A Ton of Crap
Page 45
DNA
Discovery of DNA In 1868, Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher discovered what he referred to as “nuclein.” In reality, these were the nucleic acids. In 1951, the complete DNA molecule was discovered by three scientists, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins. By the 1940s, scientists understood that DNA was composed of amino acids and was the basic genetic makeup of life. They did not know, however, what the molecule looked like. Using x-ray diffraction, the scientists were able to conclude that DNA was a double helix. In 1962, the three scientists received the Nobel Prize for their contributions to science.
EXTINCT LANGUAGES
Polabian Polabian was a West Slavic language. The Polabian language was spoken by the Polabian Slavs around the Elbe River in what is present-day northeastern Germany, and use of the language dates back to the first millennium a.d. The language became extinct during the eighteenth century and was replaced with German when the German Empire conquered the Polabian lands. Today, although Polabian does not exist, there are two Sorbian languages spoken that are related to Polabian. The Polabian language has similarities to older phases of Sorbian and Polish languages.
LESSON 39F
WAR ON TERROR
Death of Osama bin Laden On May 2, 2011, ten years after the attacks of September 11, Osama bin Laden was killed. The operation was called Operation Neptune Spear, and was ordered by President Obama. A team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (or SEAL Team Six) raided the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden had been living. Following the raid, bin Laden’s body was taken to Afghanistan to be identified and then was buried at sea following Muslim practices. On May 6, his death was confirmed by al-Qaeda.
PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES
Card Stacking Card stacking is about not telling your audience the full truth. Someone performing card stacking omits or holds back contrary information and only puts out the information that best benefits his or her perspective or goal. Card stacking is very effective because it gives someone the ability to present the truth, but still manage to manipulate what is being put out in the world.
INFINITY
Real Analysis There are some basic formulas regarding infinity, indicating its limitlessness. For example, x → ∞ and x → -∞ show that x can grow and decrease without bound. If every t is f(t) ≥ 0, then:
∫-∞∞ f(t) dt = ∞ shows the area under f(t) is infinite
∫-∞∞ f(t) dt = n shows that the area under f(t) equals n, and thus, is finite.
∫ab f(t) dt = ∞ shows f(t) doesn’t bound an area that is finite from a to b
DNA
Uses of DNA DNA is astounding for a number of reasons. Medically speaking, DNA gives insights into the evolutionary past of mankind; it helps people understand diseases, drugs, and birth defects; and DNA can help people understand how to cure genetic mutations and illnesses. DNA is also used to identify people involved in crimes and paternity tests. DNA testing even helped solve the mystery of the missing Romanov children. The last Russian czar (Nicholas II) and his family were executed in 1918. Later, it was found that two children were missing from the mass grave. In 1991, two bodies were found 70 meters away from the grave of Nicholas II, and with DNA, it was proven that these were his two daughters.
EXTINCT LANGUAGES
Apalachee The Apalachee people lived in the Florida Panhandle (the northwestern part of the state), but they currently reside in Louisiana. The Apalachee language is a Muskogean language. Of the Muskogean languages that existed, Chickasaw, Alabama, Creek-Seminole, Choctaw, Koasati, and Mikasuki are still spoken today. Apalachee and Hitchiti are the only two that are extinct. The language became extinct due to tribal enemies and disease brought on from the Europeans. Due to the Europeans’ actions in the eighteenth century, the Apalachee people migrated to Louisiana.
LESSON 39 QUIZ
What happened during the first phase of Operation Enduring Freedom?
Saddam Hussein was executed.
The Taliban were thrown out of power in Kabul.
Osama bin Laden was executed.
Baghdad fell.
What operation marked the end of combat in Iraq?
Operation New Dawn
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Operation Neptune Spear
Operation Enduring Freedom
Which of the following propaganda techniques uses local accents, idioms, or jokes to create the sense of familiarity?
Bandwagon
Plain folks
Transfer
Card stacking
Which of the following propaganda techniques states a person should do something because everyone else is also doing it?
Bandwagon
Plain folks
Transfer
Card stacking
Which of the following did Aristotle think could only make sense?
Finitism
Ultrafinitism
Actual infinity
Potential infinity
What states if there is a set X, there is at least one set that is raised to the power of X, and that is cardinally bigger than X?
Aristotle’s Theorem
Hilbert’s Theory
Galileo’s Paradox
Cantor’s Theorem
Which of the following is NOT a base found in DNA?
Guarana
Guanine
Adenine
Cytosine
What is deoxyribose?
An amino acid
A sugar molecule
A messenger RNA
A phosphate
Dalmatian was spoken in:
Croatia
The Florida Panhandle
Turkey
British Columbia
Anthropologist Frank Boas worked closely with this language, producing the most well known work about it:
Apalachee
Polabian
Tsetsaut
Eyak
ANSWER KEY: b, a, b, a, d, d, a, b, a, c
Lesson 40
HISTORY: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
History of the Land, Palestinian State, Terror from Palestine, Repression from Israel, Hamas, Recognizing Israel
LANGUAGE ARTS: Editing Strategies
Editing and Proofreading, Your Target Audience, Start with the Sentences, Move On to the Words, Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation, Proofreading
MATH: Logarithms
What Are Logarithms?, Basic Rules of Logarithms, Expanding Logarithms, Simplifying Logarithmic Expressions, Change-of-Base Formula, Applications of Logarithms
SCIENCE: RNA
Messenger RNA, Ribosomal RNA, Transfer RNA, Small Interfering RNA, Precursor Messenger RNA, RNA Therapeutics
FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Endangered Languages
Karaim, Votic, Dyirbal, Chong, Sarikoli, Chuvash
LESSON 40A
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
History of the Land The history of Israel and Palestine is a very complex one. In ancient times, the land was known as Judea and it was the land of the Jewish people. When the Romans conquered the land, it was renamed Palestine. This land was then conquered and inhabited by Arabs for more than 1,000 years. With the Zionist movement, the Jewish people wished to return to Israel. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 stated that Britain wished to turn Palestine into a national home for the Jewish people, upsetting the Arabs that lived there. Riots broke out and the British stopped immigration of the Jewish people to Palestine. After the Holocaust, the British once again began allowing Jewish people to move to Palestine. In 1947, the land was divided into a Jewish and Arab state.
EDITING STRATEGIES
Editing and Proofreading Editing and proofreading are not interchangeable. They are two very important processes to use during the finishing process of writing. Editing is about making sure terminology is used correctly. It’s ensuring that every term that is used is the right term. Often, research is an important part of the editing process. Proofreading, however, is abo
ut scanning your writing to make sure that everything is grammatically sound, and that there are no syntax or spelling errors. The meaning of the words does not matter. This is about whether or not the structure is correct.
LOGARITHMS
What Are Logarithms? Maybe the most useful concept in arithmetic that can be used in all sciences, logarithms are ways to express a power that a fixed base, or number, is raised to so that a given answer is produced. Common logarithms have a base of ten, while natural logarithms have a base e. Here are some basic logs:
log(10) = 1
This is because 101 = 10
log(100) = 2
This is because 102 = 100
log(2) ≈ 0.3
This is because 100.3 = 2
The opposite of a log, which is known as an antilog, looks like this:
antilog(2) = 100
With antilogs, you are just raising the base (10) to the power of x (in this case 2).
RNA
Messenger RNA Messenger RNA, also known as mRNA, is the single-stranded molecule that is responsible for encoding a chemical blueprint for the process of protein synthesis. Messenger RNA has a copy of the genetic information found on a strand of DNA. Whereas DNA has the genetic information in the nucleus, messenger RNA transports that information out of the nucleus to the cytoplasm. It is in the cytoplasm that the proteins are put together. As mentioned earlier, messenger RNA goes through transcription and then translation.
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES
Karaim Karaim is a Turkic language that has influences from Hebrew similar to the way the Ladino or Yiddish languages do. The language is spoken by the Crimean Karaites, who are followers of Karaite Judaism. The language is spoken in Crimea, Poland, western Ukraine, and Lithuania. Currently, there are only six speakers alive.
LESSON 40B
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
Palestinian State The Arab people did not accept the division of the land, and war between Palestine and Israel broke out. The Jewish people expanded their territory after a victory, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians refugees. The two-state solution was finally agreed upon in 1988. Violence and land settlement continued, however, and in September of 2000, there was open conflict. The Road Map Peace Plan is a plan that was issued by the Bush administration to create a Palestinian state in peace.
EDITING STRATEGIES
Your Target Audience Once your writing is finished, it is of absolute necessity that you go back and edit. Your first draft should never be your final draft. Think about your audience. Who are you writing this for? Is it a technical audience? Do you need to explain any technical terms you have included or will they know what you’re talking about? How old is your audience? If you are writing for children, they have a shorter attention span than adults. Think about the length of your sentences. Make sure what you have written is appropriate for the people who are going to be listening to or reading it.
LOGARITHMS
Basic Rules of Logarithms Just like you can add exponents when there is the same base, logarithms follow a similar rule. Here are the three main rules for logarithms. Note, these only work when the bases are identical:
logb(m) + logb(n) = logb(mn)
This means that when adding logs with the same base, you multiply the numbers inside of the log.
logb(m) – logb(n) = logb(m/n)
When subtracting logs with the same base, divide the numbers inside the logs
n • logb(m) = logb(mn)
When there is a multiplier, it turns into an exponent on everything that is in the log, and vice versa.
RNA
Ribosomal RNA Ribosomes create proteins. A part of the ribosome is known as ribosomal RNA, or rRNA. This type of RNA creates polypeptides (which are groups of amino acids that proteins are made of). A ribosome is an extremely small structure found in the cytoplasm. The ribosome has two subunits, and both of the units contain ribosomal RNA and protein. However, from these units, a startling discovery has been made, leading scientists to believe that the origin of life lies in RNA. This is because the larger of the two units of the ribosome features a chemical reaction. This chemical reaction turns genetic information into the beginning of the proteins, and only rRNA is located there.
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES
Votic Votic is spoken by the Votes people of Ingria (which is part of Russia). It is related to Estonian and is part of the Finnic subgroup within the Uralic language family. It is only spoken in two villages, Krakolye and Luzhitsy, and by 2005, only twenty speakers remained.
LESSON 40C
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
Terror from Palestine Many Palestinian parties and underground groups were created with the sole intention of destroying Israel through violence. The Palestine Liberation Organization is the only group that has renounced this and honors the right of Israel to exist. As a result, Israel allowed the Palestine Liberation Organization to enter the Gaza Strip and West Bank. From this action, most of the area is independently controlled by Palestinians. Palestinian terrorism has continued, however, by those objecting to the agreements made by the PLO. The violence and resistance of the Palestinians against the Israelis became known as “Intifada.”
EDITING STRATEGIES
Start with the Sentences Look at your sentences carefully. This does not mean simply looking over sentences to see if there are any typos (which you’ll get to later on). Pay attention to the punctuation you have included in your writing. Errors can be distracting for readers. Do any sentences seem clichéd or hackneyed? Make every sentence count. If you are finding sentences that don’t seem to have any meaning, get rid of them or rewrite them so that they have a purpose. Eliminate any wordiness or repetition that does not help your writing. If every sentence begins with the same word, change it up a bit to keep it more exciting.
LOGARITHMS
Expanding Logarithms When logs have a lot of information in them, they should be taken apart by using the rules until each log only has one thing inside of it.
For example, if you want to expand log3(4x), you break it down as this:
log3(4) + log3(x) = log3(4x)
Your answer is log3(4) + log3(x). You should not try to then find the value of log3(4) in your calculator, but rather, leave it as is. Here is another example:
log5(25/x) = log5(25) – log5(x)
log5(25/x) = 2 – log5(x)
RNA
Transfer RNA Transfer RNA, also known as tRNA, is responsible for reading the code and carrying amino acids that will go into the developing protein. Every amino acid has transfer RNA, and there are around twenty different tRNAs. The transfer RNA has an anticodon that reads the codon of the messenger RNA. The reading process occurs by matching base pairs with hydrogen bonds. All transfer RNAs have anywhere from seventy-five to ninety-five nucleotides. Transfer RNAs have also been known to be used in processes other than ribosome-dependent translation.
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES
Dyirbal Dyirbal is an Aboriginal language of Australia and a member of the Pama–Nyungan language family. Dyirbal is spoken in northeast Queensland by a total of five people. The language is well known to linguists due to its features. There are only four places of articulation in Dyirbal, compared to other Aboriginal languages, which feature six. However, what really makes this language famous is its noun class system, which features four different types: man and animate objects, women, violence and fire, fruit and vegetables, and anything else that is considered miscellaneous.
LESSON 40D
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
Repression from Israel In response to Palestinian violence, Israel limited the amount of Palestinians that could enter Israel and created very strict border checks. The checkpoints became sources of violence on both sides, with attacks by Palestinians and accidental killings of Palestinians by the border control. In 2002, Israel launched an operation known as Defensive Wall, which reoccupied land in the West Bank that had been relinquished to Palestinians. Israel Defense F
orces created more checkpoints, destroyed homes, and killed thousands of Palestinians in an effort to discourage suicide bombings.
EDITING STRATEGIES
Move On to the Words The words you choose are, obviously, very important. Look through your writing thinking about the words you have used. Think of active versus passive voice, point of view (first, second, third person), and concepts like emotionalism and neutrality. Your words should be chosen in relation to the message you want to give, how you want the audience to interpret them, and who your audience is.
LOGARITHMS
Simplifying Logarithmic Expressions Simplifying logarithmic expressions is essentially doing the reverse of expanding logarithmic expressions. Instead of breaking it down into many parts from one large part, you are given many parts and are asked to create one large logarithm.