Hana Eddib 4/14/15
Chem C block-odd Current event 7
Gorman, James. "A Clam Cancer Outbreak, Spread by One Set of Cells." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Apr. 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.
Cancer is known for being a deadly sickness to all human beings but now we’re starting to see it spread to animals. The article I read about informed readers that clams are now the third species to receive cancer-like cells in their body aside from humans. This article goes on to explain how unlike human cancer cells, these newfound cancer cells have the same DNA. Cancer cells found in human cells differ because the cells have the same DNA as the human it is in whereas the cells found in the clams have the same DNA as each other. Readers are also informed about how it was unusual for the cells to survive for so long without the actual virus. Scientist Dr. Goff explains how the cells are able survive and base themselves in the clams. He explains “the way cancers make such a transition may be connected to how cancers spread within a body from one organ to another, called metastasis, a step that makes cancers turn deadly.”
This article really shocked me because I had no idea that cancer had become such a problem in the nature world. This topic is important to people around the world because it shows us how dangerous cancer can be. Scientists are still working to find a cure to human cancer. Maybe if they can find a way to kill the cancer in clams then they will have some ideas of how to kill the cancer in humans. The article also brought up the point that people could want to know if they were to swim in waters with clams, could they get into contact with this cell and if so, would it affect them.
Although this article was very informative and easy to read, there were some places I thought the article could’ve been better. Throughout this article, the author explained the topic and had great sources. One area I felt disappointed in was the call to action. The author failed to include what the scientists were planning to do with the information they received. Are they going to try and cure the cancer? Are they planning on doing further experiments? There are many unanswered questions the author failed to take notice of. However, with that being said the article was still informative and very important to our knowledge.
Hana did an excellent job reviewing the article “A Clam Cancer Outbreak, Spread by One Set of Cells” by James Gorman. She did a great job of summarizing specific parts of the article, so that the reader could understand the most important parts of the piece. I liked how she included a quote in her summarization that explained how the cancer cell spread in the clams was so unusual compared to humans because it helped clarify her point. I also liked how Hana stated that this new discovery of the cancer cells in clams could help further cancer research for humans. This current event report could have been improved if Hana had double checked some of the facts that she included in her review. For example, she wrote that we are just starting to see cancer spread to animals in her first paragraph, but scientists had known about these deadly cells in animals for almost a century. This article also could have been made better if Hana had conducted some extra research to see if scientists are planning on conducting any major experiments based on these observations. From reading this article and its review, I have learned that the cancer cell affecting clams is being transferred between separate clams in a very interesting and complicated way.
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