CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (V)

Marc Dorca Fernàndez

Scientific shield: dogs
30/11/2014

Summary:
When we hear somebody talking we distinguish the different parts of speech through the right hemisphere specializes in emotions , feelings , and nonverbal visual and audio skills, among others; and the left , which deals with articulate speech , phonemic awareness , and verbal memory. The animals also respond to these trends of language used by each species, but what about the animals that have been exposed to human speech during domestication ? British scientists demonstrate for the first time that dogs are also able to differenciate and process the different components of human speech .To check how dogs process sound , scientists installed two digital speakers to five feet on each side of the dog so that , by releasing the sound, this entered simultaneously in each ear. During the experiment , performed with 25 dogs , scientists sent different signals , resulting in a greater importance to verbal content and , in others, aspects such as entonation.

Critical Apraissal:
I think that it's good that people knows how dogs can understand us and where we can find their limit. When you know how can you communicate with animals, the train is easily and faster. If we know more about animals, maybe we will can have a better relationship with our pets and animals in general.

Glossary:
Phonemic awareness: is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes  the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning.

Cerebral hemisphere: The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres has an outer layer of grey matter, the cerebral cortex that is supported by an inner layer of white matter. Each one has got a different work.

http://noticiasdelaciencia.com/not/12048/los-perros-distinguen-los-diferentes-componentes-del-habla-humana/

CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (V)

Obama to Introduce Sweeping New Controls on Ozone Emissions

The New York Times                                                                                                                        25/11/14

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/us/politics/obama-to-introduce-sweeping-new-controls-on-ozone-emissions.html?ref=space&_r=0

SCIENTIFIC SHIELD: Environment

SUMMARY:

The Obama administration is expected to release on Wednesday a contentious and long-delayed environmental regulation to curb emissions of ozone.

The regulation would aim at smog from power plants and factories across the country, particularly in the Midwest.

Public health groups have lobbied the government for years to rein in ozone emissions and said the regulation was one of the most important health decisions Mr. Obama could make in his second term.

But industry groups say that the regulation would impose unwieldy burdens on the economy, with little public health benefit.

CRITICAL APPRAISAL:

Is good to seeing the Obama's government worrying about the environment. It means that thing are changing, that we are building a new world without pollution. Even though it have taken too much time beginning this ozone regulation.

 The measures are taken will be a good example that what the other countries have to do, pollute less.

GLOSSARY:

Ozone:  Is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula OO2.   Is a powerful oxidant (far more so than dioxygen) and has many industrial and consumer applications related to oxidation. This same high oxidizing potential, however, causes ozone to damage mucous and respiratory tissues in animals, and also tissues in plants, above concentrations of about 100 ppb. This makes ozone a potent respiratory hazard and pollutant near ground level. 

Smog: Smog is a type of air pollutant. Modern smog, as found for example in Los Angeles, is a type of air pollution derived from vehicular emission from internal combustion engines and industrial fumes that react in the atmosphere with sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine with the primary emissions to form photochemical smog. 

Power plants:  power station (also referred to as a generating station, power plant, powerhouse or generating plant) is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power.At the center of nearly all power stations is a generator, a rotating machine that converts mechanical power into electrical power by creating relative motion between a magnetic field and a conductor.

CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (V), by Marina Dorca

CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (V), by Marina Dorca

News' title: Can soft drinks speed aging?

Date of publication: 25^th of November, 2014

Source of information: Student Society for Science:

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/can-soft-drinks-speed-aging

Scientific field: Biology (biomedicine)

Extract:

This article talks about an study which investigates the damage soft drinks can cause. They've found out that it fattens, and that it can boost the risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart and liver disease,...).

The study started with an hypothesis that shorter telomeres raise a person's risk fpr such diseases and for some cancers. Then, to check if that was true, they made a health data with different adult people (aproximately 140000). This survery concluded with the evidendce that drinking 8 ounces of soda daily added 1,9 years of cellular aging.

Soda cans

More examples of soft drinks

Critical appraisal:

In my opinion, I really value such news, as they are great information for improving our health habits. Moreover, these studies are good for warning people of the effects of eating certain foods or drinks in large quantities, and eventually making them think of changing his food habits.

On the other hand, we don't have to believe this studies 100%, as there are also other variables that aren't the subject of study but still could have influenced the results of the survey. For this reason, we have to be critical with such results, because they may not always show exactly the relation between two variables, but the result of a mix of lots of other secondary aspects. Besides, I think that multinationals that commercialize soft drinks make pressure on media because they don't want people to read this kind of news. This is because they fear that this researches, which show that soft drinks are bad for health, could decrease their revenues. I find this action egoist, because they put their economic interests ahead of the health of people.

Video:

This video shows why soft drinks are bad for you from a biological and chemical view.

 

Glossary:

carbonation The process of pumping carbon dioxide into a liquid, to imbue that liquid with bubbles. It gives the now-carbonated liquid a fizzy taste.
chromosome A single threadlike piece of coiled DNA found in a cell’s nucleus. A chromosome is generally X-shaped in animals and plants. Some segments of DNA in a chromosome are genes. Other segments of DNA in a chromosome are landing pads for proteins. The function of other segments of DNA in chromosomes is still not fully understood by scientists.
constituent An ingredient or building block of some material.
epidemiologist Like health detectives, these researchers figure out what causes a particular illness and how to limit its spread.
fructose A simple sugar that (along with glucose) makes up half of each molecule of sucrose, also known as table sugar.
liver An organ of the body of animals with backbones that performs a number of important functions. It can store fat and sugar as energy, breakdown harmful substances for excretion by the body, and secrete bile, a greenish fluid released into the gut, where it helps digest fats and neutralize acids.
nucleotides The four chemicals that link up the two strands that make up DNA. They are: A (adenine), T (thymine), C (cytosine) and G (guanine). A links with T, and C links with G, to form DNA.
telomere A natural protective “cap” on the ends of chromosomes, made by successions of a six-nucleotide sequence of chemicals. This chemical sequence is found only on the ends of chromosomes. It’s known as TTAGGG, where each T corresponds to a molecule of thymine, each A is a molecule of adenine and each G is a molecule of guanine. Over time, telomeres shorten as the cell they’re in copies itself. If the telomere length gets too short, the cell stops dividing and dies.
variable (in experiments) A factor that can be changed, especially one allowed to change in a scientific experiment. For instance, when measuring how much insecticide it might take to kill a fly, researchers might change the dose or the age at which the insect is exposed. Both the dose and age would be variables in this experiment.

CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (IV)

Scientific shield: Cancer
16/11/2014

Summary:
A teenager called Jack Andraka has discovered a new form to detect the pancreatic cancer. He started to investigate because he lifes a friend's dead but, how has he discover discovered it?
He was in a biology class redding about his favorite article, the carbon nanotubes while his teacher was talking about antibodies so he thought "what will happen if a I join both of them". When he did it, he discover that the carbon nanotubes joined with mesothelin can detected the cancer. This paper costs 3 cents and is almost 100% reliable. And if we change the antibodies for once of other illness like VIH we can detect it.

Critical Apraissal:
I think that it's an incredible notice for all the world. This boy has discovered I think that can change the world of medicine and also I'm a fan of this kind of people. It's true that if we want we can do whatever we want. He has got only fifteen years and it's one of the most incredible investigators about cancer detection.

Glossary:
Carbon nanotubes- there are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. These cylindrical carbon molecules have unusual properties, which are valuable for nanotechnology, electronic, optics and other fields of materials sciences and technology.















http://www.abc.es/sociedad/20131124/abci-deteccion-precoz-cancer-pancreas-201311212054.html

Here we can whatch the video too.

Marc Dorca Fernàndez

CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (IV)

Pentagon Studies Reveal Major Nuclear

The New York Times                                                                                                            13/11/14

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/us/politics/pentagon-studies-reveal-major-nuclear-problems.html?ref=science

SCIENTIFIC SHIELD: Nuclear security and society

SUMMARY:

After the Cold War the nuclear weapons have aged because of his disuse. 

Countries like Russia and The United States are armed with nuclear weapons that at this moment are useless.

Talking specifically about The United States case we can say that his armament its too old.

The Pentagon will have to spend billions of dollars over the next five years to make emergency fixes to its nuclear weapons infrastructure, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will announce on Friday, after two separate Pentagon studies concluded that there are “systemic problems across the nuclear enterprise,” according to senior defense officials.

Mr. Hagel commissioned two reviews, one by senior Pentagon staff members and one led by two retired officers. Separately, they visited all operational nuclear bases and interviewed roughly 1,500 people, from commanders to enlisted personnel and contractors. While their reports varied on details, their overall assessments were similar: In the long, tedious work of nuclear readiness, a culture of micromanagement and attention to the smallest detail flourished, creating busy work while huge problems with equipment and readiness, most arising from the age of the systems, were ignored.

In conclusion the ignorance against a problem like this is going to cost to Obama's Government millions of dollars and a lot of criticals by the Americans and by the other countries that have dismantled their nuclear weapons.

Hagel talking about the nuclear weapons

CRITICAL APPRAISAL:

United States is the country that always tries to remove the nuclear weapons in the world. On the other hand is the country that possesses more nuclear weapons except Rusia.

Besides this their are having problems with the weapons. 

In my opinion all the countries have to stop this armament competition because its only cause problems.

In case of a nuclear leak the problem will be catastrophic. A nuclear war will cause the world's destruction. Then I don't understand why they continue with this armament competition.

GLOSSARY:

The Cold War: The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (theUnited States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact).

Nuclear weapons: A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion.

CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (IV), by Marina Dorca

CMC'S NEWS' REVIEW (IV)

News' title: Landing on a Comet, a European Space Agency Mission Aims to Unlock the Mysteries of Earth.

Date of publication: November 12, 2014.

Source of information: The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/science/space/european-space-agencys-spacecraft-lands-on-comets-surface.html?_r=0

Scientific field: Astronomy (space and cosmos).

Extract:

The Rosetta mission is a project that has lasted ten years and that has costed $1.75 billion. Its lander, named Philae, landed last Wednesday on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Although there were some problems with the landing, the European Space Agency is satisfied with the results. The first touchdown mechanism didn't work, but the emergency harpoons fired and the lander could finally be fixed to the comet. Even so, there's a possibility that it's not absolutely fixed, and in this case Philae may not operate as long as hoped, but it's still been a feat.
The spacecraft's observations are expected to offer important clues to how the solar system came together 4'5 billion years ago.

Scheme of the Philae's touchdown

Comet's photo

Philae's lander

   

Critical appraisal:

This mission, which has set an unprecedented feat in the astronomy field, has both good and bad sides.

From my point of view, I think it's necessary to spend and invest in research, to make science advance. I realize that knowledge and research are causes worth spending for. Furthermore, I value very highly all the information that this lander will surely give us, which might lead to other discoveries. So I think the countries, within its economic capacity, should never stop investing part of its GDP in research, as it is one of the most important elements and shows the potential of the country.

On the other hand, although I've said I agree to set aside money for investigations, I found the $1.75 billion budget incredibly high. I guess it was all necesasary, as the equipment and the technology are really expensive, but still I think that the European Space Agency should have done everything possible to reduce the cost of the mission, because in this context of crisis we all have to reduce our expenses. Moreover, this new feat has raised quite a stir, but there are still years to start seeing results and discoveries by means of the spacecraft and the comet.

Glossary:

Feat: an achievement that requires great courage, skill, or strength.

Remnant: a small remaining quantity of something.

Spray: liquid that is blown or driven through the air in the form of tiny drops.

Fluctuation: an irregular rising and falling in number or amount; a variation.

Thruster: an object having a three-dimensional shape like that of a wire wound uniformly in a single layer around a cylinder or cone, as in a corkscrew or spiral staircase.

Harpoons: a barbed spear-like missile attached to a long rope and thrown by hand or fired from a gun, used for catching whales and other large sea creatures.

Touchdown: the moment at which an aircraft's wheels or part of a spacecraft make contact with the ground during landing.

Video: