http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/world/asia/tested-section-of-new-high-speed-rail-track-disintegrates-in-china.html?_r=1&ref=railroads


Railroads:

Clean Hands, Clean World

This article is about how easy it is to get germs or bacterias and asks readers to make a change and start washing their hands with soap. The article says that it doesn’t matter how many times you wash your hands, it’s never going to be 100% clean from germs. This article is very useful because with it we can see the many things we can go to avoid germs and with that, we also avoid getting sick and pass diseases to others.

That can cause us infections and there are two main classes of infections those that you get from the things around you; and those that are associated with you getting some health care, such as in a hospital. First, community-based infections, if we compare school kids who wash their hands four times each day, with kids that don't wash their hands at all. We can see that the ones who wash their hands have 24 % fewer sick days due to infections, and 51% few days off due to stomach problems. So this article suggests us to wash our hands at least 3 times a day.

This article also talks about how infections can affect our health conditions and how we hospitals affect you from picking up an infection in a hospital if you don’t take care of washing your hands when touching in things that are not clean etc. “One out of every 136 hospital patients gets seriously ill from picking up an infection in a hospital, which works out to 2 million cases each year. Out of those, about 80,000 people die.” So we can see that lots of people die because of infections in hospitals and also outside of hospitals.

Lots of bad things have happened. In a nursery with 45 healthcare workers, one person who was a carrier for antibiotic-resistant golden staph did not wash their hands — and they set off an epidemic. In another hospital, a single respiratory therapist had chronic sinusitis with antibiotic-resistant golden staph. And because they did not wash their hands, and set off a hospital-wide epidemic that infected 32 people. So we have to be careful and always wash your hands.

This article is also telling people to help this foundation that makes people more aware of that. I really liked this article and it interests me because its something that I and my family are aware of. We wash our hands every time we go eat. And I lot of people are not aware of that and don’t wash their hands that often and they may get infections because of these bacteria that we can’t see and that are hard to take away from our hands. We have to use soap and the right temperature so they go away.

I think that my brother had a type of infection because of not washing his hands and also by walking around the house without shoes. Like we saw in this article, many people die because of simple infections. There are more than 2 million cases every year and out of those, 80,000 people die. So we have to be aware and do our best not to have these problems and infections on our lives.

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2012/03/05/clean-hands-clean-world-takes-aim-at-hand-washing-giveaway/ 

Rafaela de Figueiredo

This article talks about climate coolers. It was written by Stephen Omes on January 25, 2012. This article talks about methane; a not very known thing about methane is that it traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere (greenhouse effect) more than 20 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide. But unlike carbon dioxide, methane stays in the air for only 12 years.

So, scientists say that if we bring down methane emissions, we would have a slow temperature increase caused by global warming. So, that would help a lot. The black particles spewed from fires into the air can help. If people would reduce the amount of methane and soot that end up in the atmosphere, we would have more than half degree Celsius every year and the amount of global warming predicted to happen in 2050 would degrease a lot.

And not only slowing down warming, but reducing methane would clean up the air “The scientists estimate that better air quality could prevent between 0.7 million and 4.7 million deaths per year that would otherwise have been caused by air pollution.”

“If you were to cut out these emissions, you might actually get a warming effect instead of a cooling effect,” Forster told Science News.

Scientists know that people get curious about this cleaner to slow climate temperatures. But maybe the world can get a head start on cutting on methane and soot.

Most articles about global warming talk about carbon dioxide, but there is more to it. That is not the only gas that accumulates in the atmosphere and insulates the planet. Methane also traps heat in Earth{s atmosphere. More than twine times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide. But unlike carbon, which can stay on Earth for hundreds of years, methane is in the air for only 12 years. So reducing methane might be the head start to solving a big problem.

This article interested me because, well it’s about effects that will lead us to global warming and it’s about my future. About what will happen if we don’t do something right now. My family has been concerned about global warming and carbon dioxide emissions. We know that this is real and it’s happening right now. We started recycling this year because of so many reasons and we are now more aware of what is happening to our world.

The areas of interaction that is being used on this article is Environments, Health and Social Education and Community and Service as well because it is happening on our environment and it is a effect of what we are doing for this to be happening. It has to do with health and social education because we are learning about this problem and the whole purpose of wanting to clean and cool up the air is for us to have a better life. And this also relates to community and service because there are people out there, wanting to make a change and making things and planning projects for us to change and for everyone to  just live on a better world.

Words:

Methane: A colorless, odorless, flammable gas that is the main constituent of natural gas. Methane is a greenhouse gas, sometimes produced in the air when natural gas does not burn completely.

Carbon dioxide: A colorless, odorless gas produced by burning carbon and organic compounds and by respiration. It is naturally present in air and is absorbed by plants in photosynthesis.

Greenhouse gas: A gas that contributes to Earth’s greenhouse, or warming, effect by absorbing heat.

Soot: A black, powdery or flaky substance consisting largely of carbon, produced by the incomplete burning of organic matter, such as coal and wood.

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/01/climate-coolers/

Scientists Use Clones to Extract Stem Cells

Rafaela de Figueiredo

The name of this article is "Scientists Use Monkey Clones to Extract Stem cells" it was written by Gina Kolata. This article talks about researches in Oregon about using cloning to produce monkey embryos and then extracted stem cells from these embryos.

These research has been tested only in mice, but scientists say that the same method should work on humans. In 2004, South Korean researchers reported that if we make stem cells from cloned human embryos, they will not work. But now, with new technology we could do that and scientists are quite sure that it will work on humans.

So, the article talks about this monkeys’ stem cells that are identical to an adult monkey Semos. These cells, are ones that can in theory, develop into any tissue or organ.

Medical researchers groups have hoped to use human embryonic stem cells to study diseases and try to supply new cells to treat these diseases. So far, stem cell research has not created cures, and many problems are yet to solve.

A benefit of using cloning to get stem cells is that they would genetically match a patients cells, making it pointless to destroy the immune system if the stem cells are used in a treatment. Cloning could also produce stem cells that match patients with difficult diseases, like Alzheimer’s. That might let scientists study cells to understand how these types of diseases develop.

With the monkey research, some scientists say that cloned human embryonic stem cells could become true. There is no way to know whether this will be harder or easier to repeat this process on. “The next step is definitely doing it in humans.” - said Dr. Leonard Zon, director of the stem cell program at Harvard’s Children’s Hospital

This is something unbelievable. Imagine what it will happen if this turns out to work on humans. We could cure several diseases that nowadays seem impossible to cure. How many people have died because of Parkinson’s disease, heart diseases, stroke, cancer etc. Stem cell research can help treat lots of medical problems. It could lead humanity closer to a good treatment and possibly cure a number of diseases. The treatments of these diseases could also give major social benefits for these patients.

I have heard about lots of cases of people that have diabetes. Lots of people in my family have diabetes and the stem cell research could also help with the treatment of diabetes. My heart breaks every time I see my grandmother not been able to eat what she would like to eat or not being able to cure herself easily not even with medical help.

People that have cancer would be able to do things they can’t do. This is huge! I really hope this turns out to be a success I hope that they can use clones to extract stem cells if it is the best thing to do. I am positive that the world will be a better place if this turns out to be a triumph.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/science/15primate.html?ref=cloning

Blood Type Diet

Rafaela de Figueiredo
Mr. Wilkinson
MYP Biology
August 30, 2011

Blood Type Diet

This article is about a new research, which implies that every type of blood has a different type of diet. For example people that has blood type "O" should eat things that will make them healthier like meat. They are different from people with type “A” that should eat more beans and vegetables etc. It doesn’t mean that if a person with blood type "O" eats chicken they are going to die. It just says that there are different types of food that are more helpful to them then it is to others. The man who started this research was Dr. Peter DÁdamo, he discovered that for the most part our immune systems protect you from lectins. “Ninety-five percent of the lectins you absorb from your typical diets are sloughed off by the body. At least five percent of the lectins you eat are filtered into the bloodstream and different reactions in different organs.” (Michael Lam - a specialist in Preventive and Anti-Aging Medicine.) Dr. Peter DÁdamo started this in 1980, it was actually his father’s research and after his father died he became a naturopathic physician, and continued the research. He also wrote a book called "Eat Right 4 Your Type." to show his work. "So, when you eat a food containing protein lectins that are incompatible with your blood type antigen, the lectins target an organ or bodily system and begin to agglutinate blood cells in that area." (Michael Lam - specialist in Preventive and Anti-Aging Medicine)

It might be crazy when you think about it but maybe there might be some connection to what happens in our DNA. His work wasn’t confirmed yet and if it is true everyone in the world should be following their type of blood to what they eat. People would be healthier. I was interested on this article because someone had told me about this new diet but I didn’t really know what it was about. I hope they make this research more elaborate so people could actually follow this. This relates to me because I want to be a healthier person. I see lots of people not eating any kind of vegetable or anything that is healthy. When I go to the cantine I usually see people asking for French fries and pasta every day.

The areas of interaction that can be used to view this article would be "Health and Social Education" and/or "Community and Service" I think it would be health and social education because well, we are trying to get healthier and lots of people around the world don’t know how to eat. It social education they are not educated to eat certain things and it is also kind of community and service because we are all trying to help people. About one-third of U.S. adults are obese and approximately 12.5 million of them are children and adolescents so, they have to learn how to eat, be healthy not have issues and sicknesses and health problem. We don’t want that for us.

http://www.drlam.com/blood_type_diet/print/blood_o.htm