Every forty seconds a child dies in sub Saharan Africa from an infected mosquito bite. The article I read really made me sad, but then again I was so interested in what a tiny thing can do. I have always been interested in malaria because my mum has it in her blood somewhere and my grandfather died from it. I also recently read an article about it in a National Geographic magazine. It just seems so interesting how a tiny little mosquito can travel with a disease and kill so many people. Malaria is caused by a parasite that is passed from one human to another by the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito. After the infection the parasite also know scientifically as sporozoits travel through your bloodstream to the liver, where they mature and release another form the merozoits. Those parasites go back through the blood stream infecting red blood cells. There are four types of malaria but scientists have recently discovered a fifth type, Plasmodium knowlesi. The parasite lives in the mosquito's saliva. When the mosquito selects its warm blooded victim for (example a human or animal), its saliva is injected first as it contains an anticoagulant to help it withdraw its stinger from the coagulating blood of its current meal. Once inside the blood stream the parasite multiplies inside the red blood cells which will break open in forty-eight to seventy-two hours infecting other red blood cells. It can also be transmitted by a mother to her unborn baby or by blood transfusions. The first symptoms usually occur ten days to four weeks after infection. Most symptoms are caused by the release of merozoits into the bloodstream which causes anemia and various other symptoms such as
These symptoms can be fatal and really harmful to the body. In my article it says you can prevent malaria by using mosquito nets. Most people in Africa can’t afford mosquito nets so they rely on you and charities to donate money to them. Malaria mainly happens in the tropics and subtropics. Before visiting a place where there is malaria, go and get vaccinated by a doctor because if your a tourist you are not immune to what could be about to end your life. Most childhood deaths in Africa are caused by Malaria. Three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand people die every year from a mosquito carrying malaria. Malaria has infected humans for over five hundred years. The first effective treatment for malaria came from the bark of the cinchona tree, which contains quinne. This tree grows on the slopes of the Andes. Scientists have derived the bark of the cinchona tree and turn it into the life saver medicine for malaria. I am going to analyze this tiny but deadly killer in the health perspective because this disease is going around the world killing too many people. We need to raise a lot of money and get the vaccine to all of Africa where it is most needed. Remember every forty seconds a child dies in sub Saharan Africa because of malaria. We need to act now for all the suffering kids diagnosed with it. Malaria is one of the biggest killers in the world, do you believe me now! PubMed Health article MALARIA What do you think is that urge to itch at night? It could be a mosquito or could it be Bedbugs? They are infesting our personal space. They are crawling in our stereos , hiding in our t.v. remotes and worst of all, they're in our beds! Bedbugs are tiny bloodsuckers that are now known to be in movie theater seats, hotels, ambulances, university dormitories, grooves in your bed and so many more odd places. Bedbugs are a huge problem and we have to eradicate them now. Bedbugs are rare in most parts of the world thanks to powerful chemicals we have sprayed around houses. Over time these bedbugs have started to resist the chemicals we have sprayed on them. Originally people used something called DDT because it was deadly to the bed bugs. They would put it on their mattresses’ when they sleep. It wasn’t deadly to just the bedbugs though. It had made people very sick and quite a lot died from it. As soon as the DDT was banned bedbugs made their comeback and it was a big one. The thing that people use now is a gas called carbon which is kept at a below zero temperature to kill the bedbugs. It is not harmful it is just really cold so the bedbugs can’t handle it. If you want to get rid of bedbugs prepare for a lot of work. Bedbugs react to extreme temperatures. First you have to heat all your belongings. If a belonging can not be treated you should throw it in the rubbish. If you have a huge infestation you should heat the entire room up and steam all the surfaces that have fabric on them. The best way to know if you have bedbugs in your house is to check for blood stains or tiny black pieces of poop on your mattress. If you know what the bugs look like you stand a better chance in eliminating them. As far as we know bedbugs don’t kill you, but they are known to transfer two types of bacteria. One is called M.R.S.A and the other is V.R.E which are both very harmful as they attack the human immune system. These pests can leave bad sores and other infections on human skin. Only a few drugs can treat these infections. The male bedbug doesn’t waste time trying to find the reproductive system in the female. He stabs holes in her with his legs and mates with her in this way. The female bedbug can carry the male’s sperm for a substantial amount of time after mating without needing to mate again to fertilize its eggs. The male can keep on mating for life. This is just one of the ways in which bed bugs show their efficiency in survival. This pest has been analyzed as a health hazard for a reason. Bedbugs can cause a loss of sleep because of all the biting. Reactions range from just wanting to itch the bites to having an allergic reaction in which case you should get medical help. They are pests that suck your blood at night without you knowing. Not only do they spread M.R.S.A. and V.R.E., they are giving poor people infections who can not afford to pay for medication. They are costing people a fortune to get furniture steamed and houses heated. They only come out at night and their baby’s are nearly microscopic so they are the survivors of the parasite world. So, when your mum comes and says: “good night don’t let the bedbugs bite”, listen to her because she’s right. www.sciencenewsforkids.org These days, if something goes wrong we rely on scientists to invent something to fix it. How will scientists fix the dramatic climate change that is happening right now? Global warming has affected the water cycle and we are paying the price. Dry places will get drier and extreme weather will occur a lot more often. If it gets too dry or wet on Earth we won’t be able to farm, to feed our cows, and most of all - our human race. Our human race will be knocked out unless we stop polluting to keep the Earth livable. Physics have proven that heat (global warming in this case) causes the water cycle to speed up. By studying Earth’s salinity level in the ocean, scientists have figured out that the water cycle has increased its speed by about four percent. Later in this century if the world keeps heating up, the water cycle will increase its speed by at least twenty percent. The ocean covers about seventy-one percent of Earth and ninety-seven percent of that water is salt water. The problem is: salty parts of the ocean are getting saltier and fresher parts of the ocean are getting fresher. Most of Earth’s evaporation and precipitation happens in the ocean because it covers most of Earth. Scientists are using the saltiness of the ocean as a type of rain gauge. As rain falls on the surface of the ocean, it freshens the surface water. In some places evaporation is faster than rainfall, so the surface becomes saltier. Evaporation takes the water and leaves the salt behind so the water doesn’t get a chance to freshen the water because it is leaving too quickly so the salt stays and makes the ocean saltier. NASA recently launched a satellite called Aquarius up into space specifically to detect the salinity level which is so big it can be detected from out of space. The problem is it will take years to get the results back, but it will be worth the wait. Scientists have also done a project called project Argo. Project Argo is a bunch of robotic floats that measure the salinity level every ten hours. Scientists have also decided to take salinity levels off ships as well. This issue is a big problem for all the farmers who farm their land because if it gets too dry they can’t grow their crops and if it is too wet they still can’t grow their crops. The consequence of this will cause a huge hunger issue in the world because there is no food to buy from the farmers and all the cows will die because there is no grass to feed on due to droughts or floods. The farmers are like an umbrella species because the whole economy is affected by them not having food. This puts the people who buy from the farmers at risk of losing their jobs because they can’t sell anything to the public. That means we will have to ration the food of the world. There will be no more milk because the cows have nothing to graze on. There will probably be a third world war all over food and the few places of land that can sustain the crops needed to survive. The salinity level of our oceans will be the biggest impact that has happened to the human race since the last ice age. Big factories are creating global warming. It balances everyone’s needs now, but what about later when there is no food left. Are all the factories worth it? Will it balance everyone’s needs in the future when there is no food left? The only benefits of global warming are: we get our factories which give us everything. The costs are: we will have a food shortage for a very long time until we decide to go more eco friendly. If we weigh the costs and benefits it is obvious that we should save our Earth and make all factories eco friendly, or just shut them down completely. We need to sustain our resources by using what we need not what we want. The economy’s biodiversity will be ruined by the extreme weather. No tourists want to come to a flooded city or a place with a drought. They want to come to an island paradise. We also have to think of the ecological value of the forests. We won’t be able to pick fruits because there is no land to do it on because there is a flood or a drought. We also can’t get the trees we need to treat cancer and other illnesses. In a place like Tortola lots of the produce comes from the island, like: bananas, yams, coconuts and all types of fruit. Without the places to grow those fruits and veggies. All the people who usually sell those things will go bankrupt because they can’t grow them. Biodiversity is an important role in making Tortola such a paradise. All because of us, the water cycle is speeding up rapidly due to global warming. This puts us and the rest the planet’s animals in threat of starvation and death. We need to protect Earth like a mother takes care of her baby or else life threatening consequences will happen, like droughts and floods. These days kids say there’s so much food! In a few years it will be, is there any food? Source: Justin Gillis. "Study Indicates a Greater Threat of Extreme Weather." Study Indicates a Greater Threat of Extreme Weather. New York Times, 26 Apr. 2012. Web. 3 May 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/world/study-hints-at-greater-threat-of-extreme-weather.html?ref=science>.it. |
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