Download Spring 2005

Canadian Association for Girls in Science
CAGIS News — Spring 2005
Message from the President
Sure you know that “germs” can be a bad thing – you wash your hands
after going to the washroom and clean counters before and after cooking. Yes, it's true that bacteria and viruses can make you sick, but did
you know that bacteria can be good as well? Without bacteria, we
wouldn't even be alive! For example, bacteria that live in our stomach
help us to break down and digest the food we eat. Intrigued? You can
find out all about baceria and viruses of all sorts in this newsletter.
If you're a fan of science, you may be interested in Youth Science
Foundation Canada's SMARTS Network. Founded by 16-year-old Joshua
Liu, SMARTS connects young Canadians with science, and promotes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to students across Canada. On their website you can search the online directory to find summer camps, science fairs, and other science-related events. You can
also get tips, strategies, and ideas for science fair projects in their Science Fair Support section. Or, if you want to become more involved, you
can become a school correspondent, and distribute SMARTS and science
information to your school. For more information, visit: http://
www.smartsprogram.com .
Larissa Vingilis-Jaremko
CAGIS members, we want your
stuff to put into our newsletters!!! Send us your drawings,
stories, jokes, interesting facts,
mind bogglers, experiments, Natalie Lythe, a CAGIS-London member, has
and anything else you can think had an article published in the curof to: 2 Mockingbird Cres.,
rent March issue of "New Moon" magazine
London, ON, N6J 4T7 If any of
your stuff came from a book or on Punnett Squares, called " It's All in the
tv show, try to remember which Genes". This was a paid piece for a U.S.
one so we can give them credit magazine for girls 7-16 years. "New Moon"
too. Editor-in-Chief: Ranita
is available at your local Chapters/Indigo. Be
Manocha, Writers: Brianne
sure to grab your copy!
Davis, Ranita Manocha
CAGIS Member in the News!
A History of Bugs in the
Body
By Ranita Manocha,
CAGIS-London
1193 BC – Siptah, an
Egyptian pharaoh, dies.
When his mummy is discovered over 3000 years later, his withered
leg shows that he suffered from the effects of the polio virus.
1374 – In Venice, officials declare a period
of isolation to prevent the spread of an
illness. The word quarantine is take from
the Italian word for forty (quaranta) – the
number of days of required isolation.
1500 – The Chinese practice a risky, but
often successful, early form of vaccination
in which the dried crusts from smallpox
sores are inhaled.
1721 – Caroline, the Princess of Wales, has
the effectiveness of smallpox inoculation
tested on six condemned prisoners who are
promised their freedom if they survive.
They survive, and after further testing on
orphan children, the princess allows her
daughters to be inoculated.
1796 – English doctor Edward Jenner realizes that milkmaids infected with a mild
disease, cowpox, are immune to smallpox.
He deliberately infects an eight-year-old
boy with fluid taken from a cowpox blister.
Jenner later inoculates the boy with smallpox – the boy does not get sick.
1881 – French chemist Louis Pasteur studies rabies and creates a vaccine to prevent
the disease. He later vaccinates a young boy
who is bitten by a rabid dog, and the boy
remains healthy.
1892 – Using filters small enough to trap
event the smallest of bacteria, Russian
botanist Dmitri Ivanovsky shows that dis(Continued on page 2)
(Continued from page 1)
eased tobacco plants can transmit their disease to other plants. He does not know it, but he has discovered a plant virus (the
tobacco mosaic virus).
1908 – In Austria, Karl Landsteiner and Edwin Popper use spinal cord material from a polio victim to isolate the diseasecausing virus. Despite their success, it will be over 40 years before an effective polio vaccine is found.
1918 – Spread by troops returning home from World War I, influenza (the flu) kills between 20 and 40 million people worldwide. Schoolchildren even come up with a skipping song referring to the disease: “I had a little bird and its name was Enza. I
opened the window and in-flew-Enza.”
1921 – Paralysed from the waist down, Franklin D. Roosevelt is diagnosed with polio. He goes on to become the 32nd president
of the USA, and later sets up a foundation, the March of Dimes, to encourage Americans to donate their pocket change to
fight polio.
1954 – Nearly 2 million American children, dubbed Polio Pioneers take part in the testing of Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine.
The vaccine is shown to be 90 percent effective in preventing polio, and soon it becomes part of regular childhood immunizations.
1977 – The last natural smallpox case is reported in Somalia, and 3 years later, the World Health Assembly announces the
disease has been wiped out.
1987 – The AIDS Memorial Quilt project is initiated to create a memorial for some of those who have died from AIDS, a
disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus. More than 44 000 quilt panels have been sewn together to date.
2003 – Originating in China, a new virus called SARS spreads via airplane travel to many countries. Canada gets hit hard with
over 40 deaths.
Source: Contagion chronicles. (2004, March/April). Yes Mag, 39.
Germ Alert! Go Get ‘em, Probiotics!
By Natalie Lythe
You are probably wondering, ‘What are probiotics?’ Probiotics (proby-AW-tics) are benign, or friendly, bacteria. Your body uses
friendly bacteria as a first line of defense, meaning that the bacteria help your body kill unfriendly germs. Probiotics are like an army,
vast in number, teaming up against fungi, ‘bad’ bacteria, and viruses.
In fact, if your body is healthy, you have billions of these
‘guardians’ inside your body right now.
The two most important strains of probiotics are Lactobacillus acidophilus, most commonly found in the small intestine, and Bifidobacterium bifidum, common to your large intestine. You can also
find them in yogurt, taking the name of Lactobacillus bulgaricus &
Streptococcus thermophilus.
Did you know that…
•
•
•
Bacteria make up about one half of
the material in your excrement?
(Gases and chemicals are created
by these bacteria as by-products
of food consumption, creating the
unpleasant odour released when we
fart!)
Nearly a third of all bottled drinking water purchased in the US is
contaminated with bacteria?
There are more living organisms on
the skin of a single human being
than there are human beings on the
surface of the earth?
Microbes cause body odor?
(Deodorant kills the bacteria under
your arms so that they cannot
make your sweat stink!)
•
Anytime you take antibiotics, all of the bacteria populations in your
body, bad, or good, are wiped out. This is great for fighting disease,
but because your first line of defense is eliminated too, you are left
vulnerable to the next bug that comes along. Remember to replenish your good bacteria with probiotics capsules next time you take
Sources:
antibiotics!
http://fox.rollins.edu/~egregory/
didyou.htm
If you are interested in learning more, this book is a good way to
http://www.hightechscience.org/
start: Probiotics Nature’s Internal Healers by Natasha Trenev.
funfacts.htm