Studying Oversized Brain Cells for Links to Exceptional Memory

Lucy Hanrahan                                                                                              4/7/15

Core Bio C ODD                                                                                 Current Event

 Zimmer, Carl. "Studying Oversize Brain Cells for Links to Exceptional Memory." The New   

York Times. The New York Times, 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 07 Apr. 2015.

In 2010, a women named Tamar Geferi was able to work with a special group of people know as “Super Agers” to find what people still think may link to the cure for Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases having to do with memory loss.  These Super Agers, all in there 80s, were tested on their memories and remembered much of the memories and ideas that they also remembered in there 50s. They also agreed to have their brains studied once they passed away so that studies could continue. The parts of their brains scientist were studying were brain cells known as Von Economo neurons. These “Super Agers” had five times as many of these neurons as most people. Many of these people have unfortunately passed, and after studying their brains scientist still can’t figure out why they had so many of these cells. However, there is a direct link to memory and the economo cells. The economo cells were discovered in 1881, but not researched in detail until the 1920s. It wasn’t until 2005 that these cells were named. Unlike most neurons, the economo cells are long and thin and have branches that go across the brain. Other scientist who also studied these neurons including, John M Allman, believe that they represent a fast relay. Scientists agree that the neurons will have to be studied for many more decades but time is ticking, especially with memory diseases are becoming more prevalent.

            This article is very important to society today. Almost over 5 million Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s or symptoms of Alzheimer’s. If there was a way to duplicate the economo cells there may be a cure for many people. However, the cell is pretty new in the scientific field and scientists feel that they need much more evidence to make sure the cell is directly associated with memory loss. They also need evidence as to how people gain these cells.  Without a complete study memory loss diseases cannot be cured.

            Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that has always interested me and also scared me because it has such a strong effect on people’s lives. People with Alzheimer’s can’t remember the simplest things, for example they don’t remember that they have kids. Carl Zimmer’s article thoroughly explains the economo cells and how they affect the brain. However, the studies are limited. Many different scientists have studied the cells but not enough experiments have been done which is unfortunate because if there was a direct correlation between Alzheimer’s and the economo cells, there may be a cure for Alzheimer’s. This article was very clear and well organized and definitely interested me and makes me want to follow up and see new improved experiments.  

The Pioneer of Blood Transfusions

Nate Moore April 7, 2015

Biology       Current events

OPTION B: Instead of a current event report, you may do a brief biography of an “unsung” scientist hero. An “unsung” scientist, is someone who made great contributions to the field of biology, but for various reasons is largely unknown to the public. This person may have been marginalized due to their skin color, personality, or because she was a woman.

Richard Lewisohn

Blood Transfusion Pioneer

                                           

Everyday, thousands of people require blood transfusions and this ingenious process oftens saves the persons life. However, until the early 20th century discovery by the unsung hero, Richard Lewisohn, it was impossible to store any blood for over a couple hours because the blood would begin to clot, making transfusion impossible. Blood transfusion can trace its roots back to the mid 17th century when certain scientists discovered the circulatory system. Soon after the discovery of the circulatory system, less than 30 years later, British physicians showed they could keep dogs alive through blood transfusions from other dogs. In the early 18th century, blood transfusions from lambs into humans were common. However, in light of certain medical and health risks of this inherently dangerous practice, it was soon banned. Despite the abolishment of this crude form of blood transfusion, blackmarket transfusions were common well into the 19th century. During the civil war, the bloodiest war in American history, it was becoming increasingly apparent that a better method for blood transfusions would be required. Despite funds from several governments, little progress was made outside of experiments transfusing cow and goat milk inside humans, with similar abrogating effects to the transfusion of lamb blood. In 1901, American scientists developed a method of transfusion called the “direct” method. This involved the donor being directly next to the person in need of transfusion and they would essentially be sewn together and the blood would be transferred. Despite the success of the process, it was not entirely fruitful because of certain health worries and the difficulty of getting the donor and recipient together at the same time with the proper equipment. The first major breakthrough in the world of blood transfusion came in the first decade of the 1900’s when scientists discovered the different types of blood and the reason why transfusions in the past had not been successful: the blood began to coagulate in only a matter of minutes.

Richard Lewisohn was born in Germany in 1875, where he attended the prestigious University of Freiburg, known for its medical school. Seven years after receiving his degree in medicine he traveled to New York to work at Mount Sinai hospital, specifically studying the digestive tract. It had been known for several decades that sodium citrate could prevent the coagulation of blood but the problem was that it made the blood toxic. Lewisohn's crucial discovery in the process, after a culmination of several years of research and extensive research, he discovered the perfect ratio of sodium citrate to blood in order to prevent the blood from coagulating and it still was not toxic. His original estimation was that the blood would still work after two days but after further testing it was revealed that it could last for two weeks! This was revolutionary to the scientific world at the time and even today his discoveries are still vital to science. Lewisohn's discoveries were just in time for World War I and blood was soon being transported to the front, inevitably saving tens of thousands of lives the the war alone. Thanks to his discoveries about blood transfusion, Richard Lewisohn has been credited with saving over 1 billion lives and his amazing scientific research will continue to save lives well into the future.

Discoveries Made About The Earliest Humans

Liam Smyth 3/28/15

C Block Odd

            Today I read an article in Science Daily titled “Earliest Human Had a Diverse Range of Body Types.” A team of Cambridge researchers published this article. These researchers claimed that human diversity in body types came much earlier than previously thought.

            They did this by comparing skeletons found in African countries from the period of early man. The skeletons found in these different parts of Africa showed strong variation, and this meant that human started showing strong variation before they left Africa. Skeletons showed extreme diversity mainly in height; the heights of these skeletons ranged from 4 feet eight inches to six feet.  These taller skeletons were found mainly in Kenya. This contradicts the previously held belief that most of these changes occurred after humans left Africa.

            This study was done using an extensive sample size; the sample size was in fact three times larger than those of previous studies on the subject. This was an extremely challenging process due to the fact that they had to spend a lot of time reconstructing half recovered fossils that had not been examined previously.

            This article is important to society because it is important to learn about our past and how we came about. A knowledge of the history of humanity allows use to further understand ourselves, and this self understanding allows humanity to gain important perspective. This new evidence also adds to the mountain evidence against Social Darwinism by showing that humanity didn’t magically advance only once we left Africa.

            This article was a great summary of the researchers’ work. It succinctly and impartially summarized the article. However, it was a little too bit impartial. The article could’ve criticized the study a little bit more thoroughly and presented methodological problems with the study. The article also could have gone into a little bit more detail about how these half recovered fossils were reconstructed.

University of Cambridge. "Earliest humans had diverse range of body types, just as we do today." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 March 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150326204642.htm>.

Polluted Air Cuts Years Off Lives of Millions in India, Study Finds

Core Biology                                                                                                   April 7, 15

Ellie Walsh                                                                                                      D ODD

Polluted Air Cuts Years Off Lives of Millions in India, Study Finds

Harris, Gardiner. "Polluted Air Cuts Years Off Lives of Millions in India, Study Finds." The New York Times. The New York Times, 21 Feb. 2015.

   

            The article, Polluted Air Cuts Years Off Lives of Millions in India, Study Finds, by Gardiner Harris, discusses the effects that reside in the pollution in India. India contains thirteen of the twenty most polluted cities in the world according to a World Health Organization study. The article states, “More than half of India’s population lives in places with such polluted air that each person loses an average of 3.2 years in life expectancy…” Also it was calculated that, “ Altogether, 660 million Indians could loose 2.1 billion years as a result of air pollution…” These two quotes therefore signifying how serious this problem is getting by stating that the pollution leads to premature deaths. It goes on to say that with all that is known about how bad the pollution in India is, that the government there plans to double the country’s use of coal over the next years. Therefore, this would continue to worsen the air pollution, and gradually cause more and more premature deaths. It concludes by saying that India should try to improve their air quality by creating a trading system for pollution rights and making penalties for excessive polluters. Overall, the people of India need to become more aware of this problem and what they are doing to themselves. It is hoped that in the near future, they begin to turn things around.

            This article brings across a very prominent issue in our world today that has yet to be fixed over a multitude of years. I had personally thought previously that China was more polluted than India, but this article proved me wrong. All the littering and factories in the world are causing major damage, some that is permanent and will not be able to be fixed. So often people litter and think it will be fine, but as it all adds up, it takes a major toll on the pollution of our earth. So much of what we do regularly makes our pollution much worse, but we do not even stop to think about it or realize. The more that we do these things like littering, burning fossil fuels, and releasing waste from factories, the worse everything will get, and this will happen fast if no one stops to think.

            Overall, I thought this article was very good and informative. All the facts and statistics about this issue made it much easier to get a sense of the seriousness of the problem. I had a very good understanding as to what topics the article was addressing and as to what side the author was taking. One thing I felt was missing was quotes from outside sources or people from India to get their thoughts and opinions on the situation. The author also could have made the paragraphs a little more detail to create an even larger understanding on how bad and big the pollution in India is currently. All in all, the author did a very good job on writing and informing people of this current issue.

Nicole Veru 4/10/15

Biology Current Events

Zimmer, Carl. "Natural Selection May Help Account for Dutch Height Advantage." The New

York Times. The New York Times, 08 Apr. 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

This article is about how Dutch people on average are the tallest in the world. In the pst, Dutch people have been relatively short compared to the rest of the world so this result is surprising. This increase in height has two reasonable factors: better health care and diet, but scientists have also found evidence that evolution is assisting in making them taller. In a new study, they used a medical database called LifeLines with profiles of everyone in the Netherlands. Out of the 46,612 people they viewed, they found that men who were taller had more children. An example in the article is that men who were 5’6, in the 1950s had 2.15 children while men who were 6’1” in the same time period had 2.39 children. Genes and natural reasons could also lead to this being established but it also could be natural selection.

This article is relative to society today because people, on average, are much taller than they used to be a few hundred years ago. This affects our lives because in the future people might be significantly taller than we are now and give us a better sense of the evolution of humans. It gives us clues as to what changes are going to be made to the human race in the next few hundred years. We might even be alive to witness a small change. Although height doesn’t seem very important, it could impact the health and functions of society in the future.

This article is useful because it used facts from a study and the opinions of other scientists. The article provides necessary background needed to fully understand the topic and gives interesting statistics. More studies are needed to completely prove this theory but the steps that the scientists are taking are heading in the right direction to determine the evolution course of the human race.

The Path to Zero Ebola Cases

Peter Meyers

4/8/15

Core Bio D Odd

Current Event

The Path to Zero Ebola Cases

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/opinion/jim-yong-kim-world-bank-the-path-to-zero-ebola-cases.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A15%22%7D&_r=1

Kim, Jim Yong. "The Path to Zero Ebola Cases." The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Dec. 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

In the article “The Path to Zero Ebola Cases,” Jim Yong Kim discusses how the world must achieve the important task of destroying Ebola. The first step that everyone must take is helping Africa by sending them resources to treat the disease. Because Ebola is so contagious, every time a new case appears the hospital must treat everyone he or she came in contact with so handling just one Ebola case costs more than a million dollars. People must continue to contribute to this vital task no matter how costly. After this step we must trace the sources of Ebola and see how fast it is spreading through data. The fourth step requires national companies to conform to the differences of small towns. Ebola needs to be a focus in the world right now, big agencies that aid situations like this must concentrate on helping Ebola. If this happens then the number of Ebola traces could drop greatly. The fifth and final step to completely abolishing Ebola is that all countries need to work together with each other to stop it completely. Ebola is a devastating disease that must be completely eradicated. The author says that if these 5 steps are taken Ebola will be stopped completely.

This article is very relevant to me. Although there has not been an Ebola case in the US in quite a while, we are still very much at risk of it happening. It would be very easy for a traveller to get Ebola and come back to America and spread it. I, along with most Americans come into contact with hundreds of people every week. If Ebola were to come to the US again it could be very bad. I chose this article because 6 months ago I was terrified of Ebola but now I feel like it has worn off so I wanted to see where we were in battling the disease. If Ebola were eradicated tt would be a huge accomplishment for the entire world.

Kim Jim Yong’s article on Ebola was very well written. He had his opinions supported by facts, he uses statistics constantly, and he offered a great solution for the Ebola problem. Every time he offered his opinion it was supported by facts. This article was very eye opening for me. The only thing I didn’t like was the way this article was written for someone who already knew a solid amount about Ebola. He did not write much background he kind of just jumped right in and I have not been very up to date on this topic lately. Overall Yong wrote a very intriguing article.