LiveWireMagazine

Cover Image adapted from Wikimedia Commons

Contents PAGE 10

PAGE 12

PAGE 14

PAGE 16

PAGE 24

PAGE 28

PAGE 30

PAGE 32

6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 24 28 30 32 36

Wiki Heaven Textbooks: Digitized The Last Words of Print y txtng iz gr8 A History of Vaccinology Out of the Dark How To: Graph a Bicycle The Code Second Glance The Case for Nukes A Day in the Life of an iPhone The Diagnosis PUZZLES

0

3

BIOGRAPHIES Roger Cain Roger is a native Austinite and a freshman at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy. School takes up a lot of time, but he enjoys other activities such as playing on his select soccer team and practicing the guitar.

He is also a Life Scout in Boy Scouts, and likes being outdoors, hiking, and running. Roger also likes to read and play video games in his free time, but there’s not too much of that.

Courtney Trutna Courtney has lived in Austin, Texas for all fifteen years of her life. A freshman at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, most of her time is spent at school, working on schoolwork, or avoiding school work. When she does have free time, she likes to hang out with her friends and family, read, play piano, surf the web, and take and edit pictures. She has and uses too much technology for her own good.

0 4

Priya Veeraraghavan Priya, a freshman at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, spends half her life at rowing, and the other half doing schoolwork and practicing violin. Her favorite phrase is “I can’t, I have crew.”

She is an avid cruciverbalist (look for the puzzles page!) and a super perfectionist, and wishes she had more free time to hang out with friends.

Max Zern Max is a freshman at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy. He spends the majority of his time doing schoolwork, but also enjoys outdoor activities like walking his dog, hunting, and fishing. Other interests include playing paintball, participating in Science Olympiad, and making short films at home.

0 5

ia.org ikiped

r ou c o ot

fW yo s e t Ph

Wiki Heaven Roger Cain

In the early days of the web, people searched for tidbits of research in pages and pages of useless information. Now, we have Wikipedia, a streamlined internet encyclopedia with information and articles on every subject you can think of. But has it really improved our lives? You bet.

O

n the morning of Wednesday August 25, 2009, America lost one of its most loved politicians, Ted Kennedy. News stations and papers reported that Kennedy died of brain cancer. But one brave internet encyclopedia reported the real truththat OJ Simpson murdered Kennedy on August 25. Oh wait, that’s not right. Or is it?

Wikipedia has been bashed constantly by teachers, professors, and other “truth-seekers”. “It’s not accurate research,” is a common

0 6

complaint. However, I believe that Wikipedia is a reliable research source with credible, widely accepted information, and that has a team of editors working round the clock who catch mistakes and misinformation a split second after they are posted.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia. In fact, in August 2009, Wikipedia had 10,816 million page views and over 2 million edits! Surely this wide range of input and information from various editors creates a more balanced article than one written by a single

Wikipedia’s Greatest Triumphs

1 2 3 4 5

Ted Kennedy’s death: Wikipedia reported the truth; that Sen. Edward Kennedy was murdered by O.J. Simpson on August 25, 2009.

Plato was an ancient Hawaiian weather man and surfer, and founder of the punahou in Ancient Florida, according to Wikipedia.

Stephen Colbert was blocked from Wikipedia when he said that “if you make something up and enough people agree with you–it becomes reality.” Colbert called this phenomenon “wikiality.”

Another Wikipedia edit from 2006 stated that David Beckham “was a Chinese goalkeeper in the 18th century.” Who knew?

A photo of Bill Gates was found on his Wikipedia page. It features Gates, marked up with devil horns and a Hitler mustache. Definitely a Wikipedia triumph.

Courtesy of Imageshack.com

expert in the subject. If an article is edited over one thousand times, then it should have all of its errors corrected.

1,000 people can’t all be wrong!

As I was browsing through Wikipedia yesterday evening, I decided to test its credibility by fact-checking an article. Clicking the “random article” button brought me to the Nilla Wafers page. The description states that Nilla Wafers are “round, shortbread-style cookies with a vanilla flavoring that are often eaten with milk as a snack.”

Let’s think about this. Are vanilla wafers round? Certainly. Vanilla flavored? Well, if Nilla Wafers don’t taste like vanilla, then something’s very wrong. I’m not totally sure if they’re always eaten with milk as a snack (I’m guessing there are some lactose-intolerant people out there who still enjoy Nilla wafers), but the rest of the entry is correct. Everything seems to be accurate and factual in this article. So, it seems to me that Wikipedia’s doing pretty well keeping its entries full of accurate information.

Where else can you find such a wealth of research on one site? Wikipedia is the ultimate resource, with over 3 million articles and counting. Not only does Wikipedia have accurate information, but it has links on each page to every topic you can think of. Clicking on any of the links in the article will take you to another interesting page. I challenge you to find another website which can link from a page on bananas to organ failure to Polgrove, Illinois, with a few clicks of the mouse. How about clicking the link from the cucumbers page to German Bologna? And then to the Blarney Stone? Who would’ve known about any of these things without those lovable blue links? They’re only on Wikipedia.

I do admit that textbooks have an advantage in that many editors read over the whole text to make sure there are no mistakes. However, Wikipedia has foreseen this problem-anyone can edit the pages and mistakes are quickly cross-checked and deleted. In fact, a 2006 mistake that stated that David Beckham was ““a Chinese goalkeeper from the 18th century,” was edited and fixed after a mere 17 hours. A mistake like that in a real textbook would have been set in stone, or rather paper. Wikipedia’s ability to correct errors easily makes it much superior to research sources such as textbooks.

Having seen Wikipedia’s unfailing accuracy in their articles, I believe that we should begin to use Wikipedia for all of our information. Once everyone transitions to this holy-grail of research sites, there will be no disputes-just check Wikipedia to find out what’s right.

Let’s show the multitude of conflicting research sites the door and just use Wikipedia for everything. Now that we don’t have to compare and check different sites to see that they’re credible, we save a lot of time. What better thing to do with that extra time than edit more articles on everyone’s favorite online encyclopedia?

0

7

Textbooks: Digitized Textbooks are finally making the move to electronic.

Courtney Trutna Rare is the student who likes textbooks, but for years on end, the massive paper texts have been the most effective way to provide a large amount of reliable information to a large amount of students. But these old schoolbooks will soon be obsolete, replaced by the electronic textbook, which is quickly gaining popularity. YUDU Media, an awardwinning digital publishing company that supplies e-books to many universities and soon to Canadian schools, predicts almost every textbook will be electronic by 2020. Why the sudden shift? The students are changing: having grown up with technology, most students now prefer electronic information for their source on any given subject, research shows.

The technology is changing: electronic textbooks can now be significantly smaller than printed versions and have more features. The costs are changing: unlike in the past, digital is now cheaper than print, both for the environment and the budget. Between the size, the use, and the price, it’s clear than the change to electronic textbooks in all schools is for the better.

There are, of course, some concerns with electronic textbooks, the two biggest being the ability of teachers to use them

and students to access them. The programs are substantially different than merely flipping pages, and not all students have a computer or internet access. But these issues do not outweigh the positives of electronic textbooks. Teachers can receive short training on the electronic textbooks, while students, already computer-savvy, will be able to use them easily. Meanwhile, the money saved by switching to electronic textbooks could be used to help students without computers and/or internet obtain them, something useful to their education even without electronic textbooks. Some hard copies of the textbooks can be given out when needed as the transition is made, until they are no longer necessary. Eventually, all paper textbooks will be replaced by the electronic versions.

The most predominant difference between a paper textbook and an electronic version is the bulk.

Textbooks are hardcover, thick, wide and tall-- it’s annoying to carry around one, and to tote multiple to classes is a physical strain.

The California Department of Education has gone as far to set maximum textbook weight limits to deal with the growing problem. For high school students, this weight is five pounds. This means a student could be carrying around over 20 pounds of textbook on a given day, and even more in states without restrictions.

Electronic textbooks are simply a data file: they can be read on a computer, a laptop, or electronic reader (such as the Kindle, Kindle DX, and Sony Reader), and recently, even on

smart phones and iPods. And rather than looking at just one textbook at a time, students can have their whole collection in one place, carrying a small, slim device rather than 5 huge textbooks, and are able to easily switch between the courses.

Electronic textbooks allow for many features paper textbooks don’t, both for the teachers and students. In addition to text and pictures, they can include multimedia items, direct links to websites, and even interactive activities. On top of this, they can be updated much more easily than printed textbooks, which is a huge advantage in fields that are constantly changing.

“

these are advantageous for studying.

While computers and electronic readers are expensive, so are textbooks. According to the National Association of College Stores, an average college student will spend over $700 on textbooks each year. California public school districts spend almost $350 million dollars on textbooks alone every year, according to The Modesto Bee. By the time you add up costs for the multiple years a computer or reader would last, electronic textbooks are in fact much cheaper than their paper counterparts. And money isn’t the only thing

Every textbook will be electronic by 2020.

”

they save: electronic textbooks don’t require paper to print on, which could save thousands of trees.

Coursesmart, a leading online textbook company, reports that students save $66 per book they use online, and 260,000 trees have been saved thus far-- if everyone switched to electronic versions, the cost and environmental savings would be even greater.

Every negative the textbook has the electronic textbook doesn’t.

Electronic textbooks are smaller, more cost effective, better for the environment, have much better updatability, can contain more engaging curriculum, and most importantly, are more useful to the students. Electronic textbooks should replace paper textbooks as soon as possible, for the benefit of everyone involved.

BY ALEX D

“When Pluto becomes not a planet, you can fix it very quickly. It’s going to take a decade to get Pluto out of all the nation’s printed science books,” Rich Baraniuk, an engineering professor from Rice University who has lead the move open source class materials, told The Houston Cronicle.

Meanwhile, students have many options with electronic textbooks they don’t with a printed textbook. They can search the digital textbook without using an index, leading to results more specific to what they are looking for. There is also the ability to write and mark up the information directly, using electronic text highlighting and annotating. Furthermore, students can look at just what they’ve marked as important, and even search through their annotations. In electronic textbooks, pages can be bookmarked, and you never lose a place like often happens in printed versions. With a growing amount of students for which technology is second nature, all of

0 9

BY ALEX D

During the past century, journalism was a strong, stable profession. The print paper ruled the world of reporting and news, and most people read whatever landed on their doorstep in the morning. But with the advent of internet and online news, what will happen to newspapers?

1

0

The Last Words of Print Roger Cain

B

en Wear sits at his desk in the offices of the AustinAmerican Statesman, writing his story for tomorrow’s newspaper.

Other reporters from the paper walk by, saying hello, and greeting Wear. But this kind of camaraderie might not exist in a few years, because print newspaper is dying.

Most of the staff here will be out of a job, as newspapers slowly give in to the might of the internet.

With the advent of the internet, publications have found a new way to instantly distribute news to more people than ever before. But with this new distribution system comes a problem; fewer and fewer people are subscribing to print newspapers, which could put those papers out of business. Wear says that internet has snuck up on publications.

“I first heard of the internet in ’94, but we didn’t even have the internet at the paper until ’97,” Wear said.

“We had a website, but we would only put the stories online that we didn’t like much, so that TV didn’t scoop us. Now, that has completely and totally changed.”

The problem with online journalism is that online ads don’t bring in nearly as much revenue as subscription payments and ads in the print newspaper. Attempts to charge consumers for internet content have failed miserably-in the internet age, no one wants to pay premium prices for news they can find for free elsewhere. So, with this flawed business model, papers such as the Austin-American Statesman will have to cut much of their staff in order to move online.

“The problem is that you need a staff that works 40 hours a week for more than living wage to gather this information,” Wear said.

“There just isn’t enough advertising

revenue online, to support a news room of 150 people. The question is frequently asked: ‘Can we exist in our current capacity as newspapers, and still bring in enough revenue online?’ Unless the business model changes, then no. At some point, the information that goes on the internet can’t be free anymore, in order to support the paper and the staff.”

Andrea Lorenz, a new student teacher at LASA, used to work at the Austin-American Statesman as a reporter. She said that even though less people are subscribing to the statesman in favor of online news, she views this change from print newspaper to online journalism as an evolution to a more versatile form of media, rather than a death of the print product.

“Daily subscriptions have gone down. Circulation of the print newspaper has gone down. However,

“

nalists, he still enjoys the immediacy of posting information to the web. “ Look, if I could wave a magic wand just for my own self-interest, I would prefer that internet had never come along,” Wear said. “It’s ultimately going to make it very hard to keep paying people like me to do what I do. That’s why staffs have shrunk, and honest to god, no one knows what the situation will be a year from now, much less five years from now. Now, if there was someway that [internet publications] could be monetized properly, the innate virtue of it would be great!

I just want to be read. Newspapers enjoy the process of reporting and writing news. We enjoy having an impact on society, even if it’s an article at a time.”

Lorenz says that with the transition from print product to online varieties comes a change in focus

Look, if I could just wave a magic wand for my own self-interest, I would prefer that the Internet had never come along.

they are also counting the number of people who visit the website, and that number has increased by large amounts. So yes, the subscriptions have gone down, but more people are reading the statesman than ever before because of the Internet.

Through the Internet, newspapers are able to reach more people. Instead of looking at the Internet as killing print journalism, I think of it as a way to get information out to more people than was ever possible for the print newspaper.”

Even though journalists might be put out of a job by the internet, many still enjoy the convenience and immediacy of posting stories to the web. Wear says that although the internet is making print journalism obsolete, and therefore hurting the livelihood of print jour-

”

for newspapers such as the Statesman.

“The Statesman is basically writing local stories, and their mission has become that,” Lorenz said.

“They know they can’t compete with the New York Times, or the Washington Post. So now, I think the Statesman, and many other local newspapers, are focusing on being the premiere source of local news and information. Newspapers are realizing that they can’t be another CNN, and so they’re finding places where they belong, they’re finding their niche in the news world.”

With the future of journalism so uncertain, no one really knows how things will turn out. Wear’s outlook isn’t quite so optimistic.

“I think that the print product

continued on page 38

y txtng iz gr8 Priya Veeraraghavan

Forget real human interaction: text galore!

TITMATE! (Or “Texting is the most awesome thing ever!” for those of you who were wondering what that meant.) In today’s society, it is vital to have acronym reading skills for rdng ur txts. Modern times have lifted us out of the dark ages of the quill and ink and into the light of electronic screens.

We no longer have to exert ourselves to walk ten steps to the kitchen; Mom will text us to say that dinner’s served.

Gone are the days of going to the park to talk and joke with friends--who needs to be face to face when u can lol alone?

1

2

The new age of texting has begun, connecting humans in writing more than paper and sound ever could. According to Wireless Week in April 2008, 47.9% of all phone users were connected by a social network of 1.9 trillion texts in 2007.

And the number is growing, with a projected 20% increase for 2008.

If the texting network continues to grow at this pace, then by 2012, 120% of phone users will be texting!

Imagine that! Since such a majority of the population will be texting, everyone should drop the nasty habit of talking to other people and communicate solely by text messaging.

Some people say that all this is destroying human interaction, but really, it’s connecting us more than ever before. When else have you been able to “talk” to ten different people at a time? The more people

you can communicate with in a minute, the more connected the world becomes.

Text messages, by design, are more safe and efficient than talking in person, on the phone, or than writing letters. Sending a letter is very unsafe, because people can send all sorts of nasty things through the archaic system. Anyone remember anthrax?

The postal service is woefully slow: the “express mail” takes an entire night to deliver, versus the

a “text message injury”, or overuse injury from repetitive strain on the muscles and tendons in the hand. This is, of course, because they give tmi when texting other people. But this can be remedied, and people can go along texting their friends in the same room.

New exercises, BBC News has revealed, dubbed “textercises”, such as shoulder shrugs and finger spreads, keep texter’s hands nimble and healthy. *Disclaimer* These “textercises” are not simulated exercises and will be completely ineffective if you attempt to do them with your virtual self on a screen.

So, out with the voices and letters-we don’t need to talk or use mail-and in with the luminous screen. The whole world will work well together in txt-msg harmony, you’ll see. It will be faster, easier, and funner to boot. i’d luv to say more, but i’ve got a msg waiting...

BY CO

BFN!

EY URTN

click of a button and a couple seconds for text messages.

Voice is little better. How do you expect to talk to someone all the way across the globe--shout at them? Or what about on the noisy New York City subway when you can’t hear someone who is sitting next to you, let alone on the phone? Voice phone lines can be tapped, and Big Brother can listen in on you and your BFF’s private gossip.

You wouldn’t want the government to leak your scheme for becoming class president.

Messaging allows you to convey so much more than the other forms of communication, in so few words. If you said “TTYL” to someone on the text message, they’d understand. But if you sent them a letter “Talk to you later,” then by the time they got the letter, they’d already be talking to you (later).

To be fair, text messaging does have its inconveniences. Texters can be at the risk for getting TMI,

Common TXT Acronyms lol : laugh out loud LOL: LAUGH OUT LOUD! rofl: rolling on the floor laughing bfn: bye for now bff: best friend forever OMG: OH MY GOD! brb: be right back btw: by the way idkwts: i don’t know what to say ilpbomo: i like peanut butter on my oreos

T

rniarae: right now i am riding an elephant

A History of

VACCINOLOGY Vaccines play a huge role in keeping us safe from disease. Here is a short history of the technology.

Max Zern ur Co

Fre of y tes

om s.c ge a m eI

Vaccine For Influenza. 1945 Courtesy of The Immunization Action

Vaccine For Rabies. 1885 Courtesy of The Immunization Action Coalition

The World Health Assembly calls for the global eradication of smallpox

1959

200BC 200BC

Vaccine For Tetanus. 1890 Courtesy of wikimedia.com

Edward Jenner successfully immunizes a young boy, preventing him from getting smallpox. He does this by putting the scabs of a woman with cowpox (similar to smallpox) under the boy’s skin.

1796

1

4

Courtesy of wikimedia.com

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is formed to advise CDC on vaccine use and disease prevention.

The Chinese infect themselves with smallpox to prevent future infection in a process called inoculation.

200 BC

Vaccine For Polio. 1952

Vaccine For Bubonic Plague. 1897 Courtesy of wikimedia.com

1964

The Worldwide Polio Eradication Initiative is launched with support of over 200 countries.

Vaccine For Anthrax. 1954 Courtesy of Image envision .com

1988

The worldwide measles initiative is launched.

Vaccine For Meningitis. 1978 Courtesy of wikimedia.com

Measles declared no longer endemic in the US.

2000

Vaccine For Hepatitis A. 1995 Courtesy of wikimedia.com

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, the United States makes a plan to re-introduce the smallpox vaccine in the account of a bioterrorist attack.

2001

2010 AD The Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS) is established to monitor the safety of vaccines.

1990

The Global Health Assembly announces the global eradication of smallpox.

Routine smallpox vaccination ceases in the United States due to the near eradication of the disease

1980

Measles declared no longer endemic in the Americas.

The first nasal influenza vaccine is approved in the US.

2003

1971

Vaccine For Pneumonia. 1977 Courtesy of wikimedia.com

The last natural case of polio in the US is reported.

1979

The largest vaccination program in the United States is conducted against Swine Flu. It is later halted due to the vaccine’s association with Guillain-Barre syndrome.

1976

Vaccine For Hepatitis B. 1982 Courtesy of wikimedia.com

1

5

Out of the Dark

How digital photography has changed the picture-taking world Courtney Trutna

BY COURTNEY T

P

ose, light, shutter speed, aperture, flash, expose, wait, forward, rewind, remove, develop, negatives, enlarge, expose paper, develop paper, picture. Ten years ago, this was the process to capture a photo.

Now, it looks something more like this: press button.

Digital photography has dramatically changed the film world, for better or worse. The cameras often have more faults, the equipment has to be updated more frequently, and it can be harder to learn the constantly changing techniques-- but between the flexibility, cost, quality, and versatility, many say that, despite complaints, they would never go back to film.

1

6

“I feel a lot safer usually with digital than I did with film,” says Mike Hollerman, a professional photographer who switched his business to digital eight years ago. “When you’re capturing on film you never really knew what you had until it was done, and you had to live with it. With digital, you can make changes on the go if you need to.”

Not only can pictures be changed as they’re being taken, but afterwards as well. With the latest image editing tools, thousands of adjustments can be made to pictures: red eyes can be corrected, closed eyes opened, blemishes removed, and colors enhanced. For most people, this means the long-awaited perfect picture can finally be obtained.

But for those who have to edit the pictures, sometimes it is just a headache. “[Clients] think you can do anything,” Hollerman says, “they think Photoshop a cure-all tool and all you do is push a key and it changes a head or whatever, but that’s not the way it is. It’s frustrating, because they expect a lot more, they expect it a lot faster, and they expect to pay less for it. Which is all backwards from my end of it.”

Other uses of the digital format have far fewer downsides. For Cheryl Vidoni, who takes photos for fun and her real estate job, digital has made her life that much easier.

“Powerpoint presentations, making up fliers, that I can all do on the computer,” she says.

Not only does digital have thousands of uses, but it’s easier to print.

Before, expensive film, chemicals and equipment all had to be bought in order to develop photos.

Furthermore, film photographers never knew what image they would get until it was too late to change-now, it’s easy to decide what’s worth

printing and visualize how the finished product will look.

“It was a lot slower, in the dark process, whereas now I just sit at the computer and send it off to the printer,” Hollerman says.

While most professionals send their photos to a traditional lab for printing, Hollerman uses a special dye-sublimation printer to print his own photos, to avoid the complicated, expensive, and time-consuming chemical process.

While now each photo is less costly, the transition to this new method was anything but cheap.

The film development was established, and when the switch to digital was made, all the equipment for film was suddenly useless: enlargers, developers, everything in the darkroom.

“We’re talking thousands and thousands and thousands of dol-

“

ous average of 20 years on one system. And every time he updates, it’s more than just a camera body: often he has to buy three cameras, along with lenses and photo-editing programs.

“Things just change and change and change,” he comments, “and if you don’t keep up, well then you’re behind.”

And with constant change, a photographer doesn’t just have to keep up with owning all the right equipment, but their knowledge in how to use it as well. Menus, options, features, controls, and more change with every update.

“With film, you learn the technical things and they were always there, they weren’t really changing, so once you learn them, you build on them,” Hollerman says. “With digital they’re constantly changing, so you’re constantly having to learn

I feel a lot safer usually with digital than I did with film.

lars, and it was worth nothing,” Hollerman says. “You practically had to pay somebody to take it away.”

Because digital is such a new medium, it’s still changing-- which means new technology is coming out all the time, and is never finalized or close to perfect.

“I have I think four digital cameras right now,” Vidoni says, “and I’ll tell you why. I still haven’t bought the one I need.”

She cites small screens and bad battery lives as primary reasons for buying so many new cameras in five years, compared to five film cameras in 40 years.

Hollerman has similar results: six digital camera systems in the past eight years, versus his previ-

”

them.”

But others take the opposite view- that digital has simplified the process. Without having to worry about the proper amount of light for exposing the film, the amateur certainly has an easier time capturing a photo.

“Everything just become more user-friendly,” Vidoni explains. “Before you had to know about F-stops, you had to know more about picture taking than you do now.” But she also admits that it’s not that simple for everyone. “Most people can’t use 40% of the capability of that technology. And I’m one of them.”

But despite these faults, both feel that digital advancements have

continued on pg 38

HOW TO

oto Ph

Graph a Bicycle

s

1

rom Flickr C o pted f m mo Ada n

Priya Veeraraghavan

To begin, change your calculator to parametric graphing mode. Press the Mode button and select “Par” instead of “Func.”

2

Next, you change your window to the right size. Press the Window button on the top row. Scroll down and make sure the window values match those on the screen to the right.

1

8

3

Press Y=, and the window to the left should appear. Type in the equations shown in the left graphing calculator. Bold the first two equations by pressing enter when your cursor is on top of the slanted line. Press Graph, and the image to the right should appear.

4

Press 2nd+PRGM to get to the Draw menu. Select 2, “Line(” and press Enter. On your normal screen, “Line(” should appear. Type the following line: “Line(3,3,8,2)” and press Enter. The image to the right should appear in your graph.

5

Repeat the “Draw” command with the following lines: Line(3,3,7,6) Line(6.75,7,8,2) Line(7,6,14,7) Line(8,2,14,7) Line(15,3,13.75,8) Line(13.75,8,16,8) Line(16,8,17,9) Line(6,7,8,7)

Voilà! You have a bike!

1

9

2

0

THE CODE

HOW ADVANCEMENTS IN

GENETICS AND COMPUTERS ARE SAVING LIVES BY

MAX ZERN IMAGE COURTESY OF FreeImages.com

H His eyes light up. He gestures wildly with his hands. Pathologist Dr. Mark Silberman excitedly explains what amazing new medical developments are being made and how they save lives.

Thanks to advances in modern medicine and pathology, people with serious diseases such as AIDS and cancer have a much higher chance of surviving than they had 20 years ago. Many people aren’t just surviving, they are living for normal lifespans, and Silberman has witnessed this first hand.

“When I started off [as a pathologist], HIV/AIDS was kind of relentlessly fatal, and now… there’s kind of no limit how long a person can live with HIV” he says.

The stark contrast is due to incredible developments in all fields of medicine within the past few years. However, there are some areas that are seeing the most change.

“The most striking change in medicine that we’re witnessing now is more and more genetic information and genetic characterization” Dr. Silberman says. “For hundreds of years, pathologists had relatively basic tools… but more and more we are looking at the underlying genes that cause [disease]” Looking at genes lets doctors make more accurate and specific diagnoses, and also allows for more specialized and effective treatments of diseases. Now doctors are beginning to tailor treatments to specific patients by looking at their genetic makeup. Silberman knows the

2

2

substantial effects this has had on the survivability of afflictions.

“Before I went into pathology, I did internal medicine at Philadelphia… and we got a lot of AIDS patients,” he says. “I only did it for one year, and I had at least several patients that I saw several times throughout that year… at the beginning of the year, they came to the hospital because they had HIV/AIDS and they had some disease, and I got to watch them progress to the point that they died before the year was out… that’s not happening anymore.”

Genetics isn’t the only field at the forefront of advancement though; the role of computers in medicine is also increasing sub-

into their cell phone, and can look at a patient, make a diagnosis and plug it [along with information about the patient] into an algorithm in your cell phone and next thing you know you’ve got the answer on how this guy should be managed,” Computers can be used in almost every realm of medicine and have nearly unlimited applications.

For one, they make communication between doctors and doctors, and doctors and patients easier and more effective. They can also search huge databases for information much faster than humans can.

Furthermore, they run complex algorithms that help doctors determine how to diagnose and treat patients. Silberman puts it simply.

“Medical information plus computers yields discoveries,” he explains, “you can do detailed investigations on thousands of patients characterizing hundreds of thousands of genes [on a computer] to find what’s causing a particular disease” Nowadays, most doctors car-

“GENETICS

AND COMPUTING AND OTHER ADVANCES HAVE

REALLY SUBSTANTIALLY CHANGED WHAT I DO ON A DAILY

BASIS.”

stantially. This has been spurred on by the growing availability of smaller, better, cheaper computers.

“When I was at Hopkins nobody had cell phones back then.” Silberman says, “Nowadays, people will have automated algorithms built

ry some sort of computer with them wherever they go, be it a cell phone, tablet, or laptop, and this greatly increases their efficiency and accuracy when dealing with a patient. The combination of computers and genetics has al-

tered the face of medicine for the better within the past few years.

“Genetics and computing and other advances have really substantially changed what I do on a daily basis,” tells Dr. Silberman.

T The focus of medicine today is clear, but what does the future hold?

It is very difficult to predict what will come next in medicine, for in a few years, doctors will already be using new techniques and technologies that we can’t fathom today. Nevertheless, Silberman thinks he has an idea of what’s to come.

“People are talking about… more and more robust genetic characterization of individuals… [in their] entirety, and diseases”, he says This would allow doctors to treat individuals based on what methods work for patients with similar genetic buildup. It would also be very beneficial for making predictions of diseases and disorders individuals might contract later in life.

“You can start to make some really sophisticated predictions on individuals by having huge, multi-

plex data sets combined with huge numbers of patients combined with a giant relational database that show outcomes analysis of that,” he says “We’re going to be able to take a twenty year old…and say, ‘oh, by the time you’re forty, you might have a 60% chance of having a degenerative joint disease of your knees’, so at twenty years of age, you actually need to start getting physical therapy … to prevent your knees from giving out on you by the time you’re 40 years of age.”

This could be very helpful in preventing a wide range of diseases, from degenerative joint disease to Alzheimer’s to heart disease. It will also be a huge step forward from today’s medicine, Silberman says.

“Right now we’re not really great at prevention [and] lots of times people already have the disease before we start saying, oh, you

need to change your diet,” he says.

Medicine has come a long way in the past decade, and Silberman has had first hand experience with it. “ So, have I seen patients that have survived?

Yeah, absolutely.

And did I experience patients who died from these illnesses? Yeah, absolutely. When I did internal medicine before going into pathology, I signed death certificates of patients who passed away on my watch… who probably wouldn’t have died today.”

2

3

Second Glance

W 2 4

Courtney Trutna

hen we hear the world “technology”, thousands of things come to our mind. Most of it is the newest of the new, the up-and-coming, and state-of-the-art, the future. Our minds drift to labs testing the latest medicine, satellites floating in outer space, rooms humming with the sound of super-computers. And it works both ways: when we think of these things, we’re quick to compliment these amazing feats of human invention. But the millions of technological wonders we use daily aren’t even considered. We can hold a conversation with someone half way across the world. We can make a small gesture and illuminate our surroundings instantly. We can access more information than we could ever learn with the touch of a button. We use these miracles daily, always taking them for granted, not even giving them a thought.

2

5

The Case for N U K E

T

S

he oceans are rising, the ice caps are melting, the air is heating up! That’s what many scientists are saying. The country and the world are pushing for clean energy these days, and they want it now. They claim that climate change will destroy the planet with fossil fuels to blame if we don’t do something about it, and they say that current fuels are running out and that we need a new energy source fast. Many are pointing to wind, to geothermal, and to solar energy as the answer. The future, however, is in nuclear energy.

Courtesy Tobo’s stream Flikr Commons

2 8

Max Zern

Nuclear power plants are similar to other steam plants, in that they both heat water into steam, and use that steam to move turbines that power generators.

The difference is how the water is heated.

Traditional power plants do it by burning fossil fuels, while nuclear power plants use a process called fission.

This is when an atom of fuel, usually uranium, is split in two, in order to release large amounts of energy. Though this is a very efficient and effective process, it has received a bad rap for years. This is partly because uninformed activists somehow equated nuclear energy with nuclear warheads, and set out to turn the populous against the energy source.

This nuclear taboo lasted for years, but now many of those former members are rethinking their po-

sitions, and coming out as pro-nuclear energy activists. There are multiple reasons why they are on the right path.

Nuclear energy is clean, and will satisfy those who call for a non-polluting energy source. Power plants release no carbon dioxide, because the process doesn’t burn fossil fuels. Some environmentalists complain that the system isn’t completely clean though, because the mining and enrichment of the uranium fuel releases greenhouse gasses, but this is true with almost everything today, and is more a result of our current way of doing things than nuclear energy itself. Nuclear energy does produce toxic waste though, but for now that is stored in leak-proof steel lined containers and submerged under water. In the future, the majority

of this waste could be recycled and used once again to produce energy; what can’t be reused will be properly stored deep underground in safe containers.

Nuclear energy is also statistically very safe, as there have been no serious accidents in the US. The reason for this is that the industry has invested billions of dollars into making plants some of the safest buildings out there. As a result, power plants are located away from large cities and towns, there are layers upon layers of protection around reactors to prevent leaks, and for every ton of nuclear waste transported out of a plant; there is four tons of protective shielding around it. Of course there are still many dissenters who say nuclear energy is unsafe. Such people bring up the Three Mile Island incident as an example in which a reactor partially melted down. However, no radioactive material actually leaked out of the reactor due to safety precautions in the building’s design, and no one was injured, let alone killed in the event. Nuclear energy facilities are some of the safest buildings in the event of a terrorist attack too. The Clean and Safe Energy Coalition says that since September 11, 2001, the industry has spent $1.2 billion on security, and that today’s plants can withstand a direct hit from an F4 Phantom jet, with the maximum penetration at around 2.5 inches. In addition, it is not hazardous, as one might think, to live near a nuclear facility.

For example, according to the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, you would have to live near a plant for 2000 years to

get a dose of radiation equivalent to an x-ray, and in a year you would receive a lesser dose of radiation than you would on a round trip flight between New York and Los Angeles.

Finally, nuclear power plants produce an incredible amount of energy; currently 73% of all carbon free energy comes from such plants. In the US, 60 million homes and businesses, and 20% of the country’s power comes from only 104 nuclear power plants. Compare that to around 600 coal plants that produce 54% of the nation’s energy, and you see how efficient nuclear is. Also, incredibly small amounts of nuclear fuel produce large amounts of energy. For instance, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition states that a uranium pellet the size of the tip of your little finger produces an equivalent amount of energy as 149 gallons of oil, 1780 pounds of coal, and 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

I propose that we use a combination of nuclear, and renewables such as wind and solar to power the country and the world in the future. Like France, that gets almost 80% of its energy from nuclear energy. Nuclear will provide the brunt of the energy supply, but other sources will also help and grow, so when we run out of nuclear fuel, other renewable energy sources will have come far enough to be able to supply the world with the proper energy to live and produce. But for the time being, nuclear energy is the best option for its cleanliness, safety, and power production, and it should replace others as America’s leading energy source.

Facts About Nuclear Energy Since September 11, 2001, the industry has spent $1.2 billion on security.

Plants can withstand a direct hit from an F4 Phantom jet with maximum penetration of 2.5 inches into the concrete.

Every ton of nuclear waste transported out of a plant has four tons of protective shielding around it.

You would have to live near a plant for 2000 years to get a dose of radiation equivalent to an x-ray.

73% of all carbon free energy comes nuclear energy.

A uranium pellet the size of the tip of your little finger produces an equivalent amount of energy as 149 gallons of oil, 1780 pounds of coal, and 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

In the US, 60 million homes and businesses, and 20% of the country’s power comes from only 104 nuclear power plants.

2

9

A Day in the Life of...

In the days of smartphones, it’s simple to find someone checking their email, using the internet, or taking pictures, all on their phone. But there is one phone that stands out among the rest, whose design is so intuitive, that it is ubiquitous. Apple’s iphone is everywhere. Its ease of use and plethora of apps make it a favorite from businessmen to stay-at-home moms. But what about the iPhone itself? Take a look into the lifestyle of an iPhone.

3 0

...an

iPhone Roger Cain

7:57 AM- Wake up owner with alarm function. He hits snooze button several times. I wake him up again a few minutes later. Realizing he’s late for work, picks me up, hurrys to the car, and speeds to the office in a rush.

7:47 AM-Speeding down the highway, my owner has another panic attack, as he remembers he has a meeting today. I patiently remind him that the meeting is postponed until Thursday. What would he do without my nifty calendar function!

7:59 AM-My owner rushes into work, barely on time. To relax from the stress of rushing to work in the early morning, he plugs in his earphones and listens to Pandora on the iPhone, an internet station that plays you free music.

9:07 AM: Taking a break from his work, owner checks his Facebook page to see what his friends are up to. After a while, however, I load the Facebook pages more slowly.

He gets annoyed, and goes back in to his office and get to work.

12:00 PM: It’s lunch-time, and my owner is thinking about eating out the deli with his coworkers, the usual lunch spot. Then, desiring something new, he uses my Urban Spoon application to search out a new place to eat.

12:14 PM: While searching for the new restaurant, owner becomes hopelessly lost. Luckily, I am there to help him out, providing a route to the eatery, and an extremely helpful GPS system to show his position on the route.

2:36 PM: A catchy song is playing on the radio in the office. While he is racking his brain to recall the name, I kindly assist him with Shazam, an app which recognizes the chorus of the song, and names the artist and title.

7:46 PM: My owner is having dinner with friends, and they split the bill. Of course, no one knows how to divide the tab equally between them. That’s when the iTab app comes in handy, calculating the money owed by each person.

9:32 PM: Tired from work, and getting ready for the next day, my owner kicks back with Cube Runner, a fun iPhone game. Hey, I had a tough day too, but there’s no relaxing for me. The life of an iPhone is tough, but rewarding.

Images courtesy of apple.com

The Diagnosis Children are growing up with gaming and the Internet-and the shortest attention spans ever.

Priya Veeraraghavan

3

2

BY PRIYA V

I

T’S NOT A MATTER OF IF YOU HAVE IT. It’s a question of how much you have.

The slew of symptoms associated with ADD and ADHD--short attention spans, impulsiveness, hyperactivity--are culturally induced conditions from the technological revolution, says Dr. Carl Pickhardt, a child psychologist who focuses on adolescent behavior. Everyone displays them in shades of gray, as a result of the brain training of the Internet and gaming systems. Old institutions don’t want to adjust to these societal changes, so people with these characteristics are forced into the “easy way out”--medication.

3

3

Courtesy of Flickr Commons

Two main issues arise when one discusses the societal changes as a result of technology-- gaming and the Internet.

“A lot of the games and increasingly I think the way tv and films are made tend to shorten children’s attention spans,” Pickhardt explains.

“It makes them very restless to have the continuing stimulation. A lot of times the whole ADD/ADHD phenomenon for me is a partially culturally induced condition where we just hard-wire children from a very young age to a very high stimulation and a rapidly changing stimulation.”

The problem arises not with the

3

4

shortened attention spans but with the school system that raises the children. Traditions engrained in this institution require children to focus for a sustained period of time on a task, the absolute reverse of the high stimulation environment.

“Schools little by little are going to have to change the way they deliver educational services in light of the kind of mental readiness that kids bring to schools,” Pickhardt says. “Kids today are much less tolerant of the traditional classroom instructional procedures than they used to be prior to the technological revolution.”

Parents and schools have a hard

time understanding why their children are so hooked to these electronic stimulants that they see as a complete waste of time, Pickhardt says. But the fact is that the children are actually preparing themselves for the future workforce.

“They are developing a high level of technical skill to navigate this new electronic world,” Pickhardt says. “They’re going to enter a labor market where in fact those skills are going to be marketable.”

But though this high stimulation can be beneficial to the children in the long run, it is still important for them to learn other basic skills provided to them by the school system.

That’s not saying that every child that uses electronic games is hyperactive and inattentive.

“There are lots of kids that can in fact manage the low stimulation required by school and manage that in conjunction with the high stimulation electronic culture that they’re being wired into,” Pickhardt says. “But there are some kids that have a really hard time doing that.”

The question is how to deal with the children who are incapable of dealing with low stimulation situations. Popular remedies for them are stimulant medications that balance and boost the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain. There is no “cure” for ADD and ADHD; all that these medications do is reduce the symptoms to allow the taker to sustain concentration. But is it always the best option?

“It’s not that the medication doesn’t help,” Pickhardt says. “Your hope is that the medication is not your only intervention; that you’re also teaching kids to simplify their lives in different ways.”

Pickhardt explains that a better approach is to have practices in daily life that encourage the child to concentrate.

“What I recommend is, when the kid comes home from school, you don’t sit them down at the computer or down in front of the television,” Pickhardt says. “What you try to do is help them develop ways of entertaining themselves. Other ways of spending time with themselves for themselves, creating for themselves.”

Parents who grew up before the technological revolution haven’t learned appropriate ways to deal with the stimulation, Pickhardt explains. Sitting their child down

infront of the television is an easy way out for parents--they don’t have to entertain their children all the time--just as medication is the easy solution for the problems this creates.

“You get an enormous generation gap now where you have parents who grew up without gaming, without the Internet, raising children who cannot imagine life without the Internet,” Pickhardt says.

LIKE THE GAMING SYSTEMS, the Internet has now become a major portion of societal life. Internet, however, has its downsides.

“It’s very very hard for parents to

“

Once the parent sees the result of the vast double life of their child, they can be horrified by the choices their child makes, Pickhardt says.

This occurs increasingly throughout the time of adolescence, where the children are making the separation from their parents. The Internet allows for an easy way for the child to create his or her independent world, away from parental supervision. This influence is not all bad, though.

“That’s not knocking the Internet,” Pickhardt says. “The Internet is marvelous. Look at the way it connects people; the communication possibilities; the creativity possibilities.”

But it needs to be managed appropriately. Just like with the elec-

We’re not going to go back.

It’s simply a technological change on a massive scale that is having enormous cultural impact on children coming up.

integrate their responsibility of supervising their kid in the real world and to add to that now providing adequate supervision of the kid in this virtual world,” Pickhardt explains. “A lot of times parents are less knowledgeable than the kids and a lot of times the parents don’t want to spend the energy to set up the ground rules and patrol where the kid is going.”

”

tronic games, parents need to know where to draw the line.

“We’re not going to go back,” Pickhardt says. “It’s simply a technological change on a massive scale that is having enormous cultural impact on children coming up. We’ve got to accept that and we’ve got to find ways to work with it. It’s not a bad situation at all; it’s just different.”

3

5

Puzzle Mania

ou oC t o Ph

1

(Also known as the interactive end of the magazine that you do when you’re done reading all the boring articles.)

8 7 9

8 7 5

3 4

6 3 9

5

6 3

7 9

9

1

1 6

6

ons omm lickr C F of sy e rt

4 4

1 2

8

1

2 4

Sudoku generated by OpenSky Sudoku Generator.

Across

om rC ic k Fl m s on

3 6

f yo tes r u Co to o Ph

1. Full of high-fructose corn syrup 5. Daredevil leap 10. Embroider 13. Shout 15. Small lake 16. Child’s ____ 17. Pack of paper 18. Brain, slangly 21. Lures 23. Multi-national 24. Resident of Abu Dhabi 26. Middle clef 27. Your sister’s daughter 30. Between μ and Ξ 31. Vocation 33. Cadets and Brownies, for ex.

34. Cartoon dog 37. Dock 40. Prime Meridian and Int’l Date Line, for short

1 41. Fix-it-all tape 42. Respiration 13 prefix 43. Touristy Indian 17 state 23 45. Fill a space 47. “Home is where 27 the heart ___” 48. Either ___ 33 50. 24-hr. cashier 52. Lisbon lady 54. Make happen 55. Jolly old St. _____ 57. Dry, in Niger’s 57 Sahara 58. Stylish 60. Blog updates 62. Berry dietary supplement 64. 54 Across (just to be nice) 65. Instinctive 67. Prep. indicates location 88 68. North Atlantic military alliance 92 69. Dampens 71. Path you might 99 take 103 73. Guys 74. van Gogh or Picasso, for example 75. Support beam 76. “____ phone home” 77. Elbow bone 78. Concern 82. ____ Where’s My Car? 84. Not prefix 85. Ambulance letters 89. To make fewer 91. Dang!

92. “Paper Planes” artist 94. Flood defense 98. This, to Pierre 99. Zeus’ cow friend 100. Bharat’s salty, crunchy snack 101. English shorthand 102. Monaco’s sea 103. You, in Rome 104. Concealed 105. Word in BFF

2

3

4

5

6

14 18

7

19

21

20

30 35

39

47

89

82

61

72

75 77 84

83

85

95

96

97

1. Shot tool 2. Elbow flab, slangly 3. Thrill 4. Horror street 5. Start 6. Eye problem 7. Warning 8. Endo9. Past tense ending 10. Malicious 11. “Daniel” artist 12. Has been 14. Single 19. Sacred exclamation 20. One of the 7 dwarves 21. Water or hot air 22. Jacque’s phone greeting 25. Like beiges

87

98

101 104

86

91

94 100

56

71

90

93

51

67

70

76 81

50

66

74

80

44

60 65

69 73

49

55

64

68

Down

48

59

63

79

32 40

54 58

78

26

43

46

53

62

38

12

22

42

45

11

31 37

36

41

52

10 16

25

29

34

9

15

24 28

8

102 105

28. 3 bases 70. Location 29. Academia’s training 72. Teat 32. Fly 75. Wildebeests 35. Cricket regulator 79. ___ carte 36. Rode and Fiorillo’s 80. Again prefix studies 81. Haripin curves 38. Not off 83. Below 39. Henri’s eye 86. Like pepper sprays 44. Furniture hardwoods 87. On your mark, get set, 46. Think GO! 49. River ecosystem 88. Give off light 51. Highly skilled 90. Preserve 52. Harry Potter’s room93. Debt mate 95. Era label, without 53. ____’s Razor Christ 56. Shade 96. Everything, in Nor59. Spotty wegian 61. “The Lost Pilot” poet 97. “Imagination at work” 63. Had lunch 102. I 66. Religious tradition 69. Watchman Solutions on page 39

3

7

The Last Words of Print Roger Cain continued from pg 11 will ebb steadily until there’s some magic point in which it doesn’t make sense economically to actually print it anymore,” Wear said. There’s a certain, minimum amount that printing and distribution cost. I think that in the near future, circulation will fall below that amount, and then we will literally lose money on the print product. I think that unless some sort of model to increase revenue is found, we won’t exist in anywhere near our current form five or even ten years from now. It just won’t work.”

Out of the Dark Courtney Trutna continued from pg 17 improved their photography. The actual quality of the capture has improved since the days of film. And from the creative side, knowing how the pictures look as you take them and the adjustments that can be made later allows for more control and better pictures. Hollerman feels pushed by the medium to always be more creative.

“There’s so much more you can do now, and if you’re not constantly doing it, I just feel a little bit like I should be,” he comments.

The upsides to digital photography, such as the editing ability, speed, instant gratification, and ease, far outweigh the negatives to both Hollerman and Vidoni. And most people agree with them. Hollerman estimates that almost all of the professional photography market has turned to digital, and similar trends are seen in the amateur photography world.

“At first there were [customers] who were reluctant to have digital, and now I would say it’s the opposite, people are reluctant to have film,” he says. “Now it’s kinda to the point people don’t even talk about it, it doesn’t even cross their mind.”

Despite some nostalgia about the fading art of film, Hollerman and Vidoni know they are part of the reason the old medium won’t make a comeback. “I wouldn’t return to film,” Hollerman says, “it’s too nice this way.”

3 8

3 9

SOLUTIONS