Before you go to Late Night…

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Sarah Chang

Now that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years (the Chinese one too!) have passed, I think we all can admit that we overate. We stuffed our faces in mashed potatoes and gravy, indulged in too many Christmas pastries and cookies, and did it all again for New Years. And now that we’re in college, Late Night is a bit too accessible at times. All I can say is, I miss my old body, the body whose “food clock” was not thrown off, disgruntled, and upset.

Food clock? Yes, food clock.

Have you heard that that thing called circadian rhythm? Maybe you’ve heard it in terms of our sleep cycle; if we sleep at 1:00AM and wake up at 11:00PM for an entire month, our bodies are set to that time and repeat that sleep cycle each night (if we’re not pressed for those damn papers or exams we need to study for…ALL NIGHTERS ANYONE?).

Researchers at University of California San Francisco have done a little bit of studying on this thing called our “food clock” and have discovered how this clock works on a molecular level. When we over eat, whether it be a holiday gathering, or that one night you decided to treat yourself at 2:00AM with a night taco from Taco Bell (I know you’re guilty), your biological food clock adjusts, and these researchers have pinned down the gene that is responsible for our shift or adaption to certain habits that occur around the same time.

Biological clocks are a “collection of interacting genes and molecules” that are switched on and off to keep our body on the right time of day. Our food clock is responsible for making sure our body is in the right stage to fully and efficiently absorb what we’re eating and the beneficial nutrients that come from our food. The genes involved assist in making sure these nutrients go from our digestive system to our bloodstream. The food clock also anticipates our eating patterns so if you began to eat at midnight every night, your body gets used to that and begins to get hungry at that time, anticipating food. It is the reason we feel the pangs of hunger and desire to eat when that dinner hour comes knocking on our doors….or should I say stomach.

The protein PKCy is the one responsible for resetting our food clock and is known to bind to another molecule, BMAL to shift the clock. This research is still underway, however, it can provide light on some disorders and diseases such as diabetes and obesity, something that is on the rise in America, and as college students, on the rise in some of us ( I am guilty).

So while I continue snacking on those crackers late at night, my body is getting used to it, and I am essentially adding a new meal that really isn’t needed. Don’t get your clock shifted unless it’s to shift it back to a healthier eating pattern.

Chinese New Years Resolution: Lose 15 pounds.

 

Wish me luck…lol

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Moderat Philosophy

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Sarah Chang

I feel as though for the most part, all the moderator philosophies that we will develop will have similar criteria: foster ideas from every perspective, allow for communication of ideas, play a bit of devil’s advocate. Currently, I have signed up to be the moderator for the political aspect of the topic of sustainability. I don’t think I have much of a good political background, and thus I will use this opportunity to catch up on that and fulfill my duty as a citizen to be aware. The moderator philosophy is still in the works, but from the information given to us in class, this is an unbiased guided form of communication to open people’s eyes and see a side never seen before. I believe that the difficulty in this is to get people talking and/or keeping this away from a heated debate.

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Can you hear me now? Good.

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Sarah Chang

If someone tells you to stop listening to that ridiculously loud music on your iPod because they think you’re gonna go deaf, it might be a good idea to do that (don’t worry I am guilty of it as well..), but for those who can’t resist the thumping of the bass, the incredibly mind spinning surround sound musical experience, have no fear. Harvard Medical School is here.

rows of hair cells

rows of hair cells

Researchers at HMS and Massachusetts Eye and Ear have found a potential cell therapy for those with damaged hair cells that are a big proponent of why we can hear. In mammals, hair cells are found in the organ of Corti, a part of the ear in the cochlea of the inner ear. These receptors of sound which are responsible for our sense of hearing do not directly send neural signals to our brain. Instead they amplify sound that enters the cochlea and then turn that sound vibration into electrical signals by causing ion channels to open in their cell membrane. An action potential is created when the cell is polarized and that sends signals to our brain. This is why we can jam out to our favorite tunes.

Anatomy of the Ear

Anatomy of the Ear

However, in mammals, these hair cells do not regenerate when damaged or destroyed…uh oh…however, researchers discovered a way to induce the regeneration of these hair cells that improved loss of hearing. Researchers developed a drug that when added to stem cells from mice ears could cause the hair cells to regenerate. When applying this drug to the deaf mice, their hearing improved where there were new hair cells. The drug works by inhibiting an enzyme called gamma-secretase. This enzyme works in a cell pathway, called the Notch pathway that, when active, inhibits surrounding cells from differentiating into a neuron. However, when the enzyme that works in this pathway is inhibited, the Notch pathway is inhibited thus causing supporting cells to turn into new hairs cells.

hair cells....being craycray DAYUM

hair cells….being craycray DAYUM

This new discovery excites researchers because it is the first case where hair cells were regenerated in adult mammals of any organism. This could be used as a future drug to cure hearing loss in individuals, so blasters of music, you have less to worry about….but be careful! Research is always in motion, dynamic, and awesome.

Here is the article found on Harvard Medical School’s website: http://hms.harvard.edu/news/hearing-restored-after-noise-damage-1-9-13

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Civic Issues Blog 1: The Education Gap

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Sarah Chang
The Achievement Gap

The Achievement Gap

I want to discuss America’s education system and access to education. I want to discuss education equity and the closure of the prominent achievement gap that spans between rich and poor. As a student who believes in the power of an education, it’s something I am passionate about.

According to the US Constitution in the Education Amendment of 1972, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Education is a right. Each individual should have access to a quality education no matter his or her gender, geographical location, religion, race, and class, and yet, it’s something that we struggle with in this nation, the forward-thinking grand country that is America. While we discuss and debate, many are trying to answer one question: what can we do about it? What can we do to close this education gap between white, black, and Hispanic individuals, between high income and low income children?

The topic is complex without doubt, but I hope to dissect it in certain segments, with the intent of including standardized testing statistics, the lottery system, charter schools, government initiatives, and US’s international education rankings. I care about this topic because it regards educating the younger citizens who will be the next generation to make improvements, push for innovation and advancements. I care about this topic because no one deserves to lose an education because of some bad luck.

This issue of education equity is ubiquitous when it comes to standardized testing. According to the article “Testing and Social Stratification in American Education” in the Annual Reviews, the gap is prevalent not simply in the ACT or SAT, but in the standardized tests given to elementary school students and college students, tests like the LSAT, MCAT, and GRE. For example, the study states that at age 13, children whose parents are college-educated have 30 points more than students whose parents are high school dropouts in both reading a math standardized tests, specifically the National Assessment of Education Progress testing. At age 17, 30 points separate those two groups in math and 40 in reading. And there are numerous figures and statistics that show there is a gaping difference between racial and social class group.

 

 

The Achievement Gap between Rich and Poor

The Achievement Gap between Rich and Poor

 

And another figure demonstrating the gap in achievement

And another figure demonstrating the gap in achievement

 

And yet another. The point it, there is a large gap between socioeconomic groups. Why?

And yet another. The point it, there is a large gap between socioeconomic groups. Why?

 

What is most disappointing, as Elsa Nunez states in her article in the Huffington Post, is that these NAEP test scores among many minority students actually are falling even more when the students progress through their education. For instance, she states “the gap between white, presumably more affluent students in Connecticut and their Latino and African American counterparts grows 4-6 points in reading, math and writing tests between the 4th and 8th grades”. Thus, what occurs is higher dropout rates from Hispanic and African American minorities. With higher dropout rates, there is a lack of needed education to obtain a career, and thus, the cycle continues and we are left with those without an education in poverty.

Why is this? Why is there that gap? In a society where our technology is getting faster and more efficient, where we can now grow new organ, some students are falling behind in math and reading due to lack of resources. I want to make it clear that standardized testing is not a full proof method in measuring intelligence by any means. There has been much debate on its ability to measure what it means to be successful, and I am one who has looked at its flaws, but it’s hard to ignore when consistently, low income minority individuals are doing poorly overall.

They don’t have the money to access necessary resources to do well. Those who can afford it hire tutors to teach them the needed material, the basics in reading comprehension, trigonometry and arithmetic, in writing a quality essay. Those who can afford those test prep books get the upper edge, with numerous practice exams done. On a deeper level, those who have access to better teachers, who happen to be lacking in those areas of poverty, are more prepared to think deeply, to have a changed view on life, to be motivated to do something and gain a good foundation for learning more.

Why is it that where you live, in an affluent geographical location with good schools rather than “drop-out factories” as some call it, what class standing you are placed in, and your race bar some from receiving as good as an education as some if education is a right, if it’s so significant for not just one person but for the globe in its entirety?

“We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought” – FDR

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elsa-nunez/closing-the-achievement-g_2_b_2479989.html

Click to access test-score-gap.pdf

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134711

 

 

 

 

 

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This isn’t Science fiction

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Sarah Chang

When you step into a green house, you expect to see the most exotic plants, the ones that consume meat, the ones that flourish with a rainbow of colors, to see leaves, trees, and petals. But instead there are jars with floating objects that pulse to a steady rhythm. You see pink and red flesh glistening in a broth. You are seeing organs being manufactured from what seems like nothing. It seems like science fiction, but it’s turning out to be science nonfiction.

We are on the path of being able to create organs from scratch.

SAY WHAT.

In September 2012, scientists at the Karolinska Institute of Sweden successfully created a new windpipe for a patient with cancer. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini had come up with a risky but ground-breaking way to give his patient, Andemariam Beyene, a new windpipe. Mr. Beyene had been suffering from a golf ball sized tumor in his windpipe that would not leave, despite the various radiation therapies he received. From plastic and Mr. Beyene’s own cells, an entirely new windpipe was created. This is the power of cellular biology.

Maybe you’ve heard about replacement hearts; how is this different? A replacement heart is not a heart. It is a machine. With tissue engineering, scientists and doctors are creating something entirely human and living that can be used to replace a damaged organ. Dr. Macchiarini did just that, building a cancer free windpipe and literally stitching it back into his patient, and it is still functioning, still living, still working inside Mr. Beyene’s body.

organs

How did they do this?

In 2008, Macchiarini’s team took rat organs and let it float in a broth that stripped the organ free from its living cells. What remained was a “skeleton” of sorts, the extracellular structures made of proteins that help guide the cells into forming the tissue that will allow for a functioning organ. Macchiarini took this idea and decided to build organs using plastic scaffolds. He took a plastic scaffold and let it float in a growth broth and dipped in some of Mr. Beyene’s own cells, his stem cells, and let these “ingredients cook in the oven”. After sitting in the incubator for a while, what came out was a new organ. Macchiarini suspects that the cells that are first introduced into this broth do not live for very long, but what they do is signal to other cells to come and differentiate into the right cell type for this organ to be sustained. It’s like magic, BUT REAL.

Why do we do this? Can’t we just use patient donors for replacement organs?

Yes, that is definitely a possibility, but our immune systems are a bit possessive over us; they don’t like other people’s cells and instead fight them when they come into our territory. If the donor doesn’t match up with what our cells like, we will essentially destroy what we need. By using our own cells, we don’t have that risk, and there is no hassle of trying to find a perfect match for a donor.

This is definitely just the beginning of something grande, something that can fix so many problems for those who are sick. But, there is a long way to go. Dr. Macchiarini’s believes that one day we can possess the ability to not have to grow these organs outside and then stitch them back into a patient. Instead he hopes to one day feed a certain drug to patients which will signal to the cells to form the organ within the body.

Science isn’t always so interesting to some, but it’s hard to deny that it is doing amazing things to advance our quality of life.

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WIP: This I Believe First Draft

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Sarah Chang

Age: Four I waddle into the bathroom with my short, chubby legs and turn to stare at my father’s razor. My fingers wrap around its handle, and I feel powerful and grown-up. I gently place the razor on my face and pull down, waiting for the triumph to pulse through my body. Instead, I experience a sharp slice and a burning sting on my cheek as blood slowly drips down my face. Shaking with fear, I bellow the loudest I possibly can, hot tears gushing from my eyes. My family, alarmed, peak their heads into the bathroom, wondering what had happened. I expect them to quickly help me, save me from bleeding to death, but instead they just stand there, laughing hysterically. The next day, all my brother does is taunt me, yelling “Where’s your beard? Huh?” or “Who do you think you are? A man?” Now, I waddle with shame.

Age: Ten I wait for my hot plate of spaghetti to come, lazily staring out the window to erase the heaviness of boredom. Soon, I start to leave for the bathroom, but my mother demands that I wait for her. Having done enough waiting, I ignore her and saunter past the dense crowd of people until I reach my destination. But when I strut out of the bathroom with my head held high, proud of being without a parent, I get funny stares. The buzzing of the people decrescendo, the clinking of silverware ends. Then a young waitress whispers to me, “Honey, your skirt is stuffed in your underwear…” I jerk my head around to see everyone staring at my derriere. Now people will be pointing their fingers at me, screaming “Hey look! It’s that underwear girl!” I never want to show my face in public again.

Age: Eighteen It’s 2AM and I still have that physics test to study for. I try to read about Archimedes’ Principle, but I always read the same line: “Archimedes is said to have discovered his principle in his bath…” The word “bath” suddenly reminds me of my attempt to shave my facial hair. It reminds me of that time I kindly exposed my underwear. It reminds me of the total embarrassment I had. Tears start to well up in my eyes from laughing so hard. My eyes are reduced to slits, a goofy smile plastered on my face. Rather than regretting moments of complete foolishness, I’ve learned to move forward, laugh it off, and be thankful that it happened. No matter what setbacks I face, trivial or large, I keep trucking on and take with me what I’ve learned: to never be afraid to put myself out there, to never deplore some silly action of mine. Within a few years, I can look back on these embarrassing moments and have a good hearty laugh. Simply remembering those humiliating moments and cherishing the buffoon within can leave a smile on your face. That’s why I believe in making a fool of yourself.

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HIV Saved A Life

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Sarah Chang

HIV doesn’t really have a positive connotation; in fact, if we play a word association game, what do we visualize or think of when we hear the word “HIV”?  Automatically, I think of AIDS, and when I think of AIDS, I think of suffering and darkness. BUT HIV has actually shed light for a young girl named Emily Whitehead. Perhaps you’ve heard the story that has garnered much media attention: Emily, a 7-year old girl from Philipsburg, PA has been cured of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) due to a break-through cell therapy that utilizes a modified form of HIV.

Emily: After and Before

After relapsing two times, chemotherapy just wasn’t cutting it, no matter how intense the radiation was, and so researchers and doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) took out the big guns and used this cell therapy called CTL019 to try to destroy the cancer.

So what exactly is happening on a cellular level?

Some background is in need perhaps.

What is ALL? ALL is the most common form of leukemia, the cancer of our white blood cells, in children. What happens is that the B cells in our immune system become cancerous, forming immature cells called blasts that cause damage by crowding out our healthy cells in the bone marrow and spreading to other organs. Our killer T cells in our immune system is responsible for finding pathogens in our body and killing them (thus the name killer T cells) BUT they cannot detect the cancerous B cells and so the leukemia cannot be destroyed by our immune system.

ALL under a microscope. The big purple things are the cancerous B cells, called blasts.

Usually chemotherapy is good at getting rid of ALL, but not for Emily, and so doctors resorted to the CTL019 treatment.

WHAT DAT.

So basically what we want is for the T cells to be able to detect the cancerous B cells, so researchers used a modified form of HIV, called a lentivirus to inject into the T cells special receptors so that they will be able to recognize a protein that is only found on B cells called CD19. These cancerous B cells have that protein on them!

T cells are taken out of the patient’s body and reengineered to detect the CD19 proteins on the B cells, and once they detect them, they will kill them.

TERMINATED.

HIV

It worked marvelously for Emily but it wasn’t without side effects (because of this therapy, Emily suffered a huge increase in a protein associated with rheumatoid arthiritis!!).

But do you think that this break-through, this “cancer-vaccine” like therapy is worth the risk? Do you think we’ve reached a beginning point where patients do not have to suffer the painful effects of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant?

 

Have we found a cure?

 

Only time will tell.

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This I Believe Ideas

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Sarah Chang

I believe in the storming of the brain.

  • The irony of pushing for a thunderstorm, for high blowing winds, cracks of lightening, and torrents of water for that one spark of an idea.
  • When it doesn’t storm, it’s nice, dry, pleasant, and we feel content. But sometimes, it’s better to feel a bit irritated. That crack in our comfort will cause us to storm, and a split second of bright light can do something much more than thought possible.
  • Focusing on the pushing of a storm, making ourselves think outside the box and differently because now more than ever, thinking differently is just as important as thinking deeply.

I believe in showers

  • The idea of cleansing ourselves every day, washing away the dirt that has accumulated
  • By dirt, I mean the sorrows, the fear-inducing concepts, the anger creating situations, all things bad and realizing that at the end of the way, we should shed that all away
  • Play around with the notion of what is permanent, and what we take from our washings
    • Do we leave everything behind? Or do we learn from them?

I believe in making a fool out of ourselves

  • Embarrassing moments
  • What can we take away from these? The idea of laughing at ourselves; we learn more that way, and come back at the end of the day appreciating what we’ve been through, a bit like shower
  • Laughing is a panacea and I believe in that, no drug, no therapy can have such a raw intimate and purely joyful feeling
  • I want to spread that joy in places we don’t see it. When we are devastated by something, we take away the darkness of the situations and filter out the smiles.

 

I believe in the value of education and education as a right

  • Waiting for Superman reaction
  • Lottery system, why do we leave the education of a child up for fate?
  • Play around with idea of what is Superman and will he come?
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An Invisible Passion

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Sarah Chang

Salutations all! I am going to take a slightly 180 transition here and change my passion blog from the analysis of Chinese delicacies, those munchies that will make the mouth drool, those munchies that we cannot find at your general American Chinese buffet, to the fascinating progressions of cellular biology, my other passion. I am a biochemistry and molecular biology student and I think the cell is the coolest place on Earth. From the beginning when I first discovered the way a cell divides, the different factories working elegantly together inside these tiny, yet powerful life-giving formations, I was hooked. Everything about the cell is so simply amazing; how do they know the mechanisms needed to undergo cellular respiration? How do they know that meiosis is the process that would allow the creation of gametes? EVERYTHING IS SO INCREDIBLY AWESOME, COMPLEX ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL, BUT AWESOMELY FUNCTIONAL FOR ITS PURPOSE AHH.

However, not everything in the cell is so dandy. It’s quite often we encounter cellular issues that will propagate and cause diseases such as different kinds of cancer and cystic fibrosis. I want to understand these cellular diseases on a molecular level and push myself to read science literature and report it in a comprehensive way. Shedding my nerdy shell (if that is possible), I am quite a people person and enjoy chatting it up (HMU ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER YA’LL….just kidding…maybe).  What I am passionate about is branching the people and the science of medicine, and that is what I aspire to do both in my career and my blog. Here, I will present current and recent research that is being conducted to combat these cellular diseases that are affecting millions. I hope to communicate to the public this science in a way for all to understand and for all to be awakened by how fascinating life is when we dissect it to the tiny level we can barely see because it is this invisible level that is the reason why we can laugh, breathe, communicate, and live. We are essentially bags of water filled with complicated chemical reactions. From sneezing to our personalities, it all comes down to this cellular level. I want to be an investigator of this cellular life and become a tour guide of this intriguing world.

So join me in understanding what we are made out of and what we are doing to improve the quality of our lives.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins successfully grew a replacement ear on a cancer patient’s arm. OH MY GOSH.

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FINAL RCL: Blog Evaluation

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Sarah Chang

The two Passion Blogs I chose that I think are the strongest posts are the posts “The Dim Sum Series: Steamed Beef Tripe” and “The Sichuan Series: Chengdu Liang Fen”. In the Passion Post about Steamed Beef Tripe, I wanted to expose the readers to something more exotic; steamed beef tripe isn’t usually what someone thinks about when they try to imagine delicious food…it’s cow stomach anyways…but by showing that something so odd or initially disgusting is considered a regular food, it’s an eye-opener for some; it gives international perspective: What we eat here doesn’t mean that’s what every other culture indulges in as well. In the post, I think I described the dish quite well. I discussed its chewy texture, what is mixed with the beef tripe, and the overall flavor to give the readers something to hold on to. Instead of just a visualization of what the dish is, I want the audience to taste in while they read the words that are scrolled on the computer screen. The lively passion I have for Chinese food really shines through my posts and I think it helps spark the audience’s interest in what Chinese food is really like, because let’s face it, there are many other things that are better than Lo Mein and General Tso’s chicken. That’s the point I was trying to make through my blog, and the Steam Beef Tripe opens a door to what Chinese cuisine has. I like to see what the audience thinks about the dish, so I posed a few questions at the end to get the readers to interact. This helps engage the audience into commenting on the different opinions that they may have on trying an exotic dish like this. By posing that question, it gets the audience thinking and interacting with my passion blog. All this also applies to the second blog post I chose “The Sichuan Series: Chengdu Liang Fen”. The jelly like structure of a savory dish is something eccentric, and to get some audience feedback on this jelly dish, I pose the question of whether they would try it or not. This post really displays my happy and hopefully humorous tone that gives a laid back and colloquial tone, yet I try to give some information that the audience might not know, such as where Sichuan province is in China and what the region’s food is like. It demonstrates that China is more than the fast food Chinese restaurants and buffets. There’s an unlimited amount of types of Chinese food from different regions. Both posts are focused. They describe the food thoroughly in a way that the audience can use all its senses to taste and experience the dish, while being informed about where the dish is from and knowing some context on that region’s food.

For the RCL posts, I think the posts “Pathos melts” and the “Do The Right Thing Response” are two of my strongest posts. In the post “Pathos melts”, I think the analysis of the image of an ice cream cone melting is thorough, and my explanation of how this displays pathos and how that is used the audience to persuade the do something and act against the progression of global climate change demonstrates my understanding of the course material, specifically the rhetorical devices, such as pathos and ethos. The voice isn’t too dry; it reflects the mood of the image well and is appropriate and focused on the goal of analyzing the image to see how pathos is utilized as a rhetorical device. The analysis isn’t too obstinate that is shuts out the opinions of others; it lets the audience think about whether the interpretation I have is the only way to think about the image. I focused much on the image of the ice cream cone, which leaves some room for interpreting the rest of the image, as Amy did in her comment about the light coming from behind the ice cream cone. In the other post about the film Do The Right Thing, I think the analysis of the characters and the film was thorough. I described how the commonplaces in the film aided in getting the main point against violence across, as well as discussing pathos and ethos and rhetorical devices to prove that rhetoric is better than violence. I used specific examples to back up my claims and that helps give stronger purpose to writing this blog: to show how this film used rhetorical devices to get its own point across. The word choices in the blog and the sentence length are varied, so the writing style is not too dry that the audience is not engaged to discuss it. Both posts go beyond the rest in how I demonstrated an engagement and understanding of the course material and ideas we have discussed in class as well as go beyond the rest in terms of analyzing the rhetorical functions, one of the biggest parts of this class. In addition, they both are written well; they flow, are cohesive and focused, and engage the audience, which are the reasons I think these two posts are my strongest in the RCL blog.

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