Monday, November 28, 2016

The Race for a Zika Vaccine

Sarah Billings November 27, 2016
Current Event 9 AP Biology D even

In the New York Times article “The Race for a Zika Vaccine,” Katie Thomas talks about how as the Zika Virus continues to affect so many people in the Americas, the search for a cure is making immense progress. Normally, a vaccine could take around a decade or so to be developed. However, due to the involvement of so many companies and government organizations in the research process, scientists predict that a cure could be found as early as 2018. One of the biggest helpers in this process has been the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research led by Dr. Fauci, who has been a part of solving every major disease since the 1980s. With this disease, he confidently describes how “most of us in the field feel that we will get a vaccine for Zika...So it’s really a question of what’s the best one, how quickly can you get it, is it safe, and is it scalable?” (Thomas 2016). These have been the basic considerations of scientists as they hunt for a cure. Some of the options they’ve been working on include using the killed vaccine, in which a dead virus is injected into the body. The body then builds its defense against the virus in a way that also protects against the live version. Another proven-quicker method involves instituting a harmless piece of the virus’s DNA, which would then tell the human DNA to make zika proteins, forcing the human body to create antibodies to fight them off. While both the options seem promising, they are still mostly untested on humans. As of now, researchers and scientists continue testing, hoping to find an answer soon.  
As Vika is a virus that has affected over 70 countries so far and caused thousands of birth defects, the creation of this vaccine would be incredibly important to society. While it’s good to know that there is a high chance of finding a cure, this article serves as a reminder that this virus is still out there and causing problems for many places not too far away. Without a cure, this virus could potentially spread to our own neighborhood and affect us, as well as any friends or family exposed. It is especially important for us in a wealthier neighborhood of the U.S to be aware of this ongoing problem because, as the article points out, so much of the funding that’s helping this research is coming from the wealthy people and governments who can afford vaccination campaigns. On a more personal level, I had always been interested, as well as horrified, by the Vika virus, so it was encouraging to hear that they were making progress.    
After reading this article, I thought the level of detail and explanation was really good, especially for someone who might not know that much about the topic. Topics, such as the different forms of viruses and methods to treat them were discussed and explained thoroughly so it would be clear to anyone reading, not just someone science-inclined. The article also included many credible sources, such as the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which backed up that what the author was saying was very legitimate. The only aspect that could use some improvement was the length of the article, as it was very long and included some stories or quotes that weren’t really necessary. However, it was overall a really good article and very interesting to read.  
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Trump Has Options for Undoing Obama’s Climate Legacy

Fountain, Henry, and Erica Goode. "Trump Has Options for Undoing Obama’s Climate Legacy." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 25 Nov. 2016. Web. 28 Nov. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/science/donald-trump-obama-climate.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0>.

The article that I read for this current event talks about Donald Trump’s plans to undue all of the environmental laws and regulations put in place in the past decades. The author of the article states that Trump plans to get rid of the Clean Power Plan, which regulates the emissions from power plants. Donald Trump believes that climate change is a hoax, although he now claims that he sees how it could be possible, and has also made remarks towards pulling out of the Paris climate accord. It will be challenging for Trump to undo some things like withdrawing from the Paris accord, but others will be easy to undo such as the United Nations- backed program to reduce the environmental impact on international air travel, which will not be put in place until the year 2020. It is unclear whether Trump will actually do the things that he said he will, but many people who are part of his transitional team are known non believers in climate change.

This will obviously have a huge impact on society if Trump does follow through with his plans to undo all of these regulations and future plans to tackle this issue of climate change. There is so much evidence of our effect on the climate and if all of these regulations are taken out of the picture, it is likely that climate change will increase rapidly and be detrimental to our world even sooner than expected. We should be moving in the direction of creating more regulation instead of getting rid of regulation.

The author of this article did a good job of explaining the different plans that Trump claims to have to reduce the rules and regulations to end climate change. He explained clearly how Trump most likely will not be able to get rid of these regulations without a huge revolt from environmental activists, democrats, and most likely republicans as well. The author did a good job explaining everything clearly and thoroughly, making it an easy read for anyone who stumbles upon the article. I think the author could have mentioned more about how undoing these regulations would hurt our environment and he also could have given an opinion on whether he believes Trump will follow through with these plans, considering how he seems to change what he believes often. Overall, this was a very informative article and gives good information on what Donald Trump might do to harm our environment, which we should all be aware of.
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Friday, November 18, 2016

Could Human-pig Hybrid Organs Help Patients?

Alex Swenson                                     11/17/16
AP Bio                                       Current Events


Imam, Jareen. "Could Human-pig Hybrid Organs Help Patients?" CNN. Cable News Network,
n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.

I read Jareen Imam’s article about how human organs bread in pigs can help to save lives. I article opens by explaining that there is a worldwide organ shortage. This is a major problem as the FDA estimates that 22 people per day die as a result of not being able to get the proper organs. To begin her article, she describes the research being done at UC - Irvine. There, the scientists are working to breed human organs in pigs. To start, the scientists then proceed to knock out sections of pig DNA so that the human DNA can be inserted into that place. For example, scientists to make a human pancreas in a pig would theoretically knock out the section of pig DNA which tells it to make a pig pancreas and replace it with the human DNA to make a human pancreas instead. She then explains that by putting human stem cells into the embryo of a pig they can grow human organs inside of the pigs. Currently, this study is in an ethical corner. Their research is not being supported by the US national institute of health because of the fear that the stem cells will possibly make a human brain and make a pig-human mutant. They then explain that the animal could think human thoughts to the process which they deemed cruel and unethical.
    This article was very important in explaining how scientific breakthroughs are limited by what is ethical or not. For example, in 2010, Japanese scientist Hiromitsu Nakauchi, who is now a stem cell biologist at Stanford University, was able to grow a rat pancreas inside a mouse. The science community deemed this to be ethical as it was rats and mice and did not involve humans. The debate between what is ethical and what is not has been a question is the science community for a very long time and this article helps to highlight that argument.
    Overall this was a very well written article. The author used language that was easily understandable. Also, she kept her explanations about the science quite broad so readers could easily grasp the information she was trying to explain. She also had a great counter argument to the argument about ethics. But, I felt that she could have wrote more about the ethics argument as that was quite interesting. In all, this was a well written article that helped to explain an advancement in medicine.
posted for A. Swenson
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University of Oxford. "Scientists uncover genetic evidence that 'we are what we eat'." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 November 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161115111720.htm>.

In the article, “Scientists uncover genetic evidence that ‘we are what we eat”. A study done at Oxford University is discussed. Within this study, researchers selected two different parasites,  eukaryotic parasites and bacterial parasites, in order to test their hypothesis that “ the composition of this food could alter an organism's DNA.” They found that these two parasites, who infected very different host and consumed different foods, had DNA which reflected that. Low-nitrogen, high-sugar diets resulted in more nitrogen in the DNA sequence then vice versa. This discovery was a huge breakthrough in the study of metabolism and evolution as it has finally answered the question to why two closely related species can have such different DNA. The researchers have now advanced their study to test more complex organisms to see if this same conclusion holds true.  
This study is greatly applicable to society and even our own lives as based on further studies, this concept could be applied to human genetics. The idea that the food we consume can actually affect our DNA could be useful in many medical study regarding different diseases or other issues. The co-author Emily Seward concluded that  their study “provides evidence that we really are what we eat.” This idea is definitely applicable to our modern world especially considered the bounds of processed food and GMO’s we consume. Now that we’ve learned food can be a factor in more than just your health, but your actual genetic makeup, we may have to raise some questions about the effects of the products we are eating.

I thought the author of this article did a decent job, but there were definitely areas they could have improved upon. For instance, I feel as though a majority of this piece was quoting the researcher from the study. While it was interesting to learn about this, I felt he only really scratched the surface. It would have been interesting if he brought in outside sources and compared this to other research or really analyzed the impact of these findings. There was definitely a lot that the author could have added, but regardless I learned about a very interesting new concept and noticed i was drawn by the topic.
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Thursday, November 17, 2016

A Dinosaur With a Beak and Feathers Unearthed in China

Chang, Kenneth. "A Dinosaur With a Beak and Feathers Unearthed in China." The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2016. Web. 17 Nov. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/science/dinosaur-mud-dragon.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Ftrilobites&_r=0>.

I read Kenneth Chang’s article, “A Dinosaur With a Beak and Feathers Unearthed in China.” The article begins by describing the newfound creature: donkey-sized, feathered, and unable to fly. This creature is known as the Tongtianlong limosus and lived during the final 15 million years of dinosaur existence. They belong to a group of dinosaurs called the oviraptorosaurs and closely resemble birds. This new species was found in the region of Ganzhou four years ago during the construction of a school. Due to the strange posture the fossil found in, scientists believe that the animal had become trapped in a quagmire and had died trying to pull itself out. The feathers found on the Tongtianlong show the sharing of a common ancestor between the creature and many birds. The creature is not believed to have been a meat-eater, rather its diet consisted of plants, nuts, insects, small animals or mollusks. The large differences between the six oviraptorosaurs found suggest a rapid evolution of dinosaurs around this time. The body forms of all six species are very different although they all come from southern China. The article concludes by warning the reader that is still hard to draw conclusions from the fossils because the exact timeline is unknown.
The article was important because it helps us learn more about dinosaurs and evolution. Studying the Tongtianlong can give scientists a better idea of how oviraptorosaurs were related to one another. The article also provides evidence against a very common belief that dinosaurs were in decline long before they became extinct 66 million years ago. The fossil shows forms of oviraptorosaurs to have fairly different body forms which would prove there to be a rapid evolution shortly before the dinosaurs went extinct and would refute the common belief by many. This article also helps to expand scientists knowledge on dinosaurs and the reasons they went extinct.
I found this article extremely interesting and well-written. For me, it was interesting because I have always found dinosaurs interesting. Also, this was the first dinosaur I heard of having feathers which was fascinating. To improve this article, the author could have described some terms that may have been confusing to the general audience. For example, he could have described what a quagmire was to make the article easier to follow. Also, he could have included more facts about the fossil itself to make the finding more relevant to the article. Overall, I liked how the author discussed a topic not widely debated today. I also liked the upbeat, positive tone the article took.
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In Canada, a Direct Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes


Fountain, Henry. "In Canada, a Direct Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Nov. 2016. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/science/fracking-earthquakes-alberta-canada.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0 

Many opposers to fracking state that the process can lead to an earthquake.  Scientists say that these kinds of earthquakes are not common in the United States, but are common in Canada.  Canada has had many earthquakes within the past five years that have been due to either fracking or hydraulic fracturing.  Hydraulic fracturing is when "water, chemicals, and sand are injected at high pressure into a well drilled in a shale formation to break up the rock and release oil and gas".  Scientists that studied the earthquakes said that the earthquakes occurred because of the increase in pressure during the fracking, and the changes in pressure from the remaining fluid after.  Most of the recent earthquakes that have happened in the U.S. were because of the burial of wastewater from oil and gas wells, not fracking.  When wastewater is injected into disposal wells, and flows into the rock, it can cause an earthquake.  This is because the pressure changes in the formation will change the balance in the fault zone.   In Alberta, however, where the earthquakes were occurring, the scientists had found links between the earthquakes and fracking, not wastewater injection.  Dr. Eaton and Xuewei Bao, studied the seismic data from Alberta, and found that to the east of the fault zone, earthquakes occurred during the tracking process.  To the west, most the earthquakes occurred after the fracking ended.  From this, they found out that in the east, shocks were traveling into rock formations and changing the stress patterns.  In the west, the fracking fluid stayed underground and could possibly lead to more earthquakes.  Scientists are conducting more research to find out why Alberta has different reactions to fracking than the United States.         

This article is very relevant to society today.  Fracking is a debated topic all over the world and it is important to realize that scientists are looking at all the positives and negatives that come from it and are also looking at the connecting between fracking and earthquakes.  It is interesting that parts of the U.S. and Canada respond differently to fracking.  Also it's interesting that scientists believe that the U.S. earthquakes are from wastewater injections and the Canada earthquakes are from fracking.  This topic affects a lot of people and it's good that scientists are studying it.    

This article was very well written.  I like how the author explained the information in a sophisticated and brief way.   I also found it interesting that the author kept connecting the information back to the United States so readers could see how fracking in Canada is different than fracking the U.S.  Although some parts were confusing and hard to read.  The author said scientists are conducting more research to see why Alberta reacts differently, but it would have been nice to read how and what they were going to do to research.     
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Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Cryptid Project Prototypes

Earlier in the year in the beginning of September after completing the Ecology unit over the summer, AP Biology students were asked to research a cryptid  (imaginary/mythical) organism and prepare a Pokeman-like card that described and classified the organism based on the biome in which it would have lived, the niche it would fit within that biome, its place in the food chain etc. These are links to the prototypes they prepared and discussed in class. In our last class meeting before the Thanksgiving recess, the students will be presenting and explaining their final cards.

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