Stem cells Breakthrough + other cells videos

1-.Why are stem cells considered so valuable for medical research?

Steam cells are considered valuable because they have the capacity of transforming into any of the 200 different cells the human body has. Because of this capacity, steam cells can be used to heal many diseases such as spinal cord problems or diabetes.

2-.Why did the researchers have to narrow the spectrum of genes within stem cells?

They needed to find the specific genes that triggered the generation of steam cells, so they could be able to activate the DNA of a skin cell, for example, and produce a steam cell.

3-.What are the sources of stem cells and the advantages and disadvantages associated with using each?

There are two sources of steam cells. The first one is by harvesting cells from embryos, the cells that result of this process are very flexible, this means that cells can be easily changed to another kind of cell (pluripotent). The problem of this way of acquiring cells is that an embryo must be killed to achieve de process.

The second way is to transform regular cells into steam cells by activating certain gens. This is a very effective way because no harm is inflicted to the person, but the resulting steam cells are less flexible than the others.

4-.What are the three cases presented at the beginning of the second video?

There are three cases presented, these are: a diabetic man, two girls with a genetic problem and a hockey player with a damaged spinal cord.

5-.How might a stem cell be used to treat spinal cord injuries?

Doctors create a bridge of steam cells that connect both parts of the spinal cord, this makes the cells connect both edges of the bridge generating a new spinal cord.

6-.Explain the outcome of the experiment with injured rats presented in the second video?

Laboratory rats that had a damaged spinal cord, were healed by a doctor by using the bridge technology. This resulted in a walking rat

7-.What issues surround the debate over of stem cell research?

There are some serious ethic issues to be solve, mainly a debate of when does life start.

8-.What issue do you think needs to be debated as we make decisions about stem cell research?

I think we must debate about the ethic consequences of all this procedures, and also we must generate a certain code of rules for the experimentation (one does not simply plays to be god).

Arrivederchi!!

Coming back from Europe

This week I’ve arrive back from the Mackay school euro trip. This journey was an excellent opportunity for me as a student to get to know more about the ancient civilizations of the European continent and to create new friendship bonds with my school friends.

In this trip we visited mainly four countries, these were: France, Italy, England and Scotland. I like very much all of the countries, and the one I like the most t was Italy because of its old culture and its beautiful cities (like Venetia).

It was an awesome trip, and I hope to go back some day.

Biofuels in transport

The most important way of moving in our days is cars. The most of them use gasoline or diesel for their propulsion, the problem is that this types of fuels are damaging our ozone layer to fast, and that may cause bigger effects in our planet, like the melting of glaciers, the increase of the sea level causing the flood of to many coast zones, and the rising of our earth temperature.

Actually to many environment business are trying to solve the pollution problem that is caused by the fossil-fuels, and they have conclude that the best way to help our planet in terms of transport, is using biofuels. The most common biofuels are biodiesel and bioethanol.

Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol producing fatty acid esters.Biodiesel is meant to be used in standard diesel engines and is thus distinct from the vegetable and waste oils used to fuel converted diesel engines. Biodiesel can be used alone, or blended with petro diesel. Biodiesel can also be used as a low carbon alternative to heating oil.

However, the biodiesel industry around the world since 2007 has been under pressure from higher priced feedstocks. Biodiesel markets are experiencing double digit growth in the United States and Asia, in particular India and China, where the government target is 15% replacement of petrodiesel by 2020.

As a response to all the ecological problems that the world has had, biethanol has earned its place in the transport business by being an ecological way of replacement of fossil-fuels. Biethanol consists on generating alcohol fuel by using vegetable waste. Bioethanol fuel is mainly produced by the sugar fermentation process, thus The production of this fuel only requires of  a sources of sugar such as corn, maize or wheat crops.

Bioethanol is a high octane fuel that has replaced lead as an octane enhancer in petrol. By blending ethanol with gasoline we can oxygenate the fuel mixture so it burns completely and reduces polluting emissions of CO2. They bioethanol produces greenhouse gas emissions; this means that the emissions that the  burning of this fuel produces will be absorb by the fuel crops through the growing process.

There are many advantages of using biodisel and bioethanol such as a significant reduce of CO2 emissions worldwide and a significant boost to the rural economy that has had a decline in the last years.

“Gaming as an escape from reality”

Gaming has managed to be a very important issue in our society, there are millions of gamers in the world an there are huge companies dedicated to design the games that we play. We can find gamers all over the world and their ages vary from 6 to 35 years old. Gaming lets us be immersed into a new reality, a video game reality where we can have a good time and forget about real world issues.

Gamming has transformed into a way of escaping reality, a way of forgetting any trouble that torments you, a way of forgetting your real life and converting it into a new life where you command what happens.

It’s true that games help people by being a way of stress relief and as a way of liberating emotions ant it is all right while we leave it like that, for example have you ever came home from school, just after a test and you only want to play videogames? This is because games are an open door for liberating emotions.

A game as stress relief is good for people only if it is in a controlled way. We should use videogames for liberating emotions but we should not let games be our emotion, I mean we shouldn’t let games transform our personality and build it as a character of the game. Have you ever seen someone dressing as a character of a game? Probably no but there are cases all over the world where kids try to become a character of a game by changing his way of living, personality, etc.

You’ll probably think why do these kids dress as characters and imitate them? Don’t they have their own personality? Well this is easily answered in one word addiction to games. Excessive game playing can cause physical damage as malnutrition, but also it can affect a kid in a phisicologicall way, it may transform the kid.

Bulling is also one of the main reasons way kids try to escape reality, those kids that suffer from bullying are more susceptible to become addicted to video games and to be immersed by this games reality. As these kids see a hostile society, they try to find another place where to be happy, they try to find another place where they can control the situations and transform them as they wish. This is way video games reality is preferred by bullied kids rather than real life.  

As a conclusion games are a very effective way of stress relief but we shouldn’t let them change your personality, you shouldn’t let them be you. Also there must be control over kids an addiction to games, parents must control the quantity of hours a kid plays.

Thank you very much any question?

Gaming as an escape from reality

LINK

Gaming as an escape from reality

This week we’ve being watching the movie “Play”, this video refers mainly to video games and how people interact with them. The importance of this video is that it shows many problems (subtopics) regarding the games world, we can see gamers not recognizing reality or having aggressive actions. But the subtopic I want to talk about is: Gaming as an escape from reality.

Subtopic: Gaming as an escape from reality.

Text type: Talk

Other sources of information:

-Playing Video Games: An Escape from Reality?

-video games an escape from reality

-Students use gaming as an escape from reality

Quote analysis

“Advertising is everywhere you look, whether it is in the newspaper you pick up daily or on that billboard you see while driving down the highway. Some people may say that they are not in fact influenced by the advertising that is thrown at them each day, and that they do not fall into it, but everyone does.”

Advertisement in fact is everywhere we look; it has become an essential part of our life and society. This instrument is crucial for publicity as by this method the consumers get to know information about the products, we can know easily what the product consist of, and why we should buy it. Also publicity let as easily compare products from different companies so we can buy the one we like the most. I think advertisement is an excellent method of communicating buyers with sellers and plays a strategic role in our consumerist economy.

Although advertisement is important for buying products, we cannot let it control our life style. This publicity method has slowly change its orientation, the commercial are imposing a way of life instead of making people buy their products. Publicity is showing what society thinks is the ideal citizen, privating as from our freedom of choosing how to live.

I think advertisement is important and very useful for our society only if it doesn’t impose a way of living and doesn’t make as “fall into it”.