Maya Brinster

“Molecular Switch for Repairing Central Nervous System Disorders.” ScienceDaily, 

ScienceDaily, 10 Jan. 2020, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200110111531.ht

For current event #5, I read the article “Molecular switch for repairing central nervous system disorders.” It describes an exciting study conducted by Mayo Clinic researchers that found a new strategy for treating central nervous system disorders. Many of these disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and schizophrenia, are caused by the injury of myelin. Myelin acts as an insulator around nerves, protecting electrical signals that flow through the nervous system. It is extremely important for the nervous system to function properly, and Myelin deterioration can lead to loss of sensory and motor function. The PAR1 receptor will block myelin production and lead to this deterioration. A certain protein in blood that helps with healing, called thrombin, will trigger that receptor and subsequently block the production of myelin. Blocking the PAR1 receptor will lead to the regeneration of myelin. By testing two mice, both of which suffered from disorders caused by myelin deterioration, researchers at the Mayo Clinic discovered a way to genetically block PAR1 and also found that a certain drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration was able to improve myelin production and inhibit PAR1 in cell samples as well. Although this drug proved to be successful in isolated cells, scientists are unsure of the effects on animals, and therefore do not recommend that patients take the drug until further research is conducted. Dr. Scarisbrick, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic, explains, “We have not used the drug in animals yet, and it is not ready to put in patients for the purpose of myelin repair.”

Although this inhibitor is not ready for human consumption, it is still an incredible step forwards in the medical field and has the potential to reverse the effects of these devastating diseases. This article has made me much more optimistic about the future of these diseases, and hopefully, years from now, they won’t be as prominent of issues as they are now. 

The authors of this article did a great job explaining both the causes and effects of myelin deterioration, as well as the significance of the PAR1 receptor. This background information that they thoroughly explained is vital in the understanding of the article as a whole. However, the authors were rather unclear about the specific findings of the researchers. They stated that researchers found a way to genetically block PAR1, but never elaborated on this point. Instead, they switched to an entirely different PAR1 inhibitor drug that could also lead to myelin regeneration. This was pretty confusing, and I wish I could’ve read more about how they genetically blocked the PAR1 and whether it can possibly be used in humans, not just mice. In the future, it would be helpful for the authors to elaborate on all information they explained instead of simply stating a finding and moving on. Overall, however, this was a very interesting article and I’m glad that I chose to read it.

First 'Murder Hornet' Nest in U.S. Destroyed, Washington State Officials Say.

 

Helsel, Phil. First 'Murder Hornet' Nest in U.S. Destroyed, Washington State Officials Say. 27 Oct. 2020, www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/first-murder-hornet-nest-u-s-destroyed-washington-state-officials-n1244867.

On October 22, scientists discovered the first live nest of Asian giant hornets, also known as murder hornets, in the United States. Though they commonly live in underground nests, these murder hornets were found in a tree in Blaine, Washington. Because there had already been reports of murder hornets in the area earlier in the year, the Washington State Department of Agriculture set up traps in hopes to catch these deadly creatures. Last week, entomologists attached radio trackers to three captured hornets, which inevitably led them to the nest through close observation. Once the nest was located, all measures were taken to dispose of the hive efficiently and effectively. The Washington State Department did this by gathering protective suits and created a complicated method to isolate the hive. Sven Spichiger, the managing entomologist for the Washington State Department of Agriculture, said, “we wanted to make sure that we took the nest out as quickly as we possibly could to avoid any queens escaping." To do this, the group of workers used foam to seal crevices in the hive, wrapped the whole tree in cellophane, and continued to use a vacuum hose to suck out the hornets. The remains were exposed to large amounts of carbon dioxide to kill any living creatures, allowing a further examination of the tree and the specifics of the hive. In a broader lens, the eradication of all giant hornets could take years. But to speed up the process, the collected specimens will be used in research, including the observation of live nests to determine what attracts the hornets. The other specimens will be flash-frozen and sent to other researchers and universities for studying.

Murder hornets are extremely dangerous to the honeybee population. In fact, these giant hornets can kill an entire colony of honeybees in a matter of hours. Therefore, an increased population of murder hornets puts the population of honeybees at major risks, which would change the functionality of the surrounding environment. Honeybees pollinate plants, which helps them grow, breed, and produce food. Without honeybees, the other animals in the ecosystem would suffer because of the effects on plants. This is the primary reason behind the urgency of the entomologists’ removal of the hornets. If not contained, the hornets will reproduce and eventually spread, putting ecosystems at risk around the country. 

This article was short but mentioned all of the necessary information about the procedures for getting rid of the murder hornets. The in-depth description of the radical removal process emphasized its importance. The author also did a great job of mentioning how serious these murder hornets could be to the honeybee population in the United States. However, it would have been beneficial for the author to talk about the detailed aspects of the hornets, specifically through quantitative data and analysis. The author could have found more information about how many hornets there were, how large the hive was, and what the specialized scientists believe is the next step for the area. This would have added to the implications of the hornets’ presence in the United States, making the article’s relevance more significant to the reader. 

Posted for A. Wetty

U.S. to Remove Wolves From Protected Species List

 Ava Black 

Mr. Ippolito 

Ap Biology 

10/29/20

Einhorn, Catrin. “U.S. to Remove Wolves From Protected Species List.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Oct. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/climate/wolves-endangered-species-list.html?login=email.

              In her article "US to Remove Wolves From Protected Species List", author Catrin Einhorn discusses the US government's recent decision to no longer provide gray wolves with federal protection. For the past 45 years gray wolves have been protected by the Endangered Species Act, however, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt claims that the gray wolves have "exceeded all conservation goals for recovery" and no longer require protection. Einhorn proceeds to explain the controversy surrounding this decision. Firstly, after reading the proposal to delist the gray wolves, Carlos Carroll, an independent biologist with the Klamath Center for Conservation Research, stated that it disregarded possible genetic variation in the species (as it adapts to climate change); instead, the proposal based its decision on the low risk of extinction the wolves are experiencing now. In addition, Adrian Treves, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explains that the proposal is flawed because it does not formulate an accurate estimate of how many wolves will end up being killed by people. In contrast, some researchers, such as Ya-Wei Li of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center believe that since wolves are not in immediate danger, the federal government should use its resources to protect the other species that are at a far greater risk of extinction. This controversial topic then forces researchers and officials to ask the question: What is the extent of the Endangered Species Act? Should it just save animals from extinction, or should it restore them until these species are able to assume an important role in their ecosystem? 

           I chose to read this article because I wanted to learn more about this controversial topic and the importance of gray wolves in ecosystems. I learned that the preservation of gray wolves is extremely important because these species help to enhance the growth of trees and other vegetation by eating deer and elk. Thus, the discontinuation of federal protection on the gray wolves could end up hurting ecosystems as well as cause the wolves to decrease in population and become at risk of extinction.

         This article was extremely informative and well-written. Einhorn offered opinions from both sides of the controversy as well as quotes from reliable researchers. I also liked how this author provided an explanation on the importance of gray wolves in the environment and illustrated their discussed their growth in population both prior to to the introduction of Europeans in North America and after they were placed under federal protection. This background information was necessary in order for the reader to understand the large impact of being federally protected. The only improvement I would make would be to have the author give her own opinion of the matter. Overall, this article was extremely well written and engaging. 

“Diabolical ironclad beetles inspire tougher joints for engineering applications”

Olivia Cevasco

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology - C Even

30 October, 2020

Chen, Po-Yu. “Diabolical Ironclad Beetles Inspire Tougher Joints for Engineering Applications.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 21 Oct. 2020, www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02840-1.   

                   Bugguide.net 

The article “Diabolical ironclad beetles inspire tougher joints for engineering applications” details a recent scientific study that revealed why the “diabolical ironclad beetle,” also known as Phloeodes diabolicus, is able to withstand pressure 39,000 times its weight (for reference, that’s equivalent to having 600 elephants stacked on top of you). Beetles are arthropods, so their exoskeleton has three layers: a waxy, waterproof epicuticle on the outside and two inner cuticles made of the polysaccharide α-chitin that provide structure for the beetle. The chitin is multilayered, enabling the bugs to absorb energy upon impact and tolerate damage. Compared to other insects, the inner cuticles of the diabolical beetle are much thicker and can withstand extra pressure. These beetles have forewings that are locked together and provide additional protection from predators. In order to determine how the thicker exoskeleton and locked forewings of diabolical beetles enable their strength, the scientists performed compression tests and mathematical simulations on the beetles and found that they can withstand 149 newtons, or 39,000 times their weight. They also discovered that these beetles have three types of structural support between the layers of their exoskeleton. The article’s author says that “Three types of lateral support connect the ventral cuticle [the shell on the beetle’s underside] to the elytra [the beetle’s forewings]: interdigitated, latching and free-standing. The interdigitated joints are the stiffest and strongest under compression, whereas the latching and free-standing supports allow the exoskeleton to undergo some deformation when compressed.” 

Nature.com

Furthermore, the scientists concluded that the hardness of the interdigitated support protects the beetle’s vital organs, and the latching and free-standing supports absorb energy from impact, enabling the beetle to get run over by a Toyota Camry twice [one of the scientists did this out of curiosity] and still survive. 

The diverse support structures of the diabolical ironclad beetle are currently inspiring designs for robots and vehicles that can be both rigid on the surface to protect internal components, withstand high forces and absorb the energy exerted on them. Often, the joints of machines, where metal meets metal, are weak, so scientists are also finding new ways to layer the joints and combine metals. So far, there is already an $8 million project to create metal technologies that mimic this beetle’s structure. Overall, scientists expect to make new materials and designs for future technologies based off of this beetle’s exoskeleton and joints. 

I decided to review this article because we recently learned about the polysaccharide chitin and the structure of arthropods over the summer. This article provided an extensive overview of the beetle’s anatomy but failed to provide significant numerical data from the lab report to support this finding. However, some of the language was hard to understand because the author used words like ‘helicoid’ and ‘elytra’ without defining them, so I had to look up the definitions. Including some graphs or tables from the study would have been a great addition to the diagrams of the beetle in the article. 

A Malaria Mystery, Partly Solved: What Happens When the Rains End?

 Kelly Baclija

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology

October 30, 2020

Mcneil, Donald G. “A Malaria Mystery, Partly Solved: What Happens When the Rains End?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Oct. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/health/malaria-parasites-genetics.html.

Malaria is an infectious disease known for killing around 400,000 people, mainly African children and pregnant women, every year; it is a mosquito-borne illness caused by a parasite and results in symptoms in humans such as fever and chills and sometimes leads to death. Mosquitoes are naturally the most active during the rainy months of the year, and thus this is also when most infections occur. However, this begs the question as to how malaria continues to persist during the dry months when there is a lack of mosquitoes carrying the parasite from human hosts and almost no cases of the disease. A new study in Nature Medicine by researchers from Germany and Mali may have revealed part of the explanation of this: the parasite conducts a genetic change so that it can hide in an infected person’s bloodstream, remaining undetected for months. The study was initially begun by drawing blood regularly from about 600 children and young adults in a rural town in Mali, called Kalifabougou, that has distinct wet and dry seasons; the blood tests concluded that about 20% of participants still had very low levels of parasites that were hidden in some red blood cells, even when the samples’ parasites were not visible under a microscope. The malaria parasite takes over the protein-making machinery of some infected red blood cells, which results in them producing sticky proteins that appear on the cell surface. These cells then cling to walls of the veins and arteries and do not get swept downstream into the spleen where it is usually destroyed--the new study discovered that this process coincides with the seasonal changes. Stiff older cells, as well as those containing multiplying parasites, are caught in the spleen then digested by macrophages (large white blood cells) while only young, flexible red blood cells can pass through. Researchers found that the parasites in red blood cells stopped the production of sticky proteins during the dry season, swept down into the spleen to their destruction, although few cling on and slow down their metabolism, almost as a type of hibernation. This results in those parasites being too “quiet” to cause an immune counterattack that could destroy them, and the human hosts ultimately survived from the low count of cells. The study was praised by numerous scientists, such as Dr. Miriam K. Laufer, a malaria specialist at the University of Maryland’s medical school, saying it “delivered concrete data about things we thought were the case, such as that the dry season infections do not elicit a big immune response.”

I chose to read this article because I thought it was an interesting topic to learn more about since I didn’t know much about malaria or think about how cases are much more likely during the wet season than the dry season (although it is logical). This article is significant because it discusses the new findings of a study as to how malaria parasites are still present in a human host although they may display no symptoms. As a result, scientists can make further advancements in medicine and technology in order to be able to locate the inactive parasites present in red blood cells and also destroy them. This would rid the host of the disease and could possibly prevent hundreds of thousands of people, especially young adults, from dying of malaria. Therefore, not only would society be benefited greatly from the lives saved from this discovery, but science, in general, could become far more advanced and unlock even more discoveries. 

I think that the article was relatively well written. It featured much information about the biology behind the idea of red blood cells being invaded by the parasites and the sticky proteins they produced in order to not be swept into the spleen. The author also added many quotes from expert scientists on the topic, which adds much credibility to his article. However, there were also a few weaknesses that I found to be prevalent throughout the reading. For instance, it would have been beneficial if he added more information as to how Africa, or Mali specifically, had been affected by the spread of malaria. Furthermore, he could have also discussed how these new findings could benefit science as well as society in terms of fewer people dying if they understand that parasites can live in human hosts without showing symptoms--this would help the audience understand what this new information means in general and the world for the better.

 

Willy Swenson

Mr.Ippolito

AP Bio C Even

October 21, 2020

“A New Material for Separating CO2 from Industrial Waste Gases, Natural Gas, or Biogas.” ScienceDaily, 2020, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201020135644.htm. Accessed 21 Oct. 2020.

‌The subject of this article is the creation of a new material that is able to separate c02 from industrial waste gases without chemically bonding to it, making it available for recycling with high energy efficiency. Not only this, the researchers claim this material will be cost-effective too. This is a huge technological innovation because C02 is one of the most abundant greenhouse gases in the world, and is attributed to the climate change that is plaguing our planet. In the past, industrial waste gases, such as the burning of fossil fuel, natural gas, and biogas, have released an extraordinary amount of C02 into the atmosphere. The groundbreaking innovation can make industrial processes sustainable and efficient. 

Next, the article moves into the structure of this new innovation. The way the material works is through physical absorption, working as a storage tank for the C02. The build of the material consists of small glass platelets. These platelets are one nanometer thick. Between these platelets are organic molecules that act as spacers. These organic molecules create special pore spaces in which only carbon dioxide molecules can penetrate the pores. Other greenhouse gas molecules do not fit through these pores. This system allows for easy separation of the CO2, which is energy efficient for recycling. 

Sustainable industrial practices are very important, especially with CO2 emissions. With the rise of electric cars, coal-burning power plants are supplying energy for cars. This causes a lot of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. With this new technology, we can achieve cleaner energy. Carbon emissions are very important to reduce because high carbon emissions contribute to climate change, which causes habitat destruction and harms biodiversity, among other things. 

Even if this technology does not live up to what it is destined to be, technological advancement is good for society, whether it fails or not. In Hugh’s review of “Like Theranos, But it Works”, the technology proposed by the fraudulent Elizabeth Holmes indirectly led to the future research of that same technology. While the research of Universitat Bayreuth does seem credible, regardless of the outcome of this technology, these researches have advanced the idea, thereby allowing other researchers to build a successful technology in the future.

 Julia Reich

Mr. Ippolito

AP Bio C Even 

10/22/20

Nuwer, Rachel. “356 Elephants Dropped Dead. Did This Bacteria Poison Them?” The New York 

Times, The New York Times, 23 Sept. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/science/dead-elephants-botswana.html. 

Botswana, a country located in Southern Africa, has experienced a growth in deaths of elephants in the recent months of 2020. The article, “356 Elephants Dropped Dead. Did This Bacteria Poison Them?” written by Rachel Nuwer discusses possibilities of why the elephants have seemingly dropped dead and how their deaths may impact environments. Essentially, the whole subject is very confusing and unknown to scientists and researchers. Many experts are worried about the future of larger mammals, including elephants, and their habitually high survival. Experts have begun to dissect the deaths, ruling out any direct human interference. There was no evidence of bullet holes or tusks removed. Though there is a possibility of poisoning by the local people, many believe this is not the explanation. In late September 2020, Botswanan officials announced a discovery that “neurotoxins produced by cyanobacteria, a type of microscopic algae, caused the elephants to die after they drank from large puddles that formed after rains,” (Nuwer). Though this discovery is a beginning to the mystery, the verdict is still divided. Conservationists seem to accept the explanation while other experts are considering a new danger to elephants. One of the most frequently asked question is why elephants were the only species affected by the potential algae. Roy Bengis, a veterinary wildlife specialist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa claims, “that elephants are ‘exquisitely sensitive’ to whichever particular neurotoxin killed them, whereas other species are more resistant,” (Nuwer). As well, elephants can drink up to forty gallons of water a day, which may lead them to ingest a large dose of toxin. Another argument questions the size of the mammals. There are also cows near the elephants, potentially drinking from the same water sources. There have been no deceased cows found, however, which calls into question why cows are not dying and they are much smaller creatures inducing roughly the same ratio or more of toxin. No expert has solved the mystery yet, and this problem is exacerbated by the Botswana government who is not disclosing specific names and data from labs. The situation in Botswana is a mess and may affect wildlife and ecosystems. 

In Botswana, elephants are known as “keystone species” meaning they are an essential part of the numerous ecosystems they occupy. Without an abundance of these species maintaining their symbiotic relationships, ecosystems would begin to fail. Adding on to the fact that biodiversity would not be maintained, elephants are large tourism magnets. The revenue brought in from attraction helps to fund protected wilderness areas. If elephant numbers go down, there will be less tourists, ergo less area protected for a variety of species. If the cause of over three-hundred-fifty and rising numbers of dying elephants is not figured out soon, there could be a dramatic decrease in species diversity and protected wilderness areas -- this could be catastrophic to the economy as well as to other species. 

Rachel Nuwer was able to depict the confusion and frustration of experts regarding the death of the elephants. She includes many experts on the subject, including Dr. Thouless, head of research at Save the Elephants and Roy Bengis, a veterinary wildlife specialist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. This was one aspect done very well in her article. The inclusion of these experts helps to provide valid arguments from real scientists on the matter. One weakness Nuwer could have improved was incorporating statistics and data regarding the effects the loss of elephants would have on the ecosystems. She could have done this by contacting labs, being granted permission for data use, and adding their data at the very end of her article. Overall, her take on the topic is very interesting and captivating. The article was well written.