Biosphere

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Animal Intelligence pg 4 Five of the smartest animals out there Cancer’s Key to Immortality pg 6 Telomerase, the cause of immortality- and cancer Tree ♥ House pg 11 Treehouses- a game or the future?

The Next Phage pg 13 The biology teacher that could Let it Burn pg 16 The uses of forest fires- and the dangers if we don’t Herb Hunter pg 22 The first types of medicine A Walk a Day Keeps the pg 24 The link between exercise and mental health Psychiatrist Away The Race for Strangeness pg 26 The chase for the strangest animal Ashes, Ashes, pg 28 A tale of two flus We All Fall Down Vegitarianism: The First pg 32 Meat and the link to global warming Successful Emission Plan Death Walks Both Land pg 36 The amphibian extinction event and Sea The Forest Floor pg 41 It all looks like dirt- but there’s more to it Walking in the Tule Elk pg 42 Photos of elk emerging from the fog Reservation Staff Page pg 46 Meet the staff of the magzine

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Animal Intelligence Animals can be much more intelligent than we give them credit for. They display an astonishing array of abilities, some of which rival and possibly surpass those of humans. These are a few examples of interesting stories in which animals show us just how smart they are.

By Katherine N. There are many fantastic tales of rescues by dolphins. One such story was told by Yvonne Vladislavich. She was sailing on June 1971 in the Indian Ocean when the ship exploded, leaving her stranded far from the shipping lanes. She was saved by three dolphins, one of which carried her while the others protected her from sharks. They carried her 200 miles and left her to be picked up at a marker-buoy.

In another story, the crew of the Aquanaut had to stop practicing lifesaving techniques due to dolphins that wanted to play with the people. However, when one of the passengers began actually drowning, the dolphins immediately carried him to the boat, even going so far as to wait by the ship until they saw that the person was alright. from Peaceful Kingdom by Stephania Laland, Conrari Press

Crows are extremely intelligent birds. They are known for using tools, and are one of the few birds that do so. At Oxford University, a New Caledonian crow bent a wire into a hook to access food that was out of reach. Crows do this in the wild with twigs. This behavior could have been developed by chance and passed down.

This captive crow could not have copied this behavior. She had no experience with bending objects and had limited experience with wire. When she failed to retrieve the food with a straight wire, she began to bend it into a hook. She solved a new problem with various loosely related experiences, possibly evidence of inferential reasoning, which some scientists believe even apes do not have.

‘Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind’ tells of Jack the Signalman. Railroad guard James Wide of the town Uitenhage was run over by a train and had his legs amputated at the knees. He trained a baboon, named Jack, to drive him to work and to act as signalman.

The tracks had blasts from one to three, which Jack changed based on the signals - for four blasts, Jack brought the key to the coal shed to the driver. When inspectors tested him, Jack passed superbly, even looking both ways when a signal was changed. He was given an official employment number and worked until his death.

Earlier examples of baboon intelligence include their use as goatherds by the Namaqua people of modern-day Namibia. The baboons would shepherd the animals during the day, watching out for predators, and bring them back before nightfall.

At the sea star aquarium in Coburg, Germany, an octopus short-circuited the power to the entire aquarium, causing the pumps to stop working.

Apparently he was annoyed by the light shining on his tank and crawled onto the edge of the tank to squirt water towards the bulb, which caused the blackout.

At the Seattle Aquarium a fish population in an aquarium began to mysteriously decline.

By setting up a camera, the staff figured out that the octopus from the other side of the room would crawl all the way to the fish and back during the night, even going to the extent of closing the lids of the aquariums once more.

Elephants practice death rituals. South-African biologist Anthony Martin-Hall saw a death ritual, in which the elephants were touching the body of the dead member and making weeping and screaming noises. Then they proceeded to cover the body with leaves, dirt, and branches. They guarded the body for two days.

An elephant in India placing logs in holes by the instructions of an animal trainer, refused to do so at one hole. It was discovered that there was a dog sleeping in this hole.

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Cancer’s Key to Immortality

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Cancer once seemed invincible. But now, scientists think they might have found the weak link of the disease.

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Every day of life, the cells of the body labor away just to keep it alive, billions of little machines endlessly working. But there is a small problem: every time one of these cells replicates, making more tiny workers for the body, a little bit of the information from the previous cell is left behind, causing the cells of the body to age. However, there is a chemical proven to be the key to immortality; any cell that contains this chemical will live indefinitely and possess the ability to grow without aging. Sounds like the next Orson Scott Card novel, right?

Now suppose this chemical was an enzyme called telomerase, and that the genes for it were present in every cell of the body.

Despite all the women out there that are fantasizing about the wonders such a thing would do for their wrinkles, immortal cells are not as wonderful as they sound. If a cell manages to reactivate its telomerase, it gains the ability to replicate indefinitely, often causing a virulent tumor. Because of this, recent research has shown that the way to cure cancer may be in targeting the telomerase within the cell instead of the mutated cancer cells themselves.

Telomerase is “like an aglet, the little plastic bit at the end of your shoelace,” Matt Ridley states in his book, Genome. “It stops the end of the chromosome from fraying.”

But more importantly, it prevents vital genes from being left off of the chromosome when a cell replicates. Ridley explains that if you knew that every time you photocopied a paper, two lines at each end would be left off,

you would create lines of pure gibberish at the beginning and end that you could afford to lose in order to preserve the important information. In DNA, this gibberish is known as telomeres.

Of course, after a few hundred rounds of repetitive photocopying, those added lines would begin running low and the important information would start to be left out, and telomeres are the same. Telomeres are longest at birth and grow progressively shorter throughout life.

Every day the body creates hundreds of cancerous cells that either die or are killed by the immune system. But these cells only become a problem when they acquire the ability to proliferate indefinitely.

Obviously, these telomeres come from some where. And this somewhere is telomerase. Put as simply as possible, telomerase is protein with pieces of RNA to code for new telomeres.

“There really is only one way in eukaryotic cells that you can immortalize [the] cells,” Radmila Hrdlicková of the University of Texas said. “This is by over-expression of telomerase.”

Because telomeres determine how long a cell lives and telomerase creates telomeres, the over-expression of telomerase can create immortal cells, whose telomeres never grow

ecancer Cancer cells in bone marrow. As with all cancer, these cells mutated and no longer are doing the job that they were meant to do for the body, in this case, to make blood cells. short. On the contrary, if telomerase is underexpressed, life is shortened dramatically.

“If [the] telomeres are short the cell will die basically,” Hrdlicková said. “And you will be aging quickly,” her husband and coworker, Jirí Nehyba, added. “There’s a lot of diseases when people have defects in TERT (the main catalytic subunit of telomerase) and they are aging more quickly than they are supposed to,” Hrdlicková continued. “On the other hand, in 85% of tumors, telomerase is over-expressed.”

So on both ends of the spectrum, telomerase can harm the body should it malfunction. But although it can become extremely harmful, it is often blamed for much more damage than it actually causes. It is the results of the telomerase defect and not the telomerase itself that causes the primary problems.

“Telomerase immortalizes cells but

does not transform them,” Hrdlicková said.

“It’s prerequisite for transformation. They do not behave abnormally, they simply proliferate without stopping.”

Of course, the question arises: so what makes cancer so dangerous? Why is it that cancer looks like a blob of grey, formless cells and not just an over-sized liver, pancreas, or lung?

The genes that make telomerase are not the only genes altered in a cancer cell. The genes that make the cell a healthy, functional part of the body are altered as well. Every day the body creates hundreds of cancerous cells that either die or are killed by the immune system. But these cells only become a problem when they acquire the ability to proliferate indefinitely.

“It’s going wrong and it’s going wrong in a lot of ways,” Hrdlicková said, referring to the typical cancer cell. “Normally [the cells]

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///////////// Biosphere are tightly regulated, but with cancer, genes escape regulation. They are doing what they want to do; they are over-expressed for some reason or they are mutated so that they do not respond to feedback.”

Unfortunately for us, humans tend to acquire cancer more readily than most other species. Not only do we tend to live longer (for with age comes not only wisdom, but cancer), but there is greater stress on our telomeres.

“It’s some kind of deal that we are warm-blooded,” Ms. Hrdlicková explained.

“We can be faster, but we deal with big oxidative stress and a lot of damage from this and we need to burn much more calories for our metabolism to keep us warm. So I think we are also much more prone to cancer for this reason.”

“See, telomerase was found some 15 years ago, and immediately [scientists] started thinking of this kind of vaccine.”

Radmila Hrdlicková and Jirí Nehyba have been working with the alternative splicing of telomerase for approximately seven years at the University of Texas. But prior to this research they worked with oncogenes, or so-called ‘master genes’.

“You have a gene and before the gene you have a switch, which is called [a] promoter.

If it’s off, there is not transcription, no RNA, no protein. So if it’s on, you have transcription, then you have RNA, then you have protein. So in cells, if they feel that they are damaged or if there’s stress, they start [to] switch on the transcription of a lot of genes, which can protect the cells and induce proliferation or induce even cell death. This is why they are called master genes: because they influence a lot of genes. This is how, if they are under regulated, they can cause cancer.”

Despite the fact that these genes can be the primary cause of cancer, there is evidence that they can provide the cure as well. Scientists are looking into the creation of vectors, which will deliver toxin directly to the cancerous cells. “And this toxin can be transcribed only in cells in which its telomerase is active,”

Hrdlicková said.

This control of the toxin is made possible by the promoter, which allows the creation of the excess telomerase in the first place. The toxin gene is placed right after the promoter, so that if the promoter is switched on, creating telomerase, the toxin is released.

Likewise, if the promoter is off, no toxin will be released. Therefore, all cells that do not switch on the genes for telomerase production will not have the toxin released in them.

Another way scientists are looking at to defeat the cancerous cells is by injecting antisense into them, which is RNA containing the exact opposite RNA message that telomerase contains. This then binds to the telomerase and neutralizes it, so that no amount of telomerase will increase the amount of telomeres the cell’s chromosome contains.

“See, telomerase was found some 15 years ago, and immediately [scientists] started thinking of this kind of vaccine,” Hrdlicková said, emphasizing the speed at which the field of telomerase changes and the urgency for such information.

But the fast pace of the research and development of the field hardly seems to faze Hrdlicková. On the contrary, she seems to enjoy it all the more for this reason. And there is no doubt why. The work areas, which could hardly be maneuvered around without fear of knocking something over, were covered in vials and containers of assorted color and size, and the entire building thrummed with the sound of machines. The entire atmosphere gave a feeling of wonder.

When speaking of her plans for the future she said, “I would like to stay on [this]. I like it. You?” she asked Nehyba. “Yeah, sure,” he answered enthusiastically. “It’s a relatively young field, it’s very complex and it’s still not well understood. It has a lot of things to be done. I like it. The telomerase field is very broad.”

And it may be in this broad field of telomerase that the cure for cancer comes, though how far into the future is unknown.

One thing is for certain, though: if the hope and determination of modern scientists persevere, cancer doesn’t stand a chance.

By Veronica B.

Tree ♥ House

Many of us think of treehouses as a game- can they have a future as real buildings?

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The key idea behind all of those projects I drive (or at least sit in the car) through the downtown of Austin. The huge, gray build- is the same- to use living trees as a building maings tower before me. Although Austin is terial. Wood has been known to be a very good much greener than other cities in Texas, one building material since antiquity. Its insulative couldn’t guess it from those behemoths. They and supportive properties make it good enough certainly help they environment much more to be the support of a house by itself. Trees, than the single-family homes on the outskirts, however, are useful in other ways as well, such as they help reduce development and urban as providing fruit, cleaning the atmosphere, sprawl. It’s also clearly much more conve- and creating one of the most fertile habitats on nient than living an hour away from where you Earth, the forest. Letting those properties be work with no public transportation.

But among these giants, it’s easy to forget that and fall into the old trap of skyscraper-bashing. Fortunately, there are options- from houses on trees to houses whose walls are living trees- that can stop this problem and make living in the city center a lot more bearable. This industry is growing, and I believe that green houses will benefit us.

Modern treehouses include the Free Spirit spheres, the mushroom-shaped O2 houses, and the Styx Valley Protest structures, as shown in International Listings and Web Urbanist. Taking the term more literally, however, houses that have their walls made of living trees have been proposed and even made!

The Fab Tree Hab was a vine-based building that uses arbosculpture to The Fab Tree Hab (concept). Image by Mitchell Joakim, help mold a few supporting trees. PhD. Distributed under the GNU free documentation liThe most extreme version, however, cense. is the Baubotanik-Turm of Germany.

As seen on Membrana.ru, it’s made from 200 combined is something that has been desired willows that will eventually merge into a single for a while, and arbosculpture has created such organism; this tower is currently supported results as a tree forming a peace symbol with by a metallic structure, but will eventually be its trunk. Actually building buildings from livsupported by only the trees themselves. ing trees is rather more complicated, but it can

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/////////// Biosphere be done. Besides, imagine having your house to live in a tree, few trees produce pollen that grow apples every year! causes allergies and there is certainly a tree Of course, building with trees is complideficit in many modern cities. Pushing trees cated. Reading the Internet Treehouse Guide, out of parks and into downtown can help with it becomes clear treehouses have a history of that. collapsing if badly built, and some would say that the expenses required to develop a functional Baubotanik-type house aren’t worth it.

But any new technology is expensive, and the difficulties to overcome will only deepen our understanding of trees. Some examples of this type of thinking are the insights on growing trees together: BaubotanikTurm started out as 200 trees but will eventually become one, with a netlike structure. The actual building will be located inside the net. As for treehouses collapsing, comparing statistics from the Epoch Times and Gizmodo shows that a well-built treehouse can last for 50 years, which is more than the average lifespan of a house in Beijing.

The most important benefit of these plant houses, however, is somewhat more subjective. Large cities often develop the concrete jungle syndrome.

Trees become rare, and the artificial landscape becomes boring, as the air becomes polluted. The combination of trees and houses offers a way to use the space available for housing, while at the same time making the city greener. Finca Bellavista is a treehouse community in Costa Rica; at first glance, however, it looks like the rainforest that it still is. And a city with several Baubotanik-type towers made of giant trees would certainly look more Stop me if you’ve heard this before: a treeinteresting- and more pleasant- than certain chapel in France. Image by wikipedia user other downtowns.

Ji-Elle. Image in public domain.

In sum, treehouses are a strange yet effective form of dwelling. While some people,

By Youry S. A. such as those allergic to pollen, might not want

The Next Phage From English to biology, the scientist that refused to give up.

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Students know when they are in the science wing when the temperature drops 10 degrees and they smell the foul stench of reptiles. Ms. Walker’s class has a very tropical feeling with the bright colored cabinets, but the room comes with painfully freezing temperatures. The class is decorated with all types of vials and posters stacked on bright red and yellow cabinets.

There are two large utility sinks in the middle of her class with three tables positioned around each of them. In the front of her room is her desk, and her favorite tool: the chalkboard. The atmosphere is very scientific, perfect for teaching biology.

When students enter Amanda Walker’s frigid room, they read the board and perform the task that is inscribed in hastily scribbled caps. Ms. Walker smiles. ”Read the board,” she tells you in an informative tone. She is an enthusiastic teacher, who helps students understand the twists and turns of biology. Of course, she loves to reiterate the “dominance” of microorganisms.

“It’s not because I’m a bacteriologist,” she claims in a gentle, sarcastic tone. The students grin. Ms. Walker’s students know that she is a bacteriologist, but what they lack is the knowledge of why she studies bacteria.

As a biology teacher, she pressures her students to learn and appreciate the value of biology. Her biology class is a vigorous challenge, with each turn harder than the last. At the end of her complex maze, great knowledge

is found.

“She is a really good teacher; she makes sure that we understand what she is teaching.” says Mica Lupa.

Most of Ms. Walker’s students appreciate the fact that she knows exactly what she is teaching. She answers every question her students have to the best of her abilities. She also challenges her students to ask questions to make sure that they know the material. She wants to help them understand.

“Don’t be scared to ask me a question if you don’t understand. It’s your grade and I’m willing to help,” notes Ms. Walker.

Ms. Walker certainly knows a lot about grade problems in biology.

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“The truth is that I hated biology when I was young; I failed it.”

In college, Ms. Walker loved English class and succeeded at getting her first degree. She was, unfortunately, not so great at biology. In fact, she actually failed biology and had to retake it.

But soon after, in her 20s, she started to learn to appreciate biology. It turns out the thing that she hated the most about biology is the fact that they focused on one subject too long.

She decided to become a biology teacher, because it allowed her to focus on a broad view of all aspects of biology. Nevertheless, she still holds to the tradition of primarily focusing on one subject.

Her focus is on the bacteria, E. coli, specifically a virus that affects it: T7 bacteriophage. The T7 virus is one of 7 viruses that kill the harmful strand of E coli.

This E. coli causes food poisoning and many recalls of food products causing millions of dollars in lost money.

She indirectly looks at the bacteriophage replicate and break down the E. coli cell’s membrane. Looking at the virus with a normal microscope is impos-

“There is a lot of research going on because the bacteria are getting resistant to antibiotics. There are people who are working on that and the answer looks [close]!” sible because of its microscopic size. The T7 vi- teacher. She knows the material and so does her rus penetrates the cell wall with its needle-like students,” says Nate Hattersly. tail and ejects its DNA. The cell starts to replicate In the end, Ms. Walker is just another the T7 on a mass scale. Eventually, the E. coli cell hardworking person in the biological field. Dewall pops open, releasing the newly fabricated T7 spite challenges throughout her career, both in viruses. Once the cell is broken, the virus spreads the past and in the future, she has persevered out to other E. coli cells. and probably will persevere. Her students can

T7 is very effective at killing E coli. This only hope the temperature rises. is good for the scientific community, which is

By Tim S. researching on how to kill E. coli that gets into food. They are also looking at possibly using it for vaccines.

Though there are many problems with this, the scientists are working hard to make T7 and the other six T bacteriophages usable for sanitation.

In the near future, it is possible that this microscopic mosquito might be used for our benefits.

“It would be hard to use inside the body because not all strands of E. coli are harmful,” Ms. Walker announces.

The problem with using T7 as an antibiotic is simply the fact that most strands of E. coli are essential to our survival. Most strands of E. coli are inside us, and help us break down our food. T7 attacks all strains of E. coli, not just the bad strains. Once they are in us, they are nearly impossible to get out. This would cause loss of E. coli and digestive problems.

“Mrs. Walker is like a strict teacher, but a really good A T7 bacteria phage, which is less than 50 nanometers across.

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Let it Burn Forest fire suppression signifies impending disaster

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Fire suppression signifies impending disaster.

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During my travels this summer, I explored the beautiful landscapes of California, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and many other highly forested states. In Sugarite State Park of New Mexico, a ranger, who, among other things, managed in forestry, told us about how people interact with the environment and some of the problems that they are trying to solve.

One of these was the issue of forest fires.

When people build settlements, they are inevitably faced with the problem of fires.

Since the start of the 20th century, the U.S. government decided upon a national-wide policy focused on fire suppression. Unlike the regular farmers and Native Americans, they were completely anti-fire.

As the ranger told us about use of fire suppression, a very significant flaw in this plan became apparent to me. Forest fires have to be controlled in some way, due to the

“But don’t the fires need to burn?” lifestyle that people lead. We cannot simply let fires burn naturally, freely, because of the damage it would do to property and the danger it would pose to lives. However, total fire suppression eventually results in equal, if not greater, damage to humans and the environ-

ment.

According to Forest Service estimates, almost 70 percent of federal forests (151 million acres) need fuels restoration treatment, and more than 60 million acres, about the size of Oregon, are at great risk of catastrophic wildfire – due to the government’s action of fire suppression. We need to change our policy of forest fire suppression, because forest fires are needed to keep forests healthy, fire suppression uses up a lot of money, and because if not let to burn, the forests will eventually outbreak in a series of disastrous fires.

People too often see fire as solely a means of destruction, when it is in fact essential in keeping ecosystems growing and well. National Geographic describes the necessity of fire in the environment. Fire burns the debris that accumulates in the forest, thus returning nutrients to the soil. It clears out the brush and growth in the under story, encouraging the growth of old trees and making it easier for seedling growth. Fire suppression causes dead material to crowd the forest, and many small plants suffocate the trees – the trees do not receive enough nutrients and become weak. In addition, plants have adapted to the fires in such a way that they need the fires – for example, according to the National Park Service, the cones of the bishop pine typically are opened by fires. Many animal

species are dependent on forest fires as well. Fire keeps the forest healthy.

Many thorough papers have been put together critiquing the policy of the forest fire department, including “Money To Burn”,

by Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D., Director of the Western Fire Ecology Center. The Forest Service receives annual money, but can draw on emergency fund, which it has done every year since 1993.

As a result, emergency suppression funding seems limitless, which encourages fire suppression to be used more. If funding were limited to local funding from individual budgets, the spending would be reduced and fire would be brought back to the forest.

Also, by localizing fire management, the individual forests could be treated based on their different needs.

A paper released by the Property and Environment Research center also critiques the current policy of forest fire suppression and makes many suggestions to improve it. Fire suppression leads to fuel build-up in the forests. At the moment, the Copyright © 2007 davidwallphoto.com federal government treats about 2.5 million acres for fuels reduction per year, which is estimated Helicopter Fighting Forest Fire, Dunedin, South Island, to take over 70 years for all the New Zealand acres and cost into hundreds of billions of dollars. Fuels reduction is needed els in the area through controlled fires or simin areas such as ponderosa and longleaf pine ply picking out the debris to be burned. This forests, which are supposed to burn lightly could be concentrated around mostly urban every 15-30 years. Now, when they are pre- areas as well, which could be protected usvented from burning, the shrubs and under- ing other measures. Also, out of all the fedbrush will build up, allowing a fire to climb to eral forests, the forests that burn frequently, the canopy. The forest is highly flammable, such as pine forests, are in great need of and with so much fuel, a fire will be nearly fuels reduction. Other forests can burn every 100-200 years, and often due just to uncontrollable and greatly damaging.

Fires can be controlled by reducing fu- climate change.

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With this in mind, the paper goes on to explain that only about 83 million acres are in need of fuels reduction, which, at 2.5 million acres a year, could be treated for fuel reduction in about 33 years. Only about 1.9 million acres in the wildland-urban interface are at risk of fire, according to the forest service. With cooperation from landowners, this area could be treated in a year. So, in fact, if we were to follow the procedures that many professionals have thoroughly written out and explained, the task of returning the forests to a healthy state would be quite feasible.

If done now, it would not even place a great strain on the government in terms of money or work required. Once returned to this fit state, cleared of the debris that has accumulated, the regular upkeep of the forest would require much less intensive care. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to restore the forests and the more difficult it will be to prevent large, disastrous fires.

As the forest ranger brought me to realize, we cannot try to control the environment for our own purposes. We must adapt to work with the environment to the best of our ability. If we ignore the way ecosystems function and their needs and simply continue suppressing fires, the debris will build up to the extent where a fire will eventually catch. Fueled by the accumulated debris, the fire will be virtually unstoppable and cause a lot of damage. The results our action have on the environment return to affect us, since, no matter how much we try to manipulate our surroundings, we are still dependent on the environment. The policy of total forest fire suppression must stop. Hopefully, we will soon see the return of fires to forests.

by Katherine N.

“Elk Bath” – A wildfire in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, United States (6 August 2000)

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Herb Hunter Five common herbs that work

by Tim S.

Aloe is often found in gardens for decoration.

It has beautiful, long spiked leaves that radiate out from the center of the plant. Inside the thick leaves is a dense light-yellow jell. Aloe jell is a common medicine that helps soothe and heal heat-related burns such as first-degree burns and sun burns, though it is not recommended for 2nd to 4th degree burns. There are thorns on the leaves, but these thorns are blunt and easy to avoid. Because this plant is native to Africa, it requires warm temperatures. Aloe is best planted in open areas because it grows large roots in order to survive droughts. It is a good outdoor plant that is decorative and pain reliving.

Photo by: Steve Locke

Basil is a common herb that is famous for its use in tomato sauces and Italian cuisine. It is a nice spice to add to most tomato sauces and stews. Do not bother buying a jar of dried basil, because you can buy the plant fresh. Basil plants are very cheap and grows very quickly. As a fairly durable plant, basil thrives in most biomes, though it grows best in warm, tropical environments. Basil’s relatively small size and durability makes it a perfect pot plant. Basil will grow with many stalks that do not get taller than three feet, but they provide many leaves. Fresh basil is a very easy plant to care for and is recommended in many home-cooked meals.

Photo by: Castielli

Ginger root can be found in most kitchens. This herb is known for its strong taste and brownish yellow inside. This herb is commonly used in stews, soups, curry and tea. In small quantities, ginger is a delicious spice. But be warned: a little goes a long way. Try out a small chunk of ginger before cooking with it. Ginger roots are best ground up and dried because the spice needs to be spread out.

Also, ginger is been known to help produce bile, which helps break up gallstones. Ginger also has cholesterol-lowering properties. This may come in handy for people with heart disease. Ginger is easier to obtain in a store than to grow at home because it takes a long time to grow.

Photo by: Sanjay Acharya

Stinging nettle is a common herb that looks like weeds. Be careful, because this herb has many needles, which inject a mix of pain stimulants.

Some of the most common chemicals they inject are acetylcholine, histamine, serotonin, and formic acid. Picking the nettles with gloves on and then boiling them in water before eating will prevent this pain. Nettles are best picked before they start flowering because at that time they begin to produce a gritty material called cytoliths. The cytoliths cause pain in the urinary tractand cannot be boiled away. At the young age, nettles contain a lot of vitamins A, C, D, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium and are 40% protein. These nettles have a similar taste to spinach, but they are very nutritious.

Echinacea root is an herb that helps the immune system fight off colds. Echinacea is a large flowering plant that grows up to 150 cm tall. The flower is bright pink with a dark orange center.

These plants can survive in drought conditions and in cold weather, making it perfect for outdoor gardens. This plant’s root is commonly dried and ground up for cold medicine and contains three main parts that help strengthen the immune system: polysaccharides, alkylamides and cichoric acids. Extracting the juice from the root and drinking around 6-9ml cures colds.

Photo by:Ulf Eliasson

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A Walk a Day Keeps the Psychiatrist Away The benefits of exercise extend beyond that of physical wellness. Just a few minutes of exercise every day have been proven to improve the mind for life.

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I pull the old peppermint wrappers out of my grandmother’s purse. And then the toothpicks.

And the month-old package of crackers. Then the dried, crumpled rose buds that my mom gave her a few weeks back that used to be so pretty. She saves all of it, without need or reason. She just naturally grabs everything she can.

We can hardly blame her, though, and there’s no use trying to reason with her. The Alzheimer’s has made it so that she is beyond reason.

But what makes it worse is that recent studies show that this condition may have been her own fault. When she was younger, she never really exercised due to weak lungs from an early age. Now, all that is coming back to her. It has been proven that exercise has not only physical benefits, but mental benefits as well, which may be able to do everything from reduce depression to prevent Alzheimer’s. For this reason, I believe that everyone should exercise, if just for a few minutes every day.

There have been arguments that regular exercise can be harmful for general mental health and, as Indy Stewart states in ‘Can Exercise Harm You?’, that it is possible to become addicted to the endorphins released into the body while exercising, which gives a so-called ‘runner’s high’.

When deprived of these endorphins, it is natural to become restless and irritable.

But it is these endorphins that can actually

reduce depression and give the feeling of energy later in the day. These endorphins interact with the receptors of the brain and reduce the perception of pain, but no scientific evidence has been found proving the existence of exercise addiction. However, there have been many studies that proved exercise to be the most effective natural remedy to cure stress and depression. Regardless of age, exercise is a vital part of a healthy daily schedule, even if it can only be worked in between the bathroom break at 4:08

Exercise has a positive effect on nerve cell health, which is directly linked to how long those cells live. and the meeting at 4:30. Or dinner at 7:00 and the school recital that you never wanted to go to in the first place at 7:45.While many people just melt in front of the television after work, this inactivity causes more harm and stress than actual activity does. Although it may sound unappetizing after a long, stressful day, the most effective thing for relaxation has been proven to be a jog around the neighborhood. One study on hospitalized depressed individuals conducted by Dr. Madhukar Trivedi of UT Southwestern’s mood disorders research found significant reductions

in depression among those who participated in an aerobic exercise program, but no symptom relief in those participating in occupational therapy alone.

One of the more recently discovered benefits of exercise is how it combats mental aging. According to ‘Damage-Based Theories of Aging’ by Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, exercise has a positive effect on nerve cell health, which is directly linked to how long those cells live. In addition to this, it helps enhance the activity of antioxidants, which protect cells from free radical damage, one of the leading causes of cell damage related to

the aging process. As J. Wall states in ‘The Mental Benefits of Exercise and Its Influence on Mood, Function and Aging’, “what is interesting is that the gap was even wider for studies conducted on people over 60”. One mental benefit of exercise is that it increases blood flow to the brain, allowing more oxygen and glucose to reach the organ and therefore maintain proper function.

Decreases in blood flow due to either a sedentary lifestyle or old age is a major factor in mental decline.

When I was young, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I didn’t understand at the time. My mother just told me that Busia was sick, like when I had a cold, so I thought she would get better with time. It wasn’t until she called me Teresa, my aunt’s name, that I realized that would never happen. After all that I have seen of the disease and how it changes not only one’s memory, but their personality as well, I am determined to prevent that from happening to myself. Fortunately, it has been proven that it might be as easy as a few minutes of exercise every day. Despite popular belief, genetics accounts for only 25% of all Alzheimer’s cases says Jeanne Segal. Risk of Alzheimer’s is increased primarily due to obesity, diabetes, and chronic stress, all of which are curable in most cases by exercise. No single lifestyle choice has as much impact on aging and Alzheimer’s disease as exercise, according to a recent Mayo Clinic review. Just five workouts every seven days can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by 35%. If only my grandmother would have known sooner.

Sedimentary life styles have become the norm in America, and there seems to be the ever-growing presence of stress. But just a few minutes of exercise every day has been proven to lengthen life, reduce stress, improve memory, and maintain mental health for life.

By Veronica B.

25 A Walk A Day //////////

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The Race for Strangeness

There are many animals in the world which are completely and utterly weird. Take the kiwi, for example. The flightless bird looks like... well, a giant kiwi fruit with a beak and legs. Or the blobfish: lacking muscles, it simply floats due to its flesh being lighter than water. Or the squidworm: a sea worm that swims using “paddles” and has 10 tentacles coming out of its head. So it was only natural to have a competition to see which animal is the strangest of them all.

A pangolin. Creative Commmons Attribution Share Alike license. By Flicker user verdammelt.

A kiwi. Image in public domain.

By Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust.

There were 10 contestants: * The pangolin. It feeds like an anteater and looks like a pinecone. * The kiwi bird. A furry, flightless bird that also happens to be the national symbol of New Zealand.

It lays the biggest egg, relative to its mass, of any bird. * The softshell turtles. Besides having soft shells, they also have extremely long necks and can breathe water to a limited extent. * The caecilians. They’re subterranean amphibians that look like giant worms and have two tentacles in the front of their head. * The blobfish. It saves energy by not moving and allowing itself to be carried by water currents. It eats whatever drifts close to its mouth.

* The strepsipterans. They parasitize inside other insects. They give live birth. Some larvae enter the eggs of their hosts. They can take up 90% of their abdomen. * The remipedes. These crustaceans have the head folllowed by 30 or 40 segments with legs they use like paddles. They have uniquely weird mouths and swim on their backs. * The sea cucumbers. Notable for having yellow blood and looking like cucumbers. * The squidworm. A 10-tentacled paddling bristleworm. * The comb jellies. Famous for having two anuses.

A comb jelly. By Marsh Youngbluth.

Pangolin Kiwi Bird Softshell Turtle

A squidworm. whoi.edu.

Caecilian Blobfish- WINNER! Strepsipteran Remipede- WINNER! Sea Cucumber Squidworm- WINNER! Comb Jelly- WINNER!

The longer the red bar, the stranger the animal looks at first glance. The blue bars signify less obvious strangeness, such as anatomy and behavior. The white bars show being little-known.

The result was a 4-way tie. Congratulations to the winners!

By Youry S. A.

A remipede. tihohannover.de.

27 Race For Strangeness //////////

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Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

T

The sub-zero temperatures of the Alaskan soil preserve many secrets of history. 1972 found pathologist Johan Hultin at a burial ground in Alaska, melting the permafrost to open a mass grave of 72 people. Hultin traveled here in a quest to figure out why 90% of the town’s 80 people died 54 years ago.

In 1918, the world population dropped by 3 to 6%, with more people dying than in World War I. The culprit behind this was a tiny virus, which developed the deadly potential present in every single one of its kind to wreak havoc on mankind.

A never-ending, epic war is waging between cells and viruses. People develop immunity to the pathogens, and in return, the viruses must change to breach their defenses. The seasonal flu develops different strains by either mutation or mixing up with other viruses, before

From Spanish Influenza to Swine flu, viruses have plagued human civilization for centuries.

spreading across the globe. This year a certain virus comes to mind - swine flu.

‘Pandemic ‘Imminent’: WHO Raises Swine Flu Pandemic Alert Level to 5’ (ABC News). This and many such headlines appeared in April of 2009, perhaps prompting what some see as an overreaction. The closing of public facilities in Mexico along with the many deaths in that area fueled a small-scale panic in other areas. Egypt ordered the slaughter of all the pigs in the country on April 29, even though the WHO (World Health Organization) repeatedly said that the disease could not be transmitted from pigs. Austin ISD out-of-district fieldtrips were suspended for a time in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease, and Round Rock ISD canceled all extra-curricular events. The Lucy Read pre-K was closed after a ‘probable’ case of swine flu virus. All of us know or have heard of people missing at school or work due to this virus. Emin Ulug, a virologist at UT, studies the constant evolution of viruses. Emin says two people are absent from his class at the moment, and many people from the university.

“There is a lot of panic about it [swine flu] but there’s not that much you can do about it,” says Ulug. Much of the excitement seems to have died down.

The anticipated lethal pandemic never came; meanwhile a vaccine was developed. WHO reported about 5,000 deaths worldwide from the swine flu as of October. Though this figure is seen as an underestimate, it is not so great a number in comparison to the estimated 50

million deaths from the Spanish influenza.

Nevertheless, the swine flu has killed more people than the regular seasonal flu. How do these severe strains develop?

“There are multiple kinds of viruses, which reassemble. The different viruses are all pretty much compatible. [In the flu virus] there are eight subunits, all with certain functions,” Ulug says. Viruses can exchange these units, and still function.

“To make it even more complicated, the individual subunits can also mutate,” says Ulug. So, it is possible for the viruses to never be the same – they have an endless repertoire of variety. It is easy for them to change.

For example, the naming of a virus based on the number of H’s and N’s (H1N1) refers to hemagglutin and neuramidase, surface molecules of the flu. Emin compares it to a disguise. The virus can stay the same, simply changing its surface projection so it cannot be initially recognized. But eventually the immune system is able to fight it

29 Ashes, Ashes //////////

///////////// Biosphere and same or similar viruses cannot infect an individual person again.

Typically, the process repeats, which is what happens with the seasonal flu. But if the virus happens to be too different, the immune system doesn’t stand a chance, and this can wipe out entire populations. Hence the fear when swine flu was announced.

So why can some of the flu viruses become so radically different? To answer this question, we must find where each year’s flu originates.

why it has killed more people this year than the seasonal flu.

We all remember the great fear that swept the world with news of avian flu. Its spread was carefully followed. Whenever it was detected, all of the poultry in the area would be slaughtered, the deed performed by men in body suits. The threat avian flu poses is because avian flu is radically different from human strains, precisely because it is from birds. For this reason, were avian flu to jump to humans, we would have almost

Recent studies, such as one published no immunity to it. in the journal “Science,” have found that “This is what they’re predicting. This new flu strains emerge in East and South- is what the experts tell us. Right now the east Asia, before spreading over the world avian flu is pretty much confined [to birds]. each year. This information is essential to having any sort of chance of combating the flu.

Emin knows this. “It is believed that a lot of the strains come from Asia. It comes from the rural communities.” This is because the area contains a key component: overcrowding with animals.

“A lot of new strains come from animals,” Emin explains.

“They have horse flu, pig flu, duck flu, chicken flu, turkey flu...

Wings and hooves.”

Flu infects avian and mammalian species. So a virus, if it mutates, can jump from one species to the next. Pigs can be infected by both avian and human viruses, so they serve as a so-called “mixing jar”. If a pig is infected by a virus from each species simultaneously, these viruses can mix. But swine flu is a human virus. It is only called so because “it has components that come from the pig virus.” These few components are the reason

The thing is, they’re not able to transmit from human to human. There’s a huge concern that the flu is going to be really nasty.

But that hasn’t happened yet. But it is very likely that it will happen, which is why there is so much [work on it],” Ulug finishes.

There are two ways to combat viruses – vaccines and antiviral drugs. Ulug says antiviral drugs are like “antibiotics for viruses”.

They prevent the viruses from multiplying.

Individually, they don’t work very well, because virus replicate very quickly and mutate frequently, so they eventually become resistant. However, if they are hit with multiple antiviral drugs, it is less likely they will be able to become resistant to all of them.

“And as for the vaccines… The CDC, the Center for Disease Control, sends out people early on in the year, to determine what the next seasonal flu’s going to be.

They basically send teams to Southeast Asia and other places around the world and they try to get virus sources. They try to get the real seasonal flu strain,” Ulug explains.

“What happens is that they’ll collect as much data as they can about this, and have a whole big stock of viruses. Then they’re responsible for deciding which virus is going to be that year’s strain,” he concludes.

“I think it that would be really bad news.”

Emin shows me a graph of human life expectancy. It steadily continues to go up – except for one point, right around 1918, where it takes a sudden plunge.

“If it were to happen now... Think about what life was like in 1918. Those people didn’t fly around in jets... There still even towns in Canada that had these cases.”

If an epidemic of this type were to occur today, it seems that it would be nearly uncontainable.

“I think it would be really bad news.”

by Katherine N.

31 Ashes, Ashes //////////

Vegetarianism: The First Successful Emission Plan

An opinion on what vegetarians are really doing to reduce global emission problems.

Photo by: Rebecca Hulse and R. Rajagopal

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A

Around the world, more people are becoming vegetarians to hinder the environmental effects of packaging meat. People have decided that meat products cause more harm than they are worth. Global emissions are rising and they won’t get much better. It is not just because our cars are not eco-friendly.

We have tried to force the auto companies to improve their M.P.G.s and they always find a way out of it. But one group that is not being targeted to reduce emissions is the factories that produce meat products, which also cause global emissions.

Vegetarians are on the right track; they are taking part in lowering global emissions.

In the U.S. global emissions have been ignored because of the economy. Vegetarianism is a

More than 1/3 of all the fossil fuels produced in the U.S. are put toward making meat products way to reduce global emissions slowly without many economical problems.

More than 1/3 of the fossil fuels produced in the U.S. are put toward making meat products, acording to Jolinda Hackett. Also, there are many harmful gases produced during meat packaging that could be avoided by just farming what we need.

The meat-loving polluters usually make an argument about how they like to eat meat and that farming produces just as much carbon emissions as farming. Farming would also cut down more trees for land.

Farming does not produce as many carbon emissions as making meat products.

It takes more land to feed the animals that we

eat than to just feed ourselves.

People that eat meat say that they enjoy eating meat and don’t like vegetables.

Well, there are many different and delicious vegetarian foods that are just as good as having a steak; you just have to be willing to try it. A lot of people don’t give certain foods a chance. There is always a food that you would like that you don’t know about. Just experiment.

Farm products are more efficient than meat because of the transfer of energy effect.

The most energy can be obtained by eating plants. We feed our cows more energy than we receive. The transfer of energy by just eating plants is nearly 10 times greater than eating the meat after the animals have eaten the plants. We could gain more energy with little sacrifice.

Vegetarianism will help slow the effects of global warming because farming does not require as much fossil fuels as raising cattle does. It takes just as much farming to produce grains for cattle as it would just to give the grains to us. We have to fuel the machines to make the food for the animals, then the machines to raise them, and then the machines to process, ship, and cook them. All of this fuel is wasted when we could just use the machines to farm the plants.

Cattle also produce methane, which is a harmful gas that damages the upper atmosphere. Methane is a common byproduct of cows and other livestock, which acts as a catalyst and causes the 03 (ozone) in the atmosphere to bond with hydrogens making H20 (water particles). The ozone layer gets depleted and more harmful rays enter our atmosphere. The ozone layer is not a renewable resource so we must stop destroying it.

The future is grim, but step by step, we can help prevent harmful rays from heating our planet. Vegetarians have decided to help by sacrificing what they want for the environment.

We should join them and start caring for the en-

vironment. They have successfully engineered a policy that will reduce global emissions. They put the earth over their own interests and little by little they will save the planet.

By Tim S.

photo by: Nahle, Nasif. Didactic Article: Energy Pyramid. Š1978. Biology Cabinet Org. New Braunfels, TX. http://biocab.org/Energy_Pyramid.html. Last reading: [date].

35 Vegetarianism //////////

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Death Walks Both Land A crisis in amphibian biodiversity of goliath frog proportions The bright-orange toad lethargically lumbered towards a rotten log. It was dissatisfied with its life in general; it hadn’t bred at all the last season, simply because it hadn’t found a mate. It wasn’t that the other toads had taken them allthere were simply no other toads at the gathering. It curled up inside the log and fell asleep, never to wake up. Soon, the torrential rains of the rainforest had washed its body into a stream, where it was decomposed. This, or something like it, was the end of the golden toad.

The toad didn’t know it was the last of its species at the time of its 1989 death.

It could be forgiven; toads aren’t known to be geniuses, even in the animal world.

For a long time, it was thought that the golden toad’s story was merely a natural variation in numbers. But this theory was debunked when it became extinct.

Now, the culprits are thought to be global warming and the chytrid fungus. In any case, the populations of amphibians worldwide are rapidly declining, and this trend isn’t slowing down- a great loss for biodiversity and a weakening of the ecosystem.

“It’s bad. It’s bad news,” says Travis J. LaDuc, a herpetologist at the University of Texas who has been studying reptiles and amphibians for over 20 years.

It is sometimes thought that the decline in amphibians is not specific to amphibians, but rather a symptom of the general decline of ecosystems. After all, climate change and deforestation affect everyone. Moreover, amphibians have porous skin that allows many pesticides to pass

and Sea

From Riders of a Modern-Day Ark. Gewin V. PLoS Biology Vol. 6, No. 1, e24 doi:10.1371/journal. pbio.0060024. Image by Forrest Brem. Creative Commons license 2.5. Not actually a golden toad.

37 Death Walks //////////

/////////// Biosphere through and cause problems- but pesticides eventually affect other animals too.

“A lot of people like to talk about amphibians as canaries in the coal mine,” notes LaDuc, but “a lot of animals can be indicators.” Indeed, amphibians are far from being the only animal with permeable skin; some invertebrates such as flatworms breathe through their skin, meaning that pesticides have a very easy time passing through.

Still, some factors are unique to amphibians, such as trematodes, worm parasites that attach to the tadpole stage and cause development defects. Some tadpoles grow extra legs; others have no legs at all.

“We’re not sure if that’s also caused by some other effect that makes the trematodes” more virulent, LaDuc explains. The trematodes may be helped along by pesticides; climate change may spread them, like it spreads the malaria mosquito. But trematodes are far from the most feared amphibian disease.

That (dis)honor belongs to the chytrid fungus, a monster described as amphibian AIDS. According to Science, the fungus affects the permeability of the skin, killing the amphibian by causing heart failure. “Some animals take it better than others,” in LaDuc’s words, but most eventually succumb. In an ironic twist, as seen at saveafrog.org, chytrid can be cured in captivity via fungicides, but fungicide cannot simply be sprayed into the wild, as a lack of fungi will destroy the ecosystem- and thus the frogs. As shown in Science, researchers are investigating the use of bacteria on the skin of frogs to kill the fungus- probably one of the first examples of bacteria being spread around the world on purpose. Chytrid itself is already found on all continents (except Antarctica), and seems to be spreading further.

“They’ve found it here in Austin,” LaDuc asserts.

Chytrid apparently affects all amphibian orders (there are three: frogs, salamanders, and wormlike, tentacled, underground animals called caecilians), but they haven’t necessarily been affected equally by the crisis.

A study has shown that salamanders are apparently affected even more than frogs, but caecilians are too secretive to be regularly

counted, and thus the degree of their decline remains unknown.

“One of my professors spent 20 years of his life [studyng them] and one night he saw a caecilian”, LaDuc remembers.

But despite their remoteness, caecilians are important to the underground ecosystem. In the same way, other amphibians are key to the aboveground ecosystems.

“In some places those plethodont salamanders… make up the majority of the vertebrate biomass”, LaDuc divulges.

This sheer quantity of salamanders makes them indispensable. They eat insects, and in their absence insects begin to proliferate to an extent that ruins the ecosystem. In the same way, creeks where tadpoles have disappeared have an overgrowth of algae, which tends to have a wildly negative effect on the ecosystem as well, harming water quality among other things. Simultaneously, the animals that feed on the amphibians lose out on their primary food source, which can lead to extinction for them as well: if over half of what you ate were salamanders, and the salamanders disappeared, you might not care, but your stomach probably would.

LaDuc describes them as “a very important [food] source for animals further up the food chain”. If anything, that’s an understatement. Yet even such huge populations are under threat. Given that, smaller populations already confined to one spring might be expected to do even worse.

Nevertheless, the populations of the Austin Blind Salamander and the Barton Springs Salamander- two species endemic to Barton Springs and the nearlying section of the Edwards Aquifer- have, in LaDuc’s words, “gone through the roof”. This is mostly because of conservation: the salamanders have been provided a friendlier environment. Despite this, we should remember that they aren’t necessarily safe. After all, as LaDuc notes, “we can only see them on the surface”. And salamanders that are already narrowly distributed are obviously more sensitive to changes.

“They’re susceptible to… all of those people around who are sticking those giant straws into the water”, LaDuc opines.

A jar of formalin-preserved golden toads. Photo by Youry S. A.

39 Death Walks //////////

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The organ freezers. Photo by Youry S. A. One other aquifer-dwelling salamander is the Blanco River Salamander. It was found near the Blanco River (southwest of Austin) under strange circumstances. Some workers were digging a hole in the ground while building a bridge, and four salamanders jumped out. Unfortunately, three of those salamanders have been lost. The preserved body of the last one lies in a jar in LaDuc’s office.

“These guys are probably still alive and doing very well”, LaDuc explains.

And the same building also happens to house the last remains of the golden toad. In a giant formalin collection housing 80 thousand specimens, a jar holds several golden toads. And on the other side of the building, in a freezer at negative 149 degrees Celsius, lie what are probably the last intact tissue samples of the golden toad. The liver- and a bit of muscle- may well be the most valuable thing in the entire Pickle Research Center. For within that frozen organ is a bit of the last DNA of the golden toad.

And, with it, hope.

By Youry S. A.

The Forest Floor O layers: Contain multiple layers dominated by various degrees of decomposing organic material with little minerals. It holds water well.

A layer: Composed of very fine mineral grains with some fully decomposed organic matter. Most roots grow to this layer because it holds water for extended periods of time.

E layer: Composed of very fine to fine grains of sand and silt that hold water poorly with traces of fully decomposed organic material.

B layer: Contains medium-sized grains of silicate and is rich in minerals that are taken from upper layers by rainwater and deposited.

C layer: Made of coarse grains with no organic material. It is usually made of the same substance as the bedrock, though not as compact.

R layer: Also known as bedrock, it can be made of granite, basalt, quartzite, indurated limestone, sandstone, or various other materials. These layers are cemented together by the pressure of the layers above. The bedrock may contain cracks, but they are generally too small for roots to penetrate.

O

A

E

B

C

Soil Nutrient Management for Maui County

R

41 Forest Floor //////////

Walking in the Tule Elk Reservation

The fog is rising....

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And they are revealed!

Katherine N.

45 Elk Reservation //////////

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STAFF Timothy S. Pictured: Timothy’s clown loach Stories written: The Next Phage, Herbal Medicine, Vegetarianism: the First Successful Emission Plan Favorite animal: Catfish Favorite field in biology: Forensic biology Favorite plant: Venus flytrap Dinosaurs or Mammoths: Dinosaurs Trilobites or Ammonites: Trilobites Favorite biomolecule:RNA Favorite organelle: Peroxisome

Veronica B. Pictured: Veronica’s shih-tzus, Daisy and Winchester Stories written: Cancer’s Key to Immortality, A Walk a Day Keeps the Psychiatrist Away, The Forest Floor Favorite animal: Hippopotamus Favorite field in biology: Microbiology Favorite plant: Tiger lily Dinosaurs or Mammoths: Mammoths Trilobites or Ammonites: Trilobites Favorite biomolecule: DNA Favorite organelle: Mitochondria

PAGE Youry S. A. Pictured: Youry’s family’s hermit crab, Sneg Stories written: Tree♥House, The Race for Strangeness, Death Walks Both Land and Sea Favorite animal: Elephant Favorite field in biology: Evolutionary biology Favorite plant: Ginkgo Dinosaurs or Mammoths: Dinosaurs Trilobites or Ammonites: Ammonites Favorite biomolecule: RNA Favorite organelle: Cilia

Katherine N. Pictured: Katherine’s cat, Kristyna Stories Written: Animal Intelligence, Let It Burn, Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down, Walking in the Tule Elk Reservation Favorite animal: Cat Favorite field in biology: Zoology Favorite plant: Moss Dinosaurs or Mammoths: Mammoths Trilobites or Ammonites: Ammonites Favorite biomolecule: RNA Favorite organelle: Ribosome

47 Staff Page //////////

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