Dolphin Diabetes

Researchers have found a new test subject that portrays signs of diabetes very similar to human diabetes. This new subject, the bottle nose dolphin, experiences drastic changes in glucose, or sugar, levels just like human beings with diabetes experience. Due to this, researchers believe that they will be able to study "dolphin diabetes" in order to discover new and very important advances in human diabetes. One day, according to this article, researchers hope that by studying the blood-glucose levels of dolphins, they will be able to find a cure for this terrible disease.

I believe this discovery is extremely important, and unfortunately, not many people know about it. For example, one of my best friends (who has diabetes) doesn't even know. Therefore, I really hope that this new discovery will find its way to the major news distributers. Then, these researchers would be able to receive more funding, and they will get even closer to finding the cure.

Here's the link: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/02/dolphin-diabetes-could-be-import.html

Polymers are Forever Response

This article was very interesting to me because ever since I was little, I was always taught to recycle. My parents always told me about how bad plastic was for the environment. While I was reading this article, I grew more and more frustrated at how bad the problem actually is. However, I was happy to see that, as stated in the article, our landfills are actually made up more of newspapers and other biodegradable products than plastics. I thought of this as a plus because those products, like newspapers, will one day breakdown.

What I did not understand was why Thompson would wait so long to act on his discoveries of those small plastic beads in the ocean. For example, it said that he started finding these beads around the 1980's, and soon after the article mentioned other findings around the 1990's. Why would Thompson continue to collect these plastic beads for research instead of going to the public and trying to put an end to the source of these beads?

A Master Blueprint for Making Stars

I decided to read this article because last night, I read an article in a magazine about star formations. Although my major has nothing to do with space or astronomy, I have always enjoyed reading about the mysteries of space. I found this article on sciencemag.org and it's called "A Master Blueprint or Making Stars". Its main purpose was to explain the phenomenon of star creation.

The article began by talking about the difficulties astronomers have when trying to find stars that are in the process of creation. Then, the author explained that these stars have dense clouds that prevent astronomers from actually seeing the stars. Therefore, the astronomers use special infrared telescopes that allow them to see through the clouds. With this technology, astronomers were now able to find the answer to their main question: "Do large stars form differently than smaller ones?"

After decades of study, astronomers were finally able to see that all stars form similarly. To describe how they formed, the author explained the masses as "jets" and "disks" of differently colored dust clouds. This was an important find because even small stars are created in this manner. Finally, with this information, astronomers will be able to pinpoint the one factor that determines the size of stars.

I liked this article because it explained every scientific term it used, so it was easy for me to understand what the writer was talking about. I really enjoy reading about subjects like these because there are many mysteries about space that are being solved on a regular basis.

Here's the link to the article: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2010/127/3

Blog #2

Homework Assignment for Feburary 1

Twilight of the Books

I honestly found this article to be very interesting. I already knew before I started reading that less people read, but I never really saw strong data to support that claim. I really liked how the author used numbers, or statistics, to stregthen his points. Also, I liked how the author referred to history in several parts of the article. For example, it was very interesting to me how a written language affected the Egyptian and Summerian civilizations. The author did a great job at supporting his ideas by using several different types of support (like raw statistics and historical reference). That is what I liked most about this article because it made it more interesting to read.

To me, the notation system did not really help. I liked the idea of it, but I did not like how I found myself worrying more about the notation system than the actual article. I see how it can be helpful because it helps people remember how they reactedto certain parts of what they read, but I have never really had a problem with that. I usually remember everything about what I have read. Some people may like it,but i saw it more as a unnecessary task.