Thank you Info 3.0

This graph shows how many visitors I had in my blog since I started blogging. I am happy to see that I had returning visitors and I hope I will have more visitors in the future.

My Technology 3.0 class taught me how to blog for the first time. I used to do very short blogs before, but they were very short and personal. This class taught me how to make a really serious and interesting blog that readers can read to learn about information that is related to my major and interests.

I wanted to write about the evolution of science in the 21 century because I am a science major. I decided to major in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics. Since I started studying science I always wonder if there would be an easy and simple way to explain difficult scientific concepts like evolution and genetics.

I decided to write a blog to see how well and simple I could explain science to people that were not science majors. I think I have the ability to express difficult concepts in a simple way and maybe that is why I had some visitors returning to read my posts.

I started my blog mentioning Charles Darwin and his theories of evolution because he gave science a very strong foundation and I thought that was very important to know about him. Then, I mentioned how the field of genetics developed. I also posted information about very important scientific and archeological discoveries of the 20 century.

Then I also went to the bioinformatics lab of Dr. El-Sayed at the University of Maryland and I took some photos about the work that he is doing about trying to find a way to cure Chagas disease. I also posted more information about how technology is affecting our lives.

Blogging is a very effective way to communicate what I learn and to get more information about science in general. To make a good blog is not easy. I had to learn how to take good pictures, how to make a blog appealing to the reader and how to make each post interesting.

Now that my Technology 3.0 class is over I will continue posting information related to the evolution of science. Maybe in a couple of years I will have many followers like my professor, Dr. Yaros said. I know that all the knowledge that I acquired from the course will help me in the future and graduate school.

I will continue blogging about science and I know I will learn more valuable information each time. Science and technology are advancing very fast. It is important that we learn and share information with everyone.

Blogging became a very useful tool to share and learn information that can benefit many people at the same time. I think the best way to learn information in the 21 century is to share the knowledge that we have with others. That knowledge will benefit other people and the way how we share it will reinforce our own.

This was the first time that I took a journalism class at the University of Maryland. The class taught me how to blog and everything about technology. What I liked the most is that I learned that journalism and technology go “hand-by-hand.” I also learned that every person can be a journalist if he or she wants to.

It is very important that a journalist knows how to use all kinds of technology to make a good story. The class taught me about all the technology that can be used to become a great scientific journalist. I personally recommend this course to every student of the University of Maryland that wants to become a scientist or is interested in technology, blogging and journalism.

It is important to mention that the Technology 3.0 class should be included into the evolution of science and technology in the 21 century because is another example of how technology evolved and now is being used to teach students about technology and sharing information.

I believe that technology in the 21 century can make every person a journalist. Today, we have access to all kind of information and we can send and transfer this information anywhere around the world. Technology is allowing us not only how to blog, but how to be able to use the latest technology by enjoying our time that we spend in the internet, phone or smart phone.

I am graduating this year and I leave the University of Maryland with great knowledge and I am very happy that part of that knowledge came for the Technology 3.0 class. I know that many of the students that took the course with me will be using all the information that we learned from Dr. Yaros and Mr. Paddock.

I can predict that in the future when many of us will be in graduate school with our iPads or some similar technology taking notes we will continue blogging, using more technology and remember our first professor that taught us everything about collecting and sharing information in the spring of 2010. Thank you Dr. Yaros.

Charles Darwin Would Love to Play Spore

Spore is a game made by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. In 2008, Spore was released for Windows and Macintosh. Today, the game is available for Wii, PC Games, Web, Xbox 360, PS3, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and Mobile.

The game has many genres like RPG, strategy and action. This game lets the player have control over the development of an organism from the cellular level to a whole and intelligent creature. The player can make the organism evolve and to explore water, land and the space between the star systems within a galaxy.

This is a very fun game that teaches players the most important ideas of Charles Darwin like The Survival of The Fittest and how Natural Selection favors certain organisms to evolve and survive through many stages (generations) until he becomes so strong that he can conquer the galaxy.

The Cell Stage

This the first stage of the game, teaches the scientific concept of panspermia (in Greek pan means “all” and spermia means “seed.” The hypothesis of panspermia tells that the life on Earth originated from seeds of life that are all over the universe). The concept of panspermia is shown by the crash of a meteor in the ocean of a planet giving origin to a prokaryotic (single cell) organism.

The organism has to evolve in order to progress. The player has to guide the prokaryote through a liquid environment, where it can find other simple organism to eat or big predators that can eat him. The player can decide if the creature will eat plants or meat. Later on, the creature evolves and can eat both.

The eating habits that the organism acquires in the cell stage directly influences the next stage (creature stage). Only feeding structures (for plants, meat or both) that the creature uses in the cell stage will be available for the creature stage. However, the player can change the feeding structures of the creature before entering the creature stage.

As the creature evolves, the player will have to add legs for the transition to land. When the creature is out from the water will join a nest with other nest mates.

The Creature Stage

The creature stage contains different animal species. This stage shows and teaches the distinction of carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. In other words, the player can find animals that eat meat, plants or both. In this stage the player has to take care of the health and hunger of the creature.

When the creature explores the land will find other kinds of creatures with their nests. Some creatures will be powerful and will have los of babies or others will be weak. The player can decide if the creature will be friendly or attack the creatures. If the player is friendly to the other creatures, they will be friendly with him, but if the player attacks them, the creatures will get very angry and attack him.

This is a very good way to teach the concept of Natural Selection to the players. The most powerful creatures are the ones that have more mates and can reproduce more successfully than others. The players will learn the importance of “The Survival of the Fittest” between different species on land.

Equally important, the player will learn that the only way of species to survive is in a group. Like Charles Darwin would say, they will never make it alone. He will learn this by socializing and hunting with other creatures.

The more time that the player socializes with other creatures; the more points that he will get and his DNA will become stronger. The interaction with other creatures will allow the player to form a pack that will follow him and help him to fight or to heal.

The importance of reproduction is observed in the game. Reproduction has a very important role in evolution. In the game, the player has to mate his creature with other members of the nest (they have to be from the same species otherwise they cannot mate).

After the creature mates, the player can change the creature and make it stronger and totally different from the old version. This will show how a new and a stronger generation can be the result of a successful mating.

The creature’s brain will evolve and become more intelligent as the player socializes and hunts with other creatures. When the creature intelligence has reached a certain point, the player enters the next stage.

The Tribal Stage

In this stage the biological development of the creature stops. The player cannot longer control the individual creature. From here on, the player has to take care of the whole species or tribe. The player will have a hut and a pack of evolved creatures to play.

The creatures can interact with other tribes and learn to speak. Other creatures can be added to the pack like pets that will make eggs for food and the creatures can wear clothes, use tools and musical instruments.

Creatures give birth to babies that will become members of the tribe. When they grow, they can gather food, attack other tribes, hunt for food and become friend of other tribes.

The player will face 5 different tribes. Three tribes are aggressive and the player can decide to be friendly or to attack them. A piece of a totem pole is built for every tribe that is destroyed or became a friend.

The sculpture will allow the player to increase the tribe population number or will provide more tools for the population. When the totem pole has 5 pieces and the player’s tribe has become the dominant tribe, the player can move to the next stage.

The Civilization Stage

In this stage, the player’s tribe has divided into different nations, like in reality. The player controls one of the nations. The purpose of this stage is to get control of the whole planet. The player can decide to conquer the planet by the economy, religion or military.

If the player wants to conquer the planet by the economy, he can trade and buy cities. In the pet hand if the player wants to control the planet by the religion, he will have to convert all the cities to the player by religious domination.

The player can mark his territory by making vehicles and buildings and adding specific color to define the territory boundary. The territory will increase as the player gains more power by conquering cities and nations. When the player conquers the planet, he will move to the next and final stage.

The Space Stage

In this stage, the player will spread through the galaxy with the purpose of colonizing planets. The player will be able to manipulate the planets by altering the ecosystem, temperature and the atmospheric conditions to kill the inhabitants in order to conquer the planets. He can also make changes in the planet to make it a better habitat.

The player can abduct creatures and transport them to different planets to test the environmental conditions to create ecosystems. In addition, the player can trigger life in a planet by placing a monolith.

The player can interact with other ‘space civilizations’ that are called empires and form allies. He can conquer the galaxy by creating a federation or an interstellar war.

Bioinformatics & Computational Biology

I went to the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology laboratory of Dr. El-Sayed to take some photos that will show how technology is used in the University of Maryland to do scientific research. I also used the one thirds rule of photography discussed in the course Information 3.0. Bioinformatics is the latest field that evolved from Biology and the technology that is used is the latest too.

Dr. El-Sayed laboratory works with three pathogens: Trypanosoma brucei, Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania major. Trypanosoma is the agent that causes sleeping sickness and continues to affect populations in Africa and South America. The main goal of the lab is to sequence the Trypanosoma genome to find a way to make a vaccine that will exterminate the pathogen and won't harm the human host.

Laboratory assistant of Dr. El-Sayed performing research.

The lab is currently working with a technique that is called the Yeast 2 Hybrid System. The purpose of the assay is to find a Trypanosoma protein that is affecting a human protein. When the protein is found, the team can sequence it and analyze it. Then they can compare the sequence with sequences of other species to see what the protein does and ways to target it.

This machine transfers cells that are infected with Trypanosoma to a medium where only the cells that are affected by the Trypanosoma protein can survive. Then, the cells grow and can be sequenced.

This photo shows that many the machine can tranfer many plates at the same time. In fact, 200 plates can be transferred each time.

The rectangular plate shows the cells that the machine transfers to a different medium. Every dot represent a colony of cells that only grows if is infected by the Trypanosomaprotein. Only the ones that grow are visible to the human eye.

Analyzing Scientific Shots

The evolution of science was always link to journalism. Journalists let people know about scientific discoveries and new technology. Journalists use their cameras to capture and reinforce a story. However, not every individual can take a perfect photograph.

The quality of the image depends of the individual’s performance. Photography is an art that requires an artist. The photographer has to learn and practice how to take a good picture. Like artists, they have to practice to improve their work.

To take pictures of a lab or scientists is not easy. One reason might be because the labs have very big machines that can cover most of screen. However, to take pictures of smaller objectives like scientists working is easier than from big machines.

For Example, the photo below is very well taken. The photo is a very good example of the rule of thirds (never place your objective in the center of the screen).The photographer focused the scientist on the left of the screen and the coverslip a little below the center of the screen In addition, the hand of the scientist was located on the left of the screen.



The photographer gave emphasis to the hand holding the cover slit by getting a close up of the hand holding the coversilp. Also, the colors are very clear and show a very clean shot. I can tell that the photographer used a very nice camera.

The photographer edited the photo very well. He increased the intensity of the colors of the scientist and made the background colors a little blurry. The objective of the photographer is very easy to visualize and to understand.

In the other hand, the photo below is not so good like the previous photo. The photographer used the rule of thirds by putting the scientist on the right of the screen, but not enough. If the photographer located the scientist a little more on the right, the picture would look better.



In addition, the background at the right of the girl makes the picture look low quality. The picture shows that the photographer objective was the scientist, but maybe that was not the case. If the main objective were the hands, the photographer should have focused the hands at the right and not at the center of the screen.

If the main objective were the hands, the photographer violated the rule of thirds because he located the scientist’s hands at the center of the screen. Even, if the hands were not the main objective, the shot would have been better if the photographer put the scientist all the way at the right of the screen.

Equally important, I can tell that this picture was not edited well enough. For example, the colors are not so clear like the previous photo. In the previous photo, the colors were edited to emphasize the view of the scientist instead of the background. However, in this photo, the scientist and background share the same intensity of colors. If the photographer gave to the scientist higher color intensity, the photo would look much better.

Technology reveals King Tut's Mystery

The kingdom of King Tut was one of the most extraordinary kingdoms. The late18th dynasty gave rise to Akhenaten. This was a very special pharaoh. Before Akhenaten became the pharaoh, Egypt was a polytheist country. However, when he became the king, he made Egypt to switch to a single religion and change the main capital (Thebes) to Tel-el- Amarna. He introduced a new capital and a new god, Aten.

The change of religion and capital made a huge impact in the country. Some people didn’t like Akhenaten; some people refer to him as the “heretic pharaoh”. He became the father of Tutankhamun. When Akhenaten died, Tutankhamun became the new pharaoh at the age of about 9. He switched back to the old religion and switched back the main capital of Tel-el-Amarna to Thebes.

For many years, the cause of death of King Tut and the identity of his ancestors was not well known. In fact, archeologists have found many royal mummies, but technology was not able to reveal their identity and relationship to King Tut.

A multidisciplinary scientific approach based on molecular and medical Egyptology was used to determine the identity and relationship between royal mummies, health problems and their provable cause of death.

It is very impressive how now technology can be used to reveal very specific information of 11 mummies that lived in a period, circa 1410-1324 and 5 mummies that lived in a period, circa 1550-1479 BC. That is like 3,500 years ago.

Results

King Tut’s family tree

Genetic fingerprinting created a 5 generation pedigree of King Tut’ lineage. They look for similar microsatellites in the mummies DNA. Microsatellites are repeats of 1-6 units of DNA. The mummies that had the same repeats are related by blood.

I. Yuya and Tuya were the great-grandparents.

II. Amenhotep III and Tiye were the grandparents

III. Akhenaten and mummy KV35YL (unknown) were the parents and siblings.

IV. Tutankhamun, his wife and KV21A (unknown)

V. Fetus 1 and 2 (unknown) were King Tut’s children

According to the microsatellites they found out that King Tut was the product of a consanguineous marriage. The double line between Akhenaten and his unknown wife represents consanguinity. Inbreeding brought many health problems to king Tut.

King Tut’s foot

King Tut was examined radiologically and a CT reconstruction of his feet reveals that the left foot was deformed and had bone necrosis (bone tissue dying). The image below shows the deformed left foot and the normal right foot. This finding explains why numerous walking sticks were found in King Tut’s tomb.



King’s Tut’s cause of death

The scientist did genetic testing to look for DNA of plasmodium in King Tut. They found that King Tut had plasmodial DNA. Plasmodium is the agent of malaria. According to the study, King’s Tut had the most aggressive form of malaria.

Generally, African populations that are exposed most of the time to malaria develop a self defense mechanism that reduces the mortality of malaria by decreasing the symptoms of the malarial inflammation. When the organism reduces the response to the inflammation, there is enough time to fight and clear the disease. People that cannot reduce the response to the inflammation usually die.

Scientists believe that King Tut died of malaria. He was too week to reduce the response to the malarial inflammation because of the severe bone necrosis.

In addition to malaria tropica, scientists found that King Tut had a leg fracture, cleft palate, pes planus, oligodactyly (fewer than 5 fingers or toes), and kyphoscoliosis (abnormal curvature of the spine). He got a mixture of scoliosis (curvature of the spine) and kyphosis (hunchback). Akhenaten and his sister had scoliosis. When they got married they provably gave King Tut a severe type of scoliosis and many other health problems due to a consanguineous marriage.

Facebook Overtaking Google

My earliest post, explains how Facebook is getting more market visits than Google. This proves that the social network Facebook is getting much more ads from businesses than Google. In fact, if Facebook keeps getting so many adds, Google will go down the hill like a soccer ball and will end up in second place.

“According to a new study, when it comes to consuming news online, users are more loyal to Facebook than they are to Google News—leading brands to shift their online marketing dollars”(Rubin).

A study shows that companies will get more profit if they place their ads in Facebook, not in Google. A few weeks ago Facebook surpassed Google and won the title of the most visited site in the U.S. However, time flies online. Today, in addition of having more ads than Goggle, Facebook has also more loyal news readers than Google.

Hitwise says that 78% of Facebook users returned to the site to read more news, but only 67% of Google users returned to the site to read news. In addition, 77% of Facebook users returned to watch online news, compared to 64% of Google users. “The results are based on the click stream data for the week ending March 6 for the five top news media sites” (Rubin).

Companies prefer to put their ads in Facebook because they need to now that the visitors will come back many times. We can see that the results described above clearly show that Facebook users come back all the time. They are surrounded by a big network of friends and family all over the world.

In addition to being surrounded by friends, they are also surrounded by a network of virtual worlds. In my previous post, I explained how virtual worlds are created to make people come back again and again. Virtual money and ads are definitely contributing to the fast growth of the Facebook Empire.

The way Google can target ads is by using keywords and the users search history. As a result, it uses a minimum budget. However, Facebook can use the age, location, interests, education level, connections, etc. In fact, Rubin says that “there's no minimum budget – are ultra-refined.”

Carmen Nobel says that “Advertisers looking to target a specific audience can't do much better than Facebook, which collects personal information about its customers as a matter of course.” Advertisers can not do better than Facebook, but they can do better than Google by choosing to put their ads in Facebook.

Companies are shifting their ads from Goggle to Facebook. In fact, Lara Sinclair wrote, “social networking website Facebook is expected to suck more than $2 billion out of the global advertising market over the next year or two with television, website development and Google among its targets.”

Facebook is a global social network. Before Facebook, there was not a global social network that could reach every country around the world. Today, Facebook’s network is all over the world. Everybody is connected with Facebook and the advertisers can target a specific audience all over the world at the same time.

King Tut's Curse

In 1922, Lord Carnarvon sponsored the archeological expedition of the archeologist Howard Carter. The purpose of the expedition was to discover the tomb of Tutankhamen. The tomb of Tutankhamen was very special because the seal was not broken. The difference with other tombs is that thieves broke into the tombs to steal everything they could. However, Tutankhamen tomb was not desecrated. Tutankhamun was found with all his treasure in the same location where the old Egyptians left him in 1323 BC. Before Carter entered the tomb, he noticed a warning that said: “They who enter this sacred tomb shall swift be visited by wings of death.” He ignored the warning and broke the seal, entered into the tomb and collected everything that was inside. He even kept some of Tutankhamun’s furniture and used it to decorate his home for a while.

It is not clear that the curse that Carter found at the tomb entrance was exactly the same as the one described above. He denied the fact that there was a curse. Some people think that as soon as he found the inscription, he hided it that way the workers did not leave the excavation. At the time of the pharaohs, Egypt was a very religious and a polytheist country. In fact, Tutankhamun was the one that returned to Egypt the polytheism that was taken away by his father Akhenaten. Religion was a very important part of Tutankhamun’s life and regime. It is possible that an inscription was put at the entrance of the tomb to protect the Pharaoh from thieves or desecration and that Carter found it.

The discovery of Tutankhamun was one of the most important discoveries of the twenty century. According to the curse people thought that when someone breaks the seal will be cursed and die. Maybe that was one of the reasons why the tomb of Tutankhamun was intact when Carter found it. According to the curse, everybody that enters the tomb will die. The curse became even scarier when Lord Carnarvon and his dog died six weeks after the official opening of the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. He died of an insect bite infection.

“Even more strange, when the mummy of Tutankhamun was unwrapped in 1925, it was found to have a wound on the left cheek in the same exact position as the insect bite on Carnarvon that lead to his death.”

The archeologist Zahi Hawass says that the reason why most of the Egyptian artifacts are taken to the museums is because they want to prevent people entering the tombs. The reason why is the Egyptian curses. If tourists keep entering the tombs, they will be cursed and bad things will happen to them.

The following chart and data shows some of the people who died after entering the tomb.

EVENT	NUMBER OF PEOPLE THERE	NUMBER OF DEATHS AFTER 10 YEARS
Burial chamber opening	26	6
Sarcophagus opening	22	2
Mummy unwrapping	10	0

Lord Carnarvon:

Carnarvon had been in poor health for over 20 years following a motoring accident in Germany. Less than two weeks after the official opening of the burial chamber, Carnarvon received a mosquito bite which became infected after he cut it while shaving. Carnarvon fell ill and, with his resistance lowered, came down with pneumonia and eventually passed away at the age of 57.

Howard Carter:

As discoverer of the tomb, Carter should have been Number 1 on the curse's "hit list", but he survived until March 1939, just short of his 65th birthday and nearly 17 years after entering the tomb - about a decade of which was spent working in the tomb itself.

Lady Evelyn Herbert:

Lady Evelyn, Lord Carnarvon's daughter and one of the first into the tomb, died in 1980 at the age of about 79.

Harry Burton:

Burton was the photographer loaned to Carter by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to document the work done in Tutankhamun's tomb. Many of the magnificent black & white photographs of the time were taken by Burton who died in 1940.

Alan Gardiner:

Gardiner studied the tomb's inscriptions and was still very active working on Egyptian grammar for many decades until his death in 1963.

Dr D. E. Derry:

Derry carried out the original autopsy on Tutankhamen’s mummy. If anyone should have been cursed along with Carter, it probably should have been Derry, but he didn't die until 1969.