The tongue-eating louse does exactly what its name suggests.

 Brigitte Clark

Chappell, B. (2021, October 23). The tongue-eating louse does exactly what its name suggests. NPR. Retrieved October 24, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2021/10/23/1048718433/the-tongue-eating-louse-does-exactly-what-its-name-suggests.

 

I read an article titled “The tongue-eating louse does exactly what its name suggests” which is about a parasite that has been discovered in fish commonly eaten by humans. The article starts off by hooking the reader into the piece, reviewing how this bug is like a nightmare come to life. This then leads to an explanation about why we don’t have to fear this isopod since it doesn’t harm humans directly, however it still could cause a change in our lifestyle. The author then goes deeper into how this parasite is affecting fish, using information found by the Galveston Island State Park wildlife agency. It is claimed that "This parasite detaches the fish's tongue, attaches itself to the fish's mouth, and becomes its tongue."Another interesting piece of information from the wildlife agency includes, “It also happens to be the only known case where a parasite functionally replaces a host's organ." This is something that got my attention because while the article was short, there was still enough evidence included in it to teach you something new. After covering this, the author uses more information from other researchers to state which types of fish the parasite is commonly found in. Mark Fisher, science director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's coastal fisheries division, stated that these bugs infest many species of snapper and sea trout, both commonly eaten by humans. Fisher also claimed that "These are isopod crustaceans and are related to the pill bugs, a.k.a. rolly-pollies, you can find in your yard.” Would you really want to eat a fish infested by this parasite?

With the information found in this article, we can’t conclude very much on how society will be affected. The article is just a description of a parasite and doesn’t go into detail on what this parasite does to either the fish or those who consume an infected fish. More information is needed to be found in order to draw any conclusions.

Overall, this article is pretty well written and I was very interested in the topic. While it is a shorter piece of writing, it still covers a good amount of information discussing what is happening to these fish. However, it would’ve been beneficial to add information such as if people are still using the infected fish in cooking and what effect it causes, or if there’s a way to stop the parasite altogether. As stated, there wasn’t any information on how fish are affected so after reading this, I have a few questions on whether or not fish population numbers are changing.

F.D.A. Says Pfizer Vaccine's Benefits Outweigh Key Risks in Children 5 to 11

 

Jillian Byrne                                                                                                                         

Mr Ippolito

Core Chemistry: Current Event #6

10/28/21                                                                                                      

pfizer-vaccine-children-5-to-11.html

Lafraniere, Sharon, and Noah Weiland. “F.D.A. Says Pfizer Vaccine's Benefits Outweigh Key Risks in Children 5 to 11.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/pfizer-vaccine-children-5-to-11.html.  

            I decided to review the article, “F.D.A. Says Pfizer Vaccines Benefits Outweigh Key Risks in Children 5 to 11,” by Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland, published by the New York Times. LaFraniere and Weiland’s article revolves around the debate on whether or not the Pfizer Vaccine should be administered for children 5 to 11; the article leaned to yes, it should be approved for children 5-11. To support this perspective, the article discusses, for the first time, this past Friday, October 22nd, 2021, federal regulators evaluated the safety and efficacy of a coronavirus vaccine for children 5 to 11. Coincidentally, this analysis came on the same day data was posted by the Food and Drug Administration. The data demonstrated that the vaccine had a 90.7 percent efficacy rate in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 in a clinical trial of 5-11-year-olds. These conclusions are hoped to be the rainbow our dark, rainy world needs right now as the data can add momentum for F.D.A. authorization of the pediatric dose on an emergency basis, possibly as soon as next week. One federal regulator wrote, in regards to the counterargument that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is linked to myocarditis, “The overall analysis predicted that the numbers of clinically significant Covid-19-related outcomes prevented would outweigh the numbers of vaccine-associated excess myocarditis cases.” 

            The approval of the Pfizer Vaccine for 5 to 11-year-olds would allow younger kids to return to a more normal childhood. The idea that little kids, trying to enjoy every second of their short childhood, have not been able to interact with other children in school, on the playground, in sports, and more since the beginning of 2020 is heartbreaking. If the idea of that doesn’t melt your heart, then consider, this approval would also positively affect every age group. The ability for 5 to 11 years to become vaccinated would result in millions of newly vaccinated Americans. 

            LaFraniere and Weiland’s article was very well written, the overall message was crystal clear. The piece was well-researched, featuring both quotes and statistics from experts. Experts such as Dr. Kathryn M. Edwards, a professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, had their thoughts and insight voiced in the article. Although the piece consisted of reliable sources, it was a bit one-sided. The negatives of children 5 through 11 years of age receiving the vaccine were touched on but were never the main focus. The authors mentioned the risk of myocarditis due to vaccination but never gave any data on how many cases of myocarditis are linked to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Works Cited

Lafraniere, Sharon, and Noah Weiland. “F.D.A. Says Pfizer Vaccine's Benefits Outweigh Key Risks in Children 5 to 11.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/pfizer-vaccine-children-5-to-11.html.  

first-exoplanet-discovery-outside-milky-way-galaxy-astronomy

 

Jesse Bhatia

Science Current Event 6

Mr. Ippolito 

10/27/21 

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-exoplanet-discovery-outside-milky-way-galaxy-astronomy Lisa Grossman 10/25/21 /Acceses 10/27/21

 

The potential world, called M51-ULS-1b, orbits both a massive star and a dead star in the Whirlpool galaxy, about 28 million light-years from Earth. The summary of this article would be that astronomers have a spot in the first exoplanet and another galaxy. So it is very impressive to spot one of these planets because hunting techniques are difficult to do with such faraway stars, which blend together too much to observe them one by one. A scientist has discovered a way to spot these planets, Di Stefano and astrophysicist Nia Imara of the University of California suggested searching for planets around extragalactic X-ray binaries. Moreover ,On September 20, 2012, an object had blocked all of the X-rays from the X-ray binary M51-ULS-1 for about three hours. Using Stefano‘s process they found this exoplanet using his method. They ruled out gas clouds and other possible options and determined it was an extragalactic planet. Stefano states “We looked and we found something because there was something to find.” Lastly this article was very informative and it was mainly about Stefano using his new method and finding this exoplanet in another galaxy. It might've been luck or just fate. There might be exoplanets among us. I will leave you guys with this. 

     So connections from this article to society would be that society would go crazy and be very excited to find more exoplanets and that there might be life among us. More connections to society would be that we have found a new way To search for extragalactic planets. Also society would have hit a major step and exploring our galaxy. Also this technique would make a big impact on people and showing that there are exoplanets in our galaxy have a new way to look for them throughout all the stars and planets in the galaxy and universe.There’s no reason to think that other galaxies don’t also host planets. “But the most popular exoplanet hunting techniques are difficult to do with such faraway stars, which blend together too much to observe them one by one.” Another connection to society would be this groundbreaking technology and looking through the galaxy and universe through all these planets and stars and finding these exoplanets that might contain life. Another connection to society would be how people would be excited to know that they were other life or they might be scared yet this is a connection to society. Strengths in this article would be it has us strong researcher with a new method of finding exoplanets. Also strength would be that there are exoplanets and they have discovered one of them using this method. Moreover , a weakness would be there was only one researcher with a method that has been tested. I think this is a strong weakness because towards the end of the article they said I think this was just luck so I really don’t think this article is good. They thought it was locked that they discovered in exoplanet and also this is very weak because their method doesn’t work as well if it’s luck. I think there should be another scientist and astronomy list that has a good method that is not lucky that is reliable and fairly good. I thought this article was good but it only had one scientist that was relied on using luck