Post on 07-Dec-2014
description
Rayne Johnson Page 0 4/10/2023
CO 310
Medical / Science Track:
Project #2
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Rayne Johnson
Russell Ray
Technical Writing
04/13/2010
Table of Contents
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Press Release 10..........................................................................................................................................16
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Press Release 1
Healing Effects of Prayer? Don’t Bet Your Life on It.
Medical phenomenons are some of the most fascinating for humans, and for good
reason. We all want to believe the body is ultimately unknowable and if we only have
enough faith any illness or injury can be overcome. The healing effects of prayer have
given a sanctuary of hope to those who are facing imminent mortality or have had a brush
with death.
In an article published in this week’s eSkeptic Michael Shermer, American
science writer, discusses a recent study of the power of prayer on health and recovery.
Cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson began his study almost ten years ago observing a total of
1,802 patients who had undergone coronary bypass surgery. With participants from six
different hospitals, Benson divided them into three groups: those who were informed they
would be prayed for, those who were informed they may or not be prayed for and the
third group of individuals who were not prayed for at all (the control group).
Prayers were performed the night before patients went into surgery and continued
for two weeks afterwards. The results showed no significant differences between the
prayed-for and non-prayed for groups. The minor differences that were observed showed
those individuals who were informed they were being prayed for actually had a higher
rate of complications after surgery.
Other studies have been conducted on the topic but the majority have been found
to lack the controls, objectivity and thorough review. At a cost of 2.4 million dollars,
most of which was provided by the John Temple Foundation, Dr. Benson’s study might
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be considered one of the most rigorous and comprehensive studies on the effects of
prayer and healing ever conducted.
eSkeptic, the online publication of The Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine, is
a scientific and educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians,
professors and teachers, and anyone curious about controversial ideas, extraordinary
claims, revolutionary ideas, and the promotion of science. Skeptic has a mission of
serving as an educational tool for those seeking clarification and viewpoints on those
controversial ideas and claims.
Source:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-04-05/
Press Release 2
A Reflection on Autism
For anyone whose life has been touched by autism, the passion involved in the
search for understanding and treatment cannot be understated. Autism, a disorder
involving brain development, affects one to two people per thousand resulting in
impaired social and communication skills. Though currently there is no cure, there are
scientists endeavoring to better understand the condition.
The article, written by Dan Ferber, recounts a study by Ilan Dinstein and David
Heeger of New York University. Their research shows autism could be the result of the
disruption of unique connections in the brain. This disruption affects an individual’s
ability to relate to others as well as their ability to learn actions through the imitation of
others.
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For the study Dinstein and Heeger scanned the brains of subjects with and without
Autism while showing them images of hand gestures such as “rock”, “paper” and
“scissors”. In both groups the same area of the brain showed activity but after repeated
testing the areas in the brain of the Autistic patients began to show signs of strain and
eventually faded. Though it’s too early to draw conclusions, understanding this fading
affect and how it relates to Autism is an important step; with additional studies and
research this information could possibly lead to future treatment options.
Founded in 1848, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is an
international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by
serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. In addition to
organizing membership activities, AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as many
scientific newsletters, books and reports, and spearheads programs that raise the bar of
understanding for science worldwide.
Source:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/05/a-crack-in-the-mirror-neuron-hyp.html
Press Release 3
Found: Long-lost Relative of a Global Super-Predator
Who wasn’t fascinated with dinosaurs as a child? We imagined the exotic lands
they wandered, how they lived and if they really were as scary as movies made them out
to be. What we didn’t know was just like modern animals dinosaurs had home ranges or
were only found in particular areas; such was the case with the Tyrannosaurs-Rex who
called the northern hemisphere home, or so paleontologists thought.
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The signs of an early and smaller relative of the Tyrannosaurus were discovered
in Australia in the form of a hipbone, whose shape is unique to the most infamous
prehistoric predator according to lead study author Roger Benson. The size indicates this
early Tyrannosaur was about the size of a human, not unusual as dinosaurs from the Early
Cretaceous (146 million to 100 million years ago) didn’t reach their legendary sizes for
another 34 million to 46 million years. In this instance it was location, not size, that
made this find so exciting.
Tyrannosaurs were common in the northern hemisphere in areas like Colorado
and China so the unique fossilized discovery gives hope of possible remains yet to be
uncovered in Australia, Africa, South America and Antarctica, which were all connected
at the time. The discovery also indicates what we all feared as children; no place was
safe from the tyrannosaurs, they were everywhere.
This discovery has left many open questions for researchers. Why were southern
tyrannosaurs so small in the south? Why did their northern relations grow to be so
enormous? With new evidence of where to search for clues to these questions, scientists
are hoping to have a better understanding of how the tyrant lizard king, better known as
t.rex, eventually evolved into the creature that still lurks in the wild spaces of our
imagination.
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has
been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology
for more than 160 years. More than 140 Nobel laureates have written for Scientific
American, most of whom wrote about their prize-winning works years before being
recognized by the Nobel Committee. In addition to the likes of Albert Einstein, Francis
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Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, Scientific American continues to attract esteemed
authors from many fields.
Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=new-australian-dinosaur-fossil-
show-2010-03-25
Press Release 4
Bee Business
Some of us love them; some of us hate them; some of us are allergic to them.
What we can all agree upon is the fact that bees are absolutely necessary for the
reproduce of most plants through pollination and essential for life-giving crops around
the world to yield a harvest.
Today the once prolific and hard-working European honey bee is being lost to a
phenomenon called colony collapse disorder (CCD) which causes the individual bees to
abandon their hive. Requiring this community effort, these bees eventually die and leave
a gaping hole in pollinators for growers of commercial crops in the United States to fill.
In an article written by Anna Lena Phillips, she reports that scientists are hoping native
bees have stepped up to the plate therefore they’ve started a citizen science project to
understand how colony collapse disorder affects these helpful little insects.
Conservation Biologist Gretchen Lebuhn launched the Great Sunflower Project to
monitor and map bee populations. This enormous undertaking needed thousands of
watchful eyes and found them in ordinary citizens. Participants in the study were
required to grow a sunflower and then observe how long it took for five bees to visit it.
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Observations were made twice a month for a maximum of 30 minutes each time. “People
can take their cup of coffee out in the morning and if they see five bees in five minutes
they’re done. If they see none in 30 minutes, they’re still done,” Lebuhn explains.
Participants are also required to categorize the bees as honeybees, bumblebees, carpenter
bees, green bees and ‘other’.
As only 500 of the 4,000 estimated bee species don’t even have scientific names
and research on wild populations is weak, LeBuhn is hoping to not only understand
native populations better but also to track their health and whether they are filling in
where the European honeybees are gone.
American Scientist, published since 1913, is an illustrated bimonthly magazine
about science and technology. In recent years it has been honored with many awards for
editorial, design and illustration quality. Each issue is filled with feature articles written
by prominent scientists and engineers, reviewing important work in fields that range from
molecular biology to computer engineering. The articles are carefully edited and
accompanied by illustrations that are developed to enhance the reader's understanding
and enjoyment.
Source:
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2008/5/of-sunflowers-and-citizens
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Press Release 5
The Fallacy of Facilitated Communication
Michael Shermer is naming names in a recent article in Skeptic Magazine
addressing what he entitles the “Coma Man Media Hoax”. The story addresses the story
of a Belgian man, Rom Houben, who purportedly “woke up” from a 23-year long coma
and began communicating via a keyboard with the assistance of a ‘facilitator’.
“Dr. Sanjay Gupta missed it on CNN, Dr. Nancy Snyderman missed it on
MSNBC. And neuroscientists untrained in skepticism and the history of facilitated
communication all missed it,” Shermer says of the news coverage given to the subject.
He goes on to explain that facilitated communication, FC for short, is no different than
the use of Ouija boards or dowsing rods; the coma patient isn’t guiding the facilitators
hand, it is the facilitator directing the coma patients movements.
Shermer recommends a simple test to prove his claim. Show a picture to the
facilitator and a different picture to the coma patient without revealing the picture the
other has seen and ask the coma patient to type what they were shown. This particular
test was used to debunk a claim in the 1990’s when it was publicized that severely
autistic children suddenly awoke from their condition and began talking and acting like
normal children….with the assistance of FC. In that instance the test was applied and
whatever the facilitator saw was typed 100% of the time; not once was the image shown
to the children typed. Still the exploitation of these children didn’t end for many years.
As Shermer observes, “…emotions almost always trump evidence.”
It is in the interest of wasted money, time and broken hearts that Shermer hopes
the Coma Man myth is thoroughly debunked now. Families of coma patients might be
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spurred to buy these plastic keyboards in order to facilitate communication with their
loved ones only to have their hopes crushed when they realize FC doesn’t work.
Skeptic Magazine is the publication by the Skeptics Society, a scientific and
educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, professors and
teachers, and anyone curious about controversial ideas, extraordinary claims,
revolutionary ideas, and the promotion of science. Skeptic has a mission of serving as an
educational tool for those seeking clarification and viewpoints on those controversial
ideas and claims.
Source :
http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol15n03.html
Note: The information came from the hardcopy magazine I subscribe to. It is not
available for review online.
Press Release 6
Aging Stardust
Humans are curious creatures that wonder about the source of everything whether
it’s life itself or the Mississippi River; that’s part of how we hypothesize about the future.
For cosmologists the search for the source of all things in the cosmos is a complex task
involving everything from the use of massive super-powered telescopes to analyzing and
determining the composition and age of the tiniest fragment of space dust.
Jennifer Matzel, a cosmochemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is
the subject of an article written by John Matson in Scientific American. Her discovery
offers important information giving insight into what the conditions were like during the
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earlier, formative years of our solar system. Part of being able to understand and predict
celestial trends involve understanding how and when they were started.
Comets are visitors from the distant, frosty regions in our solar system, specific to
this discovery are the comets that originate past Pluto’s orbit, an area filled with
fragments known as the Kuiper (kai-per) belt. The samples were collected from the
comet Wild 2 (pronounced ‘vilt’) in 2004 and delivered by NASA’s Stardust mission via
parachuted capsule as the Stardust probe passed Earth on its way to study the comet
Tempel 1, expected in 2011.
The fragment in question was named Coki and was formed in a high-temperature
process which seems to indicate formation later in the history of the solar system than
previously expected. The problem arises when scientists try to settle the idea of an
outward transfer process that may have been at work for millions of years while resolving
the question of how this material evaded the enormous gravitational pull of the larger
planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn. The gravitational pull of these planets seemed a
rather large hurdle for this material to jump in order to end up in the outer rings of the
solar system.
Though the evidence discovered is substantial, Matzel confesses the information
gathered so far has told a relatively consistent story and nothing can be ruled out without
further investigation. When scientists talk about understanding how various compounds
were distributed and “seeded” the solar system with the chemical foundations of life, it is
understandable why a discovery like this is exciting.
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has
been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology
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for more than 160 years. More than 140 Nobel laureates have written for Scientific
American, most of whom wrote about their prize-winning works years before being
recognized by the Nobel Committee. In addition to the likes of Albert Einstein, Francis
Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, Scientific American continues to attract esteemed
authors from many fields.
Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wild-2-stardust-coki&print=true
Press Release 7
A Decade to Dark Matter
Tug of war is a very familiar game focusing on the strength between two
participants or groups of participants who pull on opposite ends of a rope. When
participants of one side pull their opponents onto their territory they are deemed the
winner of the game. In a similar struggle, cosmological forces play the same game with
dark matter (contracting force, gravity) on one side and dark energy (expanding force) on
the other. They both play a vital role in the nature of everything; too much dark matter
and we would be an inconceivably dense speck, too much dark energy and matter
wouldn’t hold together at all.
It is this study of the cosmological tug of war that initiated Physicist Peter Fisher
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to address one of the participants, dark
matter, in John Matson’s article in the recent issue of Scientific American. The name
“dark matter” was coined when it was observed that celestial bodies moved as if there
was more matter than what was actually visible. The phenomenon was discovered by
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Fritz Zwicky in the 1930’s and ever since that time mystified astronomers and
cosmologists have been searching for physical samples of the stuff.
According to Fisher’s lecture at the American Museum of Natural History in New
York, it may be at least another decade before science can identify the particle
responsible for the dark matter affect. The particles discussed, though some are larger
than others, are all so tiny they’re able to pass the space between the atoms that make up
known matter. The problem in detecting them isn’t their minute size but that their
signatures are faint when compared with the effects of other particles. For detectors such
as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe to pick up the signature of dark matter
they will have to be 10 times larger. Right now it is the cosmological equivalent of
detecting the sound of a pin drop in a hail storm.
Fisher notes that current technology for the detection of dark matter advances by a
factor of 10 every six or seven years it might take nearly another decade before
revelations about the source mysterious dark matter is discovered. He is hopeful for an
earlier detection by The DMTPC experiment being conducted underground in New
Mexico which will be able to detect the direction of incoming particles. Because the
interfering particles (the hail) comes from the direction of the sun, dark matter (the pin)
should travel in a distinctive, predictable direction as the planet rotates and the solar
system moves through the galaxy.
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has
been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology
for more than 160 years. More than 140 Nobel laureates have written for Scientific
American, most of whom wrote about their prize-winning works years before being
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recognized by the Nobel Committee. In addition to the likes of Albert Einstein, Francis
Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, Scientific American continues to attract esteemed
authors from many fields.
Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=whats-the-dark-matter-physicist-
pet-2010-04-17&print=true
Press Release 8
A Feathery Evolution
The feathers of modern birds showcase the amazing achievements of evolution.
Though they come in a variety of colors, shapes and weight they share, for the most part,
the same general structure. But as it was discovered, the early evolution of scales into
feathers did was neither a consistent or predictable process resulting in variations in the
structure feathers in dinosaurs. This discovery comes from a finding in the Liaoning
Province of China by Xing Xu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and
Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. In her article for
Scientific American writer Katherine Harmon discusses the implication of the findings.
Early feathers developed in more diverse ways than modern birds; in ways that
have been lost in the evolution of feathers. This complex development is unknown in any
modern bird species and indicates the activation of the genes which caused the growth of
feathers was delayed and incomplete resulting in feather types that differed between the
young and adult specimens of the same animal.
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This finding gives interesting insight into exactly how scales eventually evolved
into the plumage we see in modern birds. Just as characteristics of other prehistoric
animals did not survive evolution, feathers in modern birds are a reflection of the most
successful form of feathers. The development of feathers in dinosaurs, however, lends a
colorful and diverse aspect to common, modern-day animal characteristics.
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the
U.S., has been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and
technology for more than 160 years. More than 140 Nobel laureates have written for
Scientific American, most of whom wrote about their prize-winning works years before
being recognized by the Nobel Committee. In addition to the likes of Albert Einstein,
Francis Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, Scientific American continues to attract
esteemed authors from many fields.
Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=feathers-developed-differently-in-
d-2010-04-28&print=true
Press Release 9
T Cell Training
The amazing complexity of the human immune response has led to a hopeful
discovery on how to construct future vaccine efforts in the fight against the AIDS virus.
The discovery was made by Arup Chakraborty, an immunologist at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology at Cambridge and the subject of Alla Katsnelson’s article in
American Scientist called ‘Well-Trained Immune Cells Keep HIV in Check’.
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The immune system detects foreign cells by recognizing proteins on the surface of
foreign cells called human leukocyte antigents (HLAs for short). This recognition is
done in the thymus organ of the human body on body fragments called self-peptides.
Think of it as target practice and the pupils are known T cells. A T cell must be able to
recognize at least one combination of HLA and self-peptide but if the T cell in question
reacts too strongly it is rejected. Such T cells would otherwise attack the body’s own
cells in a reaction resulting in autoimmune diseases.
It is precisely this reaction that is being studied. A small percentage of people
infected with HIV never develop AIDS and a commonality being discovered is the
existence of this autoimmune response. These cells have broader activity and likely
recognize HIV even if it were to mutate, the key to ‘elite controllers’ to keep the infection
under control.
Everyone has a certain number of extra-reactive T cells, though they are in much
smaller numbers, and this is the key researchers are hoping to take advantage of by
arming T-cell armies that are trained to actively select HIV cells. Conventional ways of
developing vaccines have not been successful for HIV, but with this discovery scientists
are hopeful that by taking advantage of the body’s own tricks, control of the infection can
eventually provided in the form of an AIDS vaccine.
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has
been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology
for more than 160 years. More than 140 Nobel laureates have written for Scientific
American, most of whom wrote about their prize-winning works years before being
recognized by the Nobel Committee. In addition to the likes of Albert Einstein, Francis
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Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, Scientific American continues to attract esteemed
authors from many fields.
Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=well-trained-immune-cells-
keep&print=true
Press Release 10
The Myths of Motivation
What incentivizes employees may not be what has been traditionally used to
increase employee happiness and engagement, or so says a book by Daniel H. Pink called
“Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us”. It isn’t the tangible rewards
given employees but rather an intrinsic meaning in the work they carry out that
encourages superior performance.
Writer Kenneth Silber’s review of Pink’s book in Scientific American references
the “candle problem” as noted by Pink. Sam Glucksberg, now at Princeton University
performed an experiment where participants were given a box of matches, a candle and
tacks and asked to affix the candle to a wall. The solution was to using the matchbox as a
platform to the candle, the findings of the experiment showed those participants who
were incentivized with cash took longer presumably because the focus on the reward was
a distraction to problem-solving.
In a more recent study, Harvard Business School asked artists and curators to rate
pieces of artwork for creativity and technical skill. Though the panel was not informed
about which pieces where commissioned and those that were not, the incentivized pieces
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received lower scores in creativity though they showed the same amount of technical skill
as the non-commissioned pieces.
Not all incentives are negative, however. According to Pink a dangling carrot
may be useful in incentivizing individuals to work through monotonous, routine work.
The elements revealed in Pink’s book show autonomy, mastery and purpose as the top
three characteristics that are necessary for workers to find value in their jobs. With the
ever changing conditions in 21st-century America, creativity and innovation are much
needed elements in successful business operations; for today’s workforce it is finding a
deeper meaning. It is up to modern businesses to find a way to provide this essential
motivating factor.
Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has
been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology
for more than 160 years. More than 140 Nobel laureates have written for Scientific
American, most of whom wrote about their prize-winning works years before being
recognized by the Nobel Committee. In addition to the likes of Albert Einstein, Francis
Crick, Jonas Salk and Linus Pauling, Scientific American continues to attract esteemed
authors from many fields.
Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mind-reviews-drive-the-surprising-
truth&print=true