Response #2: The Parasite on the Playground

Link to the Article

This article speaks of a very common parasite problem that is found in playgrounds and easily spreads to children, yet not many doctors are aware of the problem. The parasite when infected children, often leads to cases of lower intelligence (whatever that specifically means), and epilepsy. It's quite fascinating to see a cases of parasites so easily infecting children in the United States, but makes sense when it's found more commonly with children who play in playgrounds, as they often don't wash their hands and tend to put those dirty hands into their mouths.

This parasite, Toxocara, is spread through cats and dogs, which makes sense when the pets who receive regular veterinary care are less likely to carry this parasite in their blood. The simplest solution to solving this problem of the parasite is to have animals treated regularly, and tell your kids to wash their hands. For smaller children who aren't old enough to keep their own hands clean, it's up to their caregivers to wash their hands and teach them healthy habits to prevent the spread of disease.

People seem to not be aware of how dangerous this parasite is, despite it's nonfatal effects. Perhaps it needs to be more well known of the consequences of this parasite's infestation in developing children for parents to be more aware and diligent when watching after their children. After all, people seem to only realize and change when they are faced with actual consequences.

Basically, it's a wake up call to people and young children, remember, wash your hands. Seriously, do it.

Response #1: Finding the Oldest Fossils of Butterflies Using a Human Nose Hair

Link to the article

First, the article title is quite interesting, and caught my attention. Props given where it's due.

I wasn't aware of the dust that coated butterfly wings were actually their scales. Apparently, in order to obtain the fossils of the butterfly scales, these researchers used a probe that was tipped with a human nose hair, which apparently has the perfect shape and springiness to collect butterfly scales. To imagine this is mind boggling, as this sort of specific task must be extremely meticulous to perform. Props given to Mr. van Eldijk, who was tasked with this job.

Using these scales, an important discovery, or potential discovery, was made. It was thought to prior that most ancient insects were to have mandibles, while modern butterflies and moths have a proboscis. As insects that have proboscis have hollow scales, and the scales found in the fossils were also hollow, researchers were able to come to the conclusion that ancient moths and butterflies had proboscis instead of mandibles.

These discoveries are linked to seeing how past insects were involved in pollination processes, and shows how somehow even a tiny scale could help prove an important theory of how the world used to work in the past. It's fascinating to believe that people out there are studying microscopic fossils of butterfly scales, especially using human nose hairs to extract them. I didn't know what I was expecting when I clicked on the article, but I learned something truly interesting from it. Even in the prehistoric eras of Earth, life was fascinating. Learning about the past can surely help us in understanding further how our world works now.