Sam Powell

Federal Panel Backs Approval of New Drug to Fight Heart Attacks

Kolata, Gina. "Federal Panel Backs Approval of New Drug to Fight Heart Attacks." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 June 2015. Web. 09 June 2015.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/health/cholesterol-levels-ldl-drugs-heart-attacks-fda-panel.html?_r=0

The article "Federal Panel Recommends Approving New Cholesterol Drug," written by Gina Kolata, deals with a recent development in the medical world that could prevent many heart attacks from occurring in the future.  An expert group recommended a drug to the Food and Drug Administration that could cure many of the problems with cholesterol that could lead to heart attacks.  While the demand for these sorts of products could be quite high, Dr. Joshua W. Knowles, a Stanford cardiologist, called the medicines “a triumph of the modern genetic revolution.”  If these possibilities are viable, then these products are definitely worth the demand and could provide revolutionary improvements to field of disease that has ur to be truly conquered.  Furthermore, the members of society that have consumed these drugs have seen a significant drop in their cholesterol and have said that "they have never felt better."  These indefinite opinions, while seeming to be solely positive, will not be proven into clinical trials in 2017, however.  This risk, on the behalf of the expert pharmaceutical group to put their drug out their before being tested could end up being a disaster.  A panel recently voted in favor of allowing doctors to use this drug, however, the naysayers say that the drug should not be approved until the clinical tests are finished.  This strive to put an end to these withstanding heart problems with hopefully prove dividends for the health of our society and the development of medical research.

This drug could provide a gateway into happiness for many who continue struggle with cholesterol. Personally, as have gone through a great amount of pain concerning several family members and loved ones that I have lost through heart attacks.  Although I realize that the past cannot be overturned, I would do anything to prevent citizens of our society from dying of these tragedies only leading to times of sorrow to transpire.  Furthermore, I realize that if this was to happen to me, I would do anything in my power to be on the receiving end of these drugs to lengthen my own life span.

The author does a spectacular job incorporating vital writing techniques, while valuing the the true meaning to this drug.  She uses quotations and reliable sources to decipher the details behind this drug and how it is going to affect medical patients in the future.  Furthermore, she acknowledges all the negative effects and risks to this drug, and how using the simple protocol might be more successful.  While all necessary components were included in this piece, I would have liked to see Kolata use a personal experience in which someone with these flaws used the drug and how it affected the person.  This would have heightened the overall meaning of this article, however this was very well written.

"Ultra-Flexible Tech May Monitor the Brain." LiveScience - Tyler Stupart

Tyler Stupart   6/9/15

Current Events 13

Q, By Charles. "Ultra-Flexible Tech May Monitor the Brain." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 08 June 2015. Web. 09 June 2015. <http://www.livescience.com/51131-flexible-tech-monitor-brain.html>.

http://www.livescience.com/51131-flexible-tech-monitor-brain.html

Traditional electronics are rigid, but scientists at Harvard University have recently developed flexible and stretchable electronics. In order to be flexible, these new electronics are extremely thin and have a chicken wire like structure. "Our new mesh flexible electronics are 1 million times more flexible than the state-of-the-art flexible electronics," Lieber told Live Science. The process begins with metal electrodes and silicone wires that are only nanometers thick. These wires are then woven into open meshes that are about the size of a postage stamp. Once the mesh is complete a variety of sensors can be hooked up to it and connected through outside wires.

This new technology has endless possibilities and could potentially lead to video screens that can be rolled up in your pocket, but right now scientist are experimenting with applications inside the body. This new ultra-flexible technology is the size of a human hair and can be injected into the human body via needle. Once inside the body, devices like these could monitor and manipulate living tissue. They could even map brain activity and help treat people with disorders such as parkinson's.
Mr. Quoi wrote an interesting article about a new technology that could change the world. He included quotes from the developers and make their points easy to understand. Mr. Quoi also gave the basic idea of how this technology was created but spent most of the article talking about it’s possibilities and future impacts. This made his review much more interesting because the reader was able to relate to the article instead of being confused by advanced scientific concepts. I enjoyed reading the article and hope to see this new revolutionary technology in the near future.

For Some Chimpanzees, Happy Hour Starts With Stealing

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/science/for-some-chimpanzees-happy-hour-starts-with-stealing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience

Bakalar, Nicholas. "For Some Chimpanzees, Happy Hour Starts With Stealing." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 June 2015. Web. 09 June 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/science/for-some-chimpanzees-happy-hour-starts-with-stealing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience>.

The article “For Some Chimpanzees, Happy Hour Starts With Stealing”, by Nicholas Bakalar, was about how chimpanzees found a tree sap that quickly fermented, and produced alcohol.  In West Africa, some villagers took cups and filled them with this sap.  In turn, the chimpanzees stole those cups and drank the sap.  It is reported and observed that they drank in groups and passed around the cup after each chimp has had a sip. Since the sap contains only 3.1 percent alcohol, scientists came to the conclusion that they might be drinking it for a nutritional value.  “Raffia palm sap is rich in sucrose and glucose, and the sugars make it palatable. Whether the pleasant taste motivates the chimps is unknown” said Dr. Kimberley J. Hockings, a behavioral ecologist at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford.

The effect that this research and article has on the world is little to none.  This research does not advance the world in any way, shape or form, except to amuse people.  The story about monkeys getting drunk may liven someone’s day, but beyond that, nothing is accomplished.

I think that this mediocrely written by the author Nicholas Bakalar, because it has good things and bad things.  Some of the bad parts about this article is the writing style and grammar.  There were some instances where the article could have been reorganized to make more sense.  Also, there were some parts of the article that needed less punctuation errors, and the overall grammar of the article needs to be checked.  On the good side, I really liked how the author used direct facts and statistics.  Lastly, I like how the author used direct quotes from professionals and scientists.  Overall, I really thought this article was interesting, even if it was just for fun.

Smells Like Hawaii (and Benzyl Acetate): Revealing the Chemicals in Glade’s Fragrances

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/business/maker-of-glade-to-disclose-chemical-details.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&_r=0

Abrams, Rachel. "Smells Like Hawaii (and Benzyl Acetate): Revealing the Chemicals in Glade’s Fragrances." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 June 2015. Web. 09 June     2015.

This article written by Rachel Abrams discusses the recent release of information from the fragrance company, Glade. They listed the ingredients of their candles, air fresheners, and oils on their website. This includes the chemical benzyl acetate, which is not good for people to inhale. Many people have wanted to know the chemicals in such products. “Fragrance disclosure is a really big deal and consumers have been asking for it for a really long time,” said Janet Nudelman, who is the director of program and policy for the Breast Cancer fund. When Glade released their ingredients the representatives said, “We just feel that transparency in this area is the right thing to do.” Fragrances are usually listed as a fragrance rather than each individual chemical in them.

This article can give people reassurance that their fragrance companies are trustworthy and honest because Glade publicly released the chemical ingredients in their products. This could set a precedent for future companies to be honest with their ingredients.

I think the author could have included more background on this topic other than the one quote about people waiting for this information. More statistics and facts would allow the reader to understand this better. It would also be helpful to know what is going to happen in the future and what the aftermath of this new information was. Otherwise, I think the author did a good job of writing this article.

Long Island Sees a Crisis as It Floats to the Surface

Current Events Article

Martha Thomas

6/8/15

Semple, Kirk. "Long Island Sees a Crisis as It Floats to the Surface." The New York Times. The New York Times, 05 June 2015. Web. 08 June 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/nyregion/long-island-sees-a-crisis-as-it-floats-to-the-surface.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience

The Article “Long Island Sees a Crisis as It Floats to the Surface” by Kirk Semple is an alarming piece.  Recently in Long Island about 100 dead turtles, and many more dead fish washed up on the shores of Long Island.  Even though marine biologists are still analyzing the carcasses trying to discover the cause of all these deaths, they predict that it has to do with the abundance of Nitrogen in the water filtration system, which must have somehow leaked into the Long Island Sound. Because both the fish and turtles had no visible damage scientist concluded that they were poisoned (by nitrogen).  Long Island has seen some sea animals in the past killed due to pollution, but have never witnessed such an epidemic that threatens the sea’s ecosystem so much.  The quickly increasing population in Long Island is a factor that plays into the need for so much filtration, leading to pollution.  Many scientists and government officials are going to extreme measures to ensure the safety of the Long Island Sound environment.  The local government is spending $383 million expanding and improving the sewer system, and Governor Cuomo set up a program at Stony Brook University that will try and create new affordable technology to prevent nitrogen to flow through the filtration systems and into the oceans.  

Climate change is an issue that endangers humans and animals worldwide.  Despite the fact that this is a global problem, here in America we don’t suffer as much from it’s effects.  Most of our goods are imported, and the factories they are made in are located across the world.  We force people living in other places to cope with the pollution that our luxuries cause.  I used to live in Hong Kong, an island South of China.  Hong Kong doesn’t have nearly as many commercial factories as BeiJing or other large Chinese cities, yet it still was greatly affected by the pollution given off by them.  When the API (air pollution index) was over 100, which it was quite frequently, my grade wouldn’t be allowed to go outside to play for recess that day due to the health risks.  People living in other places have to face the consequences of America’s wasteful culture.  The relatively minor pollution and death that Long Island is facing is getting so much attention, yet other places have even worse pollution.  This dying fish incident is an example of how Americans are absorbed in their own relatively minor issues, and can be blind to the great problems in other parts of the world.  

This article was very well written and easy to understand.  It was quite lengthy and provided many details about the causes of this issue and measures the government is taking to fix the issues.  Even though the author provided many important details he could be a bit repetitive at times.   Overall it was a fascinating article.  

The Secret to Aging May Lie in How Our DNA Is Packaged

Park, Alice. "The Secret to Aging May Lie in How Our DNA Is Packaged." Time. Time, n.d. Web.8 June 2015.

In the article “The Secret to Aging May Lie in How Our DNA Is Packaged”, Alice Park describes the discoveries made by scientists at the Salk Institute. A team led by Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte studied patients with Werner syndrome, a disease that rapidly accelerates aging. People with this disease carry cells that have loosely packed chromosomes that are located in the nucleus. This is a result of a mutation of the Werner gene that fails to organize the chromosomes and does not repair mistakes in the DNA replicating process. When scientists removed the Werner gene from a healthy embryonic stem cell, they aged prematurely. Their chromosomes loosened, as they would with a patient with Werner syndrome. Scientists hypothesize that how quickly someone ages depends on how tightly packed the DNA is.

Although this has only been done in a population of stem cells, in the future, this knowledge may develop medical technology to alter the packaging of DNA and slow or even reverse the aging process. However, further research must be done to justify that chromosome instability is the only factor to aging before scientists begin to alter genes in people.

This article was clear as to describing the how the chromosome behaves in a healthy person compared to a patient with Werner syndrome. However, the author did not clearly explain the role of the Werner gene. The author failed to write any statistics, for example, it would have been interesting to know how much quicker cells age without the Werner gene compared to healthy cells. Also, the quotes selected were redundant and did not add anything. Overall, this discovery is very promising and with further development may result in finding ways to lengthen one’s life.

Learning How Little We Know About the Brain

Learning How Little We Know About the Brain

By: James Gorman

By: Monty Howell



I read, “Learning How Little We Know About the Brain” by James Gorman. I thought this was an excellent written article with great facts and wonderful details about the human brain. This article taught me so much about many different areas of the brain. For example, I learned how much we already knew about the human brain, and how we could actually research them. This article focused on many areas. The first area it focused on is the research projects that are going on all around the world, trying to discover new information about the brain. It talked about specific projects and how the government spent up to $4.5 billion dollars on brain research each year. The article also talked about what we still want to know about the brain. Some of the questions posed were, “How is information encoded and transferred from cell to cell or from network to network of cells? Is information encoded differently in different parts of the brain?”. The article then moved into specific people that were researching this topic. For example, Edvard Moser was discussed. He was a nobel prize winner and brought the mathematical skills of a physicist into the field, and is able to plunge into the difficulties of dealing with actual brain experiments. Many different significant scientists and their work in various areas of the field had been discussed in the Article. The article and the research being discussed within in is so important to society. The brain is the controlling part of our body. The brain is the most important and most intelligent piece of our body. It controls everything that we do and how we interact. We know so little about our brain. Learning new things and gaining a better understanding of it is so important. Our brain is the very thing that controls us and obtaining a better understanding of it would be incredible. We are going through and age where we continue to discover information so often. Since so little has been discovered, our generation is going for major and incredible new discoveries about the brain and how it works, which will benefit society immensely.

I thought this article was very well written, although there are areas for improvement. I thought the way the author presented the information throughout the article was very intelligent and well structured. I also liked the way the author used so many specifics. Many different facts and statistics were used as well as specific questions on specific areas of the brain. For example, how larger groups, thousands of neurons, work together  to produce an action? Th article also focused on specific people which really provided great information. The vast use of specifics allowed the article to discuss such a variety of information on different areas of the brain. Although there were some areas where the article could improve. For example the article could be confusing sometimes. It would be so detailed and very in depth and quite confusing. This would make the article very hard to understand at times. If some areas of the article weren’t as confusing and in depth the article would have been a lot easier to process and understand. Overall, this article was extremely well written and contained so much valuable information.