Nacario's Digital Scrapbook

• A nine year old in South Africa had stumbled across fossils of a new hominid species that existed on Earth 2 million years ago.
• The fossils found had a mix of primitive and advanced anatomy of humans. It has become a new species and is called Australopithecus sediba. Sediba means fountain in Sotho, and it walked on 2 legs, with human-shaped hips and pelvis. However it climbed trees with monkey like arms, small teeth, and a some what modern face but without the modern brain.
  
• In a conference, the new species is said to be a possible ancestor of Homo erectus, the immediate predecessor to Homo sapiens.
• I relate this article to evolution. This discovery gives mankind a new species and it has characteristics that represent modern and primitive ancestors. This fossil can further educate the world of how he became more human and less ape like.

This is very recent news, and I am happy to see that there are even more species of our ancestors. Discoveries like these give us all a better understanding on how we could have been, how we evolved, and how we grew smart. Sediba had a few human like characteristics, but still had some ape like traits. Could that mean that evolution was working but still had some time to go to develop into what we are today? Most likely in my opinion. I can infer that the fossil still retained ape like arms because of natural selection. Where it lived in Africa could have been full of trees and hard to reach places that required strong arms. It was still in the process of evolution and it learned to walk upright but natural pressures made the Sediba retain it's ape like arms because it was still useful. Discoveries like this is what makes paleontology interesting.

• An experiment at Duke and NC state was derailed when bacteria evolved from it's original form into various forms. There original goals have been replaced with higher ideas.
• Researchers put a group of mice in a sterile isolator and introduced a bacteria to them. The bacteria mutated into numerous types and this find was unexpected. The new bacteria were hardier in mice than it's original form.
  
• The assistant professor said that this was the first time bacteria evolution has been seen in a complex environment. He also had another idea of experimenting with evolution that could use bacteria to do good for biotechnology and medicine.
• Experimental evolution is used in labs to try to get bacteria to develop new strains, which could be used probriotic substances, which are organisms that are are seen within the digestive system.
• Only problem is that engineered bacteria may not stay that way for long, the mutation of bacteria was so quick in the study, that newer forms of bacteria were more diverse and different than it's predecessors. The culprit to this diversity was evolution, even in a sterile, isolated environment.
• This article relates to evolution in a different way then what we talk about in class. We talk about evolution happening in a non controlled environment but in this article the evolution takes place in a sterile, controlled environment. This means that even without selective pressures, the bacteria in the experiment continued to differentiate.

To me, I thought the bacteria in a controlled and sterile environment would stay the same because there were no selective pressures in their environment. However I was proven wrong in this article and evolution can still take place no matter the environment. I wonder if the bacteria evolves not because of pressures, but of interest in itself. I know we said that we cannot evolve into anything we want, but what if there are no pressures to evolve from? Would evolution just take course in any way it pleases? This article has broadened my thoughts on evolution and makes me think that nothing is impossible for evolution.

http://vedicsciences.net/design/bacteria5.jpg

• Malaria has infected 250 million people in the world and has killed 1 million, mostly kids, because of it.
  
• Malaria has grown stronger in resistance to drugs and may some day become incurable because the strongest drug, artemisinin has been ineffective in a strain of malaria in Western Cambodia.
• If this strain grows and spreads to the rest of the world, a pandemic can arise. Scientists push for newer ways to combat malaria with drug combinations, which can halt the evolution of pathogens. The purpose of drug combos is to have the 2 or more drugs insure the other, in other words if one drug kills some but not all pathogens, the other drug(s) can kill them as well before they adapt and evolve.
• The people of West Cambodia do not use the correct treatments to help stop malaria evolution. They prefer a single drug like artemisinin only. They do not take the second drug that should be used with artemisinin, called mefloquine, which can have some serious side effects.
  
• The black market also gives below standard medications to people to fight malaria but instead they increase the disease's resistance to drugs. The global medical community has come together to stop this evolution in malaria and have committed themselves to make programs to provide proper treatment of malaria to stop its evolution.
• This topic relates to evolution in our class. The evolution of malaria relates to our discussion of mosquitoes in a barn. The same drug is used repeatedly in Cambodia and newer strains come back stronger, making a drug less effective. If the strain continues to evolve, then the drug will become useless. The idea of drug combos to stop the evolution of malaria will give better odds of killing the entire pathogen, instead of leaving behind very few that can come back stronger.

Malaria is a very dangerous disease is left untreated. I am astounded at the amount of people infected and killed by malaria. I am lucky like many others in America to live where malaria is no real threat, especially here in San Francisco. I am fearful of the fact that malaria has been growing stronger and more resistant to drugs and I hope that drug combos can defeat malaria. I agree with the way the article talks about combating strong strains of malaria. We cannot use the best drug we have to destroy malaria because if we do that all the time, then the disease will simply come back stronger and stronger. Also, if we use the best drug, and the disease evolves, all drugs that are weaker to it will be less effective, or cease to be effective at all. The money for expensive drugs alone are futile, we must use drugs wisely. Instead of one, expensive drug, why not use 2-3 different drugs that cost much cheaper? In doing so we can reduce costs for medicine, improve chances of killing a pathogen completely, and halt the evolution of "super" malaria.

• Steve Palumbi has recorded the amount of money that has been spent on disease and pesticide treatment. The total amount ranges from $30-50 billion dollars a year.
• Methods of battling these bugs(& bacteria) is by exposing them with a drug, and suddenly switching drugs to kill off the remaining bugs that maybe resistant to the previous drug.
• Strong and expensive drugs have been available to doctors for some time now for certain illnesses. However if the bacteria grows immune to a certain drug, than the illness may become incurable.
• This also applies to crops, weeds and insects that grow immunities too pesticides will need stronger pesticides to kill them=more money to pay for pesticides.

• Plamubi suggests the use of drugs in a more effective and cost reductive way by hitting a disease/pest hard, but at the same time smartly.
• This relates to our evolution unit because natural selection occurs. Bacteria that are immune to a particular drug had grown an immunity due to natural selection which weeded out those who did not have an immunity to that particular drug. Those bacterium that survived with a partial immunity to a single drug dominated and reproduced more, and the entire population would have an immunity to a particular drug over time.
  

I think that this article brings up a very important issue, especially in today's economy. Despite old news, the article tells us how much money is being used in the development of drugs/pesticides that in long term give little to no results. Med care is Obama's top priority and decided to spend billions on it. However, reading this article I do not feel that this particular sector in medical care will benefit. To have effective drugs and pesticides, we must use them smartly. We need to strike hard and fast, then either switch drugs or suspend treatment for sometime.