Angelinna Faisca, "The Smart, Agile, and Completely Underrated Dodo Bird."

 Angelinna Faisca 12/16/20

AP Biology

Mr. Ippolito

Anthes, Emily. “The Smart, Agile, and Completely Underrated Dodo Bird.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 8 June 2016, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/the-dodos-redemption/486086/

The article that I reviewed was “The Smart, Agile, and Completely Dodo Bird.” This article first starts off with the stereotypical ideas and thoughts of the dodo bird: Clumsy, naive, fat, walking straight into the arms of hungry Dutch settlers. However, this story has been told like that over and over, even hearing it in my younger years in school. However, most recently scientists have learned that this wasn’t the case at all. Emily Anthes, the author of this article, then goes into the origin of the dodo bird. About 8 million years ago, the ancestors of the dodo bird, which is part of the Pigeon family, arrived on a small volcanic island and lost its flight and took a big, flightless bird image, one we are familiar with seeing as we speak of the dodo bird. The first record of the dodo bird was in 1599. After this, in less than a hundred years, the dodo bird died out. To make things especially harder, taxidermies were not something that was done efficiently, so many dodo specimens were not saved, bringing the myths even closer to utter false facts. Going far into the future from 1599, in 1865, a fossil deposit was found, and in the 20th century, only one full skeleton was made. In 2011, a paleontologist named Leon Claessens travelled to the island to thoroughly look through the skeleton, along with two of his students. After printing a 3-D model of each bone, they were able to find that the bones of the dodo bird were made to run through  dense forests and rocky hills. After all of this research, they saw that the dodo bird was not a total useless oddity, as they had found that they had also used their small wings for balance. What was also found was that dodo birds had enlarged olfactory bulbs, which might have enhanced their sense of smell, helping them with finding food sources. Overall, this article goes through  the different factors of the myths that were surrounding the dodo bird, when all in all, it was probably one of the most useful and evolved birds in its time. 

In connection to our current life, there were  so many  things that none of us knew about this bird, especially amongst the myths that we have been told. Which leads to the question, what else can  we learn  about extinct animals? The answer is quite a lot, as the dodo bird has been extinct for over 300 years, yet we are still able to even comprehend what its brain size was and even knowing what its sense of smell was. This leads scientists to wonder and explore what other things they can figure out about other extinct animals and how they could have been beneficial to our current Earth.  

Finally, although I don’t think the article really needed anything, since it was a really  good article in my opinion, I think it could have included images, as it didn’t include any throughout the article, which  just made it seem wordy, and less engaging to some degree. However I thought it was a very good article, as it spoke of all the functions that were questioned about. Overall, Emily Anthes article was very  informative and gave me a lot of information about the myths of the dodo and what the dodo bird was really all about.

 

Maya Brinster 

December 16, 2020 

AP Bio EF Even 

Current Event 9 

“New Tests Identify Early Changes in Alzheimer's Disease before Symptoms Appear.” 

ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 1 Dec. 2020,

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201201203937.htm.

The article “New tests identify early changes in Alzheimer’s disease before symptoms appear” describes a revolutionary discovery conducted by researchers at the University of Gothenburg that could lead to more effective treatments for Alzheimer's. Previously, scientists knew that the Tau protein, a type of protein that is predominantly found in brain cells, can form clumps of aggregates in the brain during Alzheimer’s and contribute to memory loss over time. However, this abnormality was able to be detected only once the patient experienced clear symptoms of memory loss. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg discovered specific forms of this protein that undergo certain changes, such as the increase in blood or cerebrospinal fluid, during the early stages of Alzheimer’s. They were able to develop highly sensitive techniques to test regular blood samples and measure these changes, and detect Alzheimer’s much earlier than what was previously possible. 

The detection of this abnormality could enable the disease to be detected and therefore treated, much sooner. Dr. Thomas Karikari explains the significance of this study, stating that “The remarkable findings reported in these publications show that the new highly sensitive tools capture the earliest Alzheimer disease changes in the brain in clinically normal people. These tools, therefore, have the potential to advance population screening and clinical trials." Since cognitive issues don’t develop in the early stages of Alzheimer's, a sooner detection could enable a more helpful cure that could halt the disease before any serious change is done to the brain. 

I found this article very interesting and enjoyed reading it. I like how the author explained everything they were writing about with great detail, as it made everything very easy to comprehend. It would have been nice if the author focused a bit more on the impact that this discovery has on future treatments, as this is very important. Overall, however, I really enjoyed this article and am now more optimistic about the future of Alzheimer's disease. 

Willy Swenson

 Willy Swenson

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology

December 13th, 2020

“Neanderthals Buried Their Dead: New Evidence.” ScienceDaily, 2020, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201209140358.htm. Accessed 14 Dec. 2020.

‌In the article “Neanderthals Buried Their Dead: New Evidence”, the authors explain new evidence discovered on the subject of burial in the Neanderthal communities in France from 41,000 BC. The new evidence comes from an old archaeological dig. Using bones found from 1970, a French and Spanish research team was able to conclude that the bones were indeed buried all those years ago. They concluded this based on three crucial pieces of evidence. The first is that the preservation of the skeleton was better than any bison or animal bones from the same time period, suggesting that there was rapid burial. Also, the dirt layers around the skeleton at the dig site were much older than the surrounding layers of sediment. The last piece of evidence is that the bones were relatively not scattered at all, and much less scattered than animal bones that were buried under natural conditions. While all of these pieces of evidence are important to understand if Neanderthals practiced burial with their dead, more extensive research must be conducted in order to conclude chronology and geographical extension of Neanderthal burial practices. 

It is very interesting to understand if the Neanderthals practiced burial with their dead because we garner a new understanding of how complex the thoughts of Neanderthals were. Burial of the dead is often practiced in well-developed species, such as homosapians. As we inch closer to the mystery of burial techniques of Neanderthals, we also inch closer to understanding this ancient group that coexisted and interbred with our homosapien ancestors. I was initially attracted to this topic because I wanted a break from all of the biological misfortunes and disasters that our World is facing today and learn about something that is noncontroversial. This topic is also interesting to me because I took a DNA test and I found out that I was <2% Neanderthal, so maybe one of my Neanderthal ancestor’s skeleton is still preserved somewhere, buried under hundreds of feet of sediment. 

 Henry Min

Mr. Ippolito 

Ap Biology

12/13/20

Saey, Tina Hesman. “The FDA Has Authorized Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine. Now What?” Science News, 12 Dec. 2020, www.sciencenews.org/article/fda-authorize-pfizer-vaccine-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic. 

In Tina Hesman Saye’s “The FDA has authorized PFizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Now what?”, the author does a good job over giving an overview of the weeks and months to come. More specifically, Saye goes over all of the steps and precautions the government is going to take when distributing the COVID-19 vaccine. During December, “the vaccine [will start] to be shipped, but won’t have a widespread impact for several months” due to the limited amount of vaccines. Only around three million vaccines will be distributed, and then the next three will be shipped to the same people for their second shots. The next step is for scientists to look for side effects and other health issues once giving a vaccine. Throughout Pfizer’s vaccine trials, the most common side effects were minor fevers, headaches, and fatigue. This is a big factor as “two people have had serious allergic reactions after getting Pfizer’s vaccine” and it has to be fail proof. Another step is figuring out if people who already had COVID-19 need to be vaccinated or not. “A small number of people in the PFizer trial had antibodies in their blood indicating that they had been infected prior to [being vaccinated]”, and this shows that even people who have developed antibodies may need to be vaccinated. After this scientist will decide whether to vaccinate people in the placebo group. The controversy surrounding this is how vaccinating placebo patients will delegitimize their results, and therefore there are some scientists who don’t support vaccinating placebo patients. If everything goes right, then Pfizer will decide if the vaccine is ready for children. They believe that because children develop milder symptoms compared to adults, there is no rush to vaccinate all children yet. Hopefully if everything falls into place, then the FDA should give their full approval for the vaccine. 

I enjoyed reading this article as I am interested in the current state of the vaccine and COVID-19 in general. The author's structure of her article made it really easy for me to understand exactly what Pfizer’s plan is in order for the vaccine to reach as many people as possible. 

Julia Reich

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology C Even 

11/30/20

Lambert, Jonathan. “These Plants Seem Like They're Trying to Hide from People.” Science 

News, 20 Nov. 2020, www.sciencenews.org/article/plant-camouflage-people-china-traditional-medicine-fritillaria. 

Jonathan Lambert’s article “These Plants Seem Like They’re Trying to Hide from People” covers the recently evolutionized Fritillaria and its impact on humans and herbivores. The usually bright green plant -- which grows on the tops of Himalayan and Hengduan mountains in southwestern China -- has been grounded into a cough-treating powder for over two-thousand years. The demand for the Fritillaria bulbs is intense; approximately 3,500 of the bulbs are needed to produce just one kilogram of the powder (about $480). Researchers have recently reported, however, that the plant is becoming “remarkably difficult to find.” Its stems and leaves are becoming barely distinguishable from the gray/brown rocky mountains. And it seems, according to Yang Niu, a botanist at the Kunming Institute of Botany in China, that this plant camouflage has evolved in response to humans. Researchers from Current Biology also reported that “Fritillaria delavayi from regions that experience greater harvesting pressure are more camouflaged than those from less harvested areas.” This is significant as the more highly sought areas of harvesting is directly causing the camouflage, proving Niu’s hypothesis that the evolution is due to human activity. Following several hypotheses regarding the evolution of Fritillaria, Yang Niu, his colleague Hang Sun, and Martin Stevens of the University of Exeter in England, tested whether or not humans were driving the evolution of the plants’ camouflage.  They found that at the seven study sites they focused on, “The more harvested, or harvestable, a site, the better the color of a plant matched its background, as measured by a spectrometer. ‘The degree of correlation was really, really convincing for both metrics we used,’ Stevens says.” 

Niu, Sun, and Stevens’ findings are relevant to our society today as the camouflage of certain plants, such as Fritillaria, could lead to a decrease in certain medicines, such as cough-treating powders. Camouflage also has negative effects on the plant, including not being able to be seen by pollinators. As well, the plants that have evolved to protect themselves from herbivores do not seem to be working well. It seems that animals have been biting the plant’s leaves but not consuming it. As well, the gray/brown coloration could impair photosynthetic activity, which would ultimately lead to a decrease in plants and medicines.

Jonathan Lambert’s article was concise and interesting to read. One aspect he did very well was utilizing simple terms so that the average reader could understand the complex ideas throughout the article. One aspect he could improve on is potentially including a personal opinion. He could add his thoughts on what he believes this human driven evolution will cause in the future. As well, he could have included more quotes from the experts on the Fritillaria camouflage and experts on human driven evolution. This would have been very interesting to read and would help his audience understand why the topic is significant. Overall, the article was well done and I recommend any person at Bronxville to read into the subject. 

Measles Has Come Back with a Vengeance in the Last Several Years

 Caroline Hulbert   11.17.20

AP Bio C Even   Current Event 7

Cunningham, Aimee. “Measles Has Come Back with a Vengeance in the Last Several Years.” Science News, 14 Nov. 2020, www.sciencenews.org/article/measles-cases-deaths-numbers-increase-2019-outbreaks-covid. 

For this current event, I decided to review the article “Measles Has Come Back with a Vengeance in the Last Several Years,” by Aimee Cunningham. The author begins the article with statistics about the measles, stating that from 2000 to 2016, the number of reported measles cases worldwide dropped from 853,479 to 132,490, however cases began to rise again after that. In 2019, 869,770 people had the measles, and around 207,500 people died from it. Cunningham cites an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who states that we have had a safe and effective vaccine for the measles since the early 1960s, making this setback highly upsetting. She also says that in order to prevent outbreaks 95% of a community must be vaccinated with both doses of the vaccine. However, only around 84% of people globally have received the first dose. There are nine countries--Central African Republic, Congo, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, North Macedonia, Samoa, Tonga and Ukraine--where outbreaks of measles have been especially prevalent, making up 73% of the reported cases in 2019. This is due to low vaccination coverage, as well as a lack of confidence in the vaccines, leading to lower vaccination rates. Cunningham also states that the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has had a negative impact on infection rates of measles. The economic hardship brought on by the pandemic has increased malnutrition, which increases the severity of the disease. Cunningham concludes the article by describing a new method of vaccination that is in the works. Single-dose adhesive-backed patches could release an array of needles coated with the vaccine to dissolve in the skin. Because these patches would not require the same cold temperature needed for the current measles vaccine, vaccinations would be more accessible and easier to administer. It will take a few years, but these patches would increase vaccine coverage and reduce outbreaks.

This article is very relevant to society today as measles outbreaks increase, either by lack of vaccine coverage or by distrust of the vaccine. Especially with the current coronavirus outbreak, it is now more important than ever to prevent other deadly disease outbreaks, which would be worsened by both the physiological and economic impacts of COVID-19. It is also important for the effectiveness of the vaccine to be expressed toward people in other countries, as well as parts of the US, who do not believe in vaccinations. Their unbacked distrust for the vaccine has deadly consequences for communities.

This article was very well-written and informative about current issues. The author included insights from numerous medical experts in different fields and locations about the rise in measles cases around the world. She also includes a new type of vaccination that may become available in a few years. It would have been helpful for the author to include information about why measles cases are rising. She stated the factors that would lead to an increase in cases, but did not describe why case numbers went down significantly before their sharp increase in 2016. Cunningham began the article with statistics about incidences of the measles. I think that if she had opened her article with something more personal to readers, like a specific story or information about measles cases in the US, it would have made it more personal to readers and helped them fully understand the severity of the situation.

Annabelle Krause - We Still Don't Know What COVID-19 Immunity Means or How Long It Lasts

 Annabelle Krause

AP Bio

11/17/2020

de Jesus, Erin Garcia. “We Still Don't Know What COVID-19 Immunity Means or How Long It Lasts.” Science News, 21 Oct. 2020, www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-herd-immunity-immune-response-antibodies. 

Some politicians and a few epidemiologists have suggested that herd immunity, or a significant enough portion of the low-risk population getting infected and having immunity, is the proper way to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, “around 40 to 60 percent of a population would need to be infected to reach [the point of herd immunity].”  This begs the question, is it worth it to put that significant of a percentage of the low-risk community at risk of COVID-19 complications to reach herd immunity?  Many epidemiologists have argued that, no, it is not worth it and that we must wait for a vaccine before life can go back to normal.  One key reason as to why herd immunity is almost impossible to attain is that we know very little about COVID-19 immunity.  Immunity is “resistance to a disease gained through the immune system’s exposure to it, either by infection or through vaccination.”  And it is attained by having a virus and either having T cells or B cells or possibly both.  T cells are cells that remember the pathogen and trigger a rapid response through the coordination of the immune system to a known pathogen.  B cells produce antibodies which are proteins that allow the body to fight off a pathogen.  When a person recovers from an infection, the antibodies stick around which makes it easier for a person to beat the same virus twice.  These cell responses can result in two different types of immunity: sterilizing immunity, which is rare and guarantees that “the virus never gets a chance to begin replicating and never infects a cell” or the more common partial immunity which triggers a “rapid response that may make the second bout of the disease less severe, or less easily transmitted.”  And, even if a patient does have antibodies, it is unclear how long they last or if they are truly a sign of immunity.  Patients generally have been observed to have been generating neutralizing antibodies, which is promising, but it is still not necessarily enough for protection.  COVID-19 patients also are likely to have T cells which may give them immunity.  But, it is unclear how effective and protective these T cells are.  Some of the general population may also have applicable T cells, called cross-reactive T cells, which are immune cells left over from previous coronaviruses (like the common cold) that help reduce the impact of COVID-19.  But, some T cells could make a person’s reaction to COVID-19 worse by causing a condition called cytokine storm which overstimulates the immune system.  Overall, herd immunity is likely impossible, and the best approach to combatting COVID-19 is waiting for a vaccine and vaccinating a significant percentage of the population.

This article is extremely relevant right now, although it is less relevant than it was a week ago.  Many politicians have asserted that herd immunity would be an effective solution to COVID-19 and allow the United States to reopen its economy fully.  However, the science described in this article has disproved that assertion.  With the development of a promising vaccine, this article is less relevant because an end is (hopefully) on the horizon.  But, it is still important for people to keep in mind that getting COVID-19 does not mean that they are immune and that they should not try and get COVID-19 for that purpose.  It is also a reminder that this pandemic is extremely unknown overall and that even the scientists know very little.

This article was quite easy to understand and succinct in explaining the science.  I appreciated that they explained complicated concepts around immunity in simple terms that made it possible for this very important issue to be generally understood.  I personally would have appreciated if the author had given more of their own opinion and chosen a side more rather than going back on forth on the issue.  I understand that there really is no answer, and as such it is difficult for the author to back one side, but it would have been more clear and had a stronger message if the author had done that.  It also would have been interesting if the author had spent some time considering the political implications of the herd immunity versus vaccine debate instead of presenting only the science.