U.S. Lifts Ban on Elephant and Lion Trophies.

Luke Redman

Mr.Ippolito

AP Biology

Current Event 18

Nuwer, Rachel. “U.S. Lifts Ban on Elephant and Lion Trophies.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/science/trump-elephant-trophy-hunting.html.

In the article that I read, “U.S. Lifts Ban on Elephant and Lion Trophies” by Rachel Nuwer, she talks about the recent legislature that was passed by the Fish and Wildlife Committee. Before the legislation, there was a strict ban on big-game hunting in certain countries of Africa, placed by Obama. Now, “Rather than evaluate lion, elephant and bontebok (a type of antelope) trophies on a nation-by-nation basis, the agency now will consider imports of these animals from six African countries on case-by-case basis, as it already does with the majority of species hunted on the continent.” These are some examples of big game that would be affected by these changes. This decision was heavily endorsed by “Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association, which had filed the lawsuit against the agency.”

Some immediate effects on the world around us would be the decreasing populations of big-game animals such as elephants and lions, which are already quite low as it is, and encouraging hunters to kill these animals would harm the local ecosystems. ““These are animals that our country has decided we’re going to protect, and we should all get to have a say in their protection,” said Elly Pepper, deputy director of the wildlife trade initiative at the Natural Resources Defense Council.”

Some of the strengths of the article is presenting both sides of the story along with using accurate quotes that have some sort of relevance to the article. She also weaved in these quotes in smoothly that made for a very interesting and enjoyable read. The points brought up in the article are extremely well thought and detailed, which made the article extremely informative. I look forward to reading another article by  Rachel Nuwer

A Global Conflict: Agricultural Production vs. Biodiversity.

Robby Schetlick

AP Biology

Mr. Ippolito

3/8/18

Citation:

Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research - UFZ. "A global conflict: agricultural production vs. biodiversity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 March 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180307100718.htm>

Sciencedaily recently posted an article, “A global conflict: agricultural production vs. biodiversity” that analyzed some conclusions from a current, published scientific study. Researchers from Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research published an article in Global Change Biology proposing a solution to the rapidly increasing loss of biodiversity across the planet. Increasing agricultural production usually leads to decline in wildlife and loss of ecosystem functions, but this study suggests that by redistributing our global land use could avoid 88% of the future expected loss of biodiversity. If countries somehow dropped their national boundaries, lead author Luka glil says, “global optimization implies that species-rich countries, mainly in the tropics, would be more responsible for safeguarding the world's natural resources-- at the expense of their own production opportunities and economic development.” This would allow for better agricultural and land use planning which makes it more land efficient to produce common food crops. Even if countries were unwilling to go global, just 10 countries could still reduce the expected global biodiversity loss by a third if they followed researcher’s decisions on a national level. Countries including “India, Brazil, or Indonesia” would have the greatest effect  on making global agricultural production more sustainable. All countries participating could reduce it by as much as 61 percent.

This article is proof that Globalism is becoming increasingly necessary in our world. While it is true that strong national pride is a way to protect tradition and culture, what good are those things when our planet is dying around us? Creatures that we maybe haven’t even discovered yet could be dead before we get the chance. And it is not just this problem that is emerging because of our focus on our differences, but many other political and ecological problems as well. For example, just recently President Trump decided to put a heavy tariff on steel and aluminum claiming to help American business. But what this really does it create a lot of inefficiency on the global scale (and actually hurts American car producers). The America- first or any other country first mindset is definitely a dangerous one for our societies to continue to take going forward, as it causes us to overlook morally greater problems such as the ones described in the article.

The article is strong because it is efficient—short and to the point. It is credible because it cites all of its sources, and is a longstanding trusted source of science news. It maintains a fairly neutral stance which makes it more professional and accurate. The greatest flaw is that it is lacking in detail regarding some of the statistics, and could benefit from having a more in depth explanation of what they mean and how they are calculated, as some readers might not even know what terms like “global biodiversity.” However, their stylistic choice to economise their words makes scene in that is it meant to be a quick read rather than a lengthy analysis, as evidenced by the hyperlink to a longer original article.

Greenwood, Veronique. “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear.”

Kunzang Namgyal

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology- EF even

9 March 2018

Greenwood, Veronique. “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/science/ears-shape-hearing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront.

This week I read the New York Times article, “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear,” by Veronique Greenwood. This article focused on a study performed by Regis Trapeau, a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal, which was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. This study questioned if the shape of your ear affects the way you hear. Volunteers first heard a number of sounds and had to indicate where they believed the noises to be coming from, while hearing these sounds an fMRI machine was recording brain activity. Then, the volunteers were fitted with silicone molds into their ears and played another series of sounds, and the results showed that their scores were significantly lower than in the first scenario. After a week of wearing the silicon molds, the volunteers were brought back and played another series of sounds. This time most of the volunteers were able to indicate where the sounds were coming from and scored as high as they had in the first scenario. The results of this study support the hypothesis that “locating a sound in space requires your brain to incorporate not just the sound waves themselves but your own grasp… of how your ears modify that sound.” The volunteers needed time to adjust to the way sound waves were bouncing off their newly shaped ears. After their brains made this adjustment, their ability to locate where a sound is coming from returned to normal.

This study changed the way scientists believed the human brain “hears.” This research is pertinent in improving our understanding the human ear and our ability to sense the world around us by hearing. Understanding more about the human ear can lead to better hearing devices, which over 28.8 million adults in the US are in need of.

Overall, this article was well-written, clear, and concise. Greenwood explained the steps of the study in a way which all readers could understand, and she built credibility by mentioning that the study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. I do wish that Greenwood had explained more about the previous belief of how humans locate sounds, as it would have helped exemplify the impact of this research.

Current Event 18

Nina Veru

AP Bio, C-Odd

Current Event 18

3/8/18

“Largest Study of Its Kind Finds Alcohol Use Biggest Risk Factor for Dementia.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 20 Feb. 2018, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180220183954.htm.

According to a source published by sciencedaily.com, alcohol abuse has proven to be one of the biggest risk factors for dementia.  One particular study looked at a group of 57,000 people who were diagnosed with early onset dementia (before age 65), and noticed that 57% of the cases were related to heavy drinking.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), chronic drinking is 60 grams per day for men and 40 grams per day for women. Alcoholism is typically treated with screening and therapy.  Doctors suggest that patients suffering from alcoholism should seek treatment, which would reduce the risk of illness’ such as dementia. Along with dementia, alcoholism is associated with liver damage and cardiovascular disease.  

According to Dr. Jurgen Rehm the study indicates, “that heavy drinking and alcohol use disorders are the most important risk factors in dementia, and especially important for those types of dementia which start before age 65.”  Dr. Rehm suggests that alcoholism is one of the most prominent causes of non-hereditary dementia. Alcohol abuse can lead to dementia because the substance damages parts of the brain. Dr. Rehm claims, “Alcohol induced brain damage and dementia are preventable, and known effective preventive and policy measures can make a dent into premature dementia deaths.”  By limiting the use of alcohol, one can prevent or reduce their chances of being diagnosed with early onset dementia. Dr. Rehm, who is the co-author of the CAMH institute study also notes that on average, alcohol use disorders shorten one’s lifespan by more than 20 years and that dementia is the leading cause of death in these people.

What I thought was most interesting was that although most dementia patients are women, ⅔  of the early onset patients were men. Alcohol abuse is also correlated with other risk factors for dementia onset.  These include: tobacco smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, lower education, depression, and hearing loss.

I believe that the information presented in this study is very important.  Alcohol abuse and dementia are on the list for being the leading causes of death, so it is interesting to note the relationship between the two.  At first I was interested to read this study because my grandma was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and the disease runs in my family. I definitely think it’s important to learn that heavy drinking is associated with the disease.  Although I enjoyed the article, I wish it was a bit longer with more information on the study.

When a Mom Feels Depressed, Her Baby's Cells Might Feel It, Too

Julia Pabafikos

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology

March 8, 2018

Nelson, Benjamin W. “When a Mom Feels Depressed, Her Baby's Cells Might Feel It, Too.” Scientific American, 23 Jan. 2018, www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-a-mom-feels-depressed-her-babys-cells-might-feel-it-too/.

“When a Mom Feels Depressed, Her Baby's Cells Might Feel It, Too” By: Benjamin W. Welson

The article I decided to read, “When a Mom Feels Depressed, Her Baby's Cells Might Feel It, Too” by Benjamin W. Welson touches upon how early relationships between mothers and their infants can influence the health across the lifespan, for better or for worse. The experiment looked upon telomeres in order to fully understand the effects of a mother’s depression on her infant. Telomeres are caps at the end of our DNA that protect chromosomes. The length of telomeres is affected by our genetics and age and as telomeres shorten over time, people are more likely to experience a host of negative health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity and even death. Telomeres can also shorten quicker if a person suffers from psychological stress. Nelson states “our bodies release a hormone called cortisol, which influences our emotional responses as well as our energy metabolism, learning and memory. This may be one mechanism that connects psychological stress to telomere length.” Throughout the article it is made evident that infancy is a very sensitive period and the infant is strongly influenced by its environment. In order to study how early stress may influence a person’s health, researches looked into how infants respond to their parents’ stress.  Studies suggest that infants exposed to maternal depression may be less likely to engage socially and experience more negative emotion. For the experiment, researchers recruited 48 mothers with 12-week-old infants and followed these families until the infants were 18 months old. At 6 and 12 months of age, the infants were brought to the lab to engage in stressful tasks. Infants stress was calculated by collecting saliva samples to look at changes in cortisol and then when infants were 18 months of age researchers collected saliva to measure the length of the infant’s telomeres. Nelson explains “Worsening depression symptoms in mothers related to greater infant cortisol stress responses between 6 and 12 months of age. In addition, infants with higher cortisol stress responses were more likely to have shorter telomeres at 18 months of age.” However, there is a silver lining to the story, which is that having positive experiences when an infant allow for a healthier life.

This article is relevant to society in that there is an alarming statistic of women that have postpartum depression along with women who can not afford the proper treatment to deal with their depression or any other maternal mental health treatment. With the knowledge of telomeres and different hormones that are released in our brains, researchers can further their experiments in order to help cure and prevent  these detrimental effects on infants.

This article was both informative and very easy to understand. Author Benjamin Nelson did an amazing job stating the experiments and giving background information in order to attract his reader. By doing so, Nelson was able to make the article more reliable and less biased in order to give the reader the opportunity to formulate their own opinions. However I believe that Nelson lacked quotes from the actual scientists and therefore without this information the article became less scientific. I believe with the addition of more quotes and the addition of other experiments previously tested to describe the effects of depression would have made a bigger effect on the reader and overall would have shown the importance of this experiment.

Abbey Thomas

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology / Current Event

9 March 2018

Murphy, Heather. “They're Hosting Parasitic Worms in Their Bodies to Help Treat a Neglected Disease.”

The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/health/parasitic-worms-schistosomiasis-trial.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Ftrilobites.

For this week’s current event, I reviewed Heather Murphy’s article entitled “They’re Hosting Parasitic Worms in Their Bodies to Help Treat a Neglected Disease”. The article focuses on the research done by a Norwegian infectious disease physician at Leiden University Medical Center, named Meta Roestenberg. She is studying schistosomiasis, and infectious disease that affects more than 200 million people, and killing thousands, and is primarily found in Sub-Saharan Africa. Schistosomiasis is caused by larvae that live in the shells on freshwater snails, that when inside the human body, will reproduce and cause chronic pain, fever, organ failure, internal bleeding, or genital infections that increase the chance of being infected by HIV. Roestenberg give students male parasites that cause the disease, and they are small so no reproduction happens, and the students are being treated with different drugs in hopes of finding one that could kill the parasites. So far her work has been successful, but there still are doctors that question how effective the drugs will be. One researcher, named Daniel Colley from the University of Georgia, said “that the drug is “not terribly effective” and given that the worms’ life span is five to 10 years, “That is a long time to have something as ugly as a schistosome living in your blood vessels, putting out excrement and things,’”. But many other researchers agree that the testing is unorthodox, but are willing to try it so that a vaccine can be found.

If Roestenberg research is success it will save the lives of thousands of people in Sub-Saharan Africa. Roestenberg’s need for “challenge trial” also highlights a problem within the medical community. Since this disease is not usually found outside of Africa, many large research groups stationed in the US and Europe are not looking for a vaccine since it does not affect them directly. Along with these issues, the lack of vaccine for Schistosomiasis is also due to lack of funding because companies do not want to invest in vaccines if they do not know if it will be effective on people. The problem with these claims is that it requires money to do trials to see if it is effective on humans, and so the production of vaccines like Schistosomiasis is put on stand still.

Overall, Murphy’s article on the research being done for Schistosomiasis disease was very well done and researched. One thing that Murphey did well during her article was explain why Dr. Roestenberg needed to do a challenge trial to find a vaccine, and this information helped the reader understand why the drastic tests were being done. One of her article’s weakness was that she quoted sources, but since she did not include their position in the infectious disease field, it was hard to know if they actually knew about this disease of were outsiders. She could strengthen this weakness by including how these researchers related to the topic.

“1.5M 'Rare Penguins' Discovered in Antarctica.”

Susie Goodell

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology

3/5/18

“1.5M 'Rare Penguins' Discovered in Antarctica.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 2 Mar. 2018, www.foxnews.com/science/2018/03/02/1-5m-rare-penguins-discovered-in-antarctica.html.

Current Event 17

For this current event, I read the article “1.5M ‘Rare Penguins’ Discovered in Antarctica” from Fox News. This article describes the recent discovery of remote islands islands near the Antarctic Peninsula on which 1.5 million Adelie penguins live. These penguins are one of five species of penguins that live on and around Antarctica and are identified by a white ring that surrounds their eye. Their average height is 70 centimeters and weight is about three to six kilogrammes. The population of this species has been decreasing very quickly, so scientists were very surprised to discover such a large group of them on these remote islands. This was the first bird census of the Danger Islands, which is a group of nine rocky islands off the northern tip of South America in the northwest Weddell Sea. The census found 750,000 breeding pairs of Adelie penguins on these islands as well as 100 nests of gentoo penguins and 27 nests of chinstrap penguins. Scientists were so shocked by the images of hundreds of penguins on the islands that they ordered a field expedition and drone footage.

However, the discovery of these penguins is not all good. The Danger Islands have not been affected as much by climate change and have faced little human impact. Although, now that scientists are aware of the animals inhabiting these islands, they are worried about the design of the Marine Protected Areas of the area, especially concerning overfishing. Adelie penguins are carnivores that feed primarily on krill, which are commercially fished in the region. As the authors wrote, “It is not known how long this tiny island group will remain protected, especially from fishing, as the polar regions are warming more rapidly than the rest of Earth as heat-trapping greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel-burning build up in the atmosphere.” Scientists will have to watch the islands and the penguin populations inhabiting them to track the effects of climate change on and fishing in the area.

This article was very well-written and informational. The authors did not use words and phrases that would be confusing for readers. It was not too long or too short. However, there are some aspects that could be improved. The authors could organize the article better; it skips around a lot and does not flow well. The authors also did not develop their ideas enough. For example, they stated that the discovery of the breeding pairs would have consequences for how scientists manage the region, but then began talking about Adelie penguins in another region. Overall, though, the article was very factual and enjoyable to read.