7/24/13
Altered States
Link to website:
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21581700-limbering-up-does-not-just-help-shed-fat-it-also-changes-how-fatty-tissue
7/18/13
Altered States
Exercise is
important. Even though it takes more effort than swallowing a pill to become
more limber. It protects against diseases like diabetes and heart cancer. There
are many effects of exercise like improving the power and efficiency of the heart;
boosting the release of certain neurotransmitters (the chemicals nerve cells
use to talk to each other); and stimulates cells’ garbage-disposal machinery.
However, a group of researchers led by Charlotte Ling has discovered another
effect of exercise: It alters the way genes work in the tissue that stores fat.
Therefore, Dr. Ling and her team preformed an experiment within the time of 6
month with 23-30 to 40 year old men. For this experiment she got the typical
effects like reduced heart rate, lowered-blood pressure, and a drop in cholesterol.
However, they also observed changes in the men’s adipose tissue, the place
where fat is stored. Specifically, the way fat cells in this tissue expressed
their genes had altered. Dr. Ling was interested in adult-onset diabetes (often
associated with too much body fat), and knew that exercise stimulates
epigenetic changes in muscle cells. When Dr Ling’s colleagues picked two such
altered genes and silenced them completely in laboratory-grown fat cells, the
cells changed, becoming more efficient at processing and depositing fat. That
lead to the hypothesis that one reason exercise is good for you is because it
improves the ability of fatty tissues to do its job. Lipids then get stored in
the right place, instead of settling elsewhere in the body, where they might cause
harm. Since obesity is becoming a
problem, government recommends exercise because limbering up does
not just help shed fat, it also changes how fatty tissue works.
This
article is interesting because it proves that exercise is important. Not only because
it makes you fit, but it improves your health in all by preventing many
diseases.
Link to website:
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21581700-limbering-up-does-not-just-help-shed-fat-it-also-changes-how-fatty-tissue
7/18/13
The iceman cometh
This article deals with solving the
problem of glaciers melting. As climate temperatures increase, more glaciers
melt, decreasing the amount of glaciers available. This is a real problem for
people who relay one these melt waters from the glaciers to irrigate their
crops. These waters use to come in March or April, but now it doesn’t come
until June, which is too late for short growing crop seasons. Therefore, a
retired civil engineer, Cherang Norphel, thinks he has a solution to this
problem. His solution is to build artificial glaciers since natural glaciers
are decreasing. Since Norphel’s suggestion, he has been doing this for decades
where he has built
the new glaciers in places where they will thaw at exactly the right time, and
debouch their contents directly onto farmers’ fields. He realized that a stream
in his garden had frozen, so he also realized that the way to build a glacier
is to slow water’s flow and shield it from the sun. So Norphel and his team constructed a process for how they
will build these artificial glaciers, and it includes diverting several streams
in the worst-affected areas into canals that take long, meandering routes
through shady, gently sloping topography. They have also built stone weirs
across these canals at regular intervals, to slow the current down still
further and encourage water to spill over the canal banks. As the spring thaw
sets in and the canals fill up, this overspill freezes into a layer of ice. And
as the process repeats itself over the ensuing months, these ice sheets stack
up and get thicker. The melt water from these glaciers have helped sustain the
livelihood of many farmers, some farmers claim they are better-off now than
they used to be in the days before the artificial glaciers. Some glaciologists
might argue that what Mr. Norphel is creating are not glaciers. However, Mr.
Norphel is just glad to give melt water back to places. And now thinks other
places can benefit from these artificial glaciers as well like Gilgit-Baltistan
over the border in Pakistan, and a number of valleys in Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan.
This
was interesting to me because I already read an article about glaciers melting,
but that article was how it affected animals. I thought it was interesting how
the decreasing amount of glaciers are also affecting humans and our crops. I
think it is also interesting how more not just scientists, but engineers can
solve the problems that we deal with everyday.
 |
| holding water that will eventually be freezed and serve as an artificial glacier. |
Website to link:
7/9/13
Decaffeinating waste: Brewing a solution
This article introduces the possibility of producing genetic
engineering that may be able to clean up the processing of coffee. The problem
with a lot of caffeine- rich waste is that it cant be thrown away because
caffeine in a pollutant (causes pollution). Caffeine waste affects the growth of other plant seeds, so
caffeine waste must be collected and dumped at approved sites. The difficulty
with caffeine causes the increase in the cost of coffee and is a waste in
nutrients. It is a waste in rich nutrients because if caffeine waste was to be
decaffeinated it would have to be used as animal feed, but this doesn’t
subtract companies revenues, it actually adds to it. Therefore, Jerrrey Barrick
of University of Texas is trying to find a cheap way to decaffeinate coffee
waste by using genetically modified bacteria. However, this is not a new idea
because past studies have proven that species called Pseudomonas putida can chew up molecules, unfortunately, in only
small amounts. Because of this, Dr. Barrick and his team decided they would
take caffeine-chewing mechanisms out of P.
putida and put them into Escherichia
coli, which is a species biologists can manipulate. They will do this by
extracting P. putida genes that encode
for the caffeine- chewing enzymes and transfer them into E. coli. Unfortunately the engineered bug didn’t multiply. They
realized it didn’t multiply because the transfer gene missed a piece. So they
fixed this problem by adding a third species (Janthinobacterium), which caused the engineered bug to multiply.
Now they need to see if what worked in the lab works in industries, and if it
works, then coffee companies will see their cost reduced.
This
article is important because coffee may seem easy to obtain, but disposing the
coffee is a whole process. Usually when I get coffee, I don’t realize how much
work actually goes into the process of making and disposing coffee. But now
that I do, it makes me realize how much little things actually include a big process.
It was also interesting to learn more about what scientist do to improve our
daily lives.
Link to website:
7/1/13
Three Wrongs make a right
This
article is about pancreatic cancer, and using radioactive bacteria to hopefully
be used as a new cure to solve the spread of this virus. Even in the wealthiest
countries, 4% are diagnosed with this cancer and are still alive after 5 years.
In America alone, this cancer is the 3rd most common deaths among
women, and the 4th most common deaths among men. This cancer is so
deadly because it spreads quickly; it is the spreading of secondary tumors
around the body that damages other organs and proved nearly impossible to stop.
A scientist named Claudia Greavekamp and her team plan to stop the spread of
this cancer by infecting people with radioactive bacteria (called Listeria).
Before testing on humans, they will test tumor-infected mice. Listeria injected
into mice persisted in primary tumors were cleared from normal tissues by the
immune system within 3 to 5 days. These scientists
know that cancer cells evolve to suppress the immune system; therefore, they
are hoping the bacteria might be able to deliver anti-cancer agents to the
tumors, and this will hopefully treat the cancer with radioactive bacteria. To
test this new procedure, the scientists will use radioactive isotopes of
rhenium to these bugs. This radioactive rhenium is used in conventional
radiotherapy because bugs stick around the cancer. When treating the mice with
pancreatic cancer, the scientist noticed that 90% of metastasized tumors was
killed, and a significant dent was made to the original tumor. They also
noticed that the liver and kidney received high amounts of radiation, however,
this made no damage. However, scientists also realized that as much as the
bacteria kills the cells, more cancer cells are dividing uncontrollably. This
treatment was mostly affective in mice; however mice are not humans, so many
adjustments will have to be made.
This
article is important because it was interesting to me to learn the steps
scientists have to take to cure a disease. I also found it important that
different diseases are getting speculated to produce a cure. I think it’s important
that scientists are working to cure more and more cancers. And the more cancers
getting treated, the less these cancers cause deaths to people |
| Listeria (bacteria) cell (red) inside pancreatic cancer |
Sacred Geese
This
article focuses on polar bears and what is going to happen to their diets as
global warming continues to get worse. In the winter, polar bears focus on
maintaining their diet by catching seals as the come up from the water to
breathe. However, when summer hits, the sun melts the layer of ice, so polar
bears can’t catch the seals anymore. Additionally, in the summer polar bears
relay on their layer of fat, that was consumed in the winter, to last them
throughout the summer. However, as global warming continues to get worse, the
more hot seasons there are going to be. Therefore, the polar bears need to find
a new summer diet. These summer diets include geese instead of seals. Studies
are hoping that goose flesh may help polar bears survive global warming’s. Some
studies worry that the amount of energy it takes for a polar bear to consume
one goose may actually use more energy and burn more calories, and therefore
result in having to catch more geese to contain the same weight. This type of diet isn’t unusual for
polar bears because studies have shown that some type of bird has been found in
polar bear diets. A scientist, Robert Rockwell, recorded polar bear goose hunts
within 11 days. And his results proved that bird hunting was actually common.
The results also showed how the polar bears chase geese into shallow water
because it is hard for geese to swim and easy for beers to run and catch them. However, goose hunting only works when
the geese cant fly. Scientists are hoping geese diets will be able to hold over
polar bears as global warming increases.
This
article is important because it made me realize that not only humans are
affected by global warming, but so are animals. And not only do humans have to
adapt to survive global warming’s, but animals have to too. Animals that aren’t
use to living in hot climates now have to adapt to these hot climate changes.
This article really made me realize that humans aren’t the only ones who live
on this planet and have to deal with huge environmental problems, but so do
animals.
Link to a website:
6/21/13
Abs-olutely fabulous: male attractiveness:
The article I read focuses on expectations that women have towards men and their
appearances. Because women have these "high expectations," men worry about what
they need to do to be the “ideal man.” Therefore, Brain Mautz and his
researchers and the Australian National University preformed an experiment with
105 Australian women. The researchers created different types of men on the
computer and showed the women the pictures, and had the women rate theses
pictures. According to the results, the Australian women voted more for broad
shoulders and narrow waist men rather then height. Which was interesting to the
researchers because they thought many people preferred height. However, the researchers find it hard to
take in the results as totally accurate because the women they tested were all
from one place, Australia, rather than a combination from all over the world.
The researchers also concluded that the “perfect, ideal man” is becoming more
and more rare because looks isn’t all that women look for, instead women look for personality aspects in men, as well. According to the study, women don’t prioritize looks as much
as men do, for women it’s more about a man’s characteristics.
I found this article interesting
because it was appealing to see what women think, and want when it comes to
picking their men. Before, I thought most women prioritize the looks, but in
reality most women actually could care less about that characteristic. I also
found it fascinating how guys change who they are just so they can fit "women's ideal." The results from this project made me realize what women really look for in men, and how much pressure it may seem that women put on men to be this “perfect” guy.
Very interesting homsky... good work.
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