Cure For Cancer!!!

A cure for cancer has been found. By altering the measles virus to kill cancerous cells, we have found a cure for cancer. It has successfully been tested on 10,000 patients and all of them ended up cancer free.

We call this the KV (Krippen Virus) which is named after Alice Krippen the famed doctor who found this cure for cancer and this cure will save millions of lives.

The virus works as how all virus works they destroy and infect, but we have engineered the measles virus to only locate and destroy cancerous cells in the body. The virus destroys the mutated cells and destroy any abnormal cell growth in the body. The vaccine has been cleared by the United States Food and Drug Administration and is ready to be given to all the next time you visit your physician.

*If any of you read this and are thinking about the movie I Am Legend you thought right, this is based off it.

1ST ANIMAL CLONE!

Dolly the sheep the first successful animal clone was born on July 5, 1996. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. There she was born and there she died at age 6 on February 14, 2003. Dolly was cloned from a mammary cell. The mammary cell's nucleus was fused with a empty egg cell with the help of a electric shock. The cells started dividing normally and Dolly was successfully cloned. Dolly was named after western singer Dolly Parton because the sheep came from a mammary cell. Dolly bore for lambs in her life time one (Bonnie) in April 1998, and three others in 1999. In January 2002, Dolly was diagnosed with a from of arthritis a condition only found in older sheep. There was a lot of talk about premature aging Dolly was only five years old and the average age a sheep can lives up to was 11-12. Dolly was a scientific break through at the time it was the first animal to be successfully cloned, many animals have been clone after, but none have lived a healthy normal life. Dolly remains now rest in the Royal Museum of Scotland.

I think that the ability to successfully clone an animal is really fascinating and very interesting to work in the field of cloning. I think one day if we keep on continuing our research we will be able to improve the way our lives are, we would also be able to extend our lives. If cloning was perfected the world food supply problem would be solved, and humans can receive transplants for any type of organ saving many lives. There are only two things I see faulty in cloning, one is that the animals cloned are also living things, and the second is that if we do clone a staple of animals such as cows their genetic material would all be the same and if there were to be a natural disaster we would starve and animals would easily become extinct.

Lampire Laboratories? or Vampire Laboratories ?

Lampire Biological Laboratories is a lab that specializes in selling cells that develop antibody, human and animal blood products, and different tissues and organs. This company was founded in 1977 in Pennsylvania. The company has two large animal facilities covering over 450 acres in some of the best agricultural places in North America. The facilities house from large farm domestic animals to small laboratory animals. These animals make custom antisera (a serum containing antibodies), plasma, and red blood cell production, then they are turned into products that are sold. The current president of the company is Gregory R. Krug.


I think that it is very interesting to know how our vaccinations are made I have read about how a lot of our vaccinations come from animals that are hosted on. I am very glad that Lampire does what they do because it helps the world to prevent less deaths and sicknesses. It is very important that they do what they do and that the community do not criticize there work and their experimentation with animals because vaccinations are much more important to us and the company knows what they are doing to prevent as few animal deaths as possible.

Guest Speaker and Eye Dissection!

Guess speaker and sheep eye dissection, biology doesn't get better than that very often. Today Dr. Fong gave us a very interesting lecture about they eye showing us many fascinating things that our book did not cover. She first showed us a model of the eye and the parts in they eye that allows us our vision. Then she showed us a couple of pictures from the in side of the eye showing the retina. It was very interesting because she described to us how she could identify different characteristics or a person just by looking at the inside of the patient's eye, such as if someone was blond, if they have diabetes, if the person was young. I also learned that no two person's irises are the same, even if they are identical twins! She also explained to us why people were either nearsighted or farsighted. She explained why there is a blind spot in our eye, and the answer to that question is because the blind spots connects cells to our brain to process the information.
Sheep eye dissection was memorable experience. Our group dissected they eye and we studied the anatomy in it. We saw some of the blood vessels around the eye and when we were dissecting it vitreous humor a jelly that holds the shape of the eye fell slipped out and we had some fool around a bit with it. We saw the lens and Dr. Fong said that the sheep must have been old since the lens was hard. It was a very interesting experience getting to study the anatomy of an eye.

Class Crustacea: Lobster

Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Crustacea
Order Decapoda
Species Panulirus argus (Caribbean Spiny Lobster)

Habitat: These spiny lobsters live in the Caribbean in the depth range of 230-700 m, they are mostly found around 300-500 m deep they are usually found on of sand or mud.

Predators: The spines on the lobster protect it from most predators, people are know to catch and eat them, but octopuses also eat these spiny lobsters.

Prey: The Caribbean spiny lobster usually eats mollusks and dead animals on the ocean floor. It also eats sea urchins, worms, crustaceans, and some sea vegetation.

Anatomy: Spiny all over the body, grows to about 60cm in length, they live about 8-10years in the wild.

Reproduction: The lobsters mate between March and June the use reproduce by external reproduction.

Growing: The lobsters use a method called molting to get larger and bigger. The lobster splits it's shell in half at where it meets the tail and crawls out. The lobster also eat their old shells. The old shells give contain many nutrients that can help the creatures to grow even larger. Some other Crustaceans molt to grow such as crabs.

Benefit's to Humans:
We eat them :]

Guest Speaker at Mills High!

Guest speaker Louise Mead of the National Center for Science Education came to speak to Mr. Olson's science classes on January 24, 2008. She taught the students about evolution and what she did at work. She taught us how we and other animals have evolved through time and how we evolved.

She described how there is four main processes or mechanisms of evolution and these were
1.) Natural selection
2.) Genetic Drift
3.) "evo-devo"
4.) Mutation.

She presented a PowerPoint slide showing how species of humans, salamanders, and whales evolved.

She explain how the world has proven that there is evolution
1.) Biogeography (Distribution in fossil records and comparisons)
2.) Anatomy (Similarities in limbs and bones)
3.) Biochemistry and Biology (Studying chromosome # and DNA sequences)
4.) Fossil Record (How fossils are distributed)
5.) Development biology (Gene Comparison)

The presentation was very interesting, but sadly there was not enough time to finish the presentation.

Recovering Fires with beetle dung?

How can beetle dung help forests recover from fires?
Tyler Cobb have been studying the burned area of a northern Alberta hamlet from a summer blaze in 2001. By studying how some beetles are consuming the burned trees he found out how beetle dung has contributed to replenishing nutrients that help plants grow back. Beetle droppings found at the bases of trees resemble cones of sawdust, they help by increasing microbial (bacteria growth) activity in the soil. Instead of them being view as pest beetles actually have been helping forests recover from fires. The beetle larvae which are laid in dead trees have been destroyed by loggers. Cobb believes that logging should be ceased after fires or 10-20% of burnt trees should be left alone.

I think that this is a great idea to recover forest fires with beetle dung. Recovering fires with beetle dung is natural and would not harm the environment. Using beetle dung to fertilize the ground would be much better than using chemicals that we produce.