Students please respond to one or more of the following writing prompts with a comment…  Be articulate and defend your position. You may respond to others comments but remember to keep it civil. Your writing response is due Sunday Dec 13th by 9:00pm.

1. What are your thoughts on human cloning?  What do you think about cloning for other animals and plants?  What about cloning lost children or pets?

2. Should employers, insurance companies or the government have access to your DNA profile? What problems do you see solved or created with this access? What about convicted felons or rapists?

3.  Genetic engineering can offer many positive and negative outcomes.  Summarize some of the pros and cons and how you think America will handle these issues?

In this article, scientists in Pennsylvania did research on if certain things in there life could effect their weight. Scientist tested kinds in Switzerland vs. kids in the U.S. They measured breakfast connsumption,exersise,tv viewing time, electronic gaming, parental issues, smokeing. They came to the conclusion that kids in the u.s are more likely to be obese because the get about half the exersise from 1st to 3rd grade as the children from switzerland. More kids play video games, eat less breakfast, get less exersise, and watch about twice as much tv than kids from switzerland. It is neccesary for kids to start exercising at an early age because it will get them in the habbit of doing it.

http://www.healthcentral.com/drdean/408/60891_2.html

Do you think that you could become obese due to watching tv?

Do you think that this article can be proven wrong?

  http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/yep-theres-water-those-lunar-craters

This post is about how the most recent bombing of the moon has found water. Unlike previous bombings that left scientist with there heads hung low. This time the bombing has reveiled about 24 gallons of water. This doesnt seem like alot but now that scientist have found this, they now have the opprotunity for another appolo missoion. These traces can go from tiny little samples, To large amounts. This could lead to lunar caps and ice mining for lunar colonies. More bombings are to come in the future. If more water is found, people could someday live on the moon.

Would you want to live on the moon?

Would you drink the water on the moon?

Title- In 2012, neutinos melt the Earth`s core, and other disasters.

Author- Philip Yam

Publishing date- November 13, 2009.

If you haven`t heard, December 21, 2012 is supposed to be the day that the mayan calendar ends, and therefore ends civilazation as we know it, notwithstanding the fact that the mayan civilazation ended centeries ago.

Lughter erupted in the aduience near the end of the film, thanks to the corny dialogue and maudlin scenes. But if it were an aduience of physicis, there probably would have been laughter in the first five minutes. Noboby wants to take a movie like this seriously, in which digital mayhem is the draw. you can`t take any of the science seriously. Thankfully the movie doesn`t dwell on ancient prediction.

The sun`s 11-year activity cycle reaches a peak in 2012. for some reaon, the neutrinos from the sun start behaving differently, they begin interacting ferquentaly with matter, rather than longley passing through it harmlessly. In the movie “neutrinos”  heat up the earths inner core, causing it to boil. This will destabilizes the overlaying layers(outter core and mantle) making crust buckle, rise and shift by thousands of kilometers. As a result of this, bridges crumble and runways fracture, people scream, puppies live, heros escape, villians try, but die,a nd supporting cast members face their demise.

Questions && Answers

Question- Are there any threats to the earth in 2012?

Answer- Nothing bad will happen to the earth in 2012. Our plant has been etting along just fine for more than 4 billion years and credible scientist worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012

Question- Is there danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?

Answer- Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximantly every 11 years, near these activitys peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time period. and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different then previous cycles throughtout history.

Questions.

1. Do you think the world is really going to end in 2012? why or why not?
2. Have you seen the movie 2012? what did you think of it?

Link to article

*Picture*

A lot of people in the world such as teens and some adults are getting deep into the texting world. Everywhere you go you will see people texting. Malls, stores, streets, and anywhere mainly but the texting has gone to far parents say. Texting has become so addictive that laws are starting to break in about texting while driving is illegal. Schools are debating if they should get rid of the cell phones before entering schools. cell phones and texting has become kaos to the world, accidents every minute because of no paying attention to what your doing and and kids at the age of 8 are getting phones for birthdays and gifts how has cell phones affected the world.

Is texting addictive?Why?

Should cell phones be banned from schools?Why?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=where-does-your-garbage-go

Author: Larry Greenemeier

November 22, 2009

Where do you think your trash goes. Maybe to a dump and stays there for ever? Well the students at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are going to find out. They are putting little tracking devises in electronics to be thrown away, about 3000 in Seattle and New York City.

So while they are tracking them to see if the move they will mark to see where they ended, if the signal is lost like under steel or aluminum they will what to see if it will be put in an more open area. If the item dose not moves they will assume that it will be its final resting place. They are tracking these items with the use of telophone towers to see where they are.

Where do you think all the trash is going to end up? Why?

Do you think we will find something shocking to our government when we find out what?

What will we do about it if its something bad?

If you enjoy eating sushi with tuna in it you might be eating an endangered species of tuna. Studies show that Bluefin tuna is regularly put on the plates of people in New York and Colorado. Bluefin are three species of large, fast-moving, high-energy tuna that can cover great distances in the ocean.  studies showed that nearly a third of the tuna was bluefin (3 Pacific, 12 northern, and 7 southern bluefin tuna). It is very difficult to get reliable information about the species you are eating, especially since the FDA’s approved market name for all eight species of Thunnus is simply ‘tuna’.

Do you think you’ll still eat sushi? 

are you gonna trust labels?

Researchers have been looking into the affects of what green tea does to humans. It has been suggested that green tea gives more energy and boosts your metabolism. Research is still undergoing, and there is no hard evidence but it also my a help reduce your risk of cancer. The substance polyphenol is what can reduce your risk of cancer. Scientists do warn that it is not safe to depend on green tea to heal any diseases, and it is also unsafe to consume to much green tea also.

What do you think about what green tea can do?

Do you think that researchers will find anymore helpful affects green tea has?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/h/health_benefits_of_tea.htm

We all know dogs like to smell just about everything, including other animals’ poo. Now scientists have figured out how to put the canines’ odd pastimes to work to help sniff out the dung of endangered rhinos in Vietnam. The collected dung will help scientists to figure out how many Javan rhinos, also called Rhinoceros sondaicus, remain in the wild. The rhinos were considered extinct on mainland Southeast Asia until hunters in Vietnam killed one in 1988. Now two remaining populations exist, with an estimated 10 individuals in the forests of Vietnam and between 28 and 56 such rhinos on the island of Java, Indonesia. Sarah Brook of WWF (formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund) is the leader of the rhino project in Vietnam. WWF researchers have teamed up with national park rangers to use two detection dogs from the United States to help determine the population of these single-horned rhinos in the forests of Vietnam. The two dogs, a Border Collie named Pepper and a Labrador named Chevy, have been trained to detect the endangered animal’s dung. They would have to be retrained to nose out dung from another species. Once the samples get collected, scientists will analyze them for DNA to determine the sex of that particular animal and ultimately the number of animals contributing to the dung. Hormone analyses could show each animal’s breeding capability, a critical factor for such an endangered population.So far, after five days of surveying the forest area, the canine duo has turned up seven rhino dung samples, the researchers said in a statement today.

By Eric Cisneros

Do you think it will be smart to use dogs for other endangered or even thought extinct animals?

What should scientists do if they do find the javan rhino?

http://www.livescience.com/animals/091120-dogs-sniff-rhinos.html

Frogs leg’s trade has increased which has put frogs in extinction. People are making millions by selling the legs of these animals. As of now there is about more than one third of 6,000 amphibians in risk or gone. Although in some cultures eating these legs are popular they have got to cost 4 dollars a kilogram of legs. But that is only average price. Scientist have found that the reason of frog’s becoming extinct is because of the great number of people buying them for food purpose’s.

Do you think that people should stop eating the legs of frogs?

Do you think we can put a stop to this?

Have you ever thaught of eating or have tried frog legs?

What Really Scares People: Top 10 Phobias – your link goes to a dictionary page- what article did you get this from?

by:Jeanna Bryner

Top 10 Phobias

10. The Dentist:  Between 9% and 20% of Americans say that they don’t jump for joy to go to the dentist, in fact, they say that that is one of thier phobias. Most people who are scared of the dentist won’t go unless they are forced my an excrusciating amount of pain. Some of the factors that keep them from going to the dentist would be the chair, bad experience from the past, fear of injections, or needles, and feelings of helplessness.

9. Dogs: The phobia also known as cynophobia, is typically developed by a terrifing past experience with the animal. Some people however, develop the fear due to the knowlage that dogs sometimes do bite, even though they have never been bitten themselves.

8. Frightful Flight: 25 Million or so people suffer from the fear of flying. This phobia can be classified by two fears. The closterphobia, and the fear of crashing. Reason plays little role in calming such crash fears. The odds are slim.

7. Thunder and Lightning: Thunder and lightning can sometimes lead to a severe breakdown due to severe weather phobia. 73%  of mostly college aged students have a fear of weather.

6. The Dark: For many people, lights out signals immideate distress. In fact, being scared of the dark is most kids’  most common fears.

5. Harrowing Heights: A fear of heights is one of the most common phobias, with an estimation of 3-5% of the population suffering from it. People who are afraid of heights have a tendency to think the bulding to be much taller then it actually is.

4. Other People:  Social Phobia affects about 15 Million American adults, and is not only linked to social speaking. The fear usually begins in adolecense or childhood, mostly around the age of 13.

3. Scary Spaces: About 1.8 American adults suffer from agoraphobia, which is fear of a space or activity where in an emergency, escape might be difficult. Some of the commenly feared spaces or activities are elevators, sporting events, bridges, public transportation, driving, shopping malls and airplanes.

2. Creepy Crawlies: The common fear of spiders, and bugs. It turns out that women are four times more likely to fear and arachnid then men.

1. Slithering Snakes: An extreme fear of snakes is considered one of the most common phobias.

What is your worst fear?

Do you agree with/have most of these phobias?

If you wanted to play a joke on someone and scare them, do you think that you would use one of these phobias?

A new study says that 1 in 10 people who are classified as obese thought they were perfectly fine and didn’t have to lose any weight. “This is a sizable percentage who don’t understand they are overweight and believe they are healthy,” said lead researcher Tiffany Powell. In the study they used 2,056 people who were obese and had an average age of 40. The participants looked at nine different body outlines (1 was the skinniest and 9 was the biggest) then they picked the one that was their ideal figure. the studies on Caucasians show a score of 4 is lean to them, while a 6 indicates a BMI, of 30. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say a score of 30 or above is obese, 25 to 29.9 is overweight, 18.5 to 24.9 is normal, and 18.5 and below is considered underweight. About 8 percent of the obese participants said they thought their body size was smaller than it really was. These people, that have body-size misperceptions, said they thought their bodies looked like a 4 on the figure scale, with an ideal body size of about 5. Other participants were more on target, choosing an average of 6 for current body size and just under a 4 for ideal. In reality, the people who were unaware they were obese had an average BMI of nearly 35, while the others had a BMI of nearly 37. The people with a misperception of their real body size believed they were healthy. But 35 percent of them had high blood pressure, 15 percent had high cholesterol, 14 percent had diabetes and 27 percent were current smokers. These numbers are similar to the ones found for obese people who acknowledged they had a weight problem.

What do you think about obese peoples mind set?

Do you think the obese people truly think they are smaller than they are, or do you think they are just saying that because they don’t want to except the fact that they are overweight.

When wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park they typically lived up to 6 Years. Now thay are not as capable of surviving on their own, because they cant get their pray they live for 2-3 years. The study researchers say the finding challenges a long-held belief that wolves are at the top of their game for their entire adult lives.

Wolves are not perfect predators. They lack physical characteristics to kill prey swiftly, so they rely on athletic ability and endurance, which diminishes with age. They’re like 100-meter sprinters. They need to be in top condition to perform. For the Yellowstone wolves, performing well means hunting elk.  After following the wolves since 1995, the researchers found there isn’t a strong correlation between the number of wolves in the park and the number of elk killed. Rather, elk numbers fluctuate based on the age structure of the wolf population at any given time. So when the wolf population is skewed toward the older animals, over age 3, the elk are killed at a lower rate. For every 10 percent rise in the proportion of wolves older than 3, the kill rate declined 10 percent to 15 percent.

While a high ratio of old-to-young wolves may benefit elk, it could strain the wolf population overall. That’s because when older wolves lose their mojo and can’t hunt successfully, the younger wolves share kill with them.

by LiveScience Staff

Do you think there is another reason that the wolves are dieing at such a young age?What is it?

What do you think we could do to help this problem go down?

   Why is it, that when you get an injury,the area is overly sensitive to touch? A study in mice suggest that when a person has any kind of injury, a broken shin or sunburn, for example, the pain system becomes hypersensitized, causing the nerves to fire up in response to normally pailess sensations for instance, walking or a gentle massage. This tenderness protects the vulnerable tissue as it heals. Occasionally the pain can overstay its usefullness, becoming chronic in conditions such as arthritis.

   The researchers found that fibers, called unmyelinated low-threshold mechanorceptors (C-LTMRS), are easily stimulated, unlike classic pain fibres, which respond only when the sensation is intense. They discovered that these fibres express VGLUT, a protein necessay for the cells to send signals to other neurons.

  Before this study, researchers had demonstrated two ways for animals to become hypersensitization after injury. First, sensory fibres can become more sensitive to stimulation. For example, when a sunburn makes a warm shower feel excruciatingly hot, this is thought to tempature hypersensitization. Second, another set of fibres are believer to be recruited into the spinal cord and pass pain circuit, any sensation the transmit is then perceived as painful. These fibres are important for detecting light touch.

  “We knew these fibres exsisted, but their functions was not at all clear until now.” says neuroscientist Clifford Woolf at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. “The data shows that recruitmenyt of these fibres is a new way of producing mechanical hypersensitivity.

  Have you ever had an excruciating painful injury? What happened?

  Have you ever had a minor inujury that the pain overstayed its usefullness?

There are getting to be alot of video games that are active or making you be active. Motohiko Miyachi said “Energy expenditure is the most important information to measure the effect of video games.” Researchers found that nine activities had less than 2 METs, twenty-three activities had 2-3 METs, nine activities had 3-4 METs, and five activities had more than 4 METs. This means that the light intensity exercise is less than 3.0 METs, moderate intensity is 3.0 to 6.0 METs,and vigorous activity is more than 6 METs.

Wii sports are really a good game to get you active. They have multiple sports and boxing being its most effective game. Wii fit also is like yoga, aerobix excersises and other physical stuff that I think really helps people being more active. More and more people are being overweight and its getting to the point were it extreamly bad in some cases and I think we should do something about it. So next time you want to pick up a regular video game, pick up the wii or another active game.

Have you ever played the wii or other video game that gets you to move and be active? Did you like it?

Do you think games like these are effecting and helping people or just a waste of money?

       Vs    

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/DTC-Genetic-Testing-for-Diabetes-Breast-Cancer-698?campaign=campaign+104+-+genetic+testing&adgroup=ad+group+1&keyword=heart+disease+statistics&match=broad&maxcpc=1.00&kw=81

There are many interesting things our DNA can tell us. Scientists have developed several different ways of querying our DNA for information. For example, they can look at the arrangement of our DNA in chromosomes (a karyotype). They can look for patterns in tiny portions of our genome called short tandem repeats (STRs), which can reveal our paternity and our ancestry. they can test for things that might affect us like bi polar or being deformened. If we are likely to have twins if you are a woman.   

This is just in the works it is highly illegal thing now because of the genetic discrimination. There are some doctors in the United states that are doing this as an underground study to keep the information out of the medical files.

Imagine this a couple who can’t start a family on their own. the doctors go into the women and take an egg and they have the man’s sperm they can go in and change whatever they want to. If there is diabetes in the family they can remove that trait. If bipolar or mental conditions they can go in there and take they out of your DNA. If your living and someone in your family dies from cancer. They can go in and change one of your cells and take out the cancer gene and the cell will mutate and take over all the other cells.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS

should it be legal

Scientist in the article Gene knockout may cheer up mice state that a deletion in a gene in the brain may cause the mice to have disorders. ”We don’t yet know why the deletion of the gene altered the mood status of the mice,” says Wang. Wang says that a certain protein that is encoded by a gene could be a target for developing diagnostic or therapeutic agent that mabe someday could be used for depression, bipolar disorder or possibly schizophrenia(Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder or a group of disorders marked by severely impaired thinking, emotions, and behaviors). They say the “knockout” mice might also be useful, the mice could be used as model to study mania. Researchers discovered the gene while studying the brain cells that respond to oploid drugs,Wang states”I thought [such a] receptor can’t be making the entire change in the body. There must be other proteins,”.Scientist found out at the University of Columbia in New York City have already cloned this gene where they were studying its possible role in cancer.

The scientist are now trying to show us the importance of this protein that may be part of the problem for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and also depression. The problem with this is that bipolar disorder and the other disorders are not yet fully understood.They say it is involved with hereditary.Wang says in her final quote”Although we don’t yet know why the deletion of the gene altered the mood status of the mice, what we have learned about the importance of this gene in mood function and its involvement in human mental disorders is interesting. The protein encoded by this gene could be a potential drug target for development of diagnostic or therapeutic agents that one day might be used for depression, bipolar or schizophrenia disorders. In addition, the knockout mice might be useful as a model to study mania, as there is no other animal model available yet.”

Do you think that bipolar disorder is heredity?

Do you think this test on the mice’s genes in the brain are going to be successful?

Studies have showed that people who text alot can get chronic muscle pains. Texting has the same affect as typing at the computer.  There was a survey sent out asking people to send no message, one to twenty-one, and twenty-one plus messages. Then they were told to point out on a scale how much the pain was. The more the people texted, the higher the pain. But they couldn’t link the two together until they do studies for computer typing too. Texting has the same effect as typing on the computer. And people who thumb text alot have been known to get texting elbow. When texting you sit in the same position as when typing. The only difference is you may be using your thumbs instead of your four fingers.

Does texting have anything to do with pain? Or is it all in there head?

Do you get chronic pain from texting for a long time?

I got this information from http://www.livescience.com/health/091116-texting-pain.html

Posted on November 16th by Andrea Thompson

              The number of women opting for surgery to remove the healthy breast after a cancer diagnosis in one breast is rising,even though there is a lack of evidence that surgery can improve survival. The amount of women that choose to have both breasts removed because of a strong family history of cancer is low and changed little in the last decade.Prophylactic mastectomy which is the removal of a noncancerous breast, is one method for reducing a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. There is little information available on the prevalence of prophylactic mastectomy for preventing breast cancer among high-risk women or on the prevalence of the surgery to prevent tumors in the healthy breast among women whose cancer is only in one breast. In New York state between 1995-2005 using mandated statwide hospital discharge data from the state cancer registryshow that 6,275 female New York residents who went with  prophylactic mastectomies. 81 % of those women had been diagnosed with cancer in one breast, and 19% had no personal history with breast cancer. Over the 11- year study period the prevalence of these contralateral mastectomies more than doubled. Before  a female should really think about it and have counseling about the benefits and risks before they have the prophylactic mastectomy of the other breast.

How do you feel about the prophylactic mastectomy? Is it a good or bad thing?

If you were in the situation or knew someone in the situation what would you do or what   advice would you give the person ?

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prophylactic-mastectomy/WO00060

The color of a male helps increase the ability to attract mates. The color helps them distinguish males of their own species, who are rivals, from those of other species, who are not. Just as there could be selection against mating with the wrong species, there can also be selection against fighting with the wrong species. Fish are another species that do this.When species are found in the same location, they do a better job of telling apart males of their own species from males of the other species than they do in places where they do not occur together. If there is no reason for two species to interact aggressively with each other then you would expect evolution to favor the ability for them to tell the difference by, for example, an exaggeration in the initial difference in color between them.

Some damselflies species also differ more in coloration where they occur together than where they occur alone, but “this finding can be explained either by selection against mating with the wrong species or selection against fighting with the wrong species.In future research, we hope to learn what proportion of species can tell the difference between members of their own species and members of other species and whether they respond more strongly to their own species in a competitive context.

Do You think that animals go for a specific color? Light, Dark, Red, Blue. Why?

Why do you think they are attracted to colors of their mate?

Hormones Give Lantern Sharks the Glow

By Rachel Erhenberg

How would you like to glow? Wouldn’t that make you stick out. Well for the lantern shark, its the exact opposite and it is used for camoflauge.  Scientists have recently discovered the very first animal with bioluminescent abilities that are controlled by hormones. They have narrowed down melatonin, prolactin and alpha-MSH, as the three hormones acting as an on and off switch for the Lantern Shark. In all animals with luminescent abilities before this one,  it has been triggered by nerve cells. However, in the past sharks with this ability that don’t have a direct link between their glowing and their nerve cells have just been assumed that nerve cells were still used. This new discovery may shed some light on how it is really controlled.

Melatonin, a hormone used to controll sleep in humans, was shown to cause long lastng glowing patches on the skin of these sharks. Since this is sensitive to light, when the shark dives deeper into darker waters it will change the color. Prolactin, which plays a large role in reproduction in humans, caused a quicker shine, and may be used to signal other sharks or to find a mate. The third  hormone, alpha-MSH, is responisble for turning off the shine caused be the other two hormones.

In smaller fish, the luminescent ability is almost instantanious, since it is caused by nerves. But, in these sharks it is slower and less finely controlled.

How would you like to glow?

How do you think being able to glow can actually camoflauge the sharks?

A sea-slug is a creature that acts like a plant and it uses solar-power to survive under the water. This tiny little slug has plastids which gets energy from the sun and creates it as food but this slug is different from others plants it also eats alga; it cuts the alga and sucks the cytoplasm out and also uses it for food. The slug needs alga for something else as well, it needs it for photosynthesis to occur.

Do you think if creatures or animals could make there own food we would have more than we have now?

What do you think this really is a plant or a slug?Why?

Original Writer: Ewen Callaway

Originally Posted on: New Scientist

In this article, scientists asked fifteen willing advocates to advert there attention from video games to get an MRI while answering some questions. While they were asking the advocates these questions they were checking to see the scans of brain waves. Looking at these scans scientists agreed on the fact that they try and compare their real lifes with their virtual characters. The reason they do this is because they make a character that they want themselves to be and be able to achieve anything. It is pretty much a morale boost for some people.

Are you addicted to video games?

Do you think this is a good waste of time when you are bored?

I read the article “Whales Are Polite Conversationalists” published by the American Institute of Physics,on October 26,2009,  and I thought it was quite interesting. It said, few of marine biologist at the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center developed a tool that spots rhythms in a crowd of mammals in an ocean. They had a meeting with the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and suggested that whales tend to not over lap their calls with other whales. Natalia Sidoravskaia  from university of Louisiana at Lafayette says, ” In other words, whales are polite listeners; they do not interrupt each other.”

So, Do you think you talk as polite as the whales?

Why do you think they are polite when talking?