-creation innovations.

Hints of an Ancient Coronavirus Outbreak Appear in Modern East Asian DNA.

 Kelly Baclija

Mr. Ippolito

AP Bio

April 16, 2021

Bower, Bruce. “Hints of an Ancient Coronavirus Outbreak Appear in Modern East Asian DNA.” Science News, 14 Apr. 2021, www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-coronavirus-epidemic-east-asia-dna-covid.

An ancient coronavirus, or a closely related pathogen, triggered an epidemic among ancestors of present-day East Asians roughly 25,000 years ago, a new study indicates. Analysis of DNA from more than 2,000 people shows that genetic changes in response to that persistent epidemic accumulated over the next 20,000 years or so, David Enard, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, reported April 8 at the virtual annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Enard’s group consulted a publicly available DNA database of 2,504 individuals from 26 ethnic populations on five continents, including Chinese Dai, Vietnamese Kinh and African Yoruba people. The team first focused on 420 proteins known to interact with coronaviruses, including 332 that interact with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These interactions could range from boosting immune responses to making it easier for a virus to hijack a cell. Substantially increased production of all 420 proteins, a sign of past exposures to coronavirus-like epidemics, appeared only in East Asians. Enard’s group traced the viral responses of 42 of those proteins back to roughly 25,000 years ago. An analysis of the genes known to orchestrate production of those proteins determined that specific variants became more common around 25,000 years ago before leveling off in frequency by around 5,000 years ago. That pattern is consistent with an initially vigorous genetic response to a virus that waned over time, either as East Asians adapted to the virus or as the virus lost its ability to cause disease, Enard said. Twenty-one of the 42 gene variants act either to enhance or deter the effects of a wide array of viruses, not just coronaviruses, suggesting that an unknown virus that happened to exploit similar proteins as coronaviruses could have instigated the ancient epidemic, Enard said.

These findings are important because they raise the possibility that some East Asians today have inherited biological adaptations to coronaviruses or closely related viruses and ultimately helps us learn more about the current pandemic. This discovery opens the way to exploring how genes linked to ancient viral epidemics may contribute to modern disease outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Genes with ancient viral histories might also provide clues to researchers searching for better antiviral drugs, although that remains to be demonstrated.

This article was generally well-written because it included a plethora of information conducted within the study, which allows the audience to completely understand the topic at hand. The author also included a variety of sources, whether it be experts in the field or links to other articles, ultimately establishing their credibility to the reader. Despite these areas, there are a few areas for improvement. For instance, the author repeatedly states that there were “genetic changes” in response to the epidemic from 20,000 years ago, but failed to ever explain what those changes were. Despite this, the article was an interesting read and provided intriguing information concerning the idea of modern DNA already having been exposed to coronaviruses.

Current Event 19: “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off US West Coast”

 Olivia Cevasco

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology - C Even

16 April 2021

Current Event 19: “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off US West Coast”

Press, Associated. “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off US West Coast.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 8 Apr. 2021, www.usnews.com/news/news/articles/2021-04-08/steep-decline-in-giant-sea-turtles-seen-off-us-west-coast. 

The article “Steep Decline in Giant Sea Turtles Seen off the US West Coast” addresses the devastating decrease in the leatherback sea turtle population on the West Coast. As early as 40 years ago, scientists began documenting the number of stranded sea turtles along the West Coast and found that leatherback sea turtles—whose species has existed since dinosaur times—were frequently stranded and often migrate from other parts of the world—as far as 7,000 miles away—to colder West Coast beaches where there are an abundance of jellyfish. However incredible this species and its long migration pattern is, leatherback turtles are going extinct—and fast.

(Source: Wikipedia)

According to a recent study, there has been an 80% decrease in the number of leatherback foragers on the California coastline in the past 30 years, 5.6% annual decline. The quantity of adult female leatherbacks nesting and laying eggs on West Coast beaches has decreased from tens of thousands to around 1,400. To make matters worse, the decline in the leatherback population isn’t just documented in California, but on the beaches of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and other places. “If you find the decline in one place, that might have a number of causes, but if you find the same estimate of decline in two places that indicates something much more serious,” said Daniel Pauly, who was not involved in the study but is a fisheries professor at the University of British Columbia and an advocate for limiting commercial fishing to help marine ecosystems. The study notes that the sharp decline in the leatherback population is primarily due to the reduction of available nesting beaches due to human activity. We occupy beaches and no longer share them with the turtles. Commercial fishing, especially for swordfish, causes entanglement of the leatherback turtles in nets and other fishing equipment that can suffocate and kill them. Additionally, leatherback eggs are considered a delicacy (in some cultures), and people poach the eggs from the beach to eat and sell. Scott Benson, who co-authored the study, said that “There is an opportunity right now to stop the decline, but we must seize that opportunity immediately and that will require an international effort by all the nations this animals interacts with. If nothing is done to reverse this course, this population will become, essentially, extinct in the Pacific Ocean.” Fortunately, American lawmakers, like California’s Senator Diane Feinstein, are proposing legislation to phase out fishing with large nets that cause leatherback entrapment, since these phasing out methods have proved successful in California and Hawaii. But reducing the number of fishing nets isn’t the solution to this massive problem. 

The declining leatherback population is just one of many species that are threatened by human activity and heading towards extinction. And while effective legislation can certainly help prevent more leatherback deaths due to entrapment, if we want to save this population—and the countless other species facing extinction—we must first preserve the ecosystems in which these creatures live. And this is an international effort. We must reverse our tendency to destroy habitats in order to reap profit, and we must increase conservation efforts. In 2015, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched an initiative to reduce the number of leatherback eggs pillaged on CA beaches. But if we are to protect this population to the fullest of our ability, we need initiatives to provide leatherbacks beaches for nesting, waters sans commercial boats, and we must work to eliminate the human actions that threaten the species. 

I decided to review this article because, as a coastal CA native, I’m interested in both aquatic life and scientific studies from CA. This article’s strengths lie in its informal tone and diction which helps the reader understand many of the key concepts. There were also a variety of aspects covered, such as the problem, the cause, legislative efforts, and other initiatives that helped me understand the full scope of the issue. There was also plentiful data used from the original study. However, I would have liked to see more solutions presented on this issue. What is the real solution to this international issue? How do we elevate it from a West Coast concern to a global concern? I had to try to piece this together since the article discussed a few separate initiatives that obviously won’t solve the whole issue. Overall, this article is timely, well-written, engaging, and strikes a nerve in those of us who should care more about the environment.