Parties and Parkinson's

Yes, we all know that drugs are bad. But that doesn’t mean they’ll really mess up our lives, right? WRONG!

Author Kate Wong explains, in September of 2002, that just a few doses of the party drug ecstasy can cause lifelong damage. While animal testing, scientists recently found that the drug causes serious damage to brain cells in monkeys, and could very well increase one’s likely hood of getting Parkinson’s disease. This drug, which kills the feeling of emotional and physical pain, is now known for its ability to damage serotonin brain cells (an important part of the body’s mechanism to regulate mood and behavior), and to kill dopamine neurons (which help to control movement and help the body feel pleasure in the long run.

I think that parting people should research long-term drug effects if they want to get high. If everyone knew the consequences of ecstasy, the use of it wouldn’t be as common. Although illegal drugs are generally a bad idea, I feel that there are safer options if one chooses to engage in “epic partying.” I can’t think of any that are healthy, but there are plenty that don’t cause Parkinson’s disease.  

The Cruelty of Selective Chicken Breeding

When you sit down at the table and dig into a big fat roasted chicken from the super market, do you think that the chicken you are eating had a healthy cruelty-free life until its death? Do you think it got to roam around a farm and pick happily at worms in the soil beneath the grass? Do you think it was a normal sized chicken with FEATHERS?! The answer is probably no, especially if you are in Britain.

820 million broiler chickens are  pruduced in Britain every year. The breeders responsible for these chickens are now, at this moment, producing birds that reach 3 kilograms in six weeks...which is equivalent a human child weighing 286 pounds at the age of six. Does that seem normal? Not only are these chickens unable to move their own bodies, but their health  is decreasing rapidly. These broiler chickens suffer from heart failure and many other health and habitat issues, much more than normal-sized free roaming chickens. For the six weeks of a broiler chicken's life, it is kept in a darkened shed with 50,000 other birds crammed in the small space with it, all unable to move because of the tremendous amount of weight, and the space limitation. 25 to 32 million of theses animals die annually from various causes before slaughter, but the companies who own over 80 percent of this broiler chiken population (Ross Breeders of Newbridge and Cobb Breeding of East Hammingfield) say they will continue to breed the chickens to become heavier and heavier because, in spite of the obviously compromised welfare of the birds, they have been able to produce more chicken meat this last year than ever before. Animal welfare campaigners say that the suffering of these animals will certainly get worse as the breeding goes on. The author of this article, Michael McCarthy (Environmental Editor) seems to take the side of the people involved in the animal welfare.

Personally, I agree with the author and the animal welfare campaigners. Normal factory farming is far cruel enough fro anyone to handle, but breeding birds for the amount of meat and ignoring the increasing the suffering rate of LIVING, BREATHING beings is absolutely unacceptable. And strangely, most people that eat factory- farmed meat have no idea how their food felt when it was still alive. Not just chicken, but beef, pork, and any other animal that is bred in factories...even fish!!! In fact, if you would like to have your eyes opened to more truth about factory farming, google the production process of veal. If people are going to raise livestock and animals for food, they should do it in a wide-open, clean, healthy space...and not breed them to become so huge and unhealthy that they can't function. Thank you for reading this blog. You are what you eat.

Nathan Wolfe Video Clip

In Biology on Thursday, we watched a video clip of a speech from Nathan Wolfe, an expert on Viral Pandemics. This video talks about HIV in particular. HIV was passed from animals to people, as were other viruses including rabies, yellow fever, SARS/ebola, and influenza. HIV enterd the human population when primate blood entered human blood. You may ask why a human ever came in contact with human blood. The answer is bushmeat. Many people, the majority in Africa, are so hungry that they go hunting for anything thay can find. It is not uncommon for one of these hunters to come across a primate, and not only does it put these animals in risk of extinction, but this is also how scientists think the HIV transfer from primates to people came about. Nathan Wolfe is responsible for the teams of scientists who track the animals and take blood tests, with the attempt to monotor HIV.  By doing so, he has identified new viruses that no one has ever seen before. His main objectives in his research and testing are to 1) prevent new viruses from spreading and 2) have global monitoring of viruses. To me, this sounds like he will be fairly (if not very) successful in his research.

Chimpanzee Article Summary

The chimpanzees of the Alamogordo Primate Facility, who were retired from animal testing over a decade ago, are currently being sent back to the National Institutes of Health for further testing, even though this practice of testing among chimps has been banned in Europe.

There are two sides to this of course. Let's start with the side that's against this action. Bill Richardson is trying to push Congress to legislate that the Primate Research Center in San Antonio be turned into an "official sanctuary managed by non-profit agencies." But unfortunately, the NIH has not taken his proposal into consideration. And Jane Goodall, the #1 world-famous primatologist quotes, "Most of these chimpanzees have already been subjected to years of invasive research. Would it not make more sense to leave these chimpanzees in permanent sanctuary at the Alamogordo facility?" And John Gluck, a professor at the University of New Mexico, said, "These animals have been used to an extensive degree. Is there a sense that we owe them something for that? I think we do."

On the other hand, Harold Watson, NIH programme director for chimpanzee management has a different opinion on this issue. He says, "The Alamogordo chimpanzees will join about 150 others in an environment much like that at at their present facility. They will be allowed to socialize and go outdoors unless specific medical protocols require isolation. This colony has been together for a long time. They'll be temporarily disrupted during the move, but then the original social groups can reform and that's the best way to do it. Most testing will involve little more than a few blood samples, and samples of the liver will be taken using a very thin needle."

In my personal opinion, I would go with the opinion that supports the Chimps' side. Because even listening to Harold Watson, there will still be times when the chimps are isolated. That seems cruel to me.

Kidney Transplants: Guest Speaker

On Thursday, we had a guest speaker named Tina come in and talk to us about her experiences with failed kidneys. Because of a genetic reoccurance, both of her kidneys failed. Her good friend generously gave Tina one of her own kidneys, but that one failed as well. She explained that by this point she was very frightened and highly frusterated. She thought she was going to die. But amazingly, she was given another kidney by someone who had died in a car accident. She also mentioned that she has four kineys (they don't remove the failed ones),  but she only has one working one. Tina said that the genetic kidney failure that runs in her family on both sides tends to skip every other generation. In other words, her grandparents had it, her parents didn't, and she did. She also explained that she is grateful for her terrible experiences because they taught her the value of life. "These experiences taught me to see how lucky I am for every moment that I have to live on this planet." -Quote from Tina

Organ Transplants for Felons: Article Summary

Should rights to organ transplants be given to convicted felons in equal value to innocent people? Does it seem right to save a criminal's life and let another innocent person die? Steve Wiegand of the Sacramento Bee explains that inmates have the same right to medical care as any other citizen. He is quoted, "Since then, hundreds of subsequent cases have established that inmates have a right to medical care equal to that of the public in general." In this article by Ph.D David L. Perry, he talks about a convicted felon in California that was given a new heart in 2002. My personal reaction to the article is that if a criminal is in prison for something other than threatening lives in any way, they should have another chance at life and therefore have an equal right to organ transplants. But if the criminal has killed, raped, or threatened someone's life in any way, they should not get the organ. Their life is no more valuble than anyone else's.

To Start Off...

Hello! My name is Clara and I go to Animas High School. This is my blog for all the projects I do in my biology class this year. For the first semester, we will be focusing on the human body and will be disecting some animals toward the end. I'm not quite sure what we're doing second semester--but I guess I'll find out. Anyway, I've been looking forward to this class all summer and I'm super excited to learn more about biology!!!