The Science in Flowers for Algernon

Written: Meagan Olivier
Flowers for Algernon is a beautifully written novel by Daniel Keyes. It portrays the struggles of one man questioning the boundaries of ethics in medicine. The story is told through a series of progress reports written by a young mentally disabled man named Charlie Gordon. Charlie becomes the first-human test subject for an ambitious brain experiment to make him "smart". Keyes portrays Charlie's progress report very well through stylistically changing the spelling, grammar, word choice and sentence structure as Charlie got more intelligent. The experiment was only ever tested on a mouse named Algernon, who with surgery was able to solve puzzles at a faster rate than Charlie. Eventually Charlie surpasses the mouse and even the scientist who created the experiment. Charlie soon begins to learn different ancient languages and advance calculus, whereas months ago he couldn't even read. As Charlie continues to become smarter, he notices an odd behavior in the mouse Algernon. The mouse seems to be getting flustered with the simplest of mazes. Eventually, Algernon’s brain goes back to that of a simple mouse and dies. Charlie writes a paper on this and realizes that ultimately his fate is similar to that of the mouse. His short-lived genius soon starts to deteriorate back to its original mental capacity.
According to the book, the surgery that was performed was accomplished by removing the damage portions of the brain and replacing them with brain tissue that had been chemically revitalized to produce brain proteins at supernormal rate. This all sounds very straightforward but in reality the brain is a much more complex. Implantation of brain tissue is an extremely difficult procedure that requires doctors to have impeccable precession along with all the right conditions. Furthermore, in order for the body to accept the foreign tissue, the immune system must be lowered significantly through the use of many chemicals until it begins to accept it. In addition, they raised Charlie's intelligence by using brain proteins, an unproven and highly unlikely method of raising intelligence. Intelligence is not measured by the amount of brain proteins but rather the amount of connections between neurons. This can take a life time to develop.
The novel also explains that Charlie suffered from phenylketonuria (PKU) as a child hence his low IQ. This is a false interpretation of PKU as it does not affect IQ levels of the affected individuals. PKU is an autonomic recessive disorder. It is caused by a mutation in both alleles of gene for phenylalanine hydrozylase (PAH). This is found on chromosome 12.A mutation on both alleles, like Charlie, can cause enzymes to be inactive, causing toxics to build up and cause brain damage. Individuals without this enzyme can not convert the essential amino acid phenylalanine to tyrosine, (another amino acid). Most children born with PKU can lead very normal lives under careful dietary supervision. This discovery were made in 1951, 15 years before the publication of this novel. Although, the surgery in the novel is impossible to perform in reality, Charlie's disorder is one that affects one of every 10,000 to 20,000 Caucasian or Oriental births.
Overall this book is a very interesting read. Although the author takes many scientific liberties, it does create an intriguing plot line. This is a great novel to read if you are one to enjoy dramatic endings, saddening characters, and futuristic medical procedures.
Bibliography:
Work
Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. Orlando: Harcourt,1994. Print.
"PHENYLKETONURIA (PKU)." Medical Information & Answers to Medical Questions - MedHelp. 2009Web. Apr. 2010. .
Figures
Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. Orlando: Harcourt, 1994. Print.

"Light Receptors In Eye Play Key Role In Setting Biological Clock, Study Shows." Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, environment &Technology. Web. 10 May 2010. .

Brave New World

Written by: Aidin Beck
An Insight Into the future?
Brave New World by Aldus Huxley is a captivating book that peruses the idea of genetically engineering people and populations. Considering that this book was written in the 1930’s, many of the scientific concepts are very advanced and are explained in an astonishing amount of detail. Brave New World emphasises the issues that modern science could present to large populations. One daunting view of advanced science is the idea that populations could be specifically engineered to create perfect societies. In Brave New World, Huxley imagines a society where people are created in laboratories so that they can be genetically modified to fit in an appropriate level of society. The population is made up of Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Epsilon classes. Alpha and Beta consist of the smartest individuals while Gamma and Epsilon belong to the least intelligent. Each individual is selected to belong to a group before being created. The process of creating humans is called ‘Decanting’ and certain processes are initiated for creating humans that fit each class. For example, to prepare a foetus for a life of mindless repetition and limited brain capacity such as an Epsilon, the foetus is subjected to oxygen starvation to prevent the brain from fully developing. Alphas are treated much differently by being subjected to many growth enhancers and vaccines to keep them healthy and thriving.
This process of government controlled populations completely hinders genetic variation and destroys any possible chance for an individual to be unique or free minded. These decanting processes are undergone so that each class will enjoy their life and their job that they are assigned. In essence it creates the perfect society but is morally appalling. Brave New World shows the importance of genetic variation and uniqueness and that rapid growing technology can greatly affect out world with negative repercussions. Huxley identifies certain attributes that this society maintains because of its advanced technology. For example, Alphas are bred to be very intelligent and dedicate their lives to advanced science and other important subjects. This allows very rapid growth in science and medicine while the more simple tasks that provide the building blocks of society are performed by lower classes.
Aldus Huxley identifies that science and technology are very important in improving our world and society but that if we allow ourselves to be controlled by technology we risk losing individual creativity and distinctiveness. The advantage of an extremely technological society is that medicine has been greatly improved and has become totally efficient. Aldus Huxley identifies how the society in Brave New World has been affected by technology and this society parallels our own. For a book written in the 1930’s, it shows an astonishing accurate prediction of what our society has become and what awaits us in the future. Huxley warns that advancing technology should not be abused by humans and should rather be used to benefit a society without completely controlling each individual. Readers will surely be captivated by this book as it provides an insight into our future. We see reminders of growing technology every day, mainly from big sources like the media or even simple experiences like personal inquiries about your neighbour’s new gadget. Technology has helped propel our population into a spiral of evolving tools. Aldus Huxley shows the clash between our changing world and the primitive world. This clash is identified by the Savage Reservations that belong to people without technology. These remote articles of land provide homes for people that strongly resemble First Nations. The main character, Bernard, wants to change his life to live on these Reservations because he feels he is not accepted in the other society. Huxley shows the importance of maintaining and remembering that we should respect nature and that we are moving too fast. Is this change for the better or for worse? Brave New World will provoke any reader’s insight into the way we are changing our and hopefully encourage people to recognize the importance of our planet’s habitat and life.
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A Canadian Hero- FredrickBanting

Written by: Haroun Zayed
Fredrick Grant Banting was born on November 14th, 1981 in Alliston, Ontario. He was the youngest of five children of William Banting and Margaret Grant. Fredrick Banting was educated in Alliston for elementary and high school. Upon graduating he applied to enter the army but was refused due to having glasses. Upon this unfortunate news he entered the University of Toronto for divinity but later transferred into medicine. In 1916 he earned his M.B and immediately joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps and served in France for the majority of the world war. In 1918 Fredrick Banting was wounded in combat at the Battle of Cambrai. However even with his wound he remained for 16 hours helping other wounded soldiers until he was forced to stop by another medic. For his heroics on that day Fredrick Banting was awarded the Military Cross for heroism under fire in 1919. Out of the 150 000 that were nominated, he was one of the 2877 individuals that received it.
Upon returning from the war Fredrick Banting worked for a short period of time as a practitioner in London, Ontario. He then began to study orthopaedic medicine and was resident surgeon at the hospital for sick children in Toronto from 1919-1920. From 1920 to 1921 Banting would work as at his general practice as well as teach part time in the University of Western Ontario for orthopaedics and Anthropology. He later moved back to Toronto to give lectures in Pharmacology at the University of Toronto from 1921-1922. During that time he was awarded his MD along with a golden medal.
However, earlier in the years Banting had become very interested in Diabetes after reading an article in a medical paper about the pancreas. The work of many other scientists had determined that diabetes was caused by the lack of secretion of a protein hormone by the pancreas known as insulin. Insulin was supposedly responsible for controlling the metabolism of sugar so that blood sugar levels do not exceed normal and cause diabetes. Many other scientists had attempted to supply the missing insulin into patients by giving them pancreas extracts but all attempts had failed, presumable because insulin had already been destroyed. The problem was then how to extract insulin before it was destroyed.
This was where Banting would make his mark on history. Upon reading that article in the medical journal Banting came up with the idea of extracting insulin before it was destroyed. He suggested that ligation of the pancreatic duct would destroy the cells of the pancreas which secrete trypsin (enzyme that destroys insulin) thus allowing the build up of insulin such that after a certain amount of time it could be extracted. However this was just a hypothesis that was yet to be tested.
Determined to test it out, Banting went on to discuss his idea with several individuals including J.R.R. Macleod (professor of physiology at the University of Toronto) whom provided him with the facilities to experiment his theory. Along with an intelligent medical student by the name of Dr. Charles Best as his assistant, Banting and Best started the work that would lead to the discovery of insulin.
In 1922 Banting had been appointed as the Senior Demonstrator in Medicine at the University of Toronto, and in 1923 he was elected to the Banging and Best Chair of Medical Research. He was also appointed as Honorary Consulting Physician to the Toronto General Hospital, The Hospital for Sick Children, and the Toronto Western Hospital. In addition to his medical degree, Banting has also achieved the LL.D. degree in Queens as well as the D.Sc. degree in Toronto in 1923. However his greatest award must be the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1923, which he shared with Macleod. Upon receiving this award the Canadian government awarded him a life annuity of $7,500. Furthermore Banting was also appointed member of many medical academies and societies in Canada and abroad. To add a final cherry on the cake Dr. Fredrick Banting was knighted in 1934.
Even though Frederick Banting was a very busy man he still found time to marry Marion Robertson in 1924 and have a child in 1928 named William. Unfortunately though, this marriage ended in a divorce in 1932, only for Banting to remarry in 1937 to Henrietta Ball. Soon after his second marriage Banting would go on to join the Royal Canadian Air Force to research the physiological problems encountered by pilots flying in high altitudes. He would go on to head a clinical investigation unit of the RCAF in a secret facility in Toronto. Unfortunately Fredrick Banting would die in a disastrous and untimely death in an air crash in Newfoundland while en route to England to conduct experiments for his research project.
Banting’s legacy still lives on today in all the diabetics who depend on insulin to live. He is immortalized in the yearly Banting lectures given by a diabetes expert hosted by the American Diabetes Society. Furthermore his name is found all over the country and in the world on many institutions. He even has a crater named after himself on the moon. Finally, in 1994 Banting was inducted into the Canadian medical hall of fame, and in 2004 he was voted as the fourth greatest Canadian by viewers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Fredrick Banting shall forever be remembered for his dedication to serving his country and helping mankind, he truly is a Canadian hero.
Biography:
work
CBC. Top Ten Greatest Canadians. 20. 15 April 2010 .
Elsevier Publishing Company. "Frederick G. Banting." Nobel Lectures (1965): 1922-1941.
Fetters., Sara M. 12 December 2002. 27 April 2010

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Dunder, Jonathan. Frederick Banting. 26 August 2008. 15 April 2010 .

Rosalind Franklin

Written by: Victoria Machin
In 1952, extensive knowledge was known regarding DNA, including its select role as genetic material. What was not known at the time, was the structure and how this arrangement of atoms performed their hereditary function. In the course of a single year, the now familiar double helical structure of DNA, a twisted ladder with base-pairs rungs essential to its hereditary function, would be revealed. Often associated with this noteworthy discovery are scientists James Watson and Francis Crick. Along with Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick were awarded with the 1962 Nobel prize for Physiology and Medicine. Yet a female scientist's contribution to the breakthrough was essential. Rosalind Franklin was recognized by the Nobel Committee in 1962 for her imperative assistance at the time of the findings. 
At the age of fifteen, Rosalind Franklin decided she would be a scientist. She was factual, logical and precise; she would become a women scientist of much controversy through her relatively short life.  Born July 25th, 1920 in London, England, Franklin excelled at science and attended one of the few girls' schools in London that taught physics and chemistry. In 1938, at the age of eighteen, she passed the examination for admission at Cambridge University. After graduating in 1941, she began work on her doctorate; working on the efficient use of coal and charcoal. Her efforts helped launch the field of high-strength carbon fibers. At the age of twenty six, Franklin, having her PhD, started working in x-ray diffraction, using x-rays to create images of crystallized solids.  A pioneer, she used the method of x-ray diffraction in analyzing complex, unorganized matter such as large biological molecules, as appose to single crystals.   
After spending three productive and enjoyable years in Paris at the Laboratories Central des Services Critiques de L'Etat, where she learned x-ray diffraction techniques, she was invited to King's College in London to join John Randall's laboratory studying living cells. Randall selected Franklin to study DNA with a graduate student. The graduate student, Maurice Wilkins was away at the time, and when he returned he misunderstood her role, behaving as though she were a technical assistant. Though in reality the two were peers.  In the coming years, their differences would play a role in the unfolding of the structure of DNA.
  Franklin persisted with her exceptional x-ray diffractions. Between 1951 and 1953 Franklin became very close to solving the structure of DNA. Unfortunately, she was beaten to publication by Crick and Watson. At the time, she was unaware that Wilkins showed Watson one of Franklin's crystallographic portraits of DNA. Subsequent to Watson viewing the image, the solution became evident to him, and the results were published in the article Nature. In the same issue, Franklin's work did appear in a supporting article in the same issue of the journal.
The strained relationship with Wilkins, as well as other aspects of King's college, led Franklin to seek another position. She headed her own research group at Birkbeck College in London. She concentrated on viruses, publishing seventeen papers in five years.Her group's findings laid the foundation for structural virology.
             In the April of 1958, Rosalind Franklin died at the age of thirty seven, to ovarian cancer. She died with a reputation around the world for her contributions to the understanding of carbon structures and viruses. After her death, Watson and Crick marked that they could not have discovered the structure of DNA without the work of Franklin. Sadly, she could not be cited for her essential role in the discovery of the physical bass of genetic heredity. The Nobel Prize was not awarded to her because it is not awarded posthumously.
Bibliography:
Work
Ardell, David. The National Health Museum. 25 October 2006. 28 April 2010 .
Maisel, Merry and Laura Smart. Women in Science. 1997. 28 April 2010 .
Online, PBS. A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries. 1998. 28 April 2010 .
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Online, PBS. A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries. 1998. 28 April 2010 .



            
             

oliver Sacks' life, A History in the Making

Written: Meagan Olivier
Oliver Sacks was born in London, England in 1933 into a family of physicians and scientists. His mother was a surgeon and his father a general practitioner. From the ages of one to five he attended the hospital at which his parents worked. When he was 6 years old, his parents sent him and his brother to boarding school far away from the dangers of wartime in London. He still remembers that day. “You’ll be safe there,” said his parents. He hugged his parents and his favorite aunt who gave him a black radish (a favorite delicacy) as the train left Watford Junction.
At school, he learnt basic skills, took riding lessons, piano lessons, gardened, and built tree houses. He was often punished by the headmaster for small infractions, such as falling asleep in class. His parents sent sausages and salmon, but they never managed to come and visit. The first years at school might have been easier for Sacks if his parent would have visited however the bombings in London prevented that. Sacks often remembers being hungry, only managing to eat Swedes and mangel-wurzels (a giant vegetable usually fed to the cattle) every now and then.
Sacks never complained about his mistreatments because he understood how important his parents jobs were. One day, at school he planted two rows of radishes in the garden, he prayed to God and asked him to bless one and curse the other. When both rows grew and flourished, Sacks recalls "I regarded this as definitive disproof of the Deity."
A miserable Sacks was rescued by science, a world that was of order and elegant predictability. When he went back to London he started his long love affair with chemistry. As a teenager, he buried himself in books, wanting to learn everything that science had to offer.
In London he became friends with Jonathan Miller and Eric Korn both of which shared his love for science. One day they paid an unannounced visit to Sir Julian Huley, they wanted to speak to him about evolution. He received the three boys graciously. Says Sacks:
"I think the great man was both amused and impressed by such undersized, ink-stained and sort of grimy children."
There was never a question that Sacks would not follow his parents and his two older brothers’ foot steps and go into medicine. He earned his medical degree at Oxford university, and did his neurology residency in Los Angeles. Where he was remembered as the massive, bearded Englishman, whose shirt was often un-tucked and whose humanistic approach often led him to unorthodox tactics that led him to trouble. Such an example was the time during his residency, where he smuggled a woman dying from multiple sclerosis out of the hospital for a ride on his motorcycle.
After his residency, Sacks was set on having a research career. He got his first fellowship in New York, extracting myelin from earthworms. Unfortunately this ended prematurely when Sacks managed to lose the vial containing the precious material and dropped a hamburger in the centrifuge. Hissecond fellowship he lost because he had grown so attached to experimental chicken No. 4304 that he could not bear to kill it. After the hamburger incident and the chicken, the failed researcher was banished to the "lowly" world of clinical medicine, working with patients instead of test tubes and microscopes.
Yet it was there he made his greatest discovery with a patient named Beth Abraham who was one of the few that fell ill but survived the encephalitis lethargic epidemic. Furthermore in 1966 he discovered 80 other patients similar to Beth. However, all of these patients developed odd symptoms that eventually led them to becoming catatonic for many years. It was Sacks that "awakened" them by giving them a new "miracle" drug being pioneered in the treatment of Parkinson's disease known as L-dopa.
The effects of the drug were unpredictable, sending patients into a frenzy of tics and hallucinations, or it could suddenly cease working making them once again prisoners of their disease. Sacks was deeply moved by his patients such that he filled page after page in his notebook, determined to bring their story to his medical colleagues’ attentions.
He sent letters detailing his patient’s conditions but unfortunately they were either attacked or ignored. Nonetheless Sacks did not give up and wrote a scientific journal describing L-dopa' effects. This was later published into a book he called "Awakenings."
After this experience, Sacks started his collection of case histories; "The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" and "An Anthropologist on Mars". In both of these he describes in extreme detail neurological diseases such as Tourette ’s syndrome, autism, parkinsonism, musical hallucination, epilepsy, phantom limb syndrome, schizophrenia, retardation, and Alzheimer’s disease.
In the years to follow Sacks published more books about his patients. Since many of the stories are about incurable neurological disease, the force driving them is not the race for a remedy but rather the patient's struggle to maintain his or her identity in a world utterly changed by the neurotically disorder. In Sacks' case histories, the hero is not the doctor, or even medicine itself but the patients who learned to grow with the disorder. By mastering new skills, these patients became even more whole, more powerfully and much more individualistic than when they were "well". His books were also a great source of information to scientists who are looking for a cure. Hence it is understandable that he has received a number of awards for these books.
Sacks has set a legacy both in medicine and the arts for his work with patients suffering from neurological disorders. He is truly a compassionate man that has and continues to build a great dynasty. Currently at the age of 76 he resides in New York City, where he is professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University.
Bibliography:
Work
Sacks, Oliver. Oliver Sacks, M.D., Physician, Author, KPFdigital, Mar. 2010. .
Goode., Erica E. Scribe of the Spirit: the Real Doctor behind the Film 'Awakenings,' Oliver Sacks HasSpent His Life Reporting from the Far Reachesof Human Experience. Electronic ProductsLogin. Jan.-Feb.2007. Web. .

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Sacks, Oliver. Oliver Sacks, M.D., Physician, Author, KPFdigital, Mar. 2010. .

Life of the scientist...

The Life of Max Planck
Written by Aidin Beck


Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German physicist best known for his work in thermodynamics and is considered to be the founder of the quantum theory (Elsevier Publishing Company, 1967). Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918, was a professor at Berlin University from 1889 to 1926 and became President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for The Promotion of Science until 1937. Max Planck's life was filled with turmoil, uncertainty and a wide range of obstacles. His ability to overcome them and pursue his love of physics is one of the primary reasons he has become one of the most widely known scientists to this day.

Early Life
                Max Planck was born on April 23rd, 1858 in Kiel, Germany, to an academic family. His father was a professor of Law and both his grandfather and great-grandfather had been theology professors. Planck was never sure of what he wanted to do in life but always respected the institutions of the church and state. In 1867, Planck and his family moved to Munich, providing Max with a stimulating environment filled with culture and music. It was around this time that Planck fell in love with music (he was already a gifted pianist and organ player) and decided he might want to be a musician. Max Planck did well in school but was never outstanding and showed little promise in excelling in math or science. It was not until university that Planck began to love math and physics. Planck was intrigued by the possibilities of understanding modern life with physics and at one time wrote,

"The outside world is something independent from man, something absolute, and the quest for the laws which apply to this absolute appeared to me as the most sublime scientific pursuit in life."


Planck was discouraged from studying physics by Professor von Jolly at the University of Munich because he explained that it was already a complete science with a bleak future for research. This did not deter Planck who went on to study physics at Berlin University with teachers like Weierstrass, Helmholtz and Kirchoff. Thermodynamics were particularly interesting for Planck, especially the absolute nature of the second law of thermodynamics. In 1879, when he was 21, Max Planck returned to Munich and wrote a thesis on the second law of thermodynamics entitled, On the Second Law of Mechanical Theory of Heat. He continued his research on thermodynamics and began teaching at Munich University in 1880. From then on, Planck wrote many papers on physical chemistry and thermoelectricity until 1887. When Kirchoff died and left an open position for a position for a physicist at Berlin University. Planck filled this void and created some of his most brilliant work while living in Berlin.

Radiation
                Planck became very interested in radiation and began researching a problem that Kirchoff had studied in 1859 dealing with electromagnetic radiation, frequency and temperature of a black body (an ideal object that absorbs all radiation falling on it). Planck wondered how much the intensity of electromagnetic radiation emitted from a black body depended on the frequency of the radiation and the temperature of the body. Planck discovered that the electromagnetic energy could only be emitted in quantized form where the energy could only be a multiple of an elementary unit E = hν.h was defined as Planck's constant and allowed a new universal set of physical units to be defined by fundamental physical constants. Planck was introducing the quantum as a real physical entity and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918. His research was instrumental to physics as it helped open the door for quantum physics.

War and Turmoil
                Max Planck lived through both World Wars in Germany and was greatly affected by the turmoil he and his family faced. Planck's wife died 1909, leaving him with two daughters and two sons. His youngest son was killed in 1916 in World War I, and then both his daughters died in childbirth. His remaining son became his best friend and advisor for many years until tragedy struck again. In 1944, his son was involved in a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler and was executed by the Gestapo in 1945. Planck endured seeing many great scientists flee Germany and even witnessed his own home burn down in an air raid but felt it was his duty to stay in Berlin and preserve the remaining scientific research on thermodynamics.
                Max Planck continued contributing to the scientific world and put a great deal of effort into reconstructing German science after the Second World War. Planck was 87 when he was elected President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft in 1945-1946. His life was dedicated to science and continued to contribute new information up until his death in 1947.

The Mind’s Eye

In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks explores some of the most fundamental facets of human experience—how we see in three dimensions, how we represent the world internally when our eyes are closed, and the remarkable, unpredictable ways that our brains find new ways of perceiving that create worlds as complete and rich as the no-longer-visible world

October 26, 2010
Hardcover, Alfred A. Knopf

“An exploration of
Vision”

Pre-order at
http://www.amazon.com