Cassidy Mullen
Ippolito C Even
Current Event #15
February 4th, 2019
The title and subtitle if this article is very captivating, it made me want to know more about the anti-seizure drugs that stop microbes from feeing on brain tissue. This article describes small silver particles that may have the ability to stop a lethal microbe called Naegleria fowleri which feeds on brain tissue after invading through the sinuses of a human. Research published in the Journal of Chemical Neuroscience indicated that binding seizure medicines to silver might spare human cells while still killing the amoebae. Dr. Anwar acknowledges that this discovery is exciting but that it is still in the early phases of discovery. It is being tested on small crickets, cockroaches and mice.
Infections with brain-eating amoebae almost always result in death, and since 1962 only four of the 143 victims in the United States have survived According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 50% of these cases have occured in Texas and Florida where the microscopic organisms live because they thrive in warm waters. Patients usually recieve antimycobacterial drugs that have many severe side effects because it's challenging to find drugs that will access the right region of the brain. “It’s an important first step in coming up with possible treatments for a very difficult-to-treat condition,” said Dr. Paul Sax.
I think that Emily Baumgaertner does an excellent job writing this article. She describes the new discovery in a captivating way while still providing the reader with all of the details necessary to understand this new concept. Baumgartner incorporates quotes into this Global health article to help support her claims and uses comparisons and real-life scenarios to explain why this topic is relevant to society. If one thing could be improved, I think that she could have delved further into the biological detail and what the future might look like because of this discovery.
Jordan Hoang
ReplyDeleteMr.Ippolito
AP Biology C Even
2/11/19
Baumgaertner, Emily. “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?” The New York Times,
The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2019,
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/health/brain-eating-amoeba-silver.html.
For this week’s current event I reviewed Cassidy’s analysis of the article “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?”. I appreciated how she gave a brief but clear description of the purpose of the “silver bullets”: that they are meant to “stop a lethal microbe called Naegleria Fowleri which feeds on brain tissue after invading through the sinuses of a human”. In addition, I liked her use of statistics throughout her work- like how “only four of the 143 victims in the United States have survived”- which exemplified the severity of this terrible disease. Finally, I thought she did a nice job of incorporating Dr. Anwar’s (the scientist studying this disease) words and studies throughout her piece to bring legitimacy and validity to her topic and work.
Although much of Cassidy’s work was well done, I felt as though parts of her review were misplaced. For instance, she started off her piece with “The title and subtitle if this article is very captivating, it made me want to know more about the anti-seizure drugs that stop microbes from feeling on brain tissue.” This sentence seemed more suitable for her third paragraph, where she was meant to critique the author’s work. In addition, I wish Cassidy would have elaborated on how the silver aids in fighting against this disease. It would have brought more depth and understanding into how scientists are attempting to find a cure for this issue.
It is rare to see scientists studying such uncommon, but terminal diseases. There are so many different disorders, illnesses, and microbes that are present today that still have yet to be researched or be discovered. I am intrigued to see what we might uncover in terms of diseases and treatments, and ultimately the resulting future of medicine.
Anabel Maldonado
ReplyDeleteIppolito C Even
Current Event #16
February 12th, 2019
Baumgaertner, Emily. “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/health/brain-eating-amoeba-silver.html.
Cassidy’s review on “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?,” was eye-opening. One thing that I really admired was her explanation of the importance this brain-eating disease had on our society. She included statistics that helped convince her audience. For instance, “Infections with brain-eating amoebae almost always result in death, and since 1962 only four of the 143 victims in the United States have survived According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Another thing I liked was Cassidy’s examples and clear explanation about what was going on molecularly. By providing examples that these drugs will be tested on (such as mice, small crickets and cockroaches), she was able to help her reader understand the drug more. Also, I like how Cassidy personalized her review. Unlike most, she included phrases such as “it made me want to know more about the anti-seizure drugs that stop microbes from feeling on brain tissue.” These simple phrases illustrated the interest and passion she had for the topic. By personalizing her review, the audience remains interested.
Although this review was very interesting, there is room for improvement. Cassidy did not cite her article in MLA format. This is very important because it reassures your audiences that you know where your information is coming from. To fix this, she should use easybib. Secondly, I think she should have reread her review several times to fix some grammatical errors. Although the errors were not too significant, they did distract the reader. For instance, she stated, “The title and subtitle if this article is very captivating.”
Before I read this review, I did not know the effects and statistics of brain-eating amoeba. In fact, I didn't even know what amoeba even were. I was shocked to learn how relevant these diseases were. After learning about the effects and numbers, I want to make a change.
Andrew Goldbaum 2/12/19 CE 12 Biology C Even
ReplyDeleteBaumgaertner, Emily. “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/health/brain-eating-amoeba-silver.html.
In Cassidy Mullen’s review of, “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?” by Emily Baumgaertner, she does a good job summarizing all of the main points of the article in a concise manner: for example, Mullen does not include the quotes that may tell an interesting story but often merely support the points made in the article, such as, “The classic case is a 10-year-old boy who goes swimming in the South in the summer and starts to get a headache a few days later,” - notice that it was already explained that the microbes thrive in warm waters of Texas and Florida - she only includes the primary points made. By briefly summarizing the main points, the reader doesn’t get bored of the review and still has plenty of incentive to read the article to learn more. Secondly, in the critique paragraph, Mullen cites two specific examples of something the article did well, which was that it used quotes and “real-life scenarios” to support the points made. Mullen’s use of specific details offers some insight into the style of how the article is written and into the article’s credibility while not merely re-writing the article. Lastly, in the same paragraph, Mullen also included a specific example of how the article could be improved, which was that the discovery was not described in the context of a larger societal impact. It was wise of Mullen to include this detail because without that societal impact, the reader may wonder why it is worth it to read an article about killing a brain-tissue eating microbe that has only killed 139 people in the last five decades in the US instead of an article about a more prevalent condition/disease like cancer.
One way Mullen could improve her review is that her societal impact paragraph literally just includes more summary of the article: every detail she included in that paragraph can be found in the article itself. This is a weak point in the review because Mullen already admits that there is no future impact point in the article besides fighting this one condition, so by merely summarizing the article Mullen is not adding that incentive for the reader to care about the issue in the article by doing some outside research and showing the broader effects of this study besides killing one microbe. If there really is no broader impact, Mullen could have just been honest about this rather than waste the reader’s time reading information that they could just obtain in the article itself. Secondly, in Mullen’s critique, she should elaborate on “biological detail,” as this is not a specific criticism and does not prepare the reader completely for what to expect. She could have given a specific missing detail, such as that Baumgaertner doesn’t explain why the silver-medicine combination kills microbes without harming human cells, only that it does these things. This would have taken almost no more time to write, but at least the reader can make a more informed decision.
Something I learned while reading this article is the importance of the blood-brain barrier. Until now, I was not aware that the brain selectively uptakes certain drugs and not others; I thought that it uptakes all brain-intended drugs and some are merely more damaging than others. This actually makes much more sense because bones surround and protect the brain from trauma, so it is reasonable to expect that the brain also has a mechanism to protect it from blood and the chemicals present in it. This revelation is important to me because I am a neuroscience major, so any basic information on how the brain works and its anatomy will be helpful in the coming years.
Sunday Ladas
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology C-EVEN
6 February 2019
Baumgaertner, Emily. “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating
Amoeba?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Jan.
2019,
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/health/brain-eating-amoeba-silver
.html
I thought that Cassidy did a very good job writing about this current event. To begin, I thought that you could tell that she was very passionate about the topic. This was due to the really energetic and exciting energy in her writing. I thought that she did a really good job in writing with energy. I thought that she also did an exceptional analyzing the writers writing style. I thought that she brought up many points about how the article was, in her words, “beautifully written” she provided supporting evidence as well as to why she thought it was a well written article. Lastly, I thought that it was really interesting how she included that she brought up another study that was previously researched that was along the same lines as the topic he was reading about now. In the future you need to be more specific about facts that she clarified for you in the summary you did not mention the topic until your last paragraph
Cassidy does a really good job throughout the article listing the facts and everything however, I felt that she could have had a more captivating introduction. I thought this because her introduction to the reader was very factual and very dull. Even though stating facts are a good way to explain the main point of the article, I feel like it is not the most effective way to introduce a topic. I also felt that she could have emphasized her opinion in the article more, she briefly touched on her opinion in the article. I felt it would have been more interesting to read her point of view as well as the facts about the topic she was writing about.
I thought that in general that this topic that Cassidy wrote about was very interesting. I thought that it was interesting information to know just in case in the future and I read an article about this topic I can remember reading about it before. I thought that this topic enlightened me about the recent problems involving lethal microbe and the studies that have been conducted with these lethal microbes. I thought that learning about the malaria issue is a major discussion topic in the world currently and hopefully there will soon be a way to stop it, because it is a deadly diseases that kills many people yearly.
Clara DeMagalhaes Current Event #17
ReplyDeleteBaumgaertner, Emily. “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?” The New York Times,
The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2019,
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/health/brain-eating-amoeba-silver.html.
Cassidy’s review of the article “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba” was very informative and guided the reader through a good understanding of the topic at hand. One aspect done well is how the way she wrote the summary of the article flows well from each point and it was easy to understand. She explained the article chronologically and made sure to prioritize key information, but did so in a way that made everything simple and easy to read. Another thing that was well done was the critique section. Both the praise and the suggestions were straightforward and to the point while still being descriptive. On top of that, it was relatively unbiased. Finally, I liked how she incorporated statistics in order to back up her points and to illustrate the the shocking amount of damage that the amoeba causes to its victims and how much of a problem it is. This makes her review much more credible and overall creates a bigger impact on the reader, because specifying that only 4 out of 143 victims of these organisms have survived is far more stirring than simply saying that there is a high fatality rate.
One aspect that can be improved is that I think Cassidy could have talked a bit about the process that doctors went through before discovering that the silver works. The article states that there were other treatments used beforehand that didn’t work so well before the doctors settled on silver, and then it described why the silver was so effective. Additionally, I feel like the summary could have incorporated a quote or two from the article. While the next paragraph does just that, I think that having one in the summary helps validate the information and gives the reader a taste of what the original article was like.
It’s astonishing that something so small and not widely known has actually been a major problem for the people unfortunate enough to experience it. It was also very intriguing to read about the extensive process that must be undertaken in order to treat something on such a microscopic scale. It’s also a good thing that articles such as these are raising awareness for this type of problem, and there are definitely plenty more ordeals of a similar nature that people have to go through. I feel as though reading this has piqued my curiosity on this topic, and may lead me into researching about more deadly occurrences that happen on a microscopic level.