The Head-Scratching Case of the Vanishing Bees

  NY Times Article and Video         

I read and reviewed an article called “The Head-Scratching Case of the Vanishing Bees” written by a New York Times author named Clyde Haberman.  The article was about the struggles bee keepers have to maintain many healthy colonies of bees.  The bees are dying or leaving the colony due to unknown reasons.  One bee keeper lost 400 colonies in just one day. Across the country bee keepers are losing up to ninety percent of their colonies. The problem is not the queen, but the worker bees that just leave. Over the last two years over 600,000 colonies have been lost or died out.  Also, in the winter, when the bees normally louse five to ten percent of the population, bees have been losing up to thirty percent. In the US people call the problem the Colony Collapse Disorder, while in Britain it is called the Mary Celeste Syndrome. The cause for the bees’ deaths is still undetermined. However, there are many theories. Some say that it is cellphone towers or genetically modified crops. Most, however, blame pesticides. Neonicotinoids or neonics for short is one pesticide most commonly blamed. It is a systemic chemical that goes from the plants base to its flowers. When bees are affected by it, it can cloud their brain and they might forget where home is. The chemical was banned in Europe for the same reason, but France who had already banned it did not see better results with the bees. Other theories include a parasite called Varroa Destructor which can damage a bee’s immune system. An expert, Jeffery S. Pettis, said that Varroa Destructor is a bee plague. A final Theory is that the bees are too tired and stressed from their shipment across the country.

           

This article is very important because it show the problem with the bees. The bees might be a small worry but they help to pollinate a ton of our food. They pollinate apples, blueberries, avocados, soybeans, strawberries and more. According to the US department of Agriculture one third of the food we eat depends on bee pollination. Besides that, there are billions of dollars tied up in to the business which sell and produce the food, every year. Without the bees we would not have many foods that are plants. The bees help to keep business afloat and without them the economy will suffer.  

 

The article was written very well. The article had a nice flow to it and all of the authors thoughts were organized in to neat paragraphs.  The article also had good sentences, which were written in a way that is easy to understand. The author included many facts that were helpful. To improve the article the author could have included more quotes. Overall the author did a good job and helped to keep me informed.

The Difficulties of Nuclear Containment

The article is about the attempts by soviet defectors and spies to leak secrets about the United States’ nuclear program or the Manhattan Project. The article states that there was a total of 1,500 leaks, 200 acts of sabotage and 100 confirmed cases of espionage. All of these instances were covered up and hidden until last month when it was declassified by the Department of Energy. The article then went on to discuss some of the leaks or breaches in the security surrounding one of the US’ closest guarded secrets. These stories included comedic leaks such as a breach by Priests in in Midwest equipped with a page from the Chicago Bible College that contained information about a new isotope called uranium 235. Unfortunately it contained a story of perpetrator being shot speeding past a roadblock at a covert military base.

This article illustrates that the US government will do anything to insist that everything is in working order and under control. If the US did it in the past what’s stopping them from doing it now and in the future? What’s stopping them from lying now? For all we know Americans could have access to Venus or we could be developing nuclear tipped bullets? It also brings up the question of what we might not know the whole story too? For all we know Bermuda triangle is a US military testing ground and all the stories we heard growing up about supernatural were government cover ups. It goes to show that our government doesn’t tell us about a lot of things we may want to know about but they also are willing and able to deny things they don’t want us to know about. However our government has a right o keep some things secret and rightfully so. Had our nuclear secrets been completely leaked or stolen by another country altogether we may be living different lives today.

After reading the article I would say that it was very well written, it comes from the New York Times, but was far too long. I feel that it could be very drastically shortened by eliminating passages such as “As the Manhattan Project swung into high gear beginning in 1934,…” or “It was soon supplemented by more valuable details from rogue scientists,…”. Also on page two it talks about the Chicago Bible College and forgetting to capitalize the c in college when it is capitalized on their website. Overall I thought this was an interesting article yet was much t long and had a in the name of a place.

posted for T. Gibbons

Bacterial ‘communication system, could be used to stop, kill cancer cells, study finds

The article I read was called “Bacterial ‘communication system, could be used to stop, kill cancer cells, study finds”. This article from the University of Missouri-Columbia talks about how recently they have discovered by running some tests that there are certain atoms that bacteria use to communicate stuff such as to stop reproducing or to escape the immune system and that these atoms can be manipulated to get cancer cells to stop spreading and eventually die off.

I really enjoyed reading this article because I am very fond of this topic. As a person who has personally known people who have been diagnosed with cancer I was really glad to hear about advancements in fighting this decease. Currently in the U.S about 1,500 people die of cancer each day and if this research continues to develop it could potentially save the lives of all those people and put an end to this horrific decease.

Over all I think this article was very well written and provided me with a lot of information however it did have one flaw. One thing I really liked about the article is how in the end it talks about the future of this research when it talks about how they are trying to find a way to test it on animals. I liked this because it is telling you that they are planning to move forward with this discovery. One thing I didn’t like about this article is how it tells you that they can manipulate these atoms but it doesn’t tell you how it works. I think that they should have explained this because I was interested in knowing more about this subject and they didn’t give me that information. 

posted for R. Gandara

In Japan, Fear and Panic as a Revered Peak Explodes

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/asia/in-japan-fear-and-panic-as-volcano-explodes.html?ref=earth&_r=0

The Article I read about is, “In Japan, Fear and Panic as a Revered Peak Explodes,” By Martin Fackler. The article discussed the tragedy that took four days ago. The story takes place on Mount Ontake, on a beautiful sunny day right before fall began. Hundreds of people were making their way up the mountain, when they heard the large explosion. It caught everyone by surprise and has shaken the entire nation of japan. The official tally of deaths has not been counted quite yet, however they have counted 47 total bodies thus far. A 38 year old man named Mr. Harada was leading a group up the mountain and this was what he said of this incident, “I thought it was the end of the world. I had only seen volcanic eruptions in movies and never dreamed I’d experience one in real life.” I think that this quote truly shows how unexpected and terrifying this eruption really was. At least 230 hikers are known to have survived, many straggling down the mountain hours or even a day after the eruption, dazed and covered with ash. Mount Ontake was one of greatest spots in Japan, and is known by all of Japan as the best spot to climb in the nation. This is why it came to everyone as such a surprise and disaster. The last eruption that Mount Ontake had was in 1979. This eruption shocked and scared nearly everyone in Japan. The search continues for more bodies up there, and the cause of the eruption remains unknown, but we all hope that everything will be understood soon. 

posted for B Faulstich

Ebola Is Diagnosed in Texas, First Case Found in the US

I read the article “Ebola Is Diagnosed in Texas, First Case Found in the US” for my current events article. This article talks about how a man in Texas who was visiting Liberia brought the disease back with him when he arrived back in the U.S. The article states that health officials said that it would be a matter of time until the disease hit the United States, and finally it did. Ebola is only contagious when symptoms of it appear, so they have high hopes of containing the outbreak. Ebola is not contagious until symptoms begin to start forming, so there is “zero chance” that the person infected anyone else on the flight, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden,  the director of the disease centers. The article states that a team from the C.D.C is being dispatched to Dallas to trace any contact of Ebola back to family members and friends. Dr. Freiden stated that there was very little contact between the man infected and family members, so there is hope they were not infected. The health officals are remaining positive, describing these methods as “tried and true, I have no doubt that we’ll stop this in its tracks in the U.S.” As for the identity of the man, the article states that it is being kept confidential.

I think that this article was very informative about the Ebola outbreak, and gave me new insight into this deadly disease. I think that the topic of the article was very interesting, and it is scary/captivating to hear that Ebola is now in the US. I think that the article included a lot of great information, and it was all very narrowed down to what was truly needed in the article. I think that having the doctor’s perspective on the incident was very informative, and allowed us to gain firsthand knowledge on the epidemic. Although this article was highly informative, I think that it could have provided the symptoms of Ebola, so that the reader can understand how powerful this disease truly is. Overall, I think that this article was very informative, and had an interesting topic to start off with.

posted for F. Fraser

Whispers of a Successor

McKee, Maggie. "Whispers of a Successor." Scientific American n.d.: 19-20. Web.

    Physics is at a bit of a dead end right now. The regular way of describing the universe, called the "Standard Model," cannot explain dark matter. A theory in 2012 suggested that something called Supersymmetry (SUSY) existed. In layman's terms, supersymmetry says that every known particle has a partner particle that is heavier. This helps explain not only dark matter, but also the recently discovered higgs-boson, which gives other particles mass. There is just one problem with SUSY, and that is that it's a theory. Scientists needed to find evidence of supersymmetric partner particles before they can conclude anything else. Now, however, experiments in the LHC, the world's most powerful particle collider, seem to have revealed exactly that. Larger-than-expected amounts of some particles may be caused by supersymmetric particles decaying into regular ones. The scientific community is split on the existence of supersymmetry, but the author isn't passing judgement just yet.

    This discovery will not affect the average person's life, but it is a huge topic of debate among scientists.

    After reading this article, I understood the point Maggie McKee was making. It also got me very excited for the LHC to reopen in 2015 so scientists can continue their work on supersymmetry and other particle physics experiments. The article also conveyed a lot of information in only seven short paragraphs, which I liked, but also made it difficult to read. I liked reading about this theory and hope more evidence is found.

Posted for K. Taylor

Portland Will Still Be Cool, But Anchorage May Be the Place to Be

Kingston, Jennifer A. “Portland Will Still Be Cool, But Anchorage May Be the Place to Be.” New York Times Online.  25 Sept 2014.  22 Sept 2014.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/science/on-a-warmer-planet-which-cities-will-be-safest.html?_r=0

The article “Portland Will Still Be Cool, but Anchorage May Be the Place to Be” by Jennifer A. Kingston discusses the potential results of climate change. Climate change is the change over time in weather patterns such as average temperature, storm patterns, and amount of flooding as a result of changing sea levels.  Scientists believe that climate change is caused by changes in the radiation from the sun, plate tectonics, volcanic eruptions, and also global warming.  The author of the article explains that most of the United States will look and feel different as soon as the year 2050, which is only 35 years from now and within our lifetimes.  Scientists predict that much of the East Coast will be impacted by heat waves, hurricanes, and rising sea levels.  They predict big changes in the next hundred years for cities that are currently very popular places to live.  For example, scientists predict that Washington, D.C. will be a flood zone by 2100.  They predict that cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco will be facing very hot temperatures as soon as 2048.  The article explains that given these climate changes, people should move to the Pacific Northwest, especially west of the Cascades.  There will be a lot less extreme heat there, and the land rises steeply out of the ocean (unlike the Northeast), so it is above sea level and flooding would be less likely there.  Scientists also predict that Anchorage, Alaska, which is currently not a very popular place to live because of its cold and harsh weather conditions, will be “the next Florida” by the end of the century.  

I picked this article because I was interested to read about how climate change will have a big impact on people in the next century.  People will likely start planning for the future by seeing if there are any good job opportunities in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.  People will also buy property in these areas with the intention of moving there.  As climate change begins to negatively 
posted for J. McSherry