Agenda 13 for 12/12/01

Courses Wayne State University College of Lifelong Learning Interdisciplinary Studies Program Changing Life on Earth, GST 2020, 4 cr Section 981 (face-to-face Wednesdays 6:00 - 8:30 PM in 222 Cohn on campus) and Section 990 (online) Health Concepts and Strategies, GST 2010, 3 cr Section 981 (face-to-face, Wednesdays 8:40 - 10 PM in 222 Cohn on campus) and Section 990 (online) Health Concepts and Strategies for Elder Care, GST 1990 Section 981 (2 credits) and Section 982 (4 credits)	Instructor
	David R. Bowen 2311 A/AB Wayne State University Detroit, MI 48202 Schedule (link not working yet)	Daytime tel: (313) 577-1498 Evening tel: (248) 549-8518 At Ford: 313-390-2155 FAX: (313) 577-8585 Home Page: http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen Email: d.r.bowen@wayne.edu

Health - GST 2010	Genetics theme GST2020 Evolution theme GST 2020	Back to course welcome page
		Policies, Assignments, Course Meetings	Online Tools	Information about the class and participants	Lectures and further information from other sources	General information

Last updated: 12/12/01

Agenda 13
Wednesday December 12
Health Concepts and Strategies, GST 2010
Changing Life on Earth, GST 2020
Attached Directed Study, GST 1990

Announcements

Handouts:
1. Agenda 13 for Wednesday December 12
2. For GST 2020, Quiz Questions
Online students will be getting email about the online course evaluation. This feedback is important to me, and I request everyone's full cooperation here.
This is the last meeting for GST 2010, Health Concepts and Strategies, and the last regular meeting for GST 2020, Changing Life on Earth. Next week, Wednesday December 19, is the Final Exam for GST 2020, Changing Life on Earth. The Final will be in-class for both the face-to-face and online people. The Final will 6 - 10 PM in Room 222 Cohn Building, on campus. The Cohn Building is on the Southwest corner of Cass and Palmer, diagonally across the corner from the A/AB Building, where the ISP offices are. The entire four hours will be available for the Final. The Final will be five to seven questions chosen from the list for the whole semester. The Final will also be open-book and open-notes. See the last question on culture, added to the list of Quiz Questions today (December 12).
Wednesday, December 19 will be the last day to turn in work for all of these courses (GST 1990, 2010 and 2020) and have it count in the regular grades. Late work, as stated in the Syllabus for each course, will be accepted and will count towards a Change of Grade after the end of the semester. The Change of Grade will replace your initial grade after it is accepted by the University. Assignments that have already been turned in and graded can, in many cases, be reworked after the course is over, for a higher grade and a Change of Grade. See the syllabus for each course, if you are thinking of this.
If it looks like you will not have all of the work finished for all of these three courses that you are taking, or you are contemplating turning in late work, or you are thinking about a grade other than the "normal" A, B, and C, then you need to go to the web page on my WSU web site to read about and select your options. Go to http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen and select the top link, "Request an I or other non-standard grade."
In the news

The fertility of soil depends in ways that we do not fully understand on a multitude of bacteria. The standard method of discovering beacteria is to spread a sample (here, of dirt) with water, on a nutrient gel in a Petri dish. The gel contains the nutrients and amino acids that we have studied previously. Colonies of bacteria will grow up around each of the bacteria in the original sample, and can then be identified and studied. Recently a new method has been developed - extracting all of the DNA in a sample of soil, without regard to where it comes from, The DNA is then split up into short segments using transcription enzymes, and th esegments are analyzed to identify complete genes. The genes are studies to see if they can be assigned to known species, or if not, to separate them into separate species. Using these techniques, scientists have decided that there are somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times the number of soil species bacteria than have so far been identified. We know next to nothing about these species, except that they exist. One scientist described this as being equivalent to our knowing that there was a species called a giraffe, but we didn't know that it was tall, had a long neck, or four legs, etc. This method is currently being used to identify potential new antibiotics (recall the earlier topic of "antibiotic resistance"). Another conclusion: we still have a great deal to learn about soil fertility, the foundation of all of our food system. Assumptions that we can "engineer" an ecosystem are not justified.
Humans have 46 chromosomes, arranged in 23 pairs. Dr. Joe Hin Tjio ("CHEE-oh"), the man who first got the count correct, died recently, on November 27, 2001. Before Dr. Tjio's accomplishment in 1956, the count was felt to be 48 chromosomes. Tjio was born in 1919 in Java, of Japanese parents, educated in Indonesia, worked on developing a hybrid disease-proof potato, and was interred during WWII when the Japanese occupied the area. After the war he worked in Spain and the Netherlands, on mammalian tissues, and made the 1956 discovery in the Netherlands. Later he emigrated to the US and received a Ph.D. in 1960, and worked at the National Institutes of Health on arthritis, metabolic diseases, and mental retardation, until he moved to a retirement community in 1997.
A news story on Page 20 of the December 12 New York Times describes a report from the (US) Agency for Health Care Research and Quality in Rockville, Md. The authors studied the 32 million elderly not living in nursing homes during 1996. One-fifth of the elderly are prescribed drugs from a list of those regarded as "potentially inappropriate" for the elderly. Quoting from the Agency press release directly, "Nearly one million elderly [3%] used at least one of 11 medications which a panel of geriatric medicine and pharmacy experts advising the researchers agreed should always be avoided in the elderly. These 11 medications include long-acting benzodiazapines, sedative or hypnotic agents, long-acting oral hypoglycemics, analgesics, antiemetics and gastrointestinal antispasmodics." The full list includes specific (not all) tranquilizers and antidepressants. The elderly most at risk are women, and those who take a lot of medications. The full report is in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
A second story describes an article in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association on a study involving 200,160 women over 50, in good health, which found that 7% had osteoporosis and an additional 40% had low bone density. Women with low bone density had double the bone fracture rate of women with no bone density deficiencies; women with osteoporosis had quadruple the rate.

GST 2020, Changing Life on Earth.

Chapter 19 - Speciation - formation of new species

A species is a breeding community - genes are interchanged. Any barriers are incomplete. For example, all dogs are a single species - breeds are enforced breeding restrictions. Some dogs cannot interbreed because of extreme size differences, but genetic interchange can be by graded sizes
Reproductive isolation leads to new species. Causes can be
1. Prezygotic isolation such as a physical barrier (e.g. mountain, river - causes what is called allopatric speciation, the most common form), different breeding season, different mating rituals,
2. Postzygotic isolation such as sterility, lethal genetic interactions
Once reproductive isolation occurs, mutations and evolution further separate (diverge)
1. Slow (anagenesis) or rapid (cladogenesis) divergence? Adaptive radiation
Evolutionary tree - branching adaptation
Extinction - history of mass extinctions - some branches end. Causes are cold, asteroid crashes, volcanism, continental drift

Chapter 20 - The Macroevolutionary Puzzle
1. Fossil record - collection of fossil life.
  1. Conditions to form a fossil are rare - burial in silt or volcanic ash, dissolved chemicals filter in and replace organic material, must not be disturbed before or after fossilization. Also no oxygen.
  2. So fossil record is an incomplete record - many species may have no fossils
  3. Stratification - layering of rocks deposited by water-borne sediments. Deeper layers are older. Date of layer is date of fossil.
2. Fossil record shows homology - same structure used in different ways, implies common ancestor, e.g. five-toed limb used for hands, fins, wings. Morphological divergence - body forms splitting apart
3. Also morphological convergence - different forms adapting similar forms for the same purpose - side-to-side tail fins for fishes, up-and-down tail fins for ocean-going mammals which re-entered from land
4. Protein comparisons - comparing the amino acid sequence of the same protein in different species - can show similarities and differences. Also DNA differences, although some are "silent."
  1. Molecular clock can compare these differences to find rates of change, especially for neutral mutations
5. Beyond species concepts, division into genetic kingdoms is unclear
6. Plate tectonics (early and inaccurate name was "continental drift") - hot inner core of earth causes "bubbling" underneath continents, plates drift and collide, continents change.
  1. Large effect on life - separation of populations, loss of habitats, creation of new ones
Chapter 21 - The Origin and Evolution of Life
1. Life originated about 3.8 billion years ago
  1. Early earth was hot - asteroid impacts, internal radioactivity
  2. Water collected when surface cooled
  3. Basic organic compounds could have formed spontaneously - clay, or hydrothermal vents
  4. Life began in oceans
  5. RNA may have originally been more important than DNA
  6. Many gaps remain
2. 2.5 billion years ago oxygen formation
  1. Stopped spontaneous formation of new cells
  2. Rise of aerobic metabolic pathway
3. 1.2 billion years ago eukaryotic cells (with nucleus) and organelles
  1. Organelles could have arisen through inclusion of independent organisms into other cells - happens today
  2. Diversity may have evolved before protections against mutation evolved
4. Life came onto earth when ice age dried up oceans near shores
  1. Dinosaurs evolved from reptiles, early ones were small
  2. 65 million years ago, dinosaurs became extinct, perhaps by large meteorite impact
  3. There have been many mass extinctions. The dinosaurs and many other large species were killed off in this one
  4. Humans seem to be causing another mass extinction
Chapter 25 - Plants
1. Life developed in the oceans. The water protected early plants from solar ionizing radiation - could cause cancers and mutations
  1. Plants release oxygen. Formed ozone layer which also protects from ionizing radiation.
2. 435 million years ago, plants emerged on land. Most plants are on land.
  1. Roots and leaves formed first
  2. Vascular plants later (leaves with veins) - higher rate of transport for water and nutrients
  3. Had to conserve water - spores was one adaptation, only started growing when the conditions were right
3. Sexual reproduction in plants happened later. Two types of spores - eggs (female) and pollen (male)
  1. Later plants formed seeds (360 million years ago)
  2. Higher rate of adaptation enabled seed-forming plants to move into high altitudes, and also dry areas
4. Flowering plants developed about 100 million years ago, relied on animals for pollination (uniting pollen with egg)
  1. Now the dominant plant forms
  2. Fruit bears fertilized seeds inside, fruit is formed from ovary, originally to protect and nourish seed
  3. Humans have been using flowering seeded plants throughout our evolution
    1. Recognized poisonous or harmful plants at least 300,000 years ago
    2. 10,000 years ago began cultivating grains
    3. Also used plants for fibers, hallucinogens, poisons, medicines, pesticides
Chapter 26 - Animals: The Invertebrates
1. Invertebrate - no backbone, generally no internal skeleton - Vertebrates have backbones and internal skeletons
2. Earlier than vertebrates but more numerous
3. Animals are advanced organisms - all multicellular, with organs - developed about 570 million years ago
  1. Sexual reproduction (in many cases they have both sexual and asexual periods of the life cycle)
  2. Radial symmetry for sea-dwellers, food arrives in all directions
  3. Bilateral (left/right) symmetry for land-dwellers, find food by moving forward
4. Various types of soft-bodied creatures, worms
5. Mollusks have some ability to learn, will avoid organisms that hurt or injure them
  1. Some lost shells as they were attacked by fishes
6. Arthropods - spiders etc - very successful in terms of numbers - over one million species, new ones found regularly
  1. Exoskeletons, jointed limbs, respiration, metamorphosis
  2. Eyes and other sensory organs
  3. Very mobile
  4. Insects, crustaceans
7. Echinoderms do not have a centralized brain - sea star - most species have become extinct
Chapter 27 - Animals: The Vertebrates
1. Fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals
2. Going onto land, fins became legs
3. Reptiles adapted to life on land
  1. Internal fertilization, did not require water
  2. First with cerebral cortex (but small)
  3. Crocodilians first with four-chambered heart
4. Birds first to show parenting behavior - guarding nest
5. Mammals
  1. Highly diverse, typically have fur, extended care for young, ability to learn, flexible behavior (cerebral cortex), bite off and chew food (reptiles swallow prey whole), four limbs under body, cerebral cortex may heave evolved larger for balance
  2. Originally about the size of a mouse
  3. Placental mammals evolved and spread - faster fetal growth
  4. Higher metabolic rates, better regulation of body temperature
6. Within mammals, primates, 60 million years ago. Mostly tree-dwelling (arboreal). Daytime vision more important than smell, upright walking, skeleton changes to improve use of hands freed from walking, evolution of brain, developed forward-facing binocular vision
  1. Development of culture (social behavior) handed down by learning
7. Hominoids (ape-like, human-like) 5 to 20 million years ago
  1. African climate became cooler and drier, forests declined, tree-dwellers forced down onto ground, split into great apes and human precursors about 5 million years ago
  2. Many varieties
  3. About 2 million years ago, stone tools, brain increased again
  4. Homo erectus radiated out of Africa into Europe and Asia - similar tools across this range
8. Homo sapiens about 100,000 years ago
  1. Neandertals one, disappeared about the time of fully modern humans about 35,000 years ago
  2. After that, cultural evolution dominated (Agricultural, Industrial, Post-industrial cultures or ages)
Uses of Biodiversity (99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct, but biodiversity is at its highest. However many species and habitats are endangered around the world. We are coming to control the environment, must not assume that we can do anything we want) What do we depend upon biodiversity for?
1. Purification
2. Pollination
3. Generation and renewal of soil fertility
4. Pest control
5. Nutrient cycling
6. Moderation of temperature
7. Control of floods and droughts
8. Detoxification of wastes
9. UV protection
10. Specific resources such as food, fiber
Culture and Evolution.
1. Culture is defined in the textbook as "Sum of behavior patterns of a social group, passed on between generations by way of learning and symbolic behavior, especially language." This is not the everyday definition of culture, which is probably something like "Refined taste and manners acquired by education in the areas of classical literature and music." The textbook definition is drawn from the field of anthropolgy, the study of human social behavior across national, ethnic and tribal groups. By this definition, culture is a very broad term, encompassing all languages both spoken and written; agriculture and industry; art and music of all kinds; tools including musical instruments and artists' paint, bruches and paper; buildings; cars and roads and gasoline stations; weapons; airplanes; computers; cell phones, science and engineering; and so forth - everything that humans have learned both through formal and informal education, including what parents pass on to children.
2. Culture became a dominant force for humans at the time when homo sapiens ("Thinking Humans") evolved about 40,000 years ago. Culture was originally, and may still be, a non-genetic method of responding to evolutionary pressures. Cultural adaptation is much faster than genetic adaptation (evolution). Homo sapiens responds to new challenges through cultural means almost entirely, and any evolutionary changes have been minor. (The dominant genetic trend for homo sapiens has been the mixing of genes across regions.) Want to move to a cold climate? Make warmer clothing, instead of growing thicker fur. Want to dive for fishing? Make a scuba instead of evolving gills. Need to fly for transportation? Make an airplane instead of evolving wings. By means of culture, homo sapiens has adapted to virtually every ecosystem, and has become the dominant species in all of them
3. Many other lower species have social behavior. Ants and bees are common examples. However, lower species cannot adapt their social behavior because it is genetically determined. Some hominids have simple cultures, with pecking orders and group hunting. But only in homo sapiens does culture play such a dominant role. We do not inherit our social behavior, but learn it. Our culture is not inherited, but the ability to develop (invent) and acquire (learn) culture does appear to be genetic, primarily through the laarge brain, and specifically the cortex, but also through physical changes enabling the invention of spoken language.
4. Commentary (DB): Many, indeed most species have very little free will; their behavior is genetically determined. Human beings, as evidenced by their capacity to develop cultures, and by the wide variety of cultures, are not as constrained. There has been much speculation about what our constraints might be. Males might might be genetically predisposed to dominate women or to be sexually promiscuous, humans in general might be genetically predisposed to believe in a Supreme Being, to commit mass atrocities such as the Holocaust, to form groups that reject outsiders, to sacrifice themselves for their groups, to pollute the globe, and on and on. Any or all of these, or none of these, could be correct, based on our present knowledge and understanding. No doubt that we will learn much more about these possibilities, and soon. But with all of these possibilities, the variety of cultures makes clear that we humans are not predetermined to act according to one narrow model - we can choose our behavior, both individually and collectively. We are much freer than most other beings.
5. New Quiz question:
  1. Describe culture as used in evolution or anthropology
  2. Describe how culture and evolution interact in the case of modern human beings (homo sapiens).

GST 1990
1. Women and osteoporosis - see "In the news" #4. The GST 2010 textbook says that women should start building up calcium in their bones at as young an age as possible. An NPR story this morning (December 12) on the same news item said that the study found that bone density tests are a good predictor of future problems with fractures. The GST 1990 textbook said that fractures are often the first event in a chain of events leading to immobilization.
2. Also recall writing that the elderly often do not metabolize and excrete drugs as quickly as younger people, so lower dosages may be needed. "In the news" #3 goes further, to say that some long-acting drugs may be entirely inappropriate for older people.
GST 2010, Health Concepts and Strategies. From last week: we spend nearly $5,000 per year per person in US.
1. Chapter 23: Personal Safety: Protecting Yourself From Unintentional Injuries and Violence
  1. 150,00 deaths per year in US - fifth leading cause of death - primarily affect young, leading cause of death for people under 35
  2. Also suicide and homicide affect young
  3. Unintentional injuries due to combination of human factors and environmental factors
  4. Automobile accidents
    1. Leading cause of death in US for ages 1 - 29
    2. Factors:
      1. Speeding
      2. Aggressive driving (extreme cases are "road rage")
      3. Cell phones and distractions
      4. Alcohol and other drugs
      5. Drowsiness
      6. Not wearing seatbelts, not using safety equipment correctly (e.g. infant seats)
  5. Motorcycles, mopeds, bicycles
    1. Helmets should be worn
    2. Wear light-colored clothing for visibility
    3. Drive defensively, signal turns and stops
  6. Pedestrians
    1. Wear light-colored clothing for visibility
    2. Face traffic (not in MI)
    3. Cross at intersections
    4. Don't listen to radio/music with earphones
    5. Hitchhiking is a risk
  7. Falls in the home
    1. Alcohol contributes
    2. Ladder safety - climbing on chairs is a risk
    3. Infant gates at head of stairs
  8. Fires in the home
    1. Have and practice an evacuation plan with a reassembly area
    2. Feel the door before walking through to escape from a fire - if it's hot, fire on the other side
    3. Keep low to avoid smoke inhalation - cover mouth and nose with a wet cloth
    4. Clothes on fire - stop-drop-roll
  9. Boating, swimming
    1. Life jackets on boats
    2. Don't swim alone
  10. In-line skating and scooters
    1. Wear safety equipment - helmet and pads
  11. Injuries at work
    1. Back injuries - get a good grip, lift from the knees, don't jerk the load
    2. Repetitive motion - repetitive motions
  12. Violence and intentional injuries - on the decline in US
  13. Violence is highest in the western US, among the disadvantaged and those without a stake in society
    1. Violence in the media - portrayed as a means of solving problems and becoming a hero
    2. Men are more often the perpetrators and victims of violence
    3. Factors:
      1. Most violence is between people who know each other
      2. Alcohol and drugs are risk factors
      3. Firearms
    4. Hate crimes, school violence (uncontrolled anger and outbursts, isolation from peers, lack of adult support and supervision), workplace violence
    5. Family or domestic violence - men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators, women overwhelmingly the victims
      1. Also against children - single parents especially are perpetrators
      2. Abuse of elders, especially by overburdened care-givers and in cases where the care recipient becomes incontinent or has similar problems - use other resources
    6. Sexual violence - rape and assault
      1. Double standard still a factor, differences in perceptions, for example that women say no, sexual conquests make you a man
      2. Men who attack women tend to feel hostility towards women, desire for dominance is an acceptable motive for sex, general acceptance of violence, justify use of force in certain circumstances
      3. Alcohol frequently a factor with men
      4. Rape is often traumatic for the victim. Many suggest resisting and reporting rape. Rape victims frequently blame themselves.
    7. Child sexual abuse - can be traumatic for victim
    8. Sexual harassment - at school/college or work, interferes with performance and includes allowing of a hostile atmosphere. Take action. If direct action, be clear. Also formal action within organization, or to state or federal levels (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)
    9. Currently violence prevention focuses on individuals. US does not have a public-health perspective. Example is little safety requirement for gun manufacturers.
  14. Emergency care - individual is usually the first person on the scene of violence.
    1. Check the situation - is it safe?
    2. Check the victim - victim's responsiveness, pulse, breathing
    3. Call 911
    4. Care for the victim if you have first-aid training