Month: June 2020

Diseases, hunger, death; these are all things the humans fear. The coronavirus is one of the most devastating disasters that we faced this century. This disease killed hundreds of thousands of people, and ruined many people’s lives. There are beliefs that this disease was leaked from an inventory lab, but the majority says that they came from bats.

First of all, bats are really dangerous animals to spread contagious disease. For example, bats have a really strong immune system that can help them withstand the coronaviruses or other viruses. Bats also are mammals that can fly, which make them transport very easily to spread the coronavirus. Furthermore, bats have a really high chance of containing coronavirus, scientists tested that there are about 1.6 million kinds of diseases that are still unknown to humans. 

Another problem for the scientists is should they go upstream and be an alarmist, or should they just wait and see what happens then make a move? Now, some people think that we shouldn’t be that worried of the coronavirus. But scientist Valitutto said:“You go out and you do these presentations associated with your work and in some respects it seems a little bit inflated, where you’re an alarmist and you’re trying to say, ‘The sky is falling, the sky is falling, you’ve got to protect yourself, it’s only a matter of time.’” 

Overall, the covid 19 or the coronavirus is a catastrophe to the human kind, and we should all care about what is happening to us next. A lot of scientists, researchers, and zoologists are still trying to solve the covid 19 problem, but this is a tough time and we should bear it through together.

Tourists often visit a cave in that researchers studied in Myanmar- Linno Cave- had more than half a million bats! Tourists would visit the area to watch the bats leave the cave each night. Caves in Myanmar also serve as religious sites, and local people go there to collect bat droppings for fertilizer. Personally, I think droppings are for making things dirty and disgusting, but, apparently, they are used for fertilizing. Researchers in Myanmar gathered and tested four hundred sixty-four bats from at least eleven species and collected seven hundred fifty-nine guano, the droppings. From these bats (and droppings), researchers already have confirmed that six bats have coronaviruses.

I think that people having a virus is already enough, but having animals also have a virus- and having them spread it- is a bit overwhelming. First of all, why and how did bats even get the coronavirus? Maybe people brought it to them? According to the article, humans might have transmitted COVID-19 to bats, but the National Institutes of Health claims it is likely that bats originated COVID-19. Secondly, why do people even collect bat droppings? I think that is downright disgusting. Finally, if bats originate viruses, should not we humans not collect bat droppings? The article also states that bats started and can carry SARS, MERS, and Ebola, so we should humans learn from that experience.

According to Max Kutner from Smithsonian, “Zoonotic pathogens, which spread between animals and humans, have caused almost three-quarters of infectious diseases in humans this century.” Although many people have never heard of these diseases, we should put more funding towards finding these pathogens as it can save millions of lives. 

These pathogens are unknown to so many people, including me, but at a time of crisis, such as right now, everyone should try to learn about it since the coronavirus is also a zoonotic pathogen. This virus first came from bats and transferred to humans. For a pathogen that is unknown to the majority of the people, it causes many diseases each year. Marc Valitutto, former veterinarian, searching for new viruses is “a grueling job, but this is what’s required if you want to prevent 90,000 deaths, which is what we’re seeing today. So, it’s a small investment monetarily compared to what we’re spending now.” Being able to detect these small pathogens can block many deaths. If one is given the choice to put some money towards a research center or risking their lives, the choice should be simple. 

In addition, Suzan Murray, a zoo veterinarian says, “We need to be building the wildlife resources and the capacity to do wildlife testing and wildlife surveillance.” If these vets were given the chance to do tests on zoonotic pathogens, they could’ve stopped the pandemic before it hit or at least reduced much of the damage. However, that is already in the past, so from now on, after everyone has experienced this global pandemic, hopefully, we will be able to make these changes. Maybe we can even stop another terrible virus that might be a zoonotic pathogen. Even though zoonotic pathogens may only seem important to doctors and veterinarians, everyone who cares about their own and others well-beings should try to learn more about it and possibly help research centers find out more about them. 

Marco Polo dreamed to travel.

So he let his passions unravel.

He, His Father, and Uncle as a group.

Went to Asia without a troop.

After three years was their arrival day.

Greeted by Kublai with a hey.

The Chinese had much to give.

Including riches far greater than what any European could live.

Much more advanced as they were.

Took the Polos in as amauters.

Marco was given an important role.

While also enjoying the riches as a whole.

The Polos returned home on a ship

100 people died on the trip.

A war caused Marco to be arrested.

Yet he wrote a travel book that many quite detested.

As I watched Biographics’s video on Marco Polo, I started to dislike the way the man in the video talked, and here’s why:

First of all, he has an accent that sometimes is hard to understand. For example, when he says “years”, it sounds like he’s actually saying “yes”. When he’s says “empire”, it sounds like “em-π”. When he says “war” it sounds like “woe”. And this was all during the first thirty-two seconds of the video! “If he continues on like this,” I thought, “then I might not learn the correct information that was meant for me to learn.” Some people might disagree with me and say that his accent is pleasurable and elegant to listen to. But in my mind, I am constantly having to put together words and piece together phrases that the man in the video might have said. This is annoying and if there was another video on Marco Polo, I would certainly watch the other one given a choice.

Second of all, the guy pauses every four or five seconds to take a short breath. I don’t know if this is supposed to be for more dramatic videos or if this is supposed to make the whole thing more interesting to listen to, but to me, it is worse than the accent. This breathing pattern is so irregular that instead of following along with what information he’s trying to get through to his viewers, I am stuck on each and every pause in his speech. And what’s more, it gets worse and worse as you go through more and more of the video. In the beginning, it was about every seven or eight seconds, but towards the end, it accelerated to about four to five seconds. And who doesn’t like attempting to stroll along down the 372-speed-bump road of Marco Polo’s life story with Vincero Watches?

Third of all, man, do those eyebrows wiggle. About every time he pauses for a quick mental tea party with himself, his eyebrows seem to come to life and start going up and down. First, they’re the shape of the Chinese word for “eight”, then when his eyebrows are done posing, they switch to Super-High-Eyebrow-Raising mode and–self explanatory. Then they go back to normal before morphing into an eight once more. Does this Eyebrow Technique get more subscribers or what? A quick example I found by watching the video for about three seconds is at 1:32. This is really, really annoying and bothersome, because when you’re trying to focus on Marco Polo, the man’s eyebrows are always there, dancing around on his head and generally having a good time.

And as if the wiggling eyebrows aren’t distracting enough, there are also the earlier two, and combined with each other, they are a power so disturbing and annoying that I have watched the video until the end and I have still not learned any facts about Marco Polo’s life (except the part where he was put into jail because that part’s just too cool)… but nobody has to agree with me because that’s just my opinion on the way Biographics talks.

So this is my opinion on Marco Polo, one characteristics I like about Marco Polo is that he was brave and was not lazy. Marco Polo was a merchant and he traveled across to other side of the continent to get goods and sell to the city to get money, I thought it was a great idea to get money by selling worthless stuff to the other side to gain a fortune. I guess that everyone wanted to be a merchant but they didn’t have the bravery to do it.

This man has found a lot of useful stuff and is a smart person so I think if everyone is like him the world will be better. So what did you think about my opinion piece on Marco Polo

One of the hardest jobs on earth is searching for new viruses in animals such as bats. To get ready to work, researchers have to get dressed in protective clothing like bodysuits, googles, gloves, and boots that cover them from head to toe to protect them from getting infected. Then, they would have to go a cave and set up nets to catch the bats and use tarps to collect their droppings. Then, they would have droppings from more than a hundred bats to do tests on.

While studying these bat droppings, researchers from Smithsonian’s Global Health Program discovered six new coronaviruses from the same family of viruses as the one that caused COVID-19. Thankfully, the researchers do not believe that the new viruses are harmful to humans.

The leading person of the Global Health Program, Marc Valitutto, says that their goal is to find new viruses before they infect humans and prevent them from causing many deaths. Zoonotic pathogens, which can spread between humans and other animals, have caused almost three quarters of all infectious diseases in humans this past century. Most of these infectious diseases come from bats. This is because bats have strong immune systems that allow them to house viruses without being infected themselves. The fact that they travel far distances increases the possibility of them transferring a zoonotic disease to us. Sometimes, they carry coronaviruses, which are viruses that can cause infections relating to lungs and stomachs of birds and mammals. Research even shows that bats were the original hosts of SARS and MERS, which were both coronavirus that affected the respiratory system and killed many people. It is likely that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused COVID-19, also originated in bats. Bats can carry other diseases like filoviruses, like Marburg and Ebola.

Zoonotic diseases can also transfer from humans to bats, which can cause the bat populations to decrease and further spread the disease. Some organizations want researchers to stop working with bats to prevent this. But, researchers continued to do tests on bats by taking swabs and droppings from the bats. They collected 759 samples and found six new coronaviruses and one that we already discovered.

Marco Polo is one of the greatest explorers to go down in history. He was a man of many things, a merchant, an explorer, and a writer. He is best known for his travels and descriptions to the Eastern part of the world. All of his travels are recorded on the book, The Travels of Marco Polo. This book describes the power and culture of the Eastern part of the world. Marco gave many Europeans a look into the wealth and greatness of the Mongolian Empire, and many other Asian countries.

Marco Polo was born into a wealthy merchant family, in Italy. Growing up, Marco was a very smart child. He was able to speak, write and read many languages. His mother had died when he was young, so he just usually waits for his uncle and father to come back from their merchant trips. When he was 15 years old, Kublai Khan, one of the greatest rulers the Mongolian Empire has ever seen, invited the Polos and priests to come to them. Unfortunately they only brought two priests, which was okay. When Marco was 17, he and his family and the priests set out on the long trip to China. They went by foot, and stopped by many cities to get refreshed and things they might need. The trip was so hard, the priests could not continue the trip, and went back. Finally, after much hardship, they arrived at the Mongolian Empire.

The Mongolian Empire was amazing. There were large parks, and huge buildings containing species of animals that no one has ever heard of. They had pipes in the ground giving the buildings cooling systems. People were clean, nice, and smelled good. For someone like Marco who has never seen such a place, it was like he “died and went to heaven”. As for Kublai Khan, was an amazing leader. He accepted the different beliefs and religions of the explorers and neighboring Empires. He was not land hungry or money hungry all the time, and respected the other people.

After 24 years, Marco returned to Italy and was jailed. His riches were illegally stolen, and he was thrown in jail. That is when he met a very famous writer friend, Rusticello, who wrote his stories of the amazing Mongolian Empire. Marco made sure to give no bias. After the publishing of the book, it caused much unrest. It is understandable that people would be skeptical. His stories sounded too good to be true and almost magical. Even when Marco was on his death bed, he was questioned about his stories, but he stuck with the truth.

I think that Marco Polo was truly an amazing Italian explorer. If i was a person living in Italy at the time, I would not have believed his stories either. Marco was unlike the explorers that came after him. Other famous explorers like Christopher Columbus were greedy, and enslaved the indigenous people he met. Marco Polo was far from this, and never had any intention of “taking over” the Mongolian Empire. Even after receiving much hate and backlash about his controversial book, he was calm and collected, for he knew that in the years to come, people will eventually find out the truth.

This article was about a group of scientist who have discovered a six new coronaviruses from studying bats in Myanmar. Before I read this articles, I barely knew anything about coronaviruses, but this article freshened me up. This task is a really dangerous one since the scientists are uncovering new virus that could be really fatal to them. They put on bodysuits and go into caves where they try and find things that could help them discover a new virus.

For this specific cave, scientists went in, where around half a million bats are living. They collected droppings from the bats, and took them back to their labs. They then found six unidentified new coronavirus. It’s amazing, the fact that they found six new viruses from just that one cave. It scares me to think how many more viruses there are in the world.

Another thing that was mentioned many times in this article were bats. They were the main source of many coronaviruses and the source of many deadly viruses like Ebola. I was surprised since in our History class, we just did a chapter on pandemics and I chose the Ebola pandemic to learn, so I learned so much about it. However, somehow I managed to skip the fact that Ebola was incubated by bats. That was a really cool fact.

I think those scientists, and the field of science are constantly in a lot danger, especially when things get hands, like finding new viruses. I learned a lot from this article and it really helped me understand the situation we are in and the pandemic that’s happening right now.

The short story, “A good man is hard to find”, is about a family of six going for a road trip. The grandma tells them about a place she has been to a long time before. The children beg to go and their father gives in. The grandma realizes that they are going the wrong way for the place she had been to was in a different state. But decided to not tell them. When she was thinking about this, her cat had escaped and and jumped on Mr.Bailey(the dad) and the car crashes.

They all get out of the car and see another car come over. They think that those people were there to help them, but the three people recently escaped from jail and were there to kill them. The murderers ended up killing the whole family.

This short story may seem very weird with no theme or anything, but if you look deep inside into it there is. I would say the theme of this story is to think before you do things. There are many times when the characters did things without thinking.

Some examples of of this is when Mr. Bailey told his mother ( the grandma) to not bring the cat, but she still did and crashed the car. Also when the grandma decided to not tell them they were going the wrong way. If she did they could have avoided dying. And lastly Mr.Bailey should have asked if the grandma was sure about this since she has not been there for a long time. If he would have asked this instead of giving, in the grandma might have remembered. Although this story is short many people overlook these pretty obvious theme.