AIDS

In the last two weeks we have been speaking about ilnesses and other dangerous infections that nowadays are really common in our society. Today I will speak you a little bit about AIDS, one of the most dangerous and common ilness in teenagers.

Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

HIV is transmitted primarily via unprotected sexual intercourse.  Following initial infection, a person may experience a brief period of influenza-like illness. This is typically followed by a prolonged period without symptoms. As the infection progresses, it interferes more and more with the immune system, making the person much more susceptible to common infections, like tuberculosis, as well as opportunistic infections and tumors that do not usually affect people who have working immune systems. The late symptoms of the infection are referred to as AIDS. This stage is often complicated by an infection pneumonia, severe weight loss, skin lesions...

Since its discovery, AIDS has caused an estimated 36 million deaths,HIV/AIDS is considered a pandemic. Consistent condom use reduces the risk of HIV transmission by approximately 80% over the long term.When condoms are used consistently by a couple in which one person is infected, the rate of HIV infection is less than 1% per year.

I found this interesting news in the Science webpage relationated to health and lifestyle. This news is about the usual effects of radiation in humans and other very exiciting and interesting items of radiation such as it effects on seawater or food. This notice will answer all the questions you have about this terryfing problem. If i were you i would take a coffe and sit in front of the laptop readig this news, i hope you enjoy it!

Q&A: Health effects of radiation exposure

How does radiation have an impact on health?

Radioactive materials decay spontaneously to produce ionising radiation, which has the capacity to cause significant damage to the body's internal chemistry, breaking the chemical bonds between the atoms and molecules that make up our tissues. Damage to the DNA of a cell is particularly important.

The body responds by trying to repair this damage, but at high doses it is too severe or widespread to make repair possible, leading to short-term acute health effects.

There is also a danger of mistakes in the natural DNA repair process, which can lead in the long-term to cancer.

Regions of the body that are most vulnerable to acute radiation damage include the cells lining the intestine and stomach, and the blood-cell producing cells in the bone marrow.

The extent of the damage caused is dependent on how long people are exposed to radiation, and at what level.

 What are the immediate health effects of exposure to radiation?

Exposure to high levels of radiation - above one gray (the standard measure of the absorbed dose of radiation) - can result in radiation sickness, which produces a range of symptoms.

Nausea and vomiting often begin within hours of exposure, followed by diarrhoea, headaches and fever.

After the first round of symptoms, there may be a brief period with no apparent illness, but this may be followed within weeks by new, more serious symptoms.

At higher levels of radiation, all of these symptoms may be immediately apparent, along with widespread - and potentially fatal - damage to internal organs.

Exposure to a radiation dose of four gray will typically kill about half of all healthy adults.

For comparison, radiation therapy for cancer typically involves several doses of between one and seven gray at a time - but these doses are highly controlled, and usually specifically targeted at small areas of the body.

A sievert is a gray weighted by the effectiveness of a particular type of radiation at causing damage to tissues, and is used to measure lower levels of radiation, and for assessing long-term risk, rather than the short-term acute impact of exposure. There are 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) in a sievert.

People are exposed on average to around 2mSv of radiation a year from the natural environment, although there is considerable variation in this dose between individuals.

In the UK, the legal limit for radiation exposure from sources such as nuclear plants for members of the public is 1mSv a year, based on recommendations from the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

For emergencies, the upper limit is set higher - 5mSv or more - but these figures are set conservatively, at levels far below those that would significantly raise health risks. 

For the whole news, click here

2nd TERM: BIOMEDECINE

This three months related to the biomedecin and all the items around it will be really interesting. This scientific issue will develop my knowledge about  nowadays medecin, helth or genetics. Doing works in groups will be also magnific. In the other hand, I think that most of the items we will be speaking about will be boring. I'm not very insterested in science,in experiments or in medecin so i'm sure that i'll get bored this term.

Human evolution presentation

HUMAN EVOLUTION PRESENTATION

The next presentation which I made with my partner, Javier , speaks about the long evolutionary process leading to the appearances of anatomically modern human, human evolution.The topic typically focuses on the evolutionary history of the primates—in particular the genus Homo.The study of human evolution involves many scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, paleontology

 Firstly we've got the comparation about catholic, Muslim and scientific  theories about the first human. People usually take three basic positions on the origins of the cosmos, life, and man:  special or instantaneous creation,  developmental creation or theistic evolution, and atheistic evolution. The first holds that a given thing did not develop, but was instantaneously and directly created by God. The second position holds that a given thing did develop from a previous state or form, but that this process was under God’s guidance. The third position claims that a thing developed due to random forces alone. Later comes the explanations about why have humans so advanced abilities comparing with other species or how the evolution works. early humans began walking upright before they began making tools. A rapid increase in brain size occurred before early humans began using symbols to communicate. And all of these traits emerged before humans began domesticating plants and animals.

Secondly, we introduce the most important human evolution homos. Australopithecus  the first one having neurons was found in south Africa. Homo habilis, our ancestors who made the first hunting tools
, homo heiderbergensis who starts making questions about what the were surrounded the first ones having abstract ideas and personal live. And finally the neaderthal and Homo sapiens who are our most close ancestors having the same fisical and behaviour caratheristics.

In addition, we present some evidences about our ancestors such as  biological  and fossil ones. Scientists have discovered a wealth of evidence concerning human evolution, and this evidence comes in many forms. Thousands of human fossils enable researchers and students to study the changes that occurred in brain and body size, locomotion, diet, and other aspects regarding the way of life of early human species over the past 6 million years. And finally, we do a conclusion speaking about humans nowadays and in the future and  the contrasting ideas between science and religion.

HUMAN EVOLUTION

Joy Adamson

Joy Adamson was a very famous naturalist. She was born in Austria in 1910 and died in 1980 in Kenya. She wrote "Born Free" about raising a lion cub named, Elsa.

In 1956, Joy's husband, George Adamson , in the course of his job as game warden  in Kenya, shot and killed a lioness.George later realized the lioness was just protecting her cubs. Taking them home, Joy and George found it difficult to care for the all the cubs needs. The two largest cubs, were passed on to be cared for by a zoo and the smallest "Elsa" was raised by the couple.

 After some time living together, the Adamsons decided to set Elsa free  and spent many months training her to hunt and survive on her own. Elsa became the first lioness successfully released back into the wild, the first to have contact after release, and the first known released lion to have a litter of cubs.

 Using her own notes and George's journals, Joy wrote Born Free. Published in 1960, it became a bestseller. She spent the rest of her life raising money for wildlife.

scientific culture

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scientific culture

 Why your older sibling is smarter than you

 In a new study from the univeristy of Leipzing, researchers examined how neurotic, extraverted, conscientious, open and agreeable 20,000 people were from the UK, US and Germany - and concluded that personality is not affected by whether you were born first, last or in between.
But science is increasingly showing that your birth order can affect who you are in different ways - older siblings are smarter on average, while the youngest are healthier and more likely to be gay.

Older and smarter

In the Leipzig study a small difference in intelligence was found - firstborns tended to be slightly more intelligent than their younger siblings, who are in turn slightly more intelligent than their younger siblings.
The researchers also discovered there were differences in how intelligent people thought they were, with first-born children being more likely to agree with statements such as "I am quick to understand things" than their younger siblings.
These people were also more likely to say they found it easier to understand abstract ideas and that they had a richer vocabulary than younger siblings.
Although it's not clear why this might be the case, previous research suggests this might be due the eldest child's social status in the family rather than a biological change that happens in the womb.
It is thought that a higher social rank could be responsible for the small increase seen in intelligence .

Scientific Culture

Hiii!!!
I'm Xabin from the Basque Country
and this is my blog for the scientific culture subject.
It will be about Europe and science.
I hope you enjoy it!