Is Dolly the 'First' Clone?

By Mine G.

Since the genetics started playing an important role in terms of biological sciences, without a shadow of a doubt, cloning has become one of the most important studies in the 21^st century. But wait, did cloning exist in earlier centuries? Was the sheep Dolly the first step of cloning organisms?

Let’s start off discussing what “cloning” actually means. Cloning is a process of producing identical organisms asexually. Cloning, technically known as “somatic cell nuclear transfer”, happens by extracting DNA from a cell of an organism and inserting extracted DNA to an egg cell (the nucleus that carries genetic information of the egg cell is removed before the process) of another organism. After a while, the egg cell starts acting like a fertilized egg and developed into an embryo in a surrogate mother.

Now, since we know the process of cloning, let's get back to the first question. Did cloning really exist in earlier centuries? 
Well, even though it is thought the sheep Dolly (first mammal that is successfully cloned from an adult cell) was the beginning of the cloning studies by many people, cloning technologies have been the case for scientist for more than 50 years. In 1952, a frog was recorded as the first cloned organism. Robert Briggs and Thomas King created tedpole clones by using the cells in a tadpole embryo. To do that, they inserted the nucleus extracted from a tadpole's somatic cell into an unfertilized egg cell whose nucleus is removed. This method has become a prototype for the experiments for cloning multicellular organisms.

              This experiment is then followed by mice cloning attempts by James McGrath and Davor Solter, nuclear transfers from laboratory cells, and Dolly.

              In the 21^st century, cloning studies, for example human cloning, are still ongoing. Cloning is considered as one of the biggest technologies of all times. But still, there is a lot of questions waiting to be solved in this process. Have you ever thought, one day, you will be able to see 'baby you'?


                 Images: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/clonezone/images/4-frog.jpg
          http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/cloning-sheep.gif

 References: Genetic Science Learning Center (2014, June 22) The History of Cloning. Learn.Genetics.                                                        Retrieved January 31, 2016, from   http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/clonezone                                       Harvard Medical School, B. (2015). Cloning. Retrieved January 31, 2016,                                                                                      from http://bsp.med.harvard.edu/node/17                                        BBC News. (1997, February 22). 1997: Dolly the sheep is cloned. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from                                        http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/22/newsid_4245000/4245877.stm

Black Holes

By Dan O

Black holes are points within space whose mass is so large and whose gravitational force is so strong, that they attract everything around them and once within their range of attraction, nothing can escape including light, because the escape velocity necessary to escape is infinite. There are many theories for why black holes exist, but Einstein's is most likely the most famous theory of black holes.

Image Credit: http://www.americaspace.com/

Einstein's theory was that the space time continuum was a flat plane of existence with masses representing indents within the flat plane. However, a black hole does not represent an indent, but a puncture within a space-time continuum, giving a representation of infinite gravity.

Stephen Hawking gives a good lecture on how black holes work.

http://www.iflscience.com/physics/retro-animation-stephen-hawkins-explains-black-holes-under-2-minutes

Within the video, Stephen Hawking references the infinite gravity of the black hole, and the idea that particles can escape. The difference within these particles and its ability to escape is because only one particle passes the singularity, or the point of no return, while the other particle has enough momentum and velocity in order to escape the black hole and be emitted as a form of radiation.

Image Credit: http://www.lifeintherightdirection.com/

Hawking also touches briefly on falling within to a black hole and encountering a new universe. This references the theory within quantum physics that there are an infinite amount of universes parallel to ours in both minute ways and large ways as well, depending on the decisions that we take. There is no clear answer about where black holes lead to, but one theory is that, if one was able to survive the journey, which is very low to none, it would take the observer to a new universe separate from our own, ejecting them from what is known as a "white hole."

The math behind "Sights"

By Guangyao Q

If a person jumps from the high building, taking a sight, and finishes uploading sight by using WeChat, what will the height of the building it requires? (WeChat Sight is the new, fun way to shoot and share your world through six second videos. Share your experiences with friends and family via chats or Moments.)

Since WeChat is a part of Chinese's daily lives, I am willing to use the knowledge of physics, which I already learned, to satisfy people's curiosities.

WeChat Sight usually lasts six second, and I assume it takes one more second to upload online. There are seven seconds in all. Using the formula of gravity, which is s = 1/2 *g*t^2, I can get s ＝ 1/2 ＊ 9.8 ＊ 7 ＊ 7 ＝ 240.1m. The height of one floor is around 4 meters. It means the building only needed to be 60 floors. People can find such a building easily.

Is 60-floor building the final answer? No, it is not. Do not ignore the air friction! In fact, the higher speed suffers larger air-friction. Using google, I was able to find the formula:



Force(Drag)= .5(density)(Velocity)^2(Constant of Drag)(Surface Area)

87.16(squareroot(0.6))(tanh(time*(0.11/(sqrt(0.6))))

Velocity(of time)=square root(2*mass*gravity constant/(density*surface area*Drag constant))*tanh(time*(square root(gravity*density*Drag Constant*Surface Area/(2*Mass))

drag equation

When velocity starts from zero, ρ is the density of the fluid(yeah, air is a kind of fluid); Cd is drag coefficient, and A is cross sectional area. Set the formula as:



People can be assumed as a sphere, which has 0.6 diameter and cd is 1.0, when people are dropping down. The density(ρ) of a human is quite similar as the density of water. Using the normal density of air and simplify it, I got the new function:

Wolfram can graph the function that is shown above. The cute graph, which is about jumping from a building, is shown below:

By decreasing the acceleration, the speed becomes stable around 65 m/s. Take the integral of the function.

Finally, plugging 7s into the function, I got the distance is 204 meters, which are around 51 floors.

Compare with the previous calculation, the difference is more than 36 meters! Do not need to climb another 9 floors. I should thank for my calculation.

This calculation is important because it proves one truth again. Physics is completely versatile.

Thanks for your time.

Lets Talk About Delivery

     By Cameron O.    

               I am sure that you and I alike have all been to some sort of medical building to receive simple things such as blood-work tests, physicals, flu-shots and some of us may have visited our local medical department for things such as drug tests and Sexually Transmitted Disease tests.

               A recent article, published on Wednesday, November 11th by Martin Lambert to "Mediplacements.com", took a study of was how today's patients prefer to receive the data and results of the tests listed earlier. This article was not very long but included results that every medical field should take note of.

               The study viewed how patients want to see and maybe even discus the results of everyday common tests, as well as tests that may be more personal such as cancer reports, STD topics and other similar tests. As you may expect, the average person has become more involved in technology compared to previous generations. Patients were more than happy for their own convenience to receive these results regarding simple tests in emails or even text messages from their doctors. This information was not surprising to myself as I have gotten some blood-work done to test for Diabetes, a condition found through many generations of my family that restricts our bodies from producing incline, and did not even get the results back from the doctor since the result was negative. I have also had physicals done with results being text messaged to myself. I see that the convenience for this method of information is quick and easy for both the patient and the medical office.

               On the other hand, when discussing more serious topics and tests the study had shown that patients would rather have the results given to them in person, face to face, or through password protected online sites. Again, this made clear sense to me. I can tell that these people would not want to receive a message on their phone saying "Hello, this is Doctor So-and-So letting you know that you do in fact have cancer". Even though the patients said that they prefer these things, after information was posted onto the sites, records show that many accounts never accessed the information containing their results.

Photo Credits

              This is important within the field of bio-medical science because it is important to pay high levels of attention to making sure that your information, studies, and tests are as accurate as possible, but also respect the patient themselves and make sure that how you deliver the information can make a world of a difference to their lives as well as the actual results. Quoted on "Mediplacements.com", "Jeannine LaRocque, professor of human science at the university and lead author of the study, explained: "Communication with patients may need to be on a case-by-case basis - every individual may have a personal preference and there may be a way to indicate those preferences in the patient's record. The goal of this study was to try to better understand these preferences so we can improve doctor-patient communication."