Blog 8: Brain Worms

According to scientists at The University of Nottingham, they have discovered the gene that is involved in allowing the Planary worm to regenerate body parts, including its own head and brain. Planary worms have an incredible ability to restore missing body parts following amputation. They are equipped with stem cells that are endlessly dividing and can become the missing cell types. Their genes make sure that the new body parts are in the right place, having the correct size and shape. These specific genes are called ‘Smed-prep’ and they are necessary for organizing the entire process of the generation of new parts.

The Planary worm is vital as a source of study in the field of science that involves regenerative medicine. Another piece of understanding about the regeneration process may be brought about by the study of these worms. This may enable scientists and doctors to one day be able to apply their new-found knowledge towards the betterment of the human race. People who have old, damaged, diseased or severed body parts, including their head may be able to be fixed in a safe and productive manner.

Blog 7: Weismann, Chapters 2 and 3

In Weismann, Chapters 2 and 3, the reader is introduced to an unfamiliar event from the very first sentence when Weismann writes about life without humans. We all may have thought about this before, but Weismann tells us exactly what will happen when all humans become extinct. He explains that right now, we are all at battle with nature in our everyday lives. We constantly have to remove weeds and unwanted plants, try to get rid of insects, small animals and water which invade our homes. But when we are gone there will be no more resistance to nature’s forces. Wind, rain, snow and other natural occurrences will cause our manmade construction to wither away. Animals will occupy our land, insects will chew on our wooden walls and floors, and grass and plants will cover all traces of our existence.

In this article, Weismann goes into great depth about the specific details of what earth will look like over periods of time that humans are extinct. It’s almost unimaginable to envision New York City without sky scrapers and modernity encompassing its entire body. But imagine how it looked before all of this. What had pioneers wondered when they looked at the uninhibited land of what is now New York. They surely didn’t imagine the New York of today but it’s even crazier to think it could all be reversed. The millions of hours spent building and maintaining all for nothing. It puts our lives into perspective because it seems as if no matter what we do, we’ll never be able to make a lasting difference in the world. All of our efforts will be wasted and that gives Weismann’s article a gloomy, depressing mood.

Growing Bones Blog 6

Recently on the Science Daily online magazine, I came across an article that talked about a scientist who developed the first, full-sized bone from stem cells (Jaw Bone Grown from Adult Stem Cells). Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and her team managed to grow a jaw bone with stem cells from bone marrow. Some of the main reasons for the creation of this particular joint is that it is a complex structure no able to be grafted easily and also about 25 percent of people suffer from temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders.
As of today, the only way to treat these disorders is to replace them with bones from other parts of patients’ bodies. With this new technique, it’s going to be possible to grow new jaws from a patients’ stem cells.
What’s most interesting about this technology is the fact that the possibilities are endless. This technique can also be used to develop other bones in the body so it may be possible, to become your own donor. If you need a repair, stem cells can create a new piece of your body to replace a broken one. The things we can do today are amazing. We have learned almost how to play God.

Obama and Change: Blog 5

This week, Obama announced that the U.S. is opening up new areas of our coastal waters to be used for offshore drilling for oil and gas (Is Offshore Drilling Worth the Risk). Hundreds of million acres will be utilized in an attempt to reduce dependence on foreign oil and make money from the sale of leases. Lots of energy companies and economists have been big advocates of the increased drilling since gas prices began rising, hoping that there will be “decades of new oil fields to plunder”, but environmentalists think that there isn’t as much oil to be found in these offshore areas. They believe that there might be more risk than reward.

It isn’t known how much this will affect our economy, but it is definitely going to impact the ocean. Think about the habitats that will be affected in the ocean by the drilling taking place deep in the oceans. What if there are oil spills? But there may be a huge payoff if a large amount of oil is found. At the least it creates more job opportunities for lots of people. This could be a disaster waiting to happen or benefit to America’s economy; only time will tell.

Blog 4: No More Itchy Summers

The article, New Way to Control Disease-Spreading Mosquitoes: Make Them Hold Their Urine, from the online magazine, Science Daily, is interesting because it discusses a possible solution to a problem that we have today: mosquitoes spread diseases when they invade our bodies and steal our blood! According to the article, mosquitoes pick up diseases when they feed off of infected hosts, then travel to new hosts and infect them. A particular type of mosquito, the Aedes aegypti, is responsible for putting 40% of the world’s population at risk of catching dengue fever, a disease that leads to 50-100 million infections and 22,000 deaths annually. There are no vaccines for this fever, so controlling mosquitoes is necessary for the spread of this disease to stop.

Cornell researchers found that as mosquitoes feed off of blood, they need to urinate at the same time to prevent fluid and salt from overloading in their bodies which could kill them. Also, they need to get rid of excess weight in order to be able to fly away. The renal tubes of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are the parts of the body that lead to the promotion of urination as they feed on blood and if there are insecticides that can disrupt the renal system then mosquitoes may not be able to pee. They’ll feed and end up killing themselves because of the salt and liquids that are not being relieved from their systems.

This process would limit the spread of diseases by restricting the mosquitoes’ ability to feed on more than one host, which will potentially save millions of lives. But what effect will this have on nature? Mosquitoes will never know that they are going to die if they drink blood so they will certainly continue to do it, which has the potential to wipe out their entire species depending on how widespread the usage of the new insecticides are. Dragonflies and fish, as well as many other predators, feed on mosquitoes and their larvae, so how well will they be able to adapt to this sudden lack of available food. This could start a huge ripple effect in the natural environment if we act without knowing the potential risks.

Blog 3: Ankle Support

When I came across the article, Artificial Foot Recycles Energy for Easier Walking, written by the ScienceDaily website, I realized that I had never really known the mechanics behind our natural daily motions. This article wrote about the process of walking with a prosthetic foot and the newly developed artificial foot that is more effective than previous versions. According to Art Kuo, professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan, "for amputees, what they experience when they're trying to walk normally [with a prosthetic foot] is what I would experience if I were carrying an extra 30 pounds." The reason for this, the article explains, is that as we walk, we push down on the floor and produce a collision that naturally loses energy. But as a person walks with an artificial foot, that energy that is lost is never regained by the ankle, so it takes a greater force of push off of the ground.

With the newly designed artificial foot, it captures that energy wasted during each step and a microcontroller causes the boot to return the energy to the system at the most necessary time. It gives a "push-off" from the ground that normal walkers have naturally.

According to the article, test subjects with regular prosthetic feet spent 23% more energy walking than normal walkers, while the new prosthetic foot only spent 14% more energy. The test was conducted with non-amputee test subjects and they used a rigid boot and prosthetic simulators to compare the differences. It proved that the innovative new design, which only uses a small battery, is almost twice as productive.


The most interest part of this article wasn't the new foot that was created; it was more about how cool it is to learn about the science behind some of the most basic functions like walking and also hear of the ways that engineers think. Its like every time you look, there's a new product that is increasing the ease of our daily lives. The world is like one big wiki page and its always being edited by new people and that's what seems so amazing. When it looks like there has been so many advancements just throughout the course of our lives, you would think the progress would slow down over time but there are so many people out there who have a different way of thinking. They don't look at the world and say, "wow, all this progress is awesome." They think of ideas to make things better. Its only a matter of time before it will be easier to walk with fake legs than real legs. I just hope that I can someday learn to create my own ideas even when it seems that the boundaries have already been set.

Plastics Are Bad Mmmkay...

While reading the chapter, Polymers Are Forever, Weisman's studies produced some very interesting findings. Just take a look at the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" and its clear: plastics aren't going anywhere; they are not biodegradable so as we produce more and more plastic, we continuously pile it in to our landfills and in the ocean. Its kind of funny because a study that was discussed by Weisman showed that plastics don't take up but about 20% of our total garbage stored in landfills, but then you understand why, because most of the plastic ends up in our oceans. This, to me, seems scary, because as the plastic breaks down into smaller pieces it is consumed by fish and other marine animals that could either die from it as discussed, when it clogs their bodies up, or end up having a long term effect on them. Why does that matter? It is not certain what the long term effects of plastics in the body could be but let's say the chemicals had a negative impact on even the smallest of animals. Well, then a larger animal feeds on that "infected" animal and may also become sick, and so on. This potentially could screw the food chain that all animals follow. It does seem pretty crazy that it has been proven that plastics consumed by animals could be lethal and still so many of our products containing exfoliates are made with plastic designed to go down our drains and into the ocean.
Just a thought...

Tracking Bugs

While reading an article online from the Popular Mechanics magazine, Unraveling Nature's Social Networks, written by Murray Carpenter, I was amazed at the new technology that is being used in tests being conducted. Director of migration research at the Max Institute for Ornithology, Martin Wikelski, is in charge of observing the migration techniques used by several flying creatures, even the smallest of ones. In one of his tests, he glued .3 gram radio transmitters onto dragonflies’ thoraxes which were used to detect their flying patterns. Also, other scientists at the University of Washington are using tiny microprocessors and transceivers to understand how song sparrows interact with each other. Technology is becoming more advanced and as it progresses the products being made are becoming smaller and smaller. Its ridiculous that we are now able to put radios on insects and small birds, follow them around and learn about them. It reminds me of the movie, Enemy of the State, starring Will Smith where radios were implanted into his clothes and he couldn’t even tell that they were there because they were so small so he was wondering why the people who were chasing him knew exactly where he was at all times. This ability to innovate allows us to understand how animals act and communicate in a way we've never seen before. I wonder if fifty years ago, anyone were able to imagine that technology could allow for such tests to take place. Even now, as I see how fast we are increasing our knowledge and creating new innovations, I can’t even begin to imagine what instruments will be available for us to use for the improvement of our knowledge about the world. Instead of catching and handling dragonflies to put on radios, will we be able to simply look at them and place a tag on them by blinking, allowing us to follow them around and see life through their eyes? The possibilities seem endless and it blows my mind.

Mini Blog about Twilight of the Books and Notation System

In reading the text, Twilight of the Books by Caleb Crain, a couple questions and opinions arose. First of all, the Census Bureau and National Endowment for the Arts throw out stats that supposedly point towards the decline of book readers at a ridiculous pace which causes me to wonder how accurate they actually are. Thousands of Americans were asked questions about their reading habits but how many Americans are there. Do these thousands of people accurately represent the reading hobbies of the entire population?
I also had another question: why did the largest improvement of reading skills among fourth and fifth graders occur just before the No Child Left Behind Act too effect? Isn’t that “act” in place to improve the reading skills of students? I found the statements by Maryanne Wolf to be pretty interesting when she spoke of the act of reading. She says that “humans started reading far too recently for any of our genes to code it for specifically.” I found that taking a look back and observing the act of reading, it actually is not natural. Looking at a bunch of lines while our brains interpret them simultaneously is crazy to me. And according to Wolf, our brains shouldn’t even be able to do so. Her basis for determining this is due to the tests that she did on squid, which have similar optic-nerve cells, which I also find interesting. Another aspect of the reading that was interesting was the way in which the illiterate thought. Instead of describing items with colors they used metaphorical names such as “peach”, “liver”, and “decayed teeth”. Also when asked which of the four items did not belong (a saw, axe, log, and hammer) they chose the hammer because it was not used in the wood cutting process while most people would choose the log because it is not a tool.
I read this book and made notations using a notation system, and when I came back to discuss the book I found that I could pick up my thoughts right where they left off yesterday. It was really cool, like I had just read the article when usually I forget a lot of the stuff I read in texts. So I definitely approve of using a notation system while reading.

Engineering?

What factors consists of a successful life? To me, success in life comes from happiness and accomplishment. My personal philosophy is that we, as humans, are all here on earth to serve some purpose. When we all die there should be some traces of evidence to prove that each and every one of us made a difference.I believe that we are here to make an impact on the world, and when we have that sense of accomplishment it should make us happy. I have made decisions concerning my specific educational and professional goals so that I will be able to consider myself successful.

My plans for success start in the classroom. As a kid in elementary school, I realized that my academic strength lied in the subjects, science and mathematics. Even while not in school, I loved to solve analytical word problems and play games that involved counting. My interest in the subjects only grew throughout my grade school career and I concluded that I would like to use my strengths to help better the world by becoming an engineer. I am going to study engineering in college so that I may someday be able to find solutions to the world's technical problems by using mathematics and science, two subjects that I enjoy working with. Hopefully, I can make a difference and better the world in years to come.

Some particular problems in science that I am currently interested in are the natural resources that are rapidly being depleted and the pollution on earth. The population is increasing and as more people inhabit the earth, the amount of nonrenewable resources being used also increases. There needs to be more alternative resources that are renewable and healthy for the earth. If they are not healthy for earth, they contribute to the overall pollution on earth. An earth that could end up being uninhabitable if the air becomes too polluted. There needs to be solutions to these problems and engineers are important pieces to the puzzle.