My current event is on editing genes.

Chinese Scientists Edit Genes of Human Embryos, Raising Concerns

By Gina Kolata

The New York Times

April 23, 2015

Aurora

Throughout 2015 experiments about editing genes have been going on. Though other scientists around the world had talked about doing gene editing experiments, this article is about the Chinese scientists who attempted to edit genes. These experiments will affect many people when there is a definite way to edit genes. Many people have cancerous genes in their DNA and after scientists find a way to edit genes we will have the potential opportunity to take these cancerous genes (and other diseases) out of people’s DNA before they are born. Editing genes could benefit everyone. The recent experiments took place in China. What they were hoping for was all of the cells to be changed so there would be no diseases but the DNA of the embryo would stay unaltered. Out of the 85 embryos they experimented on, none of them turned out the way that they wanted. In the Chinese experiments defective embryos were used so that a baby would never be born. Other scientists helped along the way, but the research was being done primarily by Chinese scientists. In order to edit genes the scientists use the CRISPR method.

“This is an unsafe procedure and should not be practiced at this time, and perhaps never.” - Dr. George Q. Daley

This quote reflects what most scientists feel about editing genes. Not only are people worried about the dangers of this type of experiment, they are worried about the ethics involved with genetic experimentation.

Editing genes is news that is very important. Maybe not to the people in the world who don’t have a disease that is killing them. Peter Warlick, a very close family friend has lou gehrig's disease. His children are four and six. He has two years to live, and in those two years he will get very sick. Imagine what he would do to not have lou gehrig's disease. I know that editing genes was not being experimented on before he was born, but this shows how important editing genes is. So many people watch their friends and families die from diseases. Now, we are on the edge of finding a way to make editing genes possible. I chose this article and topic because sooner or later scientists will find a way to edit genes. Scientists will be able to save many people’s lives before they are even alive.

I believe that editing genes is amazing. Being able to edit a gene that has a disease is remarkable. Other people think that editing genes is dangerous and unethical. Obviously it is dangerous, but that shouldn’t mean that scientists shouldn’t pursue this area of science. What experiment has had no danger in it? When scientists know how to edit genes without harming an embryo, there will be babies who are born with no diseases because the gene that carried a disease will have been taken out of them.

Chinese scientists did an experiment on editing genes. Even though they did not get what they were hoping for, every time scientists do more experiments on editing genes we learn more. Just like Jonas Salk’s experiments with finding a vaccine for polio, many people are fearing the outcomes of editing genes. I think that editing genes will be an amazing scientific discovery.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/health/chinese-scientists-edit-genes-of-human-embryos-raising-concerns.html?_r=2  

Bubbles May Underlie Brain Trauma

Calin McGonagle January 19, 2016

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/bubbles-may-underlie-trauma%E2%80%99s-brain-injury

Bubbles May Underlie Brain Trauma

Have you ever known someone who’s had a concussion, or has been in an explosion of any sort? Well you may just think of it lightly, but the science involved with concussions and hard impact is more complicated and interesting than you think. When someone gets hit hard or is caught in an explosion, the contact releases pressure waves. These waves damage tissue throughout the body, most of which will heal over different periods of time. But the effects it causes on the brain is very severe and can leave damage that lasts forever. The damage is called traumatic brain injury, or TBI. If scientists could figure out exactly what goes on in the brain to cause TBI then they might be able to prevent it. A research team suspects that the pressure waves create bubbles in the brain, and new data shows that if they do, these bubbles could cause damage that will lead to TBI. Christian Franck’s team works at Brown University. Now that they have analyzed this data, Franck and his team wanted to look at what might happen when neurons (nerve cells) are bombarded by even more intense pressure waves. It’s easy creating pressure waves in a lab for experiments, but controlling intensities and making the bubbles the same size every single time is way harder. Franck made a way to copy pressure waves that have specific intensities. He used varying devices, but found that when he used a laser and adjusted its intensity, he could make the bubbles whatever size they needed to be, and then duplicate that size if needed. In his new experiments he used the laser, which oddly enough created a bubble of steam. This bubble unfortunately gave away as soon as the laser shut off. This caused the cell harm that he wanted to study. Lasers obviously aren’t going off in the brains of humans when they’re hit hard, of course. They don’t even produce bubbles by pressure waves because waves of high pressure would reflect off structures in the brain, such as blood vessels. Then, those echoes would create zones of low pressure. It’s there that the bubbles would form. When bubbles form inside a fluid, it’s called cavitation. Cavitation often happens on the backs of boat propellers because pressure at that place gets low enough that bubbles of water vapor form. The repeated formation and collapse of these bubbles can actually wear away steel. “So imagine what even a single encounter might do to delicate brain tissue,” Franck says. He says one of his goals is to see if cavitation leaves a distinct type of damage in the brain. If it does, researchers should be able to recognize TBI by looking for this signature.

I chose this article because I was really interested in learning about what causes concussions and what TBI is because I’d heard the term before. The words “Traumatic Brain Injury” stuck out to me and so I decided to choose this article. I was looking through Science News for an article that connected to cells because that’s the unit we’re learning about. In this article it talks about neurons which are nerve cells, and really the whole thing has a lot to do with the cells in your brain. I learned a lot about how scientists are trying to find out what causes TBI and how they can prevent it by doing experiments. I didn’t realize how serious TBI was until I read this article. I agree with Franck and how he’s trying to sort out all that talk about pressure waves and also do the experiment with the laser to try and create all the same sized bubbles. This article has a lot to do with what we’re studying in class. We’re learning about cells, and the article is all about the cells in your brain like neurons. You can’t survive without brain cells because your brain controls your breathing, so in the truancy of brain cells, you wouldn’t be able to survive without life support systems. This discovery can affect our society in a big way. If scientists figure this out, there would be so many less deaths. TBI was a factor in the deaths of more than 50,000 people in the United States, and more than 280,00 people with TBI were hospitalized. So if scientists figure out how to prevent it in any way, it would save lives. When I read about all this, it really surprised me and made me realize how badly TBI can damage your brain. I felt so amazed when reading this article, and it was so fascinating to learn about neurons and the brain because I didn’t know anything about it before I started reading!

Sugar can increase risk of breast cancer

Sugar can increase risk of breast cancer

A cure for cancer is what so many doctors, and scientists have been looking for, for years. But something else that scientists, and doctors have been investigating is what causes cancer. One thing that studies have shown recently is that high sugar intake increases the risk of breast cancer. The person who researched (Peiying Yang) this tested their hypothesis on mice. They put a third of the mice on a starch-control diet, another third on a sucrose diet and the last third on a fructose diet. The sucrose and fructose dieted  mice at six months had 50-58% of breast cancer tumors versus the starch-control diet which had 30% of breast cancer tumor at six months.

If this hypothesis proves to be true than this could be a huge scientific breakthrough because breast cancer is visible in 1 of 8 women in their life. The reason that I have chosen this topic is that my grandmother died of lung cancer before I was born and I always regret that I did not have the opportunity to know her. Also last year at the high school graduation my dad did not have enough flutist so I played for him. One of the graduating students made a speech about how his mother died of breast cancer, that brought me down to earth and made me realise how many people are affected by this. His talked about how he was going to find the cure for cancer and I believe him. I very much hope he does. When researching this topic I learned about how I was wrong to just assume that nothing is being done to research cancer but I am so glad I was proved wrong. The person who wrote and investigated the article I think had the right idea to research things that are linked to cancer because it is important for people to know how the cancer studies are going. Something I did not like about the article though was the fact that no one is actually directly investigating the impact of sugar on breast cancer.

This discovery is important to science because if this proves to be true in everyone than we might be able to wipe out breast cancer if people watch the amount of sugar that they eat. Also this will be very beneficial to society because if people are monitoring their sugar intake than we can have a healthier country that eats less sugar so slaves that are forced to make chocolate for example, will not have enough business so hopefully they will get a better and safer job. This article if proven true, could solve a lot of problems like, of course help lower the risk of breast cancer. It could also help people become healthier as I mentioned before. And lastly, it could help in finding a cure for breast cancer.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/304636.php

Written by: Honor Whiteman

Published by: MNT

Publication date: Monday 4, January 2016

College Football Player's Autopsy May Offer Clues to Brain Trauma

Did you know that 87 of 91 deceased football players were tested positive to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)?  Well first of all I bet no one reading this even knows what CTE is, right? Let me explain, CTE is a disease found in most football players, including Micheal Keck, (I will get to him later) who have or has had multiple hits to the head. Making football players the perfect candidates. Now you are probably wondering what it actually does to you, it contributes to memory loss, confusion, impaired judgement, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and in the end even dementia. Why is this a big deal is now what you are probably wondering, so I’m going to tell you, 96% of previous NFL players died of/ or with CTE.

Michael Keck never even played in the NFL, yet, in the end it was CTE with the tackle. Michael Keck died at the age of 25 with a wife and a son. Michael played football at the Missouri State as a linebacker. One day at practice Michael was knocked unconscious in practice back in 2009, “After that, things changed for him,” said his wife Cassandra to the press. His vision, memory, and ability to sleep all went down in level. He took medicine to take care of the head pain, and became moody. After practice when he got the concussion test they asked him to count back words from 20 by threes a couple of his teammates could not do it either so the test giver said that football players are dumb. CTE can only be diagnosed after death, suspecting that he had CTE Keck volunteered to undergo neuropsychological evaluation at age 24. In the end it turns out that he was right.

The first time I read this article I was shocked,  the second time sad, and the third time, understanding. I believe that the reason this article was written was because the knowledge of this topic is to little. People in and around the football community need to be more aware of this devastating disease, not just for them, but for the people around them.

Peanut Allergy, Health

 Date: 1- 19 -16

Can you prevent your child from having peanut allergy? Well, scientist might have a solution.

In 2015 scientist may have found a way to prevent children from getting peanut allergies.  Many babies are proved to be allergic to peanuts when they get older.  Some scientist realized that Jewish children from London, don’t usually eat peanuts when they’re infants , compared to Jewish children in Israel, who devour peanuts, and nut-based products since they can chew.  The London children were ten times more at risk of getting peanut allergy, than the Israeli children.  The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was involved with this discovery.   This discovery could save many lives, and might help scientist find a cure to allergies which will save more lives. Scientist are thrilled to find such a discovery and are hoping that some of their questions are answered from this discovery.  “These developments are just the tip of the iceberg as the prevalence of peanut allergy among children continues to increase worldwide, especially in westernized countries.” This quote from the text proves that this discovery is very important to doctors, and families with allergies. If they found a cure many people worldwide would be affected, and saved from having to watch  what they eat. Scientist found that by eating peanut or any kind of nuts when you’re young make you less likely to get peanut allergy when you’re older.

I chose this article because, my cousin, Emily has peanut allergy.   During her visit to Maine, we had to put away all peanut related foods, we couldn’t eat any peanut-based foods.  If this discovery is proved to be true, think of how many children and their families won’t have to get rid of peanut-based food from their diet.  After they prove it to be true they can find a way to cure peanut and other allergies.  When I was looking for a interesting current event,  I came across this article.  It reminded me of this other scientist experiment, where they gave kids (who already have they peanut allergy) one peanut M M a day,  slowly their reaction to peanuts slowed.  I agree with the scientist, because it makes sense by getting your body used to nuts, you probably wouldn’t get it when you’re older.

 This article connects with what we are studying because we are learning about cells and the different types.  Cells are important in health, especially when you're sick the immune system is made up of cells, that kills the bad bacteria.  This news could change the world we live in.  Open new option for foods, kids and parents might never have to ask a waiter if there are peanuts in the food, leading to more restaurants in business.  I knew this site was full of all the information that I need to know, because it explained what was being done with the study of London children and Israeli children.  The article told me how many people it would affect.  And what is happening now. I learned a lot in this article, it taught me what is happening in  the world of health.  It also taught me that many people worldwide have problems with peanut allergies too, not just the U.S.A. This could be the next big discovery.  

Works Cited

“Nuts and Peanuts.” Science Daily. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2016.

<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150610190920.htm>.

“Preventing Peanut Allergy through Early Consumption.” The New England Journal of

Medicine. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2016.

<http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1500186>.

heart disease linked to obesity in kids👀👌🙀💁

Heart damage linked to obesity in children By: Ashley yeager

publisher: Student science 2016

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/heart-damage-linked-obesity-kids

Obesity in kids. The epidemic is a huge problem in the U.S and other wealthier countries and the numbers have only been climbing. In 2015 12.7 million children and adolescents in the U.S alone have been affected by obesity and weight issues. It is a terrible thing it makes so many obstacles for teens and young children making it hard to do nearly everything from sleeping to playing sports it is definitely a big problem we need to take care of for good.

Childhood Obesity has always been a problem but in the last few decades it has gotten exponentially worse the childhood obesity rate has been climbing and with the levels it's at half our nation will be obese in 2030. And not only does it make common everyday things harder but it poses serious health problems and it has even been seen that childhood obesity leads to serious heart problems later in life which leads to other things such as shorter life spans appearing in the coming years. But now take note this can be upheld one way is to teach the younger generation health precautions and how to be healthy and stay healthy.

Now we all know that in an ideal world there would be no Obesity sickness war or disruption but because we know that will never happen scientists are taking shots at healthier children. Many are doing extensive research seeing how heart disease is connected to obesity and they have found that the larger you are the harder your heart has to work to pump blood throughout your body and that extra strain really wears on your heart causing it to sometimes fail and even stop working all together.

The Notes Bryan Fornwalt who works at the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania where he looks at how muscle in the expands and contracts to pump blood through the body. Him and his team took 40 kid’s MRI’s the kids were between 8 and 18 years old Half of which were obese the rest were healthy. From the MRI pictures they could see that 40 percent of the obese children had enlarged hearts that affected how well the heart pumps blood through the body. He also observed that the left vertical differed from the healthy children’s left vertical. The left vertical lower left chamber of the heart. Its job is to pump oxygen-rich blood out to the rest of the body.The left vertical is normally the thickest of the four chambers of the heart but obese kids had much thicker left vertices than the healthy kids.

The overall message and gist of this article and notice is to alert kids to the dangers to being overweight and what happen to you if you are unhealthy and the struggle of everyday life that can be just so much harder baring down on not just your body but your self respect you can start to see yourself as less of a human being because you are so restricted it is a severe problem in the world right now.

LeeF Gene-editing

Gene-editing

Scientists may have found a possible cure for a disorder that is common in ten year-old boys. Using a new gene-editing technique, called Crispr-Cas9, they experimented on lab rats. They have not yet tried it on humans, but they are hopeful that it will work.

The Crispr-Cas9 technique is a way of cutting out the defective part of a gene. The defective part is a stretch of DNA called an exon. When the exon is cut out, the muscle cells are able to make a protein that will increase muscle strength. This worked on mice. The next step is to see if it will work on humans.

Three teams, from Duke, Harvard, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, were working individually on this cure. They discovered it around the same time, on December 31, 2015. They were not the only groups researching this idea, but they were the first to prove that it works, at least on mice. Scientists are not sure how the human immune system will react to this technique. They do know that it will take a lot of time to get to that stage.

The people to which this breakthrough is targeted are patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is caused by a gene defect, which affects a protein called dystrophin that helps your muscles function. It affects 1 out of every 3500 boys younger than ten, forcing them into wheelchairs before they’re even pre-teens, and putting them at risk of breathing problems or early death. Scientists have been working on finding a cure for a long time, with no luck. Now that this technique is proven to work, there is hope that it could work on other diseases too.  

I chose this article because I didn’t know much about gene-editing, or about genes at all, and I wanted to learn more. I found it on a New York Times website under science. I learned a lot from it, including what genes are, how they affect who we are, and the process of gene-editing. I also learned about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which I hadn’t heard of before. It connects with our unit because it is about health in humans, and the science behind gene-editing.

I think even the idea of gene-editing is a huge step in the right direction for science and cures. It is a game-changer for everybody who has or is researching Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, other diseases that could possibly be treated by this technique. Though there is still a lot of work that has to be done, this is definitely good news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/science/gene-therapy-muscular-dystrophy.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0