Shea Braumuller geoid comment

Weighing the World Comment

Shea Braumuller

Reading scientific articles is hard to begin with but to summarize the key points and present them is tougher. Joey was very successful in presenting his ideas in a plain and simple manner. This article is summarized very well and the scientific expressions are explained accurately and understandably. Describing the geoid, a gravitational map, was very effective with precise examples to thoroughly explain the concept. It was intriguing to learn about the idea that was established in 1828 and only just carried out in 2010. Giving examples of the applications of the geoid was also very interesting. “So far the geoid has demonstrated a ‘depression’ in the Indian Ocean and ‘plateaus’ in the North Atlantic and Western Pacific. More of these delicate features will be added to the map in coming months.”

Joey did a very good job in summarizing this article, however, there were a few small things that could have been improved upon. Although the establishment of the satellite and the expenses were expressed very well there was no description in how the satellite was damaged. This would have been helpful in understanding how the problem could be fixed. The last thing that could have been improved upon was how long the satellite had been in space. These two bits of research would have made a big difference in understanding this topic but overall the article was very well summarized.

I learned about the astonishing geoid map and how it is going to affect the way we see the world. I found that the geoid will change the portrayal of sea levels and other topographical necessities. This was very astonishing to me.

Encased in Amber, a Trove of New Species

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/science/26obamber.html?ref=biology_and_biochemistry

          The article discusses the recent findings of ancient amber stones containing a large number of newly discovered species. The amber excavation in western India resulted in the discovery of over 700 species of ancient insects, arachnids and crustaceans, and many plant, floral and fungal remains. There were over 100 species of insects discovered alone. Researchers estimate that the finding dates back 50 to 53 million years ago. During this time period, India was a lush rainforest similar to the rainforests found in Southeast Asia. Researchers from the US, Germany, and India reported their finds to the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and they found similarities between the new specimens in India and fossils found in Mexico and other areas in Central America. As a result, these new findings have made scientists and historians curious. India was believed to be part of Africa until it split off and eventually collided with Asia to form the Himalayas. Now historians and scientists wonder if there may have been some other geologic scenarios effecting India during the continental shifts millions of years ago.

             

          These new findings may have a great impact on our knowledge of the prehistoric world. The newly discovered species may give us a better understanding about the evolutionary changes in the past 50 million years as well as a better understanding of life itself. The discovery may also lead to a change in theory as to how the super continent Pangaea may have actually split. A final impact of the recent findings in India is that there is still so much in the past that is still waiting to be uncovered. While we certainly have a strong understanding of our past, there remains a massive amount of information still to be explained. The amber discovery in India is proof of that and inspires us to keep looking into the past.

          I thought this was a decent article. It gave light to a very interesting discovery about our past. It made the reader curious as to how these recent findings may affect our understanding of the prehistoric world. However, there were a few areas that needed improvement. The article was much too general. I would have liked to know a little bit more about the species discovered. The author could have gone into more detail about a few specific species that carry some interesting traits. I would have also liked to know the names of more of the researchers who came upon this discovery. If such additions were made, this would have been a fantastic article.

posted for B. Davies

Weighing the World

After a near death crisis, the best gravity sensor in space is back to full strength, providing data that will keep scientists on the level. On July 18^th, geophysicist Reiner Rummel of The Technical Institute of Munich in Germany was told a satellite he had spent 20 years designing had stopped relaying data. The $471 million satellite, The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE), had lost connection with the European Space Agency. Even the back up computer system previously installed by Rummel and his crew could not re establish connection. In early September scientists sent a signal to raise the temperature of GOCE’s computer compartment, and it suddenly sputtered back to life.

The function of GOCE was to sensor subtle gravitational differences across Earth. These differences arise because Earth’s mass is not distributed evenly across the globe. With this data, scientists planned to construct a gravitational map called a geoid, providing geologists with a global reference for precisely measuring the height of continents, mountain peaks, and the ocean surface. The concept of the geoid was first introduced in 1828 by Carl Frederic Gauss, who realized that researchers would need such a reference to determine the precise elevation above sea level of any point on earth. To this day, uncertainties in heights of the geoid make comparisons between locations difficult, but the GOCE is believed to have fixed this with it’s extremely accurate data. The GOCE can also keep tabs on the shifting tectonic plates that cause huge earthquakes.

Now that the GOCE is up and running again, researchers are starting to turn that initial harvests of data into a highly accurate geoid. So far the geoid has demonstrated a ‘depression’ in the Indian Ocean and ‘plateaus’ in the North Atlantic and Western Pacific. More of these delicate features will be added to the map in coming months.

Exercising in the Heat May Improve Athletic Performance in Cool and Hot Conditions, Study Suggests

A recent study conducted by human physiology researchers at the University of Oregon has shown the influence that becoming accustomed to heat has on athletic performance in both hot and cold atmospheres. Using the results from experiments on highly trained cyclists of both genders, scientists came to the conclusion that “heat acclimation exposure provided considerable ergogenic benefits in cool conditions, in addition to the expected performance benefits in the hot environment.” This study differed from previous ones in that it assessed the effect of high temperatures on aerobic performance in cool weather. These findings are actually very relevant to today’s competitive sports world, as athletes can possibly use the method of heat exposure to increase the quality of how they perform in cool conditions. This approach works because, when the body is accustomed to high temperatures, the body can better control its temperature, improving sweating and increasing blood flow. It also heightens blood volume so the heart can distribute more blood to organs, muscles, and skin. According to Santiago Lorenzo, a researcher who studied at the University of Oregon and now trains at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, heat acclimation makes more sense than the widely-used strategy of living at a high altitude and training at a low altitude, being “easier to apply” and leading to “more robust physiological adaptations.” Researchers also discovered that heat may cause enzymatic alteration which could improve the work done by the muscle during exercise.

I thoroughly enjoyed this article, as I found the topic very interesting. However, I would have liked to learn more about the actual explanation of why heat acclimation improves athletic performance in cool conditions. There was only about one paragraph on this, and I thought it should have made up a much larger portion of the article. The majority of the article was spent sighting specific researchers and specific tests that were conducted; a more general discussion of the conclusions that were drawn and the reasons behind those conclusions, I felt, would have better served the reader. In addition, the article could have been improved by going deeper into how the findings impact today’s sports and the training techniques of today’s athletes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025161144.htm

A Redeeming Role for a Common Virus

            Researches at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, a part of Georgetown University Medical Center have recently discovered that a common virus could have the ability to eliminate tumors.

Reovirus, which causes coughing and diarrhea, is a very common virus and by the age of five most people have experienced it; some people experience the symptoms, while others aren’t affected. The body generally overpowers the virus, so it does little harm to people. However, scientists have uncovered that this virus grows like a “gangbuster” inside of tumors, with a malfunction that causes tumor growth. Therefore, scientists question whether this virus could actually have a healing affect.

In order to test the Reovirus’s ability, scientists have genetically altered the virus so that it can’t grow inside of healthy cells. Instead, “What's left is a virus in search of a host, and reovirus loves the environment inside a specific kind of cancer cell.”  KRAS and EGFR are two kinds of cancer cells that have a malfunctioning machinery mutation. These mutations in these cells allow the virus to takeover; the virus then shuts down the cells machinery and doesn’t allow it to replicate itself.

This research would allow scientists to eliminate a certain kind of cancer due to the kinds of cancer cells in tumors. Subramaniam says, “This is a subset of cancer where we haven't had many successes in terms of finding drugs that extend life after diagnosis.” Therefore, this new hypothesis is very exciting for scientists to experiment. 

submitted by N. Carpenter

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/10/20/a_redeeming_role_for_a_common_virus.html

Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-creative/

Sadness Linked to Smarts

Creativity and depression have gone hand in hand. There have been many accounts of depressed artists who have created brilliant works in their bouts of depression. Classic examples are Van Gogh and the thinkers such as Aristotle and Plato. This correlation has scientific backing. Modupe Akinola, a professor at Columbia Business School conducted experiments on these “down” emotions and their correlation with creativity. The experiment used positive and negative feedback and at the end, the patients were asked to produce a creative work. At the end of the experiment, these pieces of work were analyzed by artists for their creativity. Patients who received negative feedback often created better artwork. Columbia University is not the only institute finding correlations between the two unlikely factors. Joe Forgas of the University of South Wales in Australia believes that sad and angst states create a mindset that is better for dealing with demanding situations. He has found that sad people recall past events better and make fewer arithmetic mistakes. Awareness and attentiveness were also increased. Feelings do have an affect on our ability to create thoughts. While sadness may increase diligence, happiness has an opposite effect. Happiness can dull a person’s awareness and perceptions. In more depth, sadness affects a person’s attention span and focus. Creativity comes with an ability of relentless focus. It’s simply easier to achieve this focus when a person isn’t happy. The quality of work a person produces increases when they are sad. Kay Redfield Jamison of Johns Hopkins found a correlation between success and depressive mental illness. Emotions affect the way we think.
This article gives insight into how emotions dictate our way of thinking. Human beings are emotional creatures. It is often rare to see emotion completely eliminated from our thoughts and decisions. While we may not be able to make more rational decisions, people should understand how emotions affect them. Emotions such as sadness have an effect on creativity and attention. If this is true other emotions must also have an effect on us as well. Understanding the state of mind we think with and increasing awareness of our actions is important for any person. I chose this article personally because I was interested to see how emotion and creativity are correlated. I read the article expecting the opposite of what was stated and came out more informed. My perceptions were that sadness would detrimentally affect a person’s creativity. This article gives perspective to our emotions.
The article was easy to read and was written for the common person. It would have been interesting to see more of the scientific reasons behind these correlations. In addition, more in depth examples of sadness and creativity would have been appreciated. The article gives a good summary of how everyday perceptions are affected. The article could have been more informative if it gave more information on specific activities. If specific examples were evaluated such as playing an instrument or painting, the article would have been more informative and insightful. The experiments conducted in the research were also subjective. Emotions were incited through comments, music and weather. These emotions are subjective and can create different effects for different people. More scientific and controlled experiments would give more creditability to the article.
The article was a well written, easy to read article on how sadness affects our thoughts. The insights into sadness should help future scientists learn more about our emotions.

Lehrer, Jonah. "Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative." WIRED. Conde Nast Digital 2010. Web. 19 Oct. 2010. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us more-creative

'Botox: Not just for wrinkles anymore'

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39507650/ns/health-skin_and_beauty/

“By breaking down Botox molecules into two separate building blocks, Davletov's team was able to produce them separately and safely, and then "clip" them back together again, they said in a report of work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.” In London, these British scientists experimented with new ways of building the molecules in anti-wrinkle products like Botox. Botox is also used for Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, and chronic migraines. This new developments of Clostridium botulinum (Botox), may be used as long-term painkillers. Safer products will allow more economical production of Botox-based medicines to be sold. The toxins in Botox allow more unwanted effects to occur, while this new method gets rid of. Britain became the first country in the world to approve Botox by Allergan as a treatment for Migraines, but it is very dangerous and toxic and can only be used in small doses. “Davletov said the new refining technique could allow scientists to produce new forms of Botox with wider practical medicinal uses, for example as a long-term painkiller. The method could potentially allow researchers to develop a form of chronic pain relief, which could last as long as a single Botox injection -- around four to six months, he said.”


This article was very well written, and I enjoyed learning more about the new studies of Botox. I knew that it was used as a “wrinkle eraser” but I never knew it could be used as a painkiller. The article was informative, concise, and was straight to the point, which I enjoyed.