Researchers Find Fish that Walk the Way Land Vertebrates Do

In the article, Researchers Find Fish that Walk the Way Land Vertebrates Do, Carl Zimmer talks about a recent discovery of tapes of a blind fish in the caves of Thailand. The waterfall-climbing fish, Cryptotora thamicola is able to walk the way land vertebrates do, with many of the same skeletal features including a pelvic bone. Doctor Brooke E. Flammang, an expert on biomechanics states, “I was completely blown away. Instead of flopping or crutching, the cave fish were using what looked like a full-blown tetrapod gait”. The tetrapod evolved from water organisms because their pelvis joined their hind legs to their spine. This way the vertebrate was able to hold stiff against the pull of gravity and the tetrapod was able to stand straight. These adaptations also let the tetrapod move their forelegs and hindlegs together in a cycle. The salamander is the closest organism that most resembles the tetrapod gait.  The oldest tetrapod fossils date back 375 million years. There are similar organisms like the frogfish that move in like ways, but they can only do so underwater. Research like this can even lead to evidence that points to fish making the first steps on land instead of the tetrapod, the organism that most scientists believe to be the first organism to walk on land.

This article is very important to research and our understanding about evolution. By finding fish that walk the way land vertebrates do, scientists are able to draw connections between relationships between organisms, homology, and common ancestors. The topic of evolution is ever expanding and a very broad and vast topic due to the fact that there are so many different species of animals, both land dwelling and sea dwelling. However, this discovery could answer more questions on how sea animals evolved to walk and live on land.

The article was very well written and laid the information out in an organized and cohesive manner. There was also a good number of quotes from different scientists and researchers involved in studying the waterfall fish. However, some points in the article could have been more detailed like more characteristics about the makeup of the fish, not just some of the skeletal structure. For instance, what kind of diet was the fish live on or what their interactions with other organisms was like. Overall, the article was very interesting and caught my attention because we just finished the unit on evolution.

Zimmer, Carl. "Researchers Find Fish That Walks the Way Land Vertebrates Do." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Mar. 2016. Web. 28 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/science/researchers-find-fish-that-walks-the-way-land-vertebrates-do.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0>.

“Could Ireland’s Ecosystem Cope if we introduced St. Patrick’s Scaly Foes?"

For my current event review, I read an article titled “Could Ireland’s Ecosystem Cope if we introduced St. Patrick’s Scaly Foes? The article essentially gave a background of how St. Patrick exterminated all snakes in Ireland. However, it takes a more interesting turn as it brings up the idea of what would happen if snakes were re-introduced into the Irish ecosystem. Experts from Trinity College in Dublin explored this idea, comparing it to the re-introduction of the New Zealand flatworm, a troubling pest for many. Collie Ennis, an associate researcher at the college, explained that “...the UK has very similar environmental conditions to ours [Ireland] and snakes fit right in.” This quote essentially is saying that although snakes are no longer present in Ireland, the climate both there and in surrounding countries would be suitable for the revival of a snake population. This would have serious consequences on the ecosystem as a whole as many animals have evolved in Ireland that would not have if snakes had not been eradicated from the island about 1,500 years ago. Ennis then moves on to explain how there have been controlled experiments where grass snakes have been let out into the wild, but in such small numbers, they were not able to establish a long term population. However, if snakes were one day able to establish a population, the effects on the economy and ecosystem would be catastrophic as the invasive species would alter the food chain and potentially damage food crops. I chose this article because I thought it was quite relevant and it is quite possible this could happen in the future, so steps must be made to prevent this from happening.

What We’ve Learned About Pluto

Ellie Briskin AP Bio C Even

March 17, 2016 Current Event 15

Chang, Kenneth. "What We’ve Learned About Pluto." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/17/science/pluto-images-charon-moons-new-horizons-flyby.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

This article tells of Nasa’s most recent discoveries on the planet of Pluto. It mostly summarizes the findings of NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft from eight months ago, whose findings were published last Thursday in the journal Science. It talks about the planet’s composition (frozen nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide), and how the New Horizon’s mission altered our perspective on what the planet looks like. Before, scientists expected to see a boring cratered ball, something geographically fairly bland. But now, they see that Pluto actually has a huge variety of landscapes, from soaring mountains to flat plains. They also found evidence of what could be an ice volcano in a mountain named Wright Mons, which rises two miles, spans 90 miles across, and has a hole at the center. It also discussed Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, which is made just of water ice and has a 600-mile long gash longer than the Grand Canyon. It also talks about how the four small moons of Pluto turned out to be brighter, smaller, and quicker than expected, and how the upper atmosphere of Pluto is much colder than expected. Up next, the scientists focusing on other areas, thinking that the next opportunity for scientists to get another close look could be decades away.

I was initially drawn in with this article because I find the topic of space exploration extremely intriguing. I think it is beyond impressive that we are able to study Pluto and other constructs millions of miles away, and even imagine what it’s like beyond our planet. But more than that, this discovery is definitely still relevant to people today. For starters, the fact that we are just now discovering so much about the dwarf planet proves that no progress in any field is ever truly completed, and that development in all areas is always possible. But more than that, it could lead to the possibility of discovering new forms of life in outer space! This is incredible, and would most definitely affect everyone on earth’s lives. It would open up an entire new enormous field of study, for we would of course need to try to communicate with them, or possibly defend against them if they are a threat, or many other things.

Overall, I was impressed by the presentation of this article. Its paragraphs flowed and were ordered in a way that made sense, making it extremely easy for me to follow along. I also felt that it was strengthened by the substantial number of expert quotes, which legitimized the arguments. I also enjoyed the fun, conversational tone that the author used; this was not only easy to understand but also kept me, the reader, captive. However, the one criticism I have of the article is that it was fairly minimalist, to the point of not having enough information. Although some find this better and most manageable, it left me with many questions and just confuses many readers. I would suggest that the author synthesises his information better, not just condensing what he has but really sifting through what is important and what is not, while still maintaining a logical flow. But overall, I thought this article was very well put together, and maintained my interest throughout.

Pregnant T-rex discovery sheds light on evolution of egg-laying

Having grown up as a kid whose favorite toys were dinosaurs, seeing articles like this are always fascinating because as I have aged, so has my interest in these creatures. This specific article touches on the reproductive system of T-Rexes. It is well known that dinosaurs share a great amount of similarities with birds and this article is just another example of this. A female tyrannosaurus skeleton was found which contained a medullary bone. The way that the article described this bone is that when a bird, or tyrannosaurus in this case, gets pregnant it develops a bone so to be able to easily transfer calcium into egg shells without drawing from other parts of their bodies. This was an incredibly lucky find because based on predictions on the length of a T-Rex gestation period, this bone would only be present for around five weeks. This discovery is significant because it sheds light on how far back the reproductive systems of todays birds went back and could potentially lead to the discovery of when the development of this bone originated.

The implications of this article are mainly based in the idea of evolution. When it comes to the fossil record there are always going to be significant gaps and while scientists do know a fair amount, there is still a massive amount that unknown. It is fairly widely accepted at this point that birds come from dinosaurs and this is just one more reason to put behind the argument. Perhaps the more exciting part of this discovery is that, in the article they mentioned that there may be tyrannosaurus DNA preserved within this bone due to its position within the femur. Being able to analyze this DNA would make for better guesses on the appearance and anatomy of these creatures. Plus a small part of me hopes that one day Jurassic Park will become a reality.

The article was very poignant and effective at providing information. The article was actually split into three parts which each added their own aspect and drew information from each parts. A good and manageable number of quotes were used to give make the information credible but not too many too draw away from the main focus. If I had to make one criticism, it would be that there was not enough information on the anatomy of a T-Rex and what medullary bone actually is.

Viegas, Jennifer. "Pregnant T-rex Discovery Sheds Light on Evolution of Egg-laying." ABC News. Discovery News, 15 Mar. 2016. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

Hopkins Scientists Help Find Possible Link between Zika and Birth Defect

Cohn, Meredith. "Hopkins Scientists Help Find Possible Link between Zika and Birth Defect." Baltimoresun.com. The Baltimore Sun, 4 Mar. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2016. http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-zika-and-microcephaly-20160229-story.html

 Researchers have just made a major breakthrough in discovering a connection between the unfortunately popular Zika virus and a birth defect called microcephaly. Proving the link could “rule out other potential causes for the surge in babies” with the brain-shrinking fetal disorder. As Zika infections “spread rapidly throughout Latin America and the Caribbean,” more microcephalic babies are born in those areas. Suspicious scientists have compiled several pieces of evidence to corroborate their hypothesis. Two labs at Hopkins produced specialized stem cells that could grow into brain tissue (since the brain tissue of microcephalic babies show nerve cell death and damage)and sent them to other universities to be infected with Zika. Soon after, they found that a specific type of cell was most affected, called a cortical neural progenitor cell; 90% of them were infected and continued to make copies of the virus. These cells failed to divide normally, which “in a fetus would stall brain development--the hallmark of microcephaly.” They have also found that Zika can cause abnormalities in pregnant women; a study found that the fetuses of 12 out of 42 Zika-infected women were subject to “grave outcomes.”
 The connection between a specific virus to a specific disorder is so key to research in general; it’s almost like the virus did all the work for us because it affects certain genes consistently. We can learn more about the functions of cells and and parts of cells, progressing to piece the puzzle of how our biological systems work together. Also, learning about the susceptibility of cortical neural progenitor cells, which direct cortex development, can tell us more about the brain and help in drug production. If these cells are the most vulnerable, then a substance that will not affect these cells certainly should not affect others. Finally, the data will hopefully put an end to microcephaly by encouraging and facilitating a cure, like a vaccine.
The author clearly had a strong knowledge of scientific research. She thoroughly reasoned through every idea and delivered how the research was done very clearly. She kept the reader’s interest with her tone. There was also a lot of evidence for this connection from tons of different sources and organizations, so it was certainly a credible article. With that, however, the report was a bit scattered; the number of sources was a bit overwhelming and weakened the flow of the article. Yet, I would rather read an article with all of this information and to have it be more complex than to read an article lacking these important things.

Seduced by Junk Food, Storks Are Opting Not to Migrate

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/science/seduced-by-junk-food-storks-are-opting-not-to-migrate.html

St, Nicholas. "Seduced by Junk Food, Storks Are Opting Not to Migrate."The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.

It is reported that a great deal of storks are traveling to trash dumps in Portugal, rather than undergoing their usual winter migration.These birds dine on whatever they can get their beaks on from rotten fish to broken computer parts. Although previous studies displayed that these birds merely stopped at these dumps on their migration route, recent observations say otherwise.“Before the ’80s there were no storks in the Iberian Peninsula in Europe during the winter. Suddenly we saw a few birds and then the number increased and now we have 14,000 birds in Portugal in the winter,” reported conservation ecologist Aldina Franco. Dr. Franco and a group of colleagues then captured some of these junk food birds and placed a GPS locator on their backs to monitor their movements. The rationale behind the change in behavior that the stork bird is an “opportunist” which is beneficial for these territorial birds.  Andrea Flack, an ornithologist,  emphasized this argument  by saying, “Unlike birds that leave their breeding territory during migration, they can defend and maintain their nests.” However, these feeding frenzies may end as the European Union announced that on 2018 it plans to close down the landfills, thus possibly reverting back to their old migration pattern.

Humanity’s filth as growing food wastage is attracting these birds to stop their natural migration pattern for the interest of a growing food pile. Not only are our garbage centers increasing environmental problems but ecological disruptions. This disruption in the migration pattern can lead to deleterious effects of the lack of the stork’s presence in South Africa during the winter months. As we’ve learned from our recent studies in biology that changes in habitat can lead to habitat isolation and then reproductive isolation. Of course this would only be a problem to consider in the long term, but in the short term it in effect predators of the stork in South Africa as well as the stork itself as it digests food outside its regular diet. However, it is good to hear that the European Union has caught attention of the problem of mass garbage and is switching to composting.

Strengths within the article was its concise explanation and quote integration of expert opinion. Improvements may be actually providing us with the data Dr. Franco’s team collected. The author simply noted that Franco’s team monitored these birds. Also it may have been nice to hear more about the European Union’s movement towards composting because the author just throws this statement at the end to the reader, not really expanding on this important piece of information.  

Lost memories retrieved for mice with signs of Alzheimer’s

The article, “Lost memories retrieved for mice with signs of Alzheimer’s," talks about how scientists have learned new information about how the brain handles memories all by studying mice with Alzheimer’s like traits. This new method of bringing back memories works by manipulating memories and tracking them. Scientists first mark a “lost memory” (by tagging the nerve cells containing the memory) to recover it, and the insert a virus to deliver a gene with a protein that allows the scientists to control this collection of nerve cells. The memory is then triggered with a blue laser light. This method was tested on mice, and the memory that scientists used was one of an electrically charged cage shocking the mice. The mice with the Alzheimer’s genes before the treatment did not remember that the cage would shock them, but after the treatment they remembered and scientists recorded a strong fear response from the mice.

While this new development in the science of memory is important, it certainly does not mean any immediate breakthroughs for those suffering from Alzheimer’s. Neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa of MIT warns that the results are experimental: “We have not done anything to cure human Alzheimer’s patients,” he says. The methods used in this experiment are not currently feasible for humans because they rely on genetically engineered brain cells and optic fibers to be implanted in the brain. However, this information is important and could become very relevant to discover why Alzheimer’s occurs and how it can possibly be treated. Another neuroscientist, Christine Denny of Columbia University, says, “If we can understand how the process of memory retrieval is compromised and where it is impaired, then we can begin to develop treatments to target those processes or circuits.”

This article was relatively well-written, but the summary of the experiment was hard to understand and follow at points, so a clearer summary would have been better. However, the author did a good job of including quotes from the scientists behind the project, which was a strong addition that increased the credibility of the article and helped to make the main points clear. The science behind the writing was so interesting! Hopefully, this develops into an eventual cure for Alzheimer’s.

Sanders, Laura. "Lost Memories Retrieved for Mice with Signs of Alzheimer's." Science News. N.p., 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2016. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lost-memories-retrieved-mice-signs-alzheimers

Greenery (or Even Photos of Trees) Can Make Us Happier

Greenery (or Even Photos of Trees) Can Make Us Happier

by Gretchen Reynolds, March 17, 2016

This article discusses the benefits of exposure to the outdoors. It is commonly known that people generally feel less stress and are more engaged and alert when outside, but this author cites research that suggests that simply looking at pictures of the outdoors can have a similar effect. The author cites a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public health that sorts interactions from physical activity and sunlight exposure by focusing on pictures of outdoors rather than the real thing. The researchers focused on the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which respond to stress by triggering fight-or-flight reactions and counters those responses, bringing physical calm. For this study, nearly four dozen university students were outfitted with sensors to monitor electrical activity in the heart and then shown photos on a computer screen that either were of urban spaces or green places. The data suggested that “short durations or viewing green pictures may help people to recover from stress.”

This article brings awareness of the benefits of outdoor experiences (regardless of actual outdoor exposure or just pictures). This is especially important in today’s society, where almost everything we do is technologically oriented. If we are able to de-stress and relax by either experiencing the outdoors for real or looking at a nature screensaver, “it is possible that the general health of the population can be improved.”

I thought this article was well-written and informative, and taught me about a topic that I previously had little knowledge about. Although the author conveys the main message of the article clearly, I thought that she could have dug deeper into some of the referenced studies; this would have furthered my understanding of the testing used to validate the use of pictures of nature rather than real nature, and would have strengthened the article as a whole. Also, the article would have been more interesting and unique if the author had included a more personal perspective on the topic. Overall, I liked reading about this topic and will definitely try to look at more pictures of trees when I’m stressed.

Reynolds, Gretchen. "Greenery (or Even Photos of Trees) Can Make Us Happier." Well Greenery or Even Photos of Trees Can Make Us Happier Comments. NYT, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2016. <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/the-picture-of-health/?_r=0>.

Hopeful Start for First Uterus Transplant Surgery in U.S.

After reading the article, “Hopeful Start for First Uterus Transplant Surgery in U.S.“ I am pleased to share this breakthrough in the united states. There are about 50,000 women in the United States who either have suffered damage to the uterus or were born without them that want children of their own. The transplant has been performed in Sweden successfully and the procedure has just been approved at a program in Cleveland to do a trial to see if the transplant holds and provides a functioning uterus. Due to either missing or damaged fallopian tubes, “The donor’s uterus is connected to the recipient’s vagina and the uterine vessels are redirected to large blood vessels running outside the pelvis.” Because the fallopians don’t connect the ovaries to the uterus, these women will not be able to conceive a child the “normal” way, get their periods, or be able to physically give birth to a child. The uterus is normally connected to nervous tissue, so a woman who went through a transplant will not feel menstrual cramps, nor feel the burden or pain of childbirth, which could prove to be fatal and which is why all births must be done my cesarian section.

The procedure takes a long time to complete, over 9 hours, but women would say it is worth it. Moving forward, doctors and researchers can now begin to explore different types of innovative transplants outside of the female body, but also the male reproductive organs. Some clinics are already trying to perform penile transplants to soldiers wounded in battle. This breakthrough transplant is important for these women who are infertile due to a mutation at birth. A woman can now give birth to her own child through invitro fertilization and a cesarian section. Although it is not a “classic” birthing process, the child will still be genetically related to the mother (versus adoption) and she can still feel the pressure of the baby inside of her even though the uterus is not connected to nervous tissue.

This article was very well-written and clearly explained the different parts of the operation. In particular, I liked how the author looked to the future to explain how this transplant can lead to bigger and better things. However, the article was lacking some authority. I wish the author had interviewed and asked better questions to the doctors who performed the surgery and expert researchers on the subject. I would like to know more about possibly connecting the uterus to the nervous tissue and possibly being able to do the transplant when the donor is alive.  

Grady, Denise. "Hopeful Start for First Uterus Transplant Surgery in U.S." The New York Times. The New York Times, 07 Mar. 2016. Web. 10 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/health/uterus-transplant-cleveland-clinic.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-3&action=click&contentCollection=Science®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article>.

Hopeful Start for First Uterus Transplant Surgery in U.S.

On Feb. 24, the patient, a 26-year-old woman from Texas, became the first in the United States to receive a uterus transplant, in a nine-hour operation here at the Cleveland Clinic. The women has only disclosed her first name, Lindsay, to the public to protect her family: a 26 year old husband and three adopted children. Lindsay realized at 16, after not receiving a regular menstrual cycle, that she did not have a uterus. It is believed that “between 3 percent and 5 percent of women of childbearing age worldwide are estimated to be infertile” for various reasons, and “about 50,000 women in the United States are thought to be potential transplant candidates”. While always wanting to experience birth, Lindsay was overjoyed when she learned of this new experimental procedure and signed up immediately. Dr. Tzakis, who led the team which performed the surgery, spent time in Sweden to learn from doctors at the University of Gothenburg, who are the only ones in the world to have performed successful uterine transplants. The procedure itself implants a working uterus in the place of a damaged or non-existing uterus. Blood vessels are the then attached to allow the uterus to function but nerves are not connected so the recipient cannot feel the usual cramps and contractions. The uterus is also not connected to an ovary, however, the patient can because pregnant in vitro with eggs removed before the surgery. To prevent rupturing the new uterus or the surgical bindings, the doctors are requiring Lindsay to wait a year before becoming pregnant and the baby must be delivered via c-section. This cautionary year also allows the doctors to perfect the anti-virus and anti-infection medication doses. Currently, the biggest opposition to the procedure are moral and ethical issues. Small claims were made that the risk of infection was dangerous but that argument was nearly irrelevant due to the efficiency and cautionary measures taken in today’s surgical proceedings. On the issue of ethics, due to the increased acceptance that transplants are justified not only to save lives, but also to improve the quality of life, “the Cleveland Clinic’s ethics panel has given the hospital permission to perform 10 uterine transplants in women ages 21 to 39.” Dr. Tzakis, who led the team who performed the surgery, spent time in Sweden to learn from doctors at the University of Gothenburg, who are the only ones in the world to have performed successful uterine transplants. With the success of Lindsay procedure comes yet another new field for medical and biological progress.

Medical advances such as the uterus transplant are the just the beginning. Soon, new procedures will arise for transplanting or fixing other organs until medical professionals will be able to repair or replace any organ in the human body. The sheer magnitude of the amount of people who can be saved or helped in some way is unimaginable. For instance, as stated before, “between 3 percent and 5 percent of women of childbearing age worldwide are estimated to be infertile.” Up to 356 Million women could possibly benefit from just this procedure alone.

This article was extremely well written and even provided videos and diagrams to aid with difficult concepts such as the actual result of the surgery and how it was conducted. Denise Grady, the author, is a very experienced journalist in the field of medical and biological advance after having written over 700 article for the New York Times since 1998. The information is well cited and the article itself comes from the New York Times web site, a very reliable source.

Citation:

Grady, Denise. "Hopeful Start for First Uterus Transplant Surgery in U.S."The New York Times. The New York Times, 07 Mar. 2016. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/health/uterus-transplant-cleveland-clinic.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0>.

Meat Eating Accelerated Face Evolution

Recent studies have found that the eating of raw meat and the making of stone arrows contributes to the smaller faces and teeth of the ancient relatives. Meat and tools, not the advent of cooking, was the trigger that freed early humans to develop a smaller chewing apparatus. This change could have allowed for other changes such as improved speech or even shifts in the brain size. Cooking meat became common much later in time. The earliest members of our genus, Homo, are only sparsely represented in the fossil record. And when the Homo Erectus specie appeared two million years ago humans had bigger heads and bodies contributing to more energy requirements. A reason for these changes, cooking, does not make sense any more. Since was only common around 500,00 years ago so it couldn’t have much of an effect. Prof Lieberman explained that, "At some point in human evolution, there was a shift - we started to eat less. This shift is made possible by two factors: we eat a much higher quality diet than our ancestors, but we also eat food that has been heavily processed." The scientists evaluated chewing performance by feeding adult experimental subjects samples of meat, and the kind of vegetables our early ancestors might have consumed before incorporating meat into their diets. They measure how much was chewed and how much effort it took to chew it. broken up before swallowing.

The findings suggest that by eating a diet of one-third meat, and using stone tools to process the food - slicing the meat and pounding the plant material - early humans would have needed to chew 17% less often and 26% less forcefully. This shows how much humans have changed over time. We leave in a world where food is heavily processed, so we don’t use as much effort as we used too.

I thought that this was a very interesting article that made me think a lot about the way I eat. It also allowed me to imagine the way people used to eat. I think the only thing they could fix would to add more relevance to the article. But other than that I thought the article was clear and interesting.

"Meat Eating Accelerated Face Evolution - BBC News." BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

In DNA, Clues to the Cheetah’s Speed and Hurdles

Moffet, Barbara S. "In DNA, Clues to the Cheetah’s Speed and Hurdles." The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 Feb. 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/science/in-dna-clues-to-the-cheetahs-speed-and-hurdles.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Chewbaaka the cheetah’s genetic information in combination with that of other cheetah’s has led to the complete genome sequence of the cheetahs, giving scientists a better understanding of their traits and how they were acquired. Cheetahs originated in North America, along with the related puma. They then migrated across the bering strait around 10,000 years ago into Asia, and then Africa, to where they are found today in Southern and Eastern Africa. These migrations caused a bottleneck effect, in which the population was greatly reduced, resulting in inbreeding. On top of this, there was a global extinction that led to further inbreeding. When analyzing the cheetah’s DNA, this helped researchers to understand why the DNA of all the cheetah’s was so monotonous- there DNA was all very similar. For example, skin grafts were done on many different cheetah’s and were tolerated beyond the normal rate of tissue rejection (the similarity between their genomes allowed for successful skin grafts), hinting at the genetic similarity of the members of the cheetah species. But the scientists were interested in understanding how cheetah’s came to be so fast. They determined that natural selection caused this, leading to mutations that “boosted the animal’s muscle contraction, stress response, and regulation of energy releasing-processes.” Although Cheetah’s have the evolutionary advantage of speed, they are endangered; there are only an estimate 10,000 left and they face the threat of “loss of habitat and frequent fatal conflicts with humans.”

I think that this article is important, because it shows how by gaining DNA from a group can lead to a full genome, which we can compare to that of humans and other animals to gain a better understanding of the animal. Additionally, the genome can help researchers identify mutations, and find the advantageous mutations chosen by natural selection that helped the animal to survive, such as the mutations (i.e. muscle contraction) that enabled cheetah’s to survive by chasing prey and escaping predation. The results can also help to tell about major events that happened such as migrations or natural disasters that lead to changes in the populations DNA. The genomes of other animals can help tell us about that animal, allow us to make evolutionary connections, and tell us about the environment in which it lived.

I thought that this article was very well done, because it gave a lot of information on the specific cheetah that was sequenced, the background on the cheetah, and then information and results from the genome sequence. Although this article was very well done, I felt that there was lacking information on the specific genome mutations that caused the cheetah’s to be fast, and if there are any other animals with similar mutations. I also thought that there could have been more information on how the scientists came to believe that cheetahs are genetically monotonous, meaning that their genomes are almost identical. Overall, I thought that it was very well written, had lots of information, statistics and quotes from professionals who participated in this study.

New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor

For my current event I read the article “New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor” by Gina Kolata. Currently the waiting list for getting a kidney transplant is tens of thousands of people long, and many never get a transplant because they cannot find a match. A new study done by the New England Journal of Medicine has successfully been able to alter a patient’s immune system, so an incompatible kidney can be used. Those patients were more likely than those on a waiting list, or people who got kidneys from the deceased to live past eight years. The method used is called desensitization. It can significantly decrease the time spent waiting for a kidney, and on dialysis. About half of the

100,000 people in the United States waiting for a kidney transplant have antibodies that will attack transplanted organs, and almost 20 percent will accept virtually no kidneys. Some people give up on finding a kidney altogether, and just resort to dialysis.

Desensitization involves filtering antibodies out of the patient’s blood. The patient is then administered different antibodies to provide protection, while the body tries to make more. For an unknown reason regenerated antibodies are less likely to attack a new organ. If there are still troubles with the regenerated antibodies, the patient will be treated with drugs that destroy white blood cells that have the potential to attack the new kidney. Some of the drugs have yet to be approved for desensitization, and it runs at a steep $30,000. Transplants cost $100,000, but it is still significantly cheaper than dialysis, which costs $70,000 a year for life. Desensitization may also be used for live, and lung transplants, but it has yet to be done. The study looked at 1,035 across the country that had an incompatible donor, and the same number of people on a waiting list, and people who got kidneys from competitive diseased donors. After eight years 76.5% of the desensitization patients were alive, 62.9% on who got a matching donor, and 43.9% still on the waiting list.

This new study that proves the effectiveness of desensitization can vastly improve the lives of anyone with kidney failure. The waiting lists for kidney transplants are very long, and at this point for some people their search for a compatible kidney is hopeless. With desensitization people who otherwise would not have gotten a transplant now can. It can extend the lives of many people that would have had to live them on dialysis.

This article taught me a lot about the process to obtain a kidney transplant, and what it is like to wait for a kidney. It was well written, and the story at the end made it more personal. Everything was explained simply, and the author addressed most of the questions I had initially. I think it would have been better to include more details about the study earlier in the article. It would have also been nice to know how long the average person lives on dialysis, or after they get a kidney transplant from a deceased match, and how long they expect a person that goes through desensitization will live. They did not address any long term effects, or possible negative side effects of desensitization. Overall the article was informative, and simple.

Kolata, Gina. "New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Mar. 2016. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/health/kidney-transplant-desensitization-immune-system.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0>.

Boosting fat-burning by blocking Gq proteins

An international team of scientists has come one step closer to developing a way to melt off fat deposits. According to the article overweight people produce more white cells and no brown fat cells, “The white cells are responsible for bothersome fat deposits; conversely, the brown cells "burn off" unwanted pounds by releasing the energy stored in them in the form of heat.”   During the experiment it was “observed that there is a particularly high number of receptors in brown fat cells which bind to the Gq protein. The Gq protein performs an important function in information transfer.” The experiment consisted of activating the Gq protein in the mouse fat cells so the number and quality of the brown cells decreased.  At the end of the experiment, the team was able to discover a switch in the fat cells of mice and humans with which excess pounds can be burned off.

I chose to do a review on this article because it correlates with what we are doing in class, studying diabetes. Also, it is relevant to society because as the number of overweight people increases worldwide -- the risk of developing diabetes or cardiovascular disease becomes more of a reality. Therefore, many dream of an active substance which would simply melt off fat deposits. Now it is becoming a reality which is really exciting.

In my opinion, this article was not as strong as it could have been. However, one strength of the article, is that it was very informative, about this advancement. Another strength is the author identified what this means for the future. Although, the author does a great job of outline how the Gq protein is used, it would have been nice to have a quick summary identifying the Gq protein. Also, another improvement could be to go more in depth in the experiment specifically, I was a little unsure as to what happened.

Citation:

University of Bonn. "Boosting fat-burning by blocking Gq proteins." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9

March 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160309124814.htm>.

Scott Kelly Says a Year in Orbit Felt Like ‘Forever’

Chang, Kenneth. "Scott Kelly Says a Year in Orbit Felt Like ‘Forever’." The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Mar. 2016. Web. 05 Mar. 2016.

The article that I read, Scott Kelly Says a Year in Orbit Felt Like ‘Forever,’ discusses the recent return of Scott Kelly, a NASA astronaut who spent 340 days in space. For the most part, the article was speaking about the differences that occur to the human body when in space versus when the astronauts are on Earth. Some of these changes are increased height and the flattening of the eyeball because of increased pressure of fluid from the lower part of the body floats up towards the head as a result of no gravity. NASA is working to study these changes throughout their missions and Scott Kelly is one of the contestants for the testing. Some of the ideas that NASA scientists are trying to prove is the idea that space changes the human body in ways we would have no imagined. Scott Kelly is being genetically compared to his twin brother in order to see the genetic differences that space can cause. So far, it has been found that the genetic changes were faster in Scott than in Mark. John Charles, an associate manager for NASA’s human research program said, “By looking at Mark’s results collected over the course of the year, we can see what the normal variations might be. Those will tell us what areas to investigate in the future.”

This article is very important to the scientific world because of its understanding or goal to understanding the human body and the changes that occur to it in space.With technology becoming more advanced, the knowledge and ingenuity of science is changing and expanding in many different directions very quickly. These types of studies are beneficial because they can help the medical and scientific field to understand what changes occur in space, whether or not they are dangerous to humans, and if people were to potentially live in space, what would needed to be created to avoid these dangerous space effects. Knowing and understanding how this works allows us to be one step closer to grasping and possibly having humans live in an area outside of Earth.  

In my opinion, I feel that this article was written very well. The author gave a great summary of the Scott Kelly’s background and gave details about the genetic changes between Mr. Kelly and his brother Mark. There was no time in which I was confused content-wise, nor was it repetitive or wordy. For this reason, I believe that the author was very clear and concise in his research and writing. Also, because there were some quotes that were included from experts on the subject from NASA, it allowed me to be comfortable and trust the information that was presented in the article. Overall, the author seemed to know a lot about what he was talking about, definitely a sign of a good writer.

Mr T-cell

I read an article titled “Mr. T-cell” which analyzes a new type of technology that could help cure cancer. T cells are used in the immune system to recognize molecules that are a threat to the body. Researchers extracted these cells and then create a custom built virus that is implanted in the cell with an entirely new set of DNA. The DNA tells the cells exactly what to look for and precisely where to attack in the body. This is difficult because the CD19 gene was only found in Acute lymphoblastic leukemia so it was easy for the cell to track it and not destroy other healthy cells. There are no other cancers that we know of which have a gene only specific to them and not found anywhere else in the human body. This would become an issue because the t cell would kill the healthy tissue where that gene is found as well. So far the results have been unprecedented in an ALL clinical trial where 93% of the patients are now in remission. The only complications were with a cytokine storm which is a runaway immune reaction due to the t cells replicating so quickly. This seems to only affect the patient’s whose cancer was the most widespread and two patients died from this complication.

This article is relevant because it is possible that in the future this could be a new way to treat and cure cancer. Our technology has increased so much that research into this treatment is going very quickly and there is more than just one use for the t cells. Scientists also believe that the cells stick around in the body for a while and could offer up to 10 years of protection against cancer.

This article was very clear and well written. I found it in the economist so of course there were no errors and the author made it easy to understand because it wasn't necessarily scientists reading it. The article gave me hope that a cure for cancer is possible and technology is drastically improving our chances of finding it.

"Mr T-cell." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 20 Feb. 2016. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

In DNA, Clues to the Cheetah’s Speed and Hurdles

This article discussed the studies performed on cheetahs, determining their history and giving some hints as to “how the big cats became the world’s fastest land animals.” These studies were conducted by scientists at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia, on a cheetah rescued when it was a ten day old orphan, Chewbaaka. Later, more studies were done by scientists at the Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics at St. Petersburg State University in Russia, who collaborated with BGI-Shenzhen in China and the Cheetah Conservation Fund to analyze the entire genome of the species. After genetic analysis, scientists discovered that the cheetah has less than 5 percent of the genomic diversity (determined by variation in enzyme genes inherited by an animal’s two parents and is critical to its healthy reproduction and immunity to disease) of other wild cats, a level much lower than even inbred domestic dogs and cats and the lowest among the 30 mammals whose genomes have been sequenced. This therefore led to the scientists beginning to think that the cheetah was genetically monotonous several decades ago. These scientists in Russia then figured out the specific underpinnings of the cheetah’s genetic impoverishment and glimpsed the evolutionary chain of events that produced its unparalleled running speed. It was found that there were two specific points in history in which the genetic diversity of the cheetah was reduced. One of these instances was when the population bottlenecks were formed after cheetahs crossed the Bering strait into Asia. The other was late in the Pleistocene epoch when a global extinction event caused cheetah populations to crash. They examined how natural selection affected the cheetahs, firstly that the sequencing of the genome illuminated gene mutations that probably explain the sperm abnormalities seen in all cheetahs today, for they had the gene AKAP4, which likely block sperm development. The second effect natural selection had on the cheetahs, a positive effect, was their running ability. Eleven different genes showed evidence of mutations occurring over generations that boosted the animal’s muscle contraction, stress response and regulation of energy-releasing processes, which improved the cheetah’s running ability.

This article is important to society today because it discusses the possible extinction of yet another animal that played a large role in the world. The article shows the difficulty for the cheetahs to repopulate or enlarge their population because of the disadvantages they have in the field of reproducing, like having the sperm development blocking gene. This article is also relevant to us considering we previously studied genes and how a specific gene can result in traits or diseases passed down, which can also be seen in the cheetahs, which went through much interbreeding to keep the species from decreasing even more in population.

One strength of this article was how it went into depth explaining some of the genes and gene mutations that the cheetahs experienced, explaining some specific examples of traits in the cheetahs the scientists found. Although the article had many strengths, I still feel a few things could have been improved upon. For example, the article did not include much regarding the actual process undergone by the scientists performing the study, for it just gave a general overview of it. I would have liked if maybe it included more about this specific process undergone by the scientists, and not just the broad description of it.

Moffet, Barbara S. "In DNA, Clues to the Cheetah’s Speed and Hurdles." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Feb. 2016. Web. 01 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/science/in-dna-clues-to-the-cheetahs-speed-and-hurdles.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront>.