how butterfly wings can inspire new high-tech surfaces

The topic that I choose was called how butterfly wings can inspire new high-tech surfaces in the Science Daily they was talking about how this South American butterfly how it just flapped it’s wings and caused a flurry of nanotechnology research to happen in Ohio. They also talk about what type of butterfly to because of it color. When I was reading this article the researchers had this thing that made them want to studied butterfly wings and also rice leaves and how their texture can make different products work better. They was trying to make the butterfly wings texture look real on a surface that is plastic. In the journal Soft Matter that Ohio State University they made this texture fluid that would stop the surface from getting dirty and make it look like the real high-teach stuff. They use the Blue Morpho because it is a known butterfly and of it beautiful color so the people that was studying the butterfly notice that it able to keep dirt also water with its wings. Bhushan says that since the butterfly lives in the nature it’s hard for them to stay clean. The butterfly wings are so fragile anything that gets on their wings can make it difficult for them to fly. Bhushan was talking about that how the males and females know each other by its color and the pattern that is how they reproduce. When you look at the wings under you might think that it is smooth but it’s more like roof that is overlapping. The rice leaf looks more like a landscape when you look at it under the microscope which has this wax coating that makes the water drops fall strait down the leaf. The researchers took the two the butterfly wings and the rice leave to see what would be best for texture. After they did all that they made silicon and also plastic to make it look like the rice leave then put this special coating called nanoparticles. They was doing all these test so see which texture that had the nanoparticles for less water to fall on it and was comparing it to the non coated surface the rice leave was 26 percent and the butterfly wing was 15 percent. Then they put this stuff called caribide powder to see how easy it was to clean the surfaces. Then they measure how long that they was under the water then counted the amount of particles was on it before and after they washed it. The leaf came out to 95 percent then the butterfly wing was 85 percent so when you look at it only 70 percent came of the flat surface. So after all this Bhushan thinks that the rice leaf texture would be better for making the fluid go through certain pipes and the Blue Morpho lovely wings texture might be better for medical equipment that can help stop bacteria growth. Why I choose this article is because I love butterfly and to know that they can help the world makes me like them more. They can change our world today and make it better and improve thing also.      

-Angelique Delarosa 

Which trout has a better memory?

Taylor Noblett

Bio 101

Gazdik

Which trout has a better memory?

A fish’s personality can tell a lot. From how it learns and responds to threats or predators. There are two kinds of trout that Brown looked at. One was a shy trout and the other was a bold trout. The shy trout are a little more cautious, have a good memory, and can remember a predator’s sense better than the bold trout. The shy trout has a better chance of mating and defending where it lives because it keeps the sense of its predators. So when a predator comes around it knows it and can escape while the bold trout are forgetful and have a lesser chance to mate and survive because it does not remember the predators smell. A trout needs to be able to retain a predators smell wherever it goes because a predator can show up anywhere at any time.

Brown and his team set up a tank with removable Plexiglas and tested which fish would escape the test tank faster. He found that the bold trout would move quickly and use risky behavior. While the shy fish was more cautious and took its time to avoid being risky. Brown and his team also had the trout remember the smell of pumpkin seed. They tested to see which trout would remember the smell after 24 hours and after eight days. By the end of their research they found that the personality of the trout helped them remember the smell. Both the bold and shy trout remembered the smell after 24 hours, but when it came to the eight days the shy trout came out on top.  

            I feel that personalities can tell a lot especially about trout. Some animals are smart while some are not. This test of the two trout shows that even though they are the same fish they do not retain information the same. This test was a good way to determine which trout would remember and which one would not, but I feel as though they should have done more than just this test to test their memory. I chose this article because I love animals, and I have been trout fishing a few times. It was interesting to learn about one of the animals I hunt and see how their minds work. The article is relevant to society because some people, especially animal science people are interested in animals and fish, and some people, like me, like to learn about animals they hunt. This article also helps show society that not all trout have bad memories like the bold trout. 

resisting the sweet tooth

Trevia Hunt




Too many children in many countries are exposed to high amounts of fats, sugar and carbonated full foods. The TEMPEST program set out to find out how to teach young children in Europe how to supress the temptation to eat sweets. This research project took nine researchers each from a different European country to find out this answer. One of the members name is Liliya Nureeva, a student at Aarhus University.

The TEMPEST research project has come with ways to help children resist the desire to eat sweets and snacks. First the researchers had to address the problem of increasing overweight children and teenagers in Europe."Children and teenagers need to know more about health and the tools available so that they themselves can become involved in defining their diets and eating habits," explains Liliya Nureeva from the Department of Business Administration at Aarhus University.

Liliya believed that some children find it easy to avoid their unhealthy habits by completly avoiding them. Others use distractions such as sports to band their addiction as well. Then others set their own ground rules for eating unhealthy foods. Some eat fresh fruit everyday and some just eat sweets on the weekends. As long as children are aware of the techniques that will work for them, they can take actions to control the intake of unhealthy foods.

Pointing out the unhealthy aspects of children and teenage lives and then discovering ways to change their habits can be very challanging. One must first help the children/teenager develop knowlge about what is exactly the temptation. Then they must set goals and unique rules based on the individual on how to break away from these unhealthy habits. Liliya believes that parent, school teachers and people who have a close relationship with children and teenagers need to constantly inform students about different eating habits and strategies they can incoporate into their daily lives.

Cancer Bound:

Trey Boatwright

11/3/12

Health & Medicine Blog

Cancer Bound: How some carcinogens evade removal by stabilizing the various DNA they attack

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) which is a potent atmospheric pollutant that is fused together will form aromatic rings and do not contain heteroatoms or carry substituents. As a pollutant, scientist are concerned because of some compounds have been identified as carcinogenic and mutagenic. The PAH’s are found in cooked foods, such as meat cooked at high temperatures. Grilling food or barbecuing foods are perfect examples. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are lipophilic, which means they mix more easily with oils than water. PAH’s in the environment are found primarily in soil, sediment and oily substances, as opposed to in water or air. But once you have ingested or inhaled, the multi-ringed molecules are converted into reactive carcinogenic compounds that can bind to DNA.

If DNA is damaged, DANA messes up the genetics during cellular replication, which could possibly cause cancer. If the PAH has evades someone’s system it is the Nuclear Excision Repair (NER) job to repair the system. The PAH lesions are more resistant to repair than others. A New York University research team conducted research on the insight on the ability of certain PAH derived lesions to evade the DNA repair machinery. They found that some lesions stabilize the DNA they damage, which makes it hard for protein to be repaired. “The stability of the DNA double helix is a key feature that determines whether DNA is flagged for repair in the first place y protein called XPC. The protein patrols the genome looking for weakened areas. When it finds one, it slips a structure called beta-hairpin between the strands, marking the DNA for Nuclear Excision Repair. 

One thing that I found interesting about this article was that lesions are formed from bending the double helix out of its normal shape to form areas of damage. And I learned that there are a high percentage of pollutants found in grilled food because of the way it is being cooked. The smoke that is being formed with the cooked food is affecting the food in different ways. Body wise, humans react differently from each other. Some may get sick while others won’t.

Fear of the Dentist Is Passed On to Children from Their Parents

Kyle Houghtaling

Bio 101

Dr. Gazdik

Fall 2012

Blog Entry

            The article that I found most interesting was in the RSS feed “ScienceDaily:

Health & Medicine News”, and was titled “Fear of the Dentist Is Passed On to Children

from Their Parents”. This article spoke on the emotional transmission of dentist fear

amongst family members, especially that of parents to children. The article emphasized

the importance of how a parents reaction to the dentist effects how their child will feel

about the dentist. They proved this in a study of 183 children between the ages of 7 and

12 in Madrid that concluded fear levels amongst the father, mother, and children are

interlinked.  That study was published in the International Journal of Pediatric Dentistry.

However, the article also explains why the father is the largest factor in influencing his

and his wife’s children. The author, Lara Sacido, states that father was described as a

mediating variable and that children mainly pay attention to the father when determining

whether or not a situation is stressful. It was also stated that the mother’s reaction can be

influenced by the fathers reactions to the dentist. Sacido then stated the two most

important implications of the results that she obtained. One was the need to involve

mothers, and especially fathers, in dentist fear prevention campaigns. The other was to

make fathers attend the dentist and display no signs of fear or anxiety. It was obvious to

me from the beginning that a child’s response would be somewhat dependent on how

their parents react to the situation. However, I did not know that the father had a larger

influence than the mother. I had previously assumed that it would be the mother because

of the attachment that children get to their mothers when being raised, but I was wrong. I

also found this article more interesting than the rest simply because my mother is a

dentist. Whenever I visit my mom at work I always see the frightened faces of kids

waiting for their appointment with my mom to come. I never quite understood the fear on

their faces because this is something that I had never experienced. I believe this is

because I was born into it and found myself at the dentist much more often than a normal

kid due to my mothers profession. I also believe that this article has a great relevance to

society because of the understanding that it gives to parents and how they should act not

only at the dentist, but in other potential stressful environments. Their actions have been

proven to directly effect how their child will react to those same situations in the future. I

believe that this article can help educate parents around the world on how to react to

potentially stressful situations wen they are in the presence of their children.    

Dylan Burdick-Hunt for Life under Antarctic Ice Heats Up

Hunt for Life under Antarctic Ice Heats Up

Exploring the lakes on the glaciers is an important exploration for scientist everywhere. Determining if there is life in the form of bacteria could result in hundreds of new species being found. These new species could carry chemical compounds that could solve problems like diseases or could be the next energy source.  I think that is important that the scientists are taking a very cautious approach to the drilling of this hole when it comes to cross contaminating it. The drill that is used is going to be wrapped in a sterile bag until the drill is ready to be in the hole. The water that is going to pumped into the hole will go through a five stage series of filters which the scientist say will make the water more sterile the that ice that usually forms over the lake.  The time restraint the scientists are dealing with is going to be the biggest factor in whether they fail or succeed in my opinion. The drill teams have 24 hours to set the probes and receive the samples before the ice freezes and cover the hole that they drilled. If the hole is covered the scientists and drill teams have enough fuel to pump hot water and make a second hole. The fact that Lake Ellsworth is a puddle compared to other lakes in the glaciers of Antarctica make the possibility of finding bacteria a lot better. This expedition is only one of the many drilling expeditions that are going to occur. The lack of results in this expedition could hinder more lake drillings to occur.

Nikkole Stehl

     Medical News Today has released an article concerning prenatal and childhood exposure to flame retardant materials which leads to various developmental issues. The main concern is a substance called Polybrominated- diphenylethers, which is commonly found in the household. Two PBDEs have been banned because of the hazards to health since 2004, but furniture such as couches or flame retardant foam and carpets before that time contain those matierials. The effects of this exposure is an impaired evelopment of nervous system, as well as hormone disrupting effects on estrogen and the thyroid. This chemical has also been linked to the increasing female hyperthyroidism in the United States, because of it's direct effects on the endocrine system. It bioaccumulates in breast milk, is linked to infertility and collects in fat tissues as well. It can enter the body through inhaling it, and small amounts in food. The health effects of PBDE continues to rise.

     I have learned that simple household objects that are seemingly harmless such as couches, carpets and rugs can be hazardous to an individual's health, particularly women, her unborn baby and small children. It seems as though health concerns are growing greatly associated with synthetic and mass manufactured objects.

     I chose this article because it is important to the health. It has given me further insight into the unexpected hazards of household objects. I am particularly interested in such articles for my own health, and the health of my future family. Imported furniture, toys, clothes etc from foreign countries that don't put as much concern on the hazards of manufactured goods. When I have my own home, I would like to become knowledgable about which goods are safe and unsafe for my home, and family.

WORKS CITED:
www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/251992.php