"Summer to kill Swine Flu in U.S. and Mexico"

John Roach in his article "Summer to kill Swine Flu in U.S. and Mexico" elucidates why the swine flu cannot survive for a long period of time. Roach claims that the hot ans humid days of summer will put an end to the swine flu. Most types of influenza have a lower rate of transmission in the summer. " Flu viruses survive longer and transmit more easily during low absolute humidity, a condition commonly associated with cold, dry, winter weather." The flu can nearly disappear in the summer unless the virus has built a resistance to the weather since the outbreak was in the hot and humid season in Mexico. All what is going to happen really depends on the biology of the virus so we really cannot do anything but wait and watch what will happen with the swine flu.
Discussion Question:
Clarification: Why can't the influenza virus survive in the summer?
Application: What would happen if the Swine Flu survives during the summer? What precautions would people have to take?
Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090430-swine-flu-summer.html

Spider "Resurrections" Take Scientists by Surprise

Charles Q. Choi's article "Spider 'Resurrections' Take Scientists by Surprise" provides information on the new discovery made by scientist. Scientists have recently observed that "spiders in a lab twitched back to life hours after 'drowning.'" Choi supports his claim that spiders can come back to live after drowning by providing the results of an experiment done in France with the unexpected results. The experiment was done to see how long it takes certain spiders to drown. After the spiders drowned the researchers let the spiders dry so they can weigh them and that is when they saw the spiders twitching and soon they were back on there eight legs. The researchers say that spiders have learned to switch to metabolic processes so they can survive without breathing for a certain amount of time. Choi claims that this discovery can lead to find out what other animals have the ability to do this trick that the spiders did.
Discussion Questions:
Clarification: Do all spiders know how to switch metabolic processes or are there only certain types that have this ability?
Application: How can researchers find out if other animals have this same abilities as the spiders?
Link:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090424-spider-resurrection-coma-drowning.html

Chunk 1: "Knowledge of a boy's IQ is of little help if you are faced with a formful of clever boys."

Malcolm Gladwell in his new book, Outliers argues that there is something wrong with how people view success. Through the uses of anecdotes, statistics and data Gladwell claims that the true story of success is very difficult. No one starts from nothing and becomes a multi-millionaire. Their surroundings help them became good at what they do. That is why certain people become successful more than other people who are as equally as capable as the person who is very successful. In his introduction he introduced what motivates him to write the book. Stewart Wolf and other researchers tried to understand the health of a certain group of people called the Roseto. They eventually discovered that Roseto living in Pennsylvania had a death rate of 3o to 35 percent lower than expected from all causes. The researchers thought it was because of their eating habits, exercising, etc; however, they found out that the Roseto had bad eating habits, they were heavy smokers, and were struggling with obesity. The reason why they had such good health was because of their close knit environment. Gladwell states, “In Outliers, I want to do for our understanding of success what Stewart Wolf did for our understanding of health.” Gladwell further goes on to state that if people want to know how people thrive, then people should append more time looking around the them such as their birthday, the year they were born in , and the unique opportunities they gain. A person has an advantage if they get unique opportunities that everyone else does not get. Through these opportunities people get more practice than others which makes them the best at what they do. Cutoff dates also give people advantages and others disadvantages. In sports the best players are born in between January and March, while the others barely have a chance to become the best player because they have one less year to practice due to the cutoff date. Gladwell claims that the people who are successful have an “accumulative advantage” over other people.
Discussion Questions
Clarification: When Gladwell talks about successful people, does he mean that all successful had an advantage and that is why they are successful and others are still living an average life?
Application: Do you think it is possible to change the standards of our society so everyone will have an equal chance to become successful?
Style: Does Gladwell's anecdotal writing style make his claim more believable or does he lose his credibility when he uses different anecdotes?

Bilingual Babies Get Head Start--Before They Can Talk by James Owen

In his article "Bilingual Babies Get Head Start--Before They Can Talk," James Owen suggests that babies in bilingual houses may have a head start in life. A team of scientists in Italy tested seven-month old babies and concluded that babies who hear more then one language get a mental boost. Bilingual babies are able to enhance their "cognitive ability to a brain selecting the right tools for the right operation." Monolingual babies gain this ability later in their young lives. The bilingual babies are able to distinguish different sounds of different language at an early age, but this experiment doest not state the bilingual babies are smarter than monolingual babies. Single-language babies eventually have the ability to catch up with the multilingual babies.

Discussion Questions:

Clarification: Are all bilingual babies at an advantage or are there only specific babies that get this advantage?

Application: What kind of advantages do bilingual babies have over monolingual babies if there is any?

Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090413-bilingual-babies.html

"But What Do You Mean?" by Deborah Tannen

Deborah Tannen in her article, “But What Do You Mean?” elucidates why men and women communicate badly. She expresses the reason of why the miscommunication occurs by identifying the conversational areas in which men and women have the most miscommunication: apologies, criticism, thank-yous, fighting, praise, complaints, and jokes. She further provides different scenarios in each category to show how “ many of the conversational rituals common among women are designed to take the other person’s feelings into account, while many of the conversational rituals common among men are designed to maintain the one-up position, or at least to avoid appearing one-down.” Therefore she further goes on to state that women are at a disadvantage because they are not trying to avoid the one-down position causing them to eventually end up there. She wants everyone to realize that there is no “right” way to talk but style differences can be blamed for when problem of communication arises. “If you want to get your message across, it’s not a question of being “right”; it’s a question of using language that’s shared-or at least understood.” When trying to get your point across, people need to change their language style so it suits the person they are talking to because it can lead to miscommunication if they do not.
Vocabulary:
Razzing: to tease or make fun of somebody
Tone:
Informal
Rhetorical terms:
Analogy: “…all styles will at times fail with others who don’t share or understand them, just as English won’t do you much good if you try to speak to someone who knows only French.” This analogy helped better the understanding of the whole passage.
Logical Appeal: “Adrenaline makes your mind sharper; you get ideas and insights you would not have thought of without the spur of battle.” This sense of logic helps the audience understand why people tend to fight.
Anecdote: A women who cowrote a report with a male colleague was hurt when she read a rough draft to him and he leapt into a critical response—‘Oh, that’s too dry! You have to make it snappier!’” The many anecdotes used by Tannen help the audience understand each are of miscommunication more clearly.
Rhetorical Question: “But had she really asked for his critique?” Rhetorical Questions helped the audience think about the subject and made them realize how miscommunication are created.
Imagery: “right between the eyes style.” This phrase helps people think about bull’s eye or like a target meaning straightforward. The imagery helps contribute to the meaning of the passage under criticism.
Discussion Questions:
Clarification: Is there just a difference between men and women or are their differences in the same gender?
Application: All people are different. So how are you able to tell how everyone’s language style is to avoid miscommunication?
Style: Does Tannen’s continual use of anecdotes help the reader connect to the article more closely or does it make the article less credible?

Will Pakistan Toughen Up on the Taliban?

Tony Karon’s article, “Will Pakistan Toughen Up on the Taliban?” expresses how many people are skeptical that Pakistan will cooperate with America to fight the Taliban, even though Taliban threatens to destroy Pakistan as a state. Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency continues to provide active support to Taliban forces fighting in Afghanistan. “The strategic logic of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban is grounded in seeing Afghanistan as inextricably linked to Pakistan’s existential conflict with India.” He further states that as long as Pakistan remains locked in strategic competition with India, it will seek influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan is not likely to change its view toward the Taliban anytime soon despite the less forgiving posture of the Obama Administration and the six decades of conflict with India. Questions:
Clarification: Why is Pakistan in a continuous conflict with India?
Application: Does Pakistan have a particular strategy in which they want to go against the Taliban or are they really truly supporting Taliban?
Link: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1889179,00.html

Heart Cells Can Regenerate, Nuclear Bomb Evidence Shows

Christine Dell’ Amore in her article, “Heart Cells Can Regenerate, Nuclear-Bomb Evidence Shows” argues that our heart cells are replaced over our lifetimes. She further insinuates that the discovery might lead to new heart treatments such as new drugs or other medical treatments that can increase heart cell growth in people with heart trouble. The tissue sampled from people born up to 22 years before the onset on the 1950s nuclear tests showed that some heart cells had higher carbon-14 concentrations, suggesting that the cells had been created many years after their birth. Dell’ Amore expresses how this new discovery can lead to many new treatments such as stem cell treatments.
Discussion Questions:
Clarification: How accurate is the nuclear-bomb evidence and how does it confirm that heart cells can be regenerated?
Application: How can this discovery help create new medical treatments?
Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090402-heart-cells-regrow.html?source=rss

“Poison Gas May Produce Clean Energy”!

Christine Dell’Amore in her article “Poison Gas May Produce Clean Energy” insinuates that The Black Sea, the world’s largest dead zone can be filled with life-sustaining energy. The extreme toxic waste in 17 European countries has contributed to the decline in oxygen in the water. This has created high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide gas in the sea. But according to Dell’Amore, if hydrogen could be harvested from this poisonous gas, it can create a new form of clean energy. Scientists are able to separate hydrogen from the hydrogen sulfide through several potential processes including thermal, electrochemical, or photochemical processes. The gas can be stored naturally in underground cave which are plentiful in Turkey. Dell’Amore, through her article, implies that researchers should work and study this kind of energy systems so they can develop some technology to produce clean energy.

Discussion Questions:

Application: Can pollution be converted to clean energy so it can help improve global warming?

Clarification: How can hydrogen be separated from hydrogen sulfide through thermal, electrochemical, or photochemical processes?

LINK:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090324-black-sea-energy.html

"Friday the 13th Strikes Again-Two Months in a Row"!

In his article, “Friday the 13th Strikes Again-Two Months in a Row” from the National Geographic, John Roach claims that the number thirteen is getting falsely called an unlucky number since it comes after a complete number, 12. The reason we have at least a minimum of one Friday the thirteenth or a maximum of three Fridays the thirteenth in a year is because we follow the Gregorian calendar. This year we have three Fridays the thirteen: February 13, March 13, and on November 13. According to Fernsler, numerologist consider 12 a “complete” number because there are “12 months in a year 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 god of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus.” So thirteen is associated with bad luck because it comes a little beyond completeness. People have become so superstitious On Friday the thirteen many people refuse to fly, buy a house, or do anything important on that day. It has been estimated that the U.S. loses $800 or $900 million in business on Friday the thirteenth because people will not fly or do business that they would normally do. It has been estimated that 17-21 million people in the United States are triskaidekaphobic or fear Friday the 13. The fear of 13 is shown in society: 80 percent of high-rising buildings lack a 13th floor, many airports skip the 13 gate, and hospital and hotels regularly have no room number 13।Roach suggests that the number 13 is just a normal that the myths and the people have made unlucky.
Questions
Application: Why are people so fearful when it comes to Friday the thirteenth? Why can't people treat it like a normal day.
Style: Does the author's sarcastic yet serious writing style make the author seem indifferent to the people's superstitious beliefs?

Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/75333841.html

(Chunk 4) Its All Bogus!

In the final chunk of The Culture of Fear, Barry Glassner continues to express how the media pays little or no attention to research, statistics, and analysis conducted by scientists to prove that certain fears created by the media are false. Through the use of logical appeals, rhetorical questions, statistics, and anecdotes, Glassner further explains why people fear metaphoric diseases like Gulf War Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and breast implants. Instead of using the research done by researchers and scientist on certain metaphoric diseases the media focuses and favors the anecdotes given by the victims since their story is more interesting and eye-opening. Glassner then explains how the media has placed the fear of plane crashes into people. Even though the likelihood of a plane crash is one in four million, the media connects together random, scattered events to provide false information which leads to decrease in certain businesses. In his final remarks, Glassner elucidates how the fear mongers are successfully able to promote fear among the American people. Glassner states that "Statements of alarm by newscasters and glorification of wannabe experts are two telltale tricks of the fear mongers' trade" along with "the use of poignant anecdotes in places of scientific evidence, the christening of isolated incidents as trends, and depictions of entire categories of people as innately dangerous." Glassner lastly urges Americans to redirect the funds that are given “largely [to] mythical hazards like…on prison cells occupied by people who pose little or no danger to others, on programs designed to protect young people from dangers that few of them ever face, on compensation for victims of metaphoric illnesses, and on technology to make airline travel safer” then it already is and give the funds to combat serious dangers that threaten numerous Americans. He also suggests that during elections they could “choose candidates that proffer programs rather than scares.”
Question
1. What are some other things that people fear that was not mentioned in the book and could be caused by fear mongers?
2.Can the media be the reason why some parents in America are afraid to get their children vaccinated?