HIV Article Response

For years people have struggled with the emotional and physical aspects of HIV. But with modern day technology and medication, people are able to live (for the most part) long and normal lives. Although these medications can lead to a fairly normal life, some recent studies have shown that patients with HIV have similar side-effects as early onset Alzheimer’s. But the big question remains: is it the medication given to help control HIV the problem, or is it HIV itself?  

In the article HIV-related memory loss shares similarity with Alzheimer’s by Katherine Harmon, ideas and evidence are shared that HIV has begun to show similar side effects as early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Although this HIV and Alzheimer’s disease are different conditions, similar connections are being made. For instance both HIV and Alzheimer’s patients exhibit cognitive dysfunction.  In Alzheimer’s disease, the spinal fluid also shows low levels of beta amyloid protein, much like some cases of HIV. However one major difference between the two is that the brain tissue in each disease is significantly different from the other. For example the article states that, when comparing the two brains, the patient with early onset Alzheimer’s disease has excess amount of plaques and tangles characteristics of Alzheimer’s while the patients’ brain with HIV does not. Another controversy mentioned in her article is that the cause of the cognitive dysfunction in HIV may be due to the virus itself or to the antiretroviral drugs to help control the virus. Although this is one interesting point, one scientist noted that cognitive dysfunction has been seen in HIV patients who have not received medical treatment for the virus. This suggests that the virus itself may very well cause the dysfunction. Due to these two controversies further research needs to be done.  

               

  After reading this article, it really solidified how much HIV can impact a person. I always knew that HIV came with harsh side effects, both physically and emotionally, and that people have struggled with it for years. However, I had no idea that HIV could go as far as impacting your memory. Knowing this just increases the importance of my values to stay abstinent until marriage. Though I am often made fun of for this value of mine, I feel better knowing that I am reducing my risk of contracting HIV and that I am keeping myself farther away from a life changing and life threatening disease. 

To read the article please click here.

Cloning

The Shakespearean Approach to Love

In our current high speed, non-stop daily lives we find it hard to  even get just a minute or two to sit down and eat, so how are people expected to spend time working on relationship problems? If only there was a simple way to fix those problems. Well according to scientists, there may soon be an easy fix to “solving troubles of the heart.”

In the article Love Potions Could Soon Help Soothe the Pains of Romance by Ian Sample, Sample talks about how scientists have been coming up with a “potion” to help people fall back into love. According to Larry Young, “greater understanding of the brain chemistry of love has revealed hormones that could be given to couples to rekindle faded passions or diminish problematic feelings.” He also states that “scientists are close to reducing the mental state of love to a biochemical chain of events, paving the way for powerful new treatments for the lovelorn.”  This potion would use two hormones, oxytocin and vasopressin which have been found to be crucial in creating a close bond with another person.  Even though the potion has still not been created, scientists hope to create it soon to help couples who are struggling. Although this might sound ideal and perfect for relationship problems, how do we know it works? We don’t. There is no proof that this will work. Even if it does work, there is no evidence proving that you will be attracted to the same person. So why spend all this time trying to create it. The answer is simple: it will give us an easy way to find and maintain love.

One thing I will take away from this article is how people are so unwilling to work for something they want. In our society, people nowadays are getting so used to just getting what they ask for or always having an easy access to what they need/want so that when the time comes for them to actually have to work for something they easily give up. Although I am still very young and am not some marital counselor, one thing I have noticed is that people have to work for love. It is not something that just can just take a “potion” for and it will be fixed. It is something people spend years to find and something they spend years to perfect. And although it doesn’t always work out, it is that one thing that keeps us as humans going. So I feel that no matter what scientists think and say, you can’t force someone to love you; you have to work for it. No potion is going to help.

To read this article, click here.

Project Innocence

Dean Cage was convicted of a sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl in 1994. Because he was African-American, about six feet tall, had a beard, and was around 25-30 years old he was convicted of the crime because he fit the 15-year-old girl’s description of her attacker. After serving 2 years in a Cook County jail cell, on October 21, 1996 he was charged with 40 years in prison. In 2005, the Innocence Project accepted his case and found him to be innocent through testing the attacker’s cells on the victim’s clothes and comparing them to Cage’s cells. He was then released on May 27, 2008 after serving almost 14 years in jail and prison.

 DNA testing has dramatically changed and progressed over the past century. In the 1900’s, DNA testing consisted of matching blood types. It then quickly changed to methods with higher powers of exclusion with HLA and serological tests. In the1970s, there were rapid developments in DNA technologies. In the 1980s, scientists began to see DNA attributes as an opening to studying biological relationships. These tests eventually led scientists to DNA fingerprinting which can identify your family, identify a body and even solve crimes.

  One thing I am taking away from this story is the importance of modern day science and justice system. Before this project, I never realized how many people are accused of crimes they did not do and how long they have to serve for someone else’s actions. My appreciation for this justice system has grown immensely by its ability to cut down bias opinions and free those who are living their life in a cell because of something they never did.

Citations:

"Developing DNA Testing - The Path of DNA Technology over Time." DNA Junction - Your Resource for DNA Testing Information. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. http://www.dnajunction.com/history/new-dna-technology.php.

"DNA Testing: Paternity Tests, Forensics, and Identification." WebMD - Better Information. Better Health. Web. 05 Dec. 2011.  http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/dna-fingerprinting.

Lucy the Chimpanzee

This story of Lucy follows a young chimp that was raised from a baby by a psychotherapist and a social worker who she viewed as her parents. This story shows the amazing capabilities chimpanzees have to adapt to a lifestyle they were never supposed to live. Eventually Lucy’s parents could no longer care for her and had to release her into the wild with a woman named Janis Carter to watch over her. Here Lucy could not adapt and couldn’t even function as a chimp. Janis moved her and several other chimps like Lucy to an island to allow them to cope and adapt more easily. There all the chimps could adapt and fend for themselves. In the end Lucy was killed by what they think to be poachers because of her friendliness towards humans.

Lucy was adopted by her two parents just weeks after she was born. At just one year of age, she could hold her own bottle and feed herself. By the age of 2 and 3, she could sit at the table, use silver wear, get dressed herself, make her own tea, read magazines, comfort those who were sad and even lie. At age 5, they began to teach Lucy sign language so she could communicate with others. She even started to make up new words for objects she didn’t know the name of. By age 10, she was no longer a chimp. Lucy was attracted to humans, acted like humans, and was even treated like a human. At age 10, her parents could no longer care for her and released her in the wild in Africa under the watchful eye of Janis Carter. Here Lucy could not survive. She got skin infections, lost her hair and was starving because she did not know how to get her own food. She simply didn’t know how to be a chimp. After a month or so of this, Janis moved her and several other chimps that were raised like Lucy to an abandoned island. Here the chimps still struggled to adapt and were only interested in Janis’s food and materials. In reaction to this, Janis built a cage for her to live in so she could watch over the chimps, but they could not come in contact with her. Soon enough all the chimps lost interest in Janis and began to fend for themselves. Although it took Lucy longer to adapt, even she began to lose interest and started living like a chimp. With this accomplishment, Janis then left. When Janis returned to the island several years later to check on Lucy, all she found were Lucy’s bones lying where Janis used to stay. Although they are unsure as to what happened, they believe she was most likely poached. Now Janis lives and works in Gambia to protect chimps and their fate.

One thing that I learned from Lucy is to have a greater appreciation for other species. As humans, we tend to look at ourselves as the only intelligent or important species out there. However, this is not true.  Chimps are our closest living ancestor and are usually underestimated of their intelligence and capability. We as humans need to accept this and take in to consideration how we treat them and what we do to them.

To hear the full broadcast, please click on the link below:

http://www.radiolab.org/popup_player/

I am sophomore at Animas High School and this is my first year taking Biology. This blog will be showing most of the work we are doing in class and will have my responses and opinions on different writings we read. Enjoy!