Sickle Cell Disease

 Paul Williams, a baritone singer in


The Temptations, a choreographer, and a victim of sickle cell disease.


















Sickle cell disease is a recessive genetic blood disorder with overdominance, characterized by red blood cells that are in an abnormal, rigid, crescent shape.

1910-Noted by Dr. James B. Herrick, a patient from the West Indies had an anemia characterized by unusual crescent shaped red cells.
1927-Hahn and Gillespie showed that sickling of the red cells was related to low oxygen levels.
1940-Sherman (a student at Johns Hopkins Medical School) noted that low oxygen altered the structure of the hemoglobin in a molecule.
1984-Bone marrow transplantion in a child with sickle cell disease produced the first reported cure.

Symptoms include:

• shortness of breath
• dizziness
• headaches
• coldness in the hands and feet
• jaundice (yellowish color of the skin or whites of the eyes)
• Common symptom of sickle cell disease crisis: sudden pain throughout the body

Causes:

• inherited, has two sickle cell traits, one from each parent
• those that only have one sickle cell trait and one normal gene has sickle cell trait. They produce sickle cell genes and normal genes, but usually live a normal life.
• single letter change in DNA, which alters one amino acid in the hemoglobin protein

Diagnosis:
A simple bloodtest during any time in a person's life will show if that person has sickle cell disease. All of the states in the United States make testing for sickle cell disease in an infant screening program mandatory.

Treatment/Cure:
Bone marrow transplant, although used only in select cases, prove to be about 85% successful in curing sickle cell disease. The only other treatment is over the counter medicines given as an infant and is continued throught the person's life.

Prevention:
There is no prevention of sickle cell disease. It is a trait passed down through generations.

Current Research:
The main research currently being conducted by the Center For Sickle Cell Disease is different treatments.

Sickle Cell support foundation: http://sicklecelldisease.org/
Sickle Cell Disease Association of America

Sources:

• http://www.sicklecell.howard.edu/research.htm
• http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/blood/550.html
• http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Sca/SCA_Treatments.html
• http://www.webmd.com/cancer/bone-marrow-transplant-for-sickle-cell-disease

Journey To The Center Of The Earth

After watching Journey to the Center of the Earth, I learned that muscovite is very thin rocks. The slightest change of weight will make it break. I learned that magnesium is very flammable. Lastly I learned that adventures can be very dangerous.
Three things that I learned were not really true in Journey to the Center of the Earth are that the glowing blue extinct birds are not actually glowing, dinosaurs are not still alive like shown in the video, and you cannot go to the center of the Earth.

MY FAVORITE TOPIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My favorite topic in Earth Science was astronomy. I liked learning about black holes, and I wish I could have done black holes for our astronomy choice projects. I think that it is pretty cool that anything that falls into a black hole is instantly crushed. I also think it is kind of interesting that stars with three solar masses can turn into a black hole. The fact that no light can escape a black hole is simply fascinating. =D =D =D =D =D =D

Big Bang

I think the universe was just a great big open space of nothingness. You could not see a thing. The universe went under an initial inflation that was very quick and was almost instantly how we see it today. However, this is just a theory. =D

Optical Detection

Four ways that astronomers can detect extrasolar planets are by radial velocity, astrometry, transit method, and optical detection.

In optical detection you can block out the star's glare using a physical mask called a coronograph. The cornograph hides everything except for the stars corona so you can see the other planets.
I have looked over many websites and I have not found any information that tells me how many extrasolar planets have been found through optical detection. I honestly cannot really even find anything about optical detection.

Charon

I like Pluto's moon Charon because it looks pretty cool. I also like it because it is part of Pluto, and I think Pluto is pretty cool because it is a puppy. However, Pluto is also my favorite planet. If you don't like Charon too then you hate puppies because the planet that Charon moves around's name is Pluto and Pluto is a puppy.

Astronomy

Black holes are the ends of starsw that are at least ten to fifteen times as massive as the Sun! If a star that is that big goes through a supernova explosion, it is possible that it will leave behind a rather large burned out stellar remains. Without any kind of outside forces to go against the gravitational forces, the remains will collapse on itself. Eventually the star will collapse to zero volume and infinite density. As the density increases, the path of the light rays that come from the star are bent and are wrapped to a point where they cannot be unwrapped. The star is called a Black Hole because no light escapes after the star reaches this infinite density.

Worm holes are supposedly short cuts through space.