Contraceptive Used in Africa May Double Risk of H.I.V.

Contraceptive Used in Africa May Double Risk of H.I.V.

By Pam Belluck

Recent studies have shown that the most popular form of birth control used by women in Africa largely increases the risk of these women becoming infected with H.I.V. In addition, if a woman taking this form of contraception has already contacted the virus, her partner is more likely to be infected as well. The method that has recently come under scrutiny is a hormone injected every three months, used by 6% of the women between 15 and 49 in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this United States, 1.2 million women, equal to 3% of the population, use this method. While the study was only done on African couples, scientists believe that the effects would be biologically the same for women in America, but cases of contacting H.I.V. are less common due to more accessible health care and better knowledge about the issue. The World Health Organization has taken note of this study, and has agreed to convene in January to analyze whether these findings, which match those of a few other studies, should cause them to issue a formal warning against this contraceptive to women in Africa. Officials want to make sure that if there is real danger, they warn the women, but they do not want to cause a panic until they are absolutely sure. Since it is the most common form of contraceptive, this could lead to increased pregnancies, which is a huge cause of both pain and death for women, and in addition studies have pointed that pregnancy too increases the chances of contacting HIV. So far, researchers are neither sure whether these results are conclusive, since when conducting an experiment on real people over the course of a few years it is often hard to isolate a variable, nor are they sure why the hormone causes an increased susceptibility to the virus. However, they did notice that women taking the hormone had a greater amount of the virus in their blood than women not on the hormone. In addition, researchers want to be able to provide an alternative form of birth control for these women before telling them that this method no longer works.

This article has widespread affects for people around the world, especially the women in Africa. Their health is in serious risk, but the risk is not only to them. Women in America, as the article states, and no doubt in other places in the world, rely on this method for contraceptive. While HIV is not as prevalent in other areas of the world as it is in Africa, being more susceptible to the disease is a concern world wide, and women taking this method of contraceptive should be informed. In addition, the hormone being injected is also found in other forms of birth control such as the pill, and while studies are inconclusive on whether or not the pill also increases the chance of getting HIV, the connection is possible. Further research on this topic should be immediately conducted, and information shared with women globally as soon as possible. The HIV epidemic already takes enough of a toll on human life, and we must eliminate any medical methods that increase the spread of this incurable disease.

Overall, I thought this article was well presented. The terms were well defined, and the evidence and jargon were clearly stated so that an average reader could fully understand what was going on and the dilemmas we are now facing. I also thought the article did an excellent job pointing out that these studies cannot be 100% accurate, and although some have called for said tests, a “controlled experiment” according to the definition would not be possible in this case. There were many variables that could cloud the results, and possibly cause false conclusions to be drawn. However, I did not agree with the fact that a meeting on the subject is not going to happen until January. This is a health risk that must be immediately looked into, and I feel that the article stressed this situation, yet offered no criticism of the World Health Organization, which is too slow to take action. Yes, they don’t want to create a panic, but the products women are taking are potentially dangerous, and they deserve to know. If the population at risk resided mainly in America, more immediate attention would undoubtedly be paid to the issue.

Patient-Specific Stem Cells: Major Step Toward Cell-Based Therapies for Life-Threatening Diseases

In the recent ScienceDaily article “Patient-Specific Stem Cells: Major Step Toward Cell-Based Therapies for Life-Threatening Diseases”, new findings in stem cell research is optimistically investigated in order to find a cure for type 1 diabetes. Although the solution to type 1 diabetes is the main focus of the scientific research, scientists are also hopeful that a similar procedure could be employed to curing other diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The new research, directed by Dieter Egli and Scott Noggle, involves adding nuclei of adult skin cells of patients with type 1 diabetes to unfertilized oocytes, which will be specific for individual patients. The reprogramming of the cell’s nucleus will allow for the damaged cells to be replaced, and also the research showed that the procedure increases beta cells. With more beta cells in the body, more insulin is created, and therefore the body will better monitor type 1 diabetes. The research was experimented using the skin cells from type 1 diabetes patients as well as those of healthy patients, therefore both types of cells could demonstrate the way that universal tissue production could take place. This research demonstrated the complicated process that researchers have practiced in order to find a way that diabetes will be cured.

This article also foresaw the effects of this stem cell research, and how it will touch many lives. By creating healthier cells and replacing damaged cells in the investigated process, scientists estimate that millions of people around the world will benefit from the procedure, whether they are type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s patients. Also, because this process relates to individuals and their skin cells, it can also help to identify patients.

This ScienceDaily article was very interesting as it explored a subject that is not familiar to many people, stem cell research, and also explains how the new procedure will affect many people in the years to come. Although this article explained many groundbreaking medical discoveries that will be crucial to diabetes research, it seemed as though the article could have explained the procedure in a way that was more, “reader-friendly.” It was as if the writer of the article assumed that the reader had an understanding of the tricky concepts of oocytes and skin cell nuclei, yet a little more explanation would have been helpful.

New York Stem Cell Foundation. "Patient-specific stem cells: Major step toward cell-based therapies for life-threatening diseases." ScienceDaily, 6 Oct. 2011. Web. 6 Oct. 2011.

Comment on Hannah's Article

Hannah’s review of the article “UT Making a Big Bet on the Future of Algae” was informative and especially interesting because I had never heard of algae as an alternative source for fuel.  One thing that the review presented particularly well was why algae might soon make a good source of alternative energy.  Previously, it was too inefficient to grow it, but due to UT’s new vertical growth method, more algae can be produced in a smaller area.  Another well-presented part of Hannah’s review was that it included that algae may soon be as widespread as ethanol, in terms of alternate fuel use, which is becoming more and more a part of gasoline.  If algae and ethanol begin phasing out gasoline, powering things may become cheaper and would definitely be less harmful to the environment.  A final well-presented piece of Hannah’s review was why algae was chosen as a new potential fuel source as opposed to other plants: it grows more quickly and nearly anywhere, which makes it much more desirable than more fickle plants.  The review could have been made better by including how the algae was to be turned into a fuel that could be harnessed, since that was never made clear, but perhaps that is because scientists have not figured out how to efficiently turn algae into fuel for mass use yet.  Another thing the review could have improved on was its description of algae’s pharmaceutical benefits.  The review simply states that algae have pharmaceutical uses without elaborating on what these are or how this is important.  Overall, the review was very good and taught me a lot about a subject that I had never heard of before.  The thing that most impressed me from the review was that they have discovered how to grow algae vertically in a 15,000 gallon tank.  I know from my personal experience, working on a lake, that algae typically grows only near the surface, and would thus be impractical to try and farm conventionally.  This new method manages to grow algae deep in water and thus creates a more viable option to grow algae in large quantities.  If this research pans out, it could be a huge benefit to our fuel costs as well as to the environment.

U.T. Making a Big Bet on the Future of Algae

      Algae, a somewhat elusive, but valuable resource, has final been harnessed at the J.J Pickle Research Campus at the University of Texas. Algae has been a focus for alternative fuel for years, hoping to help reduce the United States' dependency on crude oil. Not only can it help reduce green house gases, but it also can be incorporated into pharmaceuticals. The mass production of algae is a difficult task when one has to prevent the interference of disease and predators. Michael E. Webber, an assistant at U.T's department of mechanical engineering explains why we have finally been able to mass produce algae, "You need three things to grow algae: carbon dioxide, dirty water and sunshine, Texas has abundant supplies of all three.” However, it is not this simple he states. Unlike many mass produced organisms, algae grows horizontally in the wild. Within a pond, there is limited exposure to sunlight unless you are close to the surface. This causes the algae to spread across wide spaces in order to increase its surface area being exposed to the light. New technology at the J.J Pickle Research Campus allows algae to be grown vertically, in large tubes known as Vertical Growth Modules. Currently, U.T has 15,000 gallons of algae growing in this vertical fashion making algae growing space and cost efficient. Companies like OpenAlgae visit the site to extract oils from the algae in order to test new environmentally safe technologies. But why have we focused our time and energy on the production of algae? Isn't there another plant? The UTEX Culture Collection of Algae works with AlgEternal in order to choose which cultures are to be grown in what conditions. Head scientist Jerry J. Brand states, “They have the potential to play a role in reducing greenhouse gases and decreasing our dependence on crude oil,” he said. “Algae can grow much faster than plants. They don’t require as much water, and they can grow in places that plants can’t, like deserts.” This, now easily grown, organism may prove to be a solution all over the country, even in the harshest climates.

      This new approach on the growing of algae may have profound effects on the environmental industries we have today. Surely the automotive industry will increase their research with algae in order to develop vehicles that will incorporate algae fuel into their engines. Algae may turn into the new ethanol. This method of vertical growing will become wide spread across the country due to its versatility and ability to be used in enclosed spaces. Algae could be grown on roof tops where they are exposed to sunlight.


      Overall, I believe that the article did an excellent job in explaining why this use of vertical growth was such a big deal. The author Lara Lapin uses different quotes that help articulate the adaptability of this technology along with building up the studies credibility. Perhaps the most interesting component of the article was the last sentence which introduced a new idea. It said that as more and more algae is produced, one can suffer from larger unexpected problems. The article could have been improved by going into more detail on how exactly the vertical columns are engineered.

Posted for H. Goldberg

Natural Selection Leaves Fresh Footprints on a Canadian Island

On the island, Île aux Coudres, a small French Canadian island north of Quebec, scientists have discovered what may be the most recent sign of human evolution in response to natural selection. The research leader, Dr. Milot, said the genetic changes in his study showed up so clearly because the island was held to certain social conditions because of the isolation from the general population. The island is composed of about 30 families who arrived between 1720 and 1773. Throughout the period, considerable equality was maintained, and the population lacked the gradations of wealth that can influence who has how many children. Also, because most people married locally, the island’s population became considerably inbred, despite a ban on marrying first or second cousins. These two factors, and the homogeneity of the population, left the field open for genetic effects to become prominent. The local church holds complete record of births, marriages and deaths. From this data, the researchers have extracted the histories of women born on the island between 1799 and 1940. Over this 140-year period, the age at which a woman had her first child, a highly heritable trait, went from 26 to 22 years of age. Because of this change, women on average had four more children during their reproductive lifetime, the researchers report. Data from the human genome in the last decade has shown the fingerprints of natural selection are visible across at least 10 percent of the genome. Summarizing the results of 14 such studies, Stephen C. Stearns of Yale wrote that “the emerging picture is that selection is acting in postindustrial societies to reduce age at first reproduction in both sexes, to increase age at menopause in females and to improve traits such as total blood cholesterol that are associated with the risk of disease and mortality.” With this selective environment, this population was able to mutate at a more rapid rate due to natural selection, skipping multiple generations.

This article is very interesting because it shows the potential that evolution still posses. Although many scientists criticize that humans are exchanging civilizations and technology for the ability to evolve through natural selection, this proves that we still have that ability. It would be interesting to see if another research group could work with a very small, concentrated population on a remote island and see if they can also speed up the process of evolution. This also shows the greater impact of are technology, and how we have sacrificed the natural process of development to almost take “short cuts” in life. This could also be possibly used as a model to see what is to come to the general population. It is possible that as we observe this concentrated population, we will learn the outcome of the evolution of the general population in relation to the speedy evolution on the island.

Overall I found this article to be a very interesting story, however they did not go into a good amount of detail. Wade constantly referred to the statistics and data that were collected but did not exactly explain how they were created and analyzed. It would have been nice to see those specifics. However, he did a very good job at explaining the basic concept of how the genomes were able to evolve at this rapid rate for someone who is not familiar with the topic.

Wade, Nicholas. "Natural Selection Leaves Fresh Footprints on a Canadian Island." New York Times. 3 Oct. 2011. Web. 3 Oct. 2011. .

Video Podcast - Respiration Harvesting Energy Part 1: Anaerobic Respiration

Can Answers to Evolution Be Found in Slime?

This article discussed how slime molds, or groups of amoebas, might hold the key to answering some big questions about evolution. Often, slime molds form into a large body sometimes encompassing 20,000 individuals to form a unified body. They are also able to adapt to their surroundings. In one study, a slime mold in a maze along with two blocks of food. The mold extended it tendrils through the maze even backing up from dead ends, for hours until it found the food. Slime molds can also help us to see how civilizations of organisms make decisions. For example, in order to get food, some slime molds will form a stalk and sacrifice their lives so that the rest of the group can climb atop them and become spores.

Scientists know through DNA analysis that slime molds date hundreds of millions of years before plants and animals. Slime molds are found in almost everywhere in the world including Antarctica. Many believe that these molds may have been the first colonizers of continents and through that scientists may be able to see what factors influenced the evolution of slime molds into different species. For example, one slime mold, Dictyostelium, may have evolved the ability to form spores out of the ground so that they would have a better chance to spread. In any case scientists believe that finding out why these changes occurred could provide clues to the evolution of other species.

      I thought this article was informative and well written, if not a little misleading. The title makes it sound like they have discovered some huge clue that could change the way we think about evolution, but in reality these molds may just provide us with some insights into prehistoric evolution. I also thought that the article should have spent more time on the implications of these molds rather than all of the interesting tricks that the molds can perform. However, over all the article was engaging and I am curious to see what results these molds will yield.

Zimmer, Carl. "Can Answers to Evolution Be Found in Slime?" The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 03 Oct. 2011. Web. 3 Oct. 2011.