"Scientists Move Closer to Understanding Schizophrenia’s Cause"

Ever heard of schizophrenia? Those who suffer from it usually are characterized by their hallucinations and delusion thinking. For generations, this mental illness has proven to be an enigma to scientists; however it became slightly less mysterious late January after the discovery of the role genetics plays. It is natural for the average human’s brain to undergo synaptic pruning, a process in which the brain disposes of useless connections between neurons as it ages; however, “people with schizophrenia have a gene variant that apparently facilitates aggressive ‘tagging’ of connections for pruning, in effect accelerating the process.” In addition, MHC is a human genome that is usually mentioned in previous studies relating to the disorder; in fact a 2007 study displayed MHC’s involvement in synaptic pruning. A research team, led by Steven McCarroll and Aswin Sekar found that the MHC contains four common variants of a gene called C4 which then produced C4-A and C4-B, two kinds of proteins. Upon analyzation of 64,000 people, the study confirmed that schizophrenia patients were prone to have overactive forms of C4-A compared to the others. Dr. Steven’s lab mice with the C4 genes expressed blatant signs of something wrong in synaptic pruning. This led to the conclusion that overproduction of C4-A could result in too much pruning, which would explain the thinner prefrontal layers in schizophrenic patients and why most patients are so young (teenagers/twenties) However despite this leap of knowledge, much is to be questioned in the field of biological psychiatry. “Carrying a gene variant that facilitates aggressive pruning is hardly enough to cause schizophrenia; far too many other factors are at work. Having such a variant, Dr. McCarroll estimates, would increase a person’s risk by about 25 percent over the 1 percent base rate of schizophrenia — that is, to 1.25 percent.”Although the new finding will not lead to new treatments or medication soon, it marks the beginning to truly understanding the disorder.

The article made it blatant that the field of biological psychiatry is an painstaking one. Human psychology does share its roots within biology in the end, however uncovering these roots are harder as there is so much unknown about the field due to amount of unwarranted factors present. Although the newfound understanding gained from McCarrol and Sekar’s work cannot automatically lead to treatments, it allows for others researchers to build upon their research and ultimately paves a route for the creation of possible treatments.

The strengths within the article was clearly the amount of research the author put into comprehending this intricate topic as well as quote integration and citing data as well. However, I felt there were some weaknesses within the author’s strengths such as the overflow of information. I had to read the article several times before I actually could understand what exactly I had read. Also some of the quotes were a bit simplistic, merely confirming something the author had already written. Overall it was a really interesting read, but if the author worked on simple things like simplifying what exactly was so groundbreaking about the discovery of the researchers I think this would have made a huge difference.

Hyperlink:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/health/schizophrenia-cause-synaptic-pruning-brain-psychiatry.html?_r=0

Carey, Benedict. "Scientists Move Closer to Understanding Schizophrenia’s Cause." The New York

Times. The New York Times, 27 Jan. 2016. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.

US Zika Case Sparks Questions About Sex and Mosquito Germs

The Zika virus transmitted from mosquitoes to humans has recently been found as sexually transmitted in a case in Texas. Scientists have been researching to see how high of a risk infection through sex is for this illness. It is still evident that mosquitoes are the main component of the spread of Zika through Latin America and the United States. According to a member of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is difficult to target other transmission types of these diseases during outbreaks. The Zika epidemic is predominantly in Latin America and the Caribbean.Distinguishing the sexual transmission of the Zika virus was only possible in Dallas because there was no outbreak there; no transmission was reported in the United States until the Dallas case. It was confirmed that the individual who caught the virus had recently had sex with a person who had just returned from Venezuela, however they have both recovered. Globally there have been cases contraction of the Zika virus from Africa and Tahiti. Currently the scientific is scrambling for solutions due to the evidence from Brazil of babies born with brain defects and abnormally small heads (microcephaly) of whom had mothers with the Zika virus. This has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a global emergency because it is a threat to the whole globe. It is important to know about any other types of transmission; for example if a blood donor has been in a Zika outbreak area, can a receiver get infected through a blood transfusions?

As of right now there are no routine screenings of blood donations specifically testing for the presence of the Zika virus because the Zika virus only remains in the blood of an infected person for a few days. A solution to this possible issue would be to test all blood donated, but if that is too expensive, then to definitely test blood used for pregnant women. Another prevention method could be to require all people traveling to infected areas to wait a month after their return to America before donating blood, which has been recommended by the Red Cross and adopted by Canada. This is important to research because there are many unanswered questions like how long is someone infectious, and is it only contagious if the infected person is showing symptoms. I chose this article because I believe that more people have to be informed about the Zika Virus and specifically its symptoms and possible effects. The more awareness that is raised, the more funding for research will be offered and prioritized. The mosquitoes efficiently inject the disease into the bloodstream of the victims, causing rapid circulation. Interestingly, and my favorite quote from this article stated by an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University was that "the mosquito is the deadliest animal on the planet.” Just thinking about a mosquito compared to an animal we see as a vicious animal like a panther, it is baffling to think that mosquitoes are more dangerous. It makes sense though because mosquitoes are much more common in everyday life globally. This article informed the reader, in detail, about what is currently known about the disease, and what precautions are currently being taken. The authors also did a great job finding credible quotes to strengthen their content and bring new insight to confirmed facts. I did not find many weaknesses with this article because it was concise but with enough detail, the authors could have added photographs/diagrams to enhance their point. Other than that I enjoyed reading this article, and I would recommend others to read it.

"US Zika Case Sparks Questions About Sex and Mosquito Germs." The New York Times. The

New York Times, 03 Feb. 2016. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/02/03/health/ap-us-med-zika-virus-sex.html

“How a Medical Mystery Led Doctors to Zika”

Zika, a newly identified mosquito-transmitted virus, has recently been in the headlines of every newspaper because of its link to Guillain-Barré syndrome and possible link to the birth defect microcephaly. While this link has not been proven yet, doctors in Recife, Brazil noticed a shocking increase in the number of microcephaly cases in babies. This disease causes, “children with normal faces up to the eyebrows, and then you have no foreheads and very strange heads,” said Dr. Celina M. Turchi, an infectious diseases researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil. These symptoms are consistent with incomplete brain development. Doctors could not figure out why they had such a sudden spike in microcephaly cases until they discovered the spike in Zika cases as well, causing them to investigate a connection between the two. Researchers and doctors in Brazil have been working to find a link between Zika and microcephaly and even found Zika in the amniotic fluid in pregnant women and Zika in the brain tissue of two stillbirths. Yet, this does not prove a link, more research needs to be done and test need to be run on many more women before any definite link can be concluded. This suspicion has led the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency, ask pregnant women to refrain from travel to the countries infected with Zika, and ask women to refrain from unprotected sex with men who have just traveled to one of these countries. Some Ministry of Health leaders even recommended that women delay having children in these countries. Many countries had been tracking Zika as it traveled from Asia through the Pacific Islands, eventually landing in South America. However, Zika is considered to be much less dangerous than its cousin viruses like yellow fever, dengue, and West Nile virus, so not much was done to try and prevent it. Zika now is present in 33 countries with a combined population of over 600 million people, so it has the potential to be destructive. Yet, in Recife and the state around it, cases of Zika have been declining for the past three weeks, and researchers do not understand why. This could be a good sign that the virus is not one that can persist in a community, or it could just be a fluke because it is in a very confined area of country. Zika is an up-and-coming public health crisis that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
The Ebola Outbreak that started in March 2014 stirred up fear among the entire world. We failed to stop that outbreak because of lack of cooperation and coordination among countries. We learned lessons from Ebola and can apply these to Zika. We need to get in front of this before microcephaly becomes a common birth defect and cases of Guillain-Barré skyrocket. No mother should be afraid to have a child because of mosquitos, and this fear could potentially affect the population size of the next generation.
I think the authors did a very good job of framing their argument into different sections. However, they were rather quote-heavy and lacked specific science evidence. This evidence is not widely present because of lack of research, but there are still statistics and studies out there that could have been used to scientifically back up their claims. Overall, the article was very well written and easy to read.
Citation:
Mcneil, Donald G., Simon Romero, and Sabrina Tavernise. "How a Medical Mystery in Brazil Led Doctors to Zika." The New York Times. The New York Times, 06 Feb. 2016. Web. 07 Feb. 2016. .

DNA Study of First Ancient African Genome Flawed, Researchers Report

In October, Dr. Andrea Manica and his colleagues reconstructed the genome from a skeleton of an Ethiopian man who lived 4,500 years ago, which was the first ancient human genome ever found in Africa. The results from the reconstruction of this genome are key to finding more clues about African history that artifacts cannot provide. However, two scientists uninvolved in this original study requested the use of the original data for their own studies, and their findings did not reach the same conclusions as Manica’s. The original study’s data suggested that the skeleton was linked to a group of Ethiopians, known as the Ari, who live near the cave today. The more recent study found that the skeleton was only distantly related to people elsewhere in Africa, and not related to the Ari. These new findings provoked Dr. Manica and his researchers to review their study. They found that they had forgotten to adjust the standard reference genome that is used as a basis for reconstructing the skeleton’s genome, and thus their data was incorrect. The Ari still appear to be linked to the skeleton, but not as close as previously thought.

The fact that DNA can survive thousands of years and still be used in research is amazing, but we must also consider the difficulty in piecing together and making sense of these ancient DNA genomes. This study, and several others that have encountered errors similar to those of Manica’s, proves that reconstructing these ancient genomes is not an easy task. There is a growing list of retracted scientific studies, and our society must be aware that not every released scientific study is going to be completely accurate. It is also important to note that both groups of scientists encourage DNA experts to be willing to share their data analyses to catch similar errors in the future. After looking at this study, and several others that have been retracted, it is our responsibility to understand the hardships of this tough profession, and that mistakes are often bound to occur.

I thought this article was well written with a clear and concise summary of each researcher’s report. Specifically, the author did a great job of explaining the complex mistake that Dr. Manica and his team had made by using a simple puzzle analogy. Zimmer could have included other examples of previous retracted studies that encountered problems in order to compare Manica’s mistake to those of other studies. Overall, this article expanded my knowledge on the frequent mistakes made in ancient genome reconstructions.

Citation:

Zimmer, Carl. "DNA Study of First Ancient African Genome Flawed, Researchers Report." The  New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Feb. 2016. Web. 06 Feb. 2016.     <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/science/dna-study-of-first-ancient-african-  genome-flawed-researchers- report.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2         Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&versi            n=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront>.

Zika virus: Your questions answered

Less than a year ago, most people were oblivious to what the Zika virus was. Now, however, with its name stamped on every headline, there are a lot of questions floating around: where exactly did this virus come from? what does it do? how will it affect us? The Science article, “Zika Virus: Your Questions Answered”, provides us, as the title suggests, with a simplified answer of these questions. The outbreak of the Zika virus began in one of the islands belonging to the Federated States of Micronesia, and eventually spread to Brazil and then other parts of South America. The reason this virus exploded so suddenly, is due to the growing population of a specific mosquito that carries this virus, and, surprisingly, humans themselves, who travel and take the virus with them. The chances of the virus spreading to the U.S are high, however because of environmental conditions and low mosquito counts, the outbreak would most likely be small. For now, any signs of these diseases in the U.S are “imported cases”, where infected individuals arrive in the country, not the mosquito itself. Contrary to the belief, it is not confirmed that the Zika virus is causing microcephaly, abnormal shrinkage in head size, in babies located around Zika infected areas. Manoel Sarno, a fetal medicine expert, has reported saying that “the pattern of brain damage he is seeing now looks distinct from microcephaly caused by other infections, such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) or rubella.” In the end, however, they cannot confirm that it is completely linked to Zika until tests results come out. There is currently no vaccine for the Zika virus, and it may take years to make one as well, due to the complexity and time required in order to perfect it. There are also very few symptoms associated with the Zika virus, the main concern is the effect on fetuses, so the push to make a vaccine has been relatively low.

I thought this article provided a lot of information about the Zika virus, a current event that some people may not know about. It’s important to society, because it is infecting so many people in Latin America and has the potential of spreading to other places as well. Another reason this may be significant to society, is because most of the time when epidemics break out, there is so much fear for one’s own health that simple facts are often missed. So learning about this virus, is important so that people don’t over react and can truly understand what it is.

I think this article was pretty well written and informative; I learned things about this virus that I hadn’t really known about before. I also think it provided a good amount of facts for a basic knowledge of the origin and development of the virus, which would also help with gaining more information. However, it was slightly choppy and organized into question and answer form, so sometimes topics jumped around. I would have also liked a few statistics about how many were infected, what future plan are for governments, and other such things. Overall, it was informative and clearly written.

Vogel, Gretchen, Jon Cohen, and Martin Ensernik. "Zika Virus: Your Questions Answered." Science. 2016. Web. 30 Jan. 2016. <http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/zika-virus-your-questions-answered >.

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Period of Soaring Emissions May Be Ending, New Data Suggest

William Tague

Have global emissions stopped growing? According to new data presented at the Paris Climate Conference they may have done just that. In 2014 the green house gases rose only a tiny amount and with 2015 drawing to a close, this year may show a slight decrease by an admittedly tiny 0.6 percent. This however shows that global development maybe flattening off. While normally carbon levels decrease only when there are economic meltdowns there is not one to be blamed here and it is obvious that there could be a trend. While this maybe the start of a long trend downwards on emissions, spurred on by climate activism and the need to reduce our energy consumption, groups like The Global Carbon Project do not consider it very likely. They say instead that with China restarting their growth after a short slump it may not be long until they rise again. That however is not the biggest threat. While energy super powers like United States and Russia are doing little to increase consumption many countries that are impoverished still need to industrialize and follow the massive coal and gas consumption needed to grow their countries. India intends to start a plan to double its burning of coal in power plants which is done to bring over 300 million more people onto the grid. Glen Peter’s says, “Emissions in India are at the same level as China in the 1990s,” and adds on by saying they may follow China’s slope on carbon growth. China, the producer of 25% of the world emissions is a giant that is in need of reforms. While legislative acts have started to gain leeway in stopping some of it people hope that the Paris Climate Conference will be able to convince them in addition to every other country, to make some sort of step in the right direction.

There is a huge relevance between this article and our everyday. While it does show a statistic which may be reassuring to a lot of people about our carbon emissions it also reminds us how coal and gasoline can negatively affect our surroundings. What China, United States, or India may do will affect our planet adversely down the line so it is important to raise our voices to stand up for our planet. It also reminds of a horrible reality in which impoverished people getting electricity and transportation will mean we probably have to stop using as much ourselves to compensate. I think we can take this article as a good thing, as it encourages us that lawmakers and people can at this point make a difference to everyone's carbon footprint since it may not be increasing right now.

I think that this article had a catchy title of “Period of Soaring Emissions May Be Ending, New Data Suggest” however it does sort of send a message that emissions as a whole maybe ending which doesn't make sense. I think it was strongly written however quite brief. It could easily have had just a quick paragraph more on what the consequences of CO2 is in our atmosphere to better reinforce the messages other articles get across and remind people who may only be reading this one. Overall quite interesting and well done, especially to me as a person interested in the topic.

Gillis, Justin, and Chris Buckley. "Period of Soaring Emissions May Be Ending, New Data Suggest." The New York Times. The New York Times, 07 Dec. 2015. Web. 07 Dec. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/science/carbon-emissions-decline-peak-climate-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0>