A Tribute to Extinct Plants

As my last post was pretty pointless, I decided to do another post that is awesome. As today is Earth Day, I created a little tribute to extinct plants of Africa and North America. There is a lot of attention on endangered animals, but not nearly enough attention on endangered plants and fungi. The power-point is below. I hope that in future weeks, I can do more plants from Asia, Oceania, South America, and Europe.

-Mister Pip (DZ)

The Black Death...And the Bloody One

Plague is caused by Yersina Pestis. It's transmitted mainly by fleas and has a rodent reservoir...which means that plague's here to stay. If we can get rid of or vaccine EVERY SINGLE RAT ON THE PLANET, then sure we can get rid of plague.
Eventually.
On a brighter note, plague is becoming antibiotic-resistant!
Oh, that wasn't good. My bad.
Anyway, plasmids (DNA in circles instead of strands) containing the genes necessary for antibiotic immunity are frequently transferred to the plague bacterium in the flea midgut. Flea has resistant genes. Flea eats plague. Plauge gets resistant genes.
And in case you're worried, here are the symptoms!
Three to seven days after infection you become feverish, nauseous, and experience chills, fever, head/body aches, weakness and vomiting. In the most common form of plague, bubonic, the Yersinia pestis bacillus replicates in your lymph nodes, inflaming them to create "bubos".
These things hurt and sometimes burst, creating open, festering sores.

Isn't nature lovely?


And if that wasn't all, here's the bloody death to cheer you up!

Ebola is caused by an RNA virus. RNA is what came before DNA, but in this case, it does the same thing. It was first seen in Africa and causes illness in primates and humans. We don't know what the reservoir of the virus is yet, but there is strong evidence to suggest that it is an animal native to Africa.

The first infection (we think) results from contact with an infected animal. The next wave is when other people are infected. These people are usually the ones who care for the ill person i.e. their friends, parents, and/or doctors.

Just so you don't accidentally care for one of these unfortunates, here are the disputably worse symptoms!

After two to twenty-one days, headache, joint/muscle aches, fever, sore throat and weakness appear.

Isn't this sounding familiar.

Next comes vomiting (the similarities abound), diarrhea, and stomach pain. In some patients, rashes, red eyes, hiccups and internal/external bleeding is present. Death can be caused by "bleeding out"; this is when the internal organs disintegrate into blood and leave the body through any orifice. It's not understood why some people recover and others do not, but it has been observed that those deceased had very few antibodies in their bloodstream...Ebola attacks quickly.

And now that we've outlined the symptoms, which would you prefer? The black death...or the bloody one?

-[Asian X]

Plague info

Ebola info

Now You're Thinking with Portals!

Cave Johnson here!

After quite a few years of waiting, the highly-anticipated sequel to one of the best games of the early 2000s finally arrived on Tuesday, April 19th. It was met with very high reviews from several professional review sites. Many fans have also voiced their approving opinions on the game, especially after the intense ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that led up to the release of Portal 2.

The great thing about Portal is that it's a puzzle game from a first person perspective. The humorous dialogue and intensely creepy robot villain GLaDOS keep the game moving along at a nice pace. The voice acting in the game is superb. Cave Johnson, the ever-enigmatic, somewhat`disheveled former CEO of Aperture Science may be the best part of Portal 2.

Portal 2 is not just a well-written game but a well-designed one too. The environments are similar to the last game but feature more dynamic lighting. Since it's been a few years after the end of the first Portal, the test chambers have become somewhat overgrown. The design of each test chamber is incredibly well-thought out and unique -- it's not something you'd see in most futuristic first-person-shooters. The archaic lower-depths of the testing facility are also beautifully eerie.

My advice?

Buy it.

Science v Technology Definitions

So this issue has been bothering me for a long time: the difference between Science and Technology. Many people think they understand the difference, but I have been seeing more and more cases of confusion between the two words. So here's the two definitions:

Science - The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment

Technology- The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes.

So pretty simple, science is the study of learning about our world (and space) through observation and experimentation. Technology is using science. So technology can be gizmos and gadgets like we usually think, but it can also be just using science in our everyday life. Identifying plants from scientific research is technology. Though it is not an incredibly advanced item, it is still part of what technology is. Now that, that's cleared up, I think it's important to understand how both are practical in our everyday life. Many could say that we never actually use science, itself , but we use the information from it in all of our technology. Without science we could not advance in society, but the actual information we acquire from scientific study is essential.

Leads

Startling Statement


Across from me sits a man twice escaped from jail. His tanned skin shows years of sun. You'd never know it, but this man has graduated medical school and served in the army. Because of that, he was sent to jail. He would have been safe if he'd served in the North Vietnamese army.

Startling Statement


After escaping to Laos, Steven Hoang is sent back to jail. As a doctor, you wouldn’t think that he’d be in jail. But this isn’t America. In Communist Vietnam, anything goes.

Narrative


It's scorching outside, but there is an abundance of water. Unfortunately, it's all salt. The tepid breeze ruffles the sea as the boat drifts along, the last of the fuel dribbling out of the rent in its side. Quietly the thousands of men and women crouch, driven to exhaustion by the lack of supplies.

-[Asian X]

Mister Pip's Leads

Twist:

Being one with the animals and understanding their life. She ventured into a difficult field, that few take on. She's not an adventurer nor an explorer, in fact she's not even exploring extreme dangers. No, Brittaney Hopkins, is a teacher.

Startling;

Earlier this year, Britanny Hopkins found out that her services will no longer be needed at LASA High School. After only one year of being a teacher she is losing her job, and will be forced to find work elsewhere.

Descriptive:

Her room says everything about her. A calmness in the air layers the small shrieks coming from the parrot next door. Her room is greeted with the friendly words of _______(need to fact check)_______. Nothing though expresses herself as much as the biology and teaching material dispersed across the room.

Dem Leads

Dialogue:

When most people are asked what their favorite teaching moment was, they usually reply with some big teaching triumph. Amanda Walker, however, thinks differently.

"The moment I remember most of all in the classroom was I had a kid who suddenly just vomited on another kid in class."

Startling Statement:

"The first time I ever stepped in to a public school was my first day as a teachers."

Descriptive:

The parrot squawks in it's cage as students hurriedly copy notes down from Ms. Walker's chalkboard. She lectures sternly, but with a calm and understanding undertone. All the students pay their utmost attention. By the end of a class, all of the kids have learned an entire new concept from their favorite teacher.

Srta. Hopkin's Interview

The interview was really interesting. Unforunately I could not interview Mr. Ridley, who I had originally intended to interview, but I ende up interviewing my Science teacher, Ms. Hopkins. the interview was slightly different than interviews I have done in the past, just because most of the interviews I have done in the past have been for Journalism. In Journalism, interviews are usually rather short, as you are getting information from numerous sources. In E-zine, as I am writing a feature story, I had to ask a lot more questions for just one person. I had the interview in the morning at about 7:45 am and finished by about 8:10 and had just enough time to get to class. It was very kind of Ms. Hopkins to be willing to be interviewed on such short notice. So I started off the interview by asking her how she got into Biology and teaching. At first, on a few questions, I'm afraid I cut her off. Then there was one question where she was giving a really good answer, and I knew I would have plenty of great quotes, but than a student interrupted for about 2 minuets, and after that we just went on to the next question. I was slightly disappointed. i did ask her about the budget cuts and the staff cuts, after asking her permission, and she gave me some good answers. I ended my interview by asking her what her favorite chromosome was. After looking in her copy of Genome that was lying nearby, she said Ch. 2, as it is responsible for our evolution from chimps. Very neat.

Interviews

I interviewed my grandfather. He was a doctor in the South Vietnamese army. Originally, I had wanted to interview my mom about coming to America (They jumped onto a boat and then drifted, starving, for days), but she convinced me to interview my grandfather instead. Since he lives several hundred miles away and his first language is, you guessed it, Vietnamese, I decided to email him instead of actually going to talk to him in person.

The issues:

Most of the questions had a one-sentence response, mainly because they were redundant in relation to the answer to the previous question. In addition, there were a lot of questions that my grandfather hadn't thought to elaborate upon. If I had been there in person, I could've asked related questions and been done a bit faster.

The benefits:

I didn't have to transcribe, always a plus, and, unlike some people, my grandfather is very prompt in his replies. He also elaborated very well, with many quotes I'll be able to use.

I learned a lot of things during my interview. Firstly, my grandfather had been jailed and then escaped. Secondly, my grandfather had been jailed and then escaped.

Yes. It happened not just once, but twice. The second time he was under high-security watch, too. My mom provided some explanations and she had a lot of stories to tell about leaving Vietnam too, which helped a ton. For example, I'm sure the jail conditions were horrendous, but the jailers weren't too smart. They were kids, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and they were neither the best nor the brightest; the best, the brightest and the experienced were need on the battlefield. If you were determined and resourceful (like my grandfather), you could escape from jail twice.

More info on Vietnam

Info on Ho Chi Minh (the person, not the city)

Oh, and I DO NOT in any way, shape or form, endorse this man or anything he embodies.

-[Asian X]

Interview

So, this week we conducted our interviews for our feature pieces. For mine I interviewed Ms. Walker, a biology teacher at our school. That wasn't the hard part. Unfortunately, the first two people I contacted to interview (Cory Doctorow and Scott Westerfeld (hallowed be their name, would be more hallowed if they actually responded. But I digress) have still not responded. So, I settled for a boring old teacher. Or so I thought.

It turns out that Ms. Walker is a very interesting teacher. She had her parrot on her shoulder during the interview, which was entertaining. to be honest, I was fairly intimidated, interviewing a teacher of such incredible prestige.

Anyway, back to the other two people. I emailed Cory originally because I love his books. He also provides them for free in multiple formats. So, I sent my email off, excited. And then, I waited. And waited. And waited.

I kept waiting until the weekend before the interview was due. Since I hadn't heard back, I emailed another author (Scott). He didn't respond either. The day before due date, Mister Pip had the idea to interview Ms. Walker. And so I did. I interviewed her the day the interview was due during lunch. It was awesome!

Iraqi Air

Courtesy wired.com

The gunfire rattles overhead as you hear the blades of a helicopter turn in swirls of angry diligence. Grenade shrapnel stings the air with shards of fiery metal, and smoke exhaust from tanks and other motorized vehicles fill your senses with foul matter produced by machines.

This is a problem with the air in Iraq. The fights and skirmishes here involving heavy artillery are filling the air with pollutants like metal fragments and other bad particles. The soldiers are breathing these in, and report "increased wheezing, coughing, allergy symptoms and chest pain."

Another large contributing factor to the air pollution is the fact that Iraq still uses a lot of leaded gasoline, which produces many pollutants and small particles. The natural dust storms (which occur about twenty times per year) also raise buried/settled particles from the ground and throw them near or into the soldiers.

We need to be protecting our soldiers. The wounds they get (if any) should be from enemies, not their environment. They're brave enough to risk their own well-being for us, and the least we could do would be to protect their respiratory system as well.

For more on this subject, check out the article on Wired here.

-Cambium

April Fools? Not Today

 On April Fool's Day, there was a lockdown that was no joke. In the joint highschools of LASA and LBJ, it was reported that a gang known as 'GMB' entered the school building to attack a kid. This teenager and one other wound up in a fight with eight of the gang members. As stated by one teacher, "I'd seen <him >walking around and I wanted to know why he was out of class...I knew something was up."

At present, it is still unrevealed why the gang wanted to stage an attack, or why they came in such large numbers to fight one individual.

-Asian X

Cigarette Gene?

I'm not sure if all of my readers are aware of this, but there have been a group of article published recently, discussing genes that can lead to smoking risk. On reading the title, I was a little confused, because I always though that smoking was cause by beginning to smoke at a young age, and from there getting an addiction. After reading the article, here's what I found:

There are two sets of genes, that can make a person three times more likely to become a regular smoker in high school and two times as likely to carry it on into adulthood. Now, obviously, one gene is not going to stick a cigarette in your mouth, and the other gene is not going to light up. No, what the genes simply do is create a stronger addiction to smoking, once someone does start smoking. So I guess the simple answer is that if you don't want to become addicted to smoking, Don't Smoke. Scientist are now trying to develop test to tell someone's nicotine suceptibility. I don't really understand the purpose of the test. it seems taht a person that goes to the length to test their nicotine suceptability would have no desire to smoke in the first place. Oh well. if you'd like to read more you can read the full article in Biological Psychiatrist.

-Mister Pip