TedEd: The treadmill’s dark and twisted past

A TedEd by Conor Heffernan

What do you think of when you step on a treadmill? Do you fear the monotonous movement to nowhere in a tight environment, a form of punishment? Well, that’s exactly what it was invented for. In the 1800s, England’s prisons were horrible. Many prisoners were deported or executed, and those who were locked up suffered hours of solitude in filthy cells. Many social activists and philanthropists called for prison reform, and soon, entire prisons were remodeled. With these changes came new methods of rehabilitation. One of these was the treadmill. Prisons would walk on the 24 spokes of a water wheel for as many as six hours a day. You couldn’t stop, because then you would fall, but you would walk half the height of Mount Everest everyday. This, combined with malnutrition, contributed to many deaths. The prison guards loved the new tool, saying it drained prisoners. The turning wheel could also be used to grind wheat or do other tasks. This helped Britain’s suffering economy, and the practice soon spread. They lasted until the late 19th century, when they were banned for being excessively cruel in the Prison Act of 1989. However, the treadmill returned in 1911 with its first patent - and it targeted the public. By 1952, it had largely taken on the shape we know today. It became wildly popular in the US in the 1970s, when the jogging craze hit. It was seen as an easy way to get aerobic fitness and lose weight. So the next time you’re tired after using a treadmill, remember its dark history and be glad you can stop whenever you want.

Educated: A Memoir

Educated: A Memoir

By Tara Westover

Read in 9th Grade

Tara was born in Utah, to a very devout Mormon father and 6 siblings. Her father owns a junkyard where all the kids work. He is also anti-socialist, believing that the Government and Medical Establishment are conspiracies. He pulled all his children out of school and is always trying to be “self-reliant”. He buys guns, buries gasoline, and cans fruit. He believes The End of Days, described in the Bible, is coming. Tara grows up in this atmosphere, constantly trying to figure out what’s right and wrong. She stays away from the “normal” people, but her views start to change when the world doesn’t end.

TedEd: Why can’t we see evidence of alien life?

A TedEd by Chris Anderson

There must be planets with life in our vast universe, right? So, why can’t we see them. This was explored by Enrico Fermi 1950. The Kepler space observatory has found hundreds of planets nearby in just the last year. If we multiply the data, that means there could be half a trillion planets in just our galaxy. If just one in 10,000 supports life, that’s 50 million potentially inhabited planets. So where are they? Our planet formed 9 billion years after the Big Bang, which means many other planets should have formed before ours and allowed life a chance. If a few of them had grown into intelligent civilizations, they would have had millions of years to advance technologically. We’ve seen time and time again on Earth that progress can take as little as 100 years. This means that any intelligent life form would have spread out, created interstellar spaceships, or at least emitted some sign of their presence through electromagnetic waves. There are many theories as to why we can’t see this. First, one super-intelligent species could have taken over the universe and imposed radio silence to blot out any potential competitors. Or perhaps intelligent life is far rarer than we think, and we are truly alone. Or, perhaps advanced life can’t control its own technological advances and obliterates itself. But there are more hopeful answers. First, we are spending very little on the search, and not looking very hard. Very few stars have truly been searched for interesting signals. We could be looking at the wrong signal, too. Intelligent life could have discovered a way to transmit through dark matter, which accounts for most of the universe’s mass. Or, aliens might have converted to life on a microscopic scale because life is better that way. There are also many experiments on Earth trying to create life from scratch. Either way, the search for life continues. Who knows? Maybe we are all alone.

TedEd: A brief history of chess

A TedEd by Alex Gendler

Chess has been many thinks throughout is millennia of existence. Our earliest records of it are from the 7th century, but a legend points toward its beginnings in the 6th century. When a Gupta prince was killed in battle, his brother came up with a way to represent this to their mother. It was set on an 8x8 ash tapada board, and it was known as Chaturanga - Sanskrit for “four divisions”. Its key features were different movement rules for different pieces, and a king whose fate decided the game. In Persia, it acquire its current name - chess from “shah”, meaning king, and checkmate from “shah mat”, the king is helpless. It spread to Arabia after its conquest of Persia in the 7th century, becoming a source of poetic imagery. The Silk Road took the game to Asia, resulting in many variants. In China, the pieces were placed at corners of square as in Go, and in Japan, captured pieces could be used by the opponent. In Europe, it took its modern form. It became a part of court society, being used as a metaphor for people performing their proper social roles. For this reason, it was disliked by the Church. In the 15th century, the piece of advisor became the powerful queen, becoming the game we know today. The game began to be analyzed, creating Chess Theory, and moved to the public. Up to the 19th century, when formal competition began, dramatic play was popular. It took on a more important role in geopolitical power, with the USSR cultivating the best chess talent, and causing Russia to dominate the championships for a century. However, newly emerging tech has ousted humans altogether, starting with the IBM computer Deep Blue. It is good to remember, however, that these breakthroughs have been the result of human ingenuity.

TedEd: Why do people fear the wrong things?

A TedEd by Gerd Gigerenzer

Risk can be represented in two ways: absolute and relative. Relative risk is comparing risk to the previous risk, while absolute percentages are represented in the current overall percentage. Let's say there is a new drug that can reduce heart attacks. Out of 1000 people in a control group, 10 get a heart attack. In a group that gets the drug, only 6 do. That means there is a relative risk reduction of 40%, while the absolute risk goes from 1% to 0.6% - not a big change. The relative risk reduction makes the drug seem more substantial. But let's say it caused cancer in 0.5% of the patients. In our group of 1000, there would be 4 less heart attacks, but 5 more cases of cancer. Even though the relative percentage of 40% sounds much bigger than the absolute cancer risk of 0.5%, they end up in about the same number. However, risk evaluation varies for everyone. If you know that you have a genetically high risk of heart attack, you might take the drug despite the chance of getting cancer. There are also many cases with no correct answer. Some may skip a swim in the ocean because of the tiny probability of a shark attack, while others wouldn't dream of such a thing. But understanding how measures of risk work is a good step toward making sure you do it right.

The Fault In Our Stars

The Fault In Our Stars

By John Green

Read in 9th Grade

Hazel Grace Lancaster is a 16-year-old girl with lung cancer. She attends a support group for cancer kids, but only because she wants to appease her mother. Hazel generally considers it a waste of time - until she meets Augustus Waters. He once had cancer in his leg, which had to be amputated. Now, he is at the support group with his soon to be blind friend, Isaac, who has eye cancer. Hazel looks remarkably like his dead girlfriend, Caroline Mathers. He immediately asks her out, and by the end of the night, they have exchanged books. Her favorite book is An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten, narrated by a girl named Anna, who has cancer.

CNN 10 6/15/2020 ~ 6/19/2020

Go to cnn.com/cnn10 for latest video*

Monday, June 15, 2020

Protests have been occurring across America in the light of the murder of George Floyd, an African American man. He was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in his arrest for allegedly using counterfeit money to buy cigarettes. Protestors and officials have said that the police were using excessive force and being racist. While many protests have been peaceful, some have turned violent, resulting in looting and property damage. There have been calls for police reform, and even defunding, but others say that most police are good, necessary people. Congress is trying to come up with a bipartisan package for police reform (to show how relevant this is, this is part of this year's policy debate resolution). The coronavirus recession has been officially announced by the NBER, the body responsible for analyzing the American economic situation. February saw the end of America's longest growth period and the beginning of a recession. Although it is projected to be one of the worst, it may also be short. The May jobs growth report saw record hiring after record layoffs. CNN Heroes Chad Houser and Cathryn Couch have turned their nonprofits into food centers to help those in need during this crisis.

TedEd: When is a pandemic over?

A TedEd by Alex Rosenthal

Several months ago, the COVID-19 disease transferred to humans through animals. It quickly spread when public health measures couldn't contain it, and the WHO declared a pandemic. As the death tolls rise, many are wondering the same thing: When will it be over? The WHO will declare it over when the virus is contained and infection rates drop. There are three main ways this could happen. Race Through It, Delay and Vaccinate, or Coordinate and Crush. The first is when governments do nothing to stop the virus and allow people to be infected. Doctors and researchers have little time to learn about the virus, and hospitals quickly overflow. Many millions die, and people either die or become immune. At this point, we gain herd immunity and the virus cannot infect anymore people. The pandemic is over as soon as it began. The second method also involves herd immunity. Delay and vaccinate works when governments enforce strict public health protocols the minute the pandemic breaks out. Widespread testing, quarantine of those infected, and physical distancing slow the spread of the virus. This gives researchers time to study the virus and find a vaccine over the next few years. Once a majority of a population has received it, herd immunity eradicates the virus. The death toll here is just a few hundred thousand, much lower than in race through it tactics. Coordinate and crush occurs when governments work together to stop the virus from spreading instead of only looking at their own countries. In a typical pandemic, one country peaks as another sees its first cases, and when things like quarantine and travel restrictions are coordinated properly, the virus is contained. However, the virus could return unless it is eradicated, which is highly unlikely. So which method is best? Vaccination is often considered to be the best, as it has low death tolls and is more likely to work than the other two. Plus, it could be reused in the future.

TedEd: Are ghost ships real?

A TedEd by Peter B. Campbell

In 1884 the British steam ship "Rumney" collided with the French ship "Frigorifique". The French crew saw their boat filling with water and boarded the Rumney. But as it sailed away, the Frigorifique sailed out of the fog and sank the Rumney. What happened? The French sailors had left the engine of their ship on, and it had sailed in a circle before hitting and sinking the Rumney. It became a tale of a ghost ship, ships that seemingly sail themselves without a crew. One of the most famous is the Mary Celeste. It was seen in the Atlantic in 1872 with no crew and water in its hold. The reasons it didn't sink can be contributed to buoyancy and fluid dynamics. Buoyancy works by creating a force up on an object when it displaces a fluid. The strength of the buoyancy is equal to the weight of the fluid that was displaced. This is called Archimedes's Principle. This is why things less dense than water float, while things more dense, like steel boats, need big hulls to float. But if it fills with water, it gets heavier, causing it to sink. However, the flooding of the Mary Celeste stopped when the water reached the equilibrium point, the same level as the hull. This is fluid dynamics at work. Another strange tale is of A. Ernest Miller, a boat transporting salt. It sank in a collision, yet was seen on the surface a few days later. What happened was that the heavy salt in the hold dissipated over time, and it was just enough to reduce the weight of the ship and bring it back up. The final part of the ghost ship legends - multiple sightings of one boat in locations far apart. This can be attributed to ocean currents. Caused by differences in temperature, salinity, and wind, they are like little rivers in the ocean, and they carried ships around the world. This is how scientists identified some of the largest currents, such as the Gulf Stream. So ghost ships aren't supernatural phenomena, but ships kept afloat by the mysterious powers of physics.

Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men

By John Steinbeck

Read in 9th grade

George and Lennie have traveled to a ranch in the countryside. George is a small, intelligent man, while Lennie is massive, but has the brains of a child. Lennie got them in trouble by trying to touch a girl. Just liked the dress, he says. When she panicked, he wouldn't let go because he didn't know what to do, and he hid with George in a ditch until they could get away. They have decided to work on the ranch and make enough money to buy their own place, with rabbits for Lennie. When they get there, they meet the owner, who is nice enough, but his son is the problem. His son is a fighter with a flighty wife, always afraid the men on the ranch are after her. He is especially wary of Lennie because of his size.

TedEd: How bones make blood

A TedEd by Melody Smith

Your body has trillions of blood cells circulating inside you. All of these originate in your bones. Bones may seem hard, but they're actually porous inside, allowing blood vessels to enter. Most of the bone is filled with soft bone marrow. The most important part of this is blood stem cells. These multiply many times, turning into red and white blood cells, and platelets. They go out into the blood stream through capillaries. This is why many blood cancers occur in bone marrow. If the stem cells have a mutation, they could produce malignant blood cells, which are bad for the body. For patients with diseases like leukemia and lymphoma, their best bet at survival is a bone marrow transplant. To do this, stem cells are taken from a donor in one of two days. The first is by extracting blood and then separating stem cells, the second by direct extraction from bone. Chemotherapy or radiation are used to kill existing bone marrow, then the donor's is transplanted in the patient. This can also cause graft-vs-tumor activity. This is when the transplanted immune cells from the donor wipe out cancer cells that the patient's immune system couldn't. However, there could also be adverse effects. Graft-vs-host disease occurs when the donor's immune cells begin attacking the patient's organs, causing life-threatening conditions. This occurs in about 30-50% of people whose donor isn't an identical twin. To prevent this, patients can take immunosuppressants, or immune cells can be removed from the donor's cells. But if they overcome this obstacle, they face the possibility of their own immune system denying entry for the new stem cells. In order to find the best donor, genetic samples are taken and key strands that control the immune system are matched. For this reason, siblings and close relatives are often the best donors, as these genes are passed down. If you want to donate, go to join.bethematch.org to enter yourself in the registry. The donating process is just giving some blood.

TedEd: How can we solve the antibiotic resistance crisis?

A TedEd by Gerry Wright

Antibiotics are some of the most important drugs in modern medicine. We commonly use them to fights infectious diseases. But they make many other things possible, from surgery to chemotherapy and organ transplants. But they are becoming less effective. Many bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics, some having full resistance to every drug available. We've also stopped creating new drugs. The first antibiotic was penicillin, discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. He warned that overuse of these would ruin their miracle. Between the 1940s and 80s, resistant bacteria appeared, which pharmaceutical companies countered with new drugs. This was very successful, as well as profitable. However, many of these were only effective on a few types of bacteria, and antibiotics were being prescribed more and more carefully. As a result, the industry became less profitable. So, antibiotic discovery stopped, while bacteria continued to gain resistance. To combat this, we need to regulate existing antibiotics, create new ones, fight resistance, and find new ways to beat bacteria. The agricultural community uses the most antibiotics, often to treat animals. This gives diseases like salmonella more chances to become resistant. In nature, many new antibiotics can be found. For example, many fungi have bacterial resistance because they need it to survive in their environment. Furthermore, existing antibiotics can be given defense against degrading mechanisms that bacteria use to fight them. This allows antibiotics to stay alive long enough to fight the disease. The biggest factor in this is funding. Since antibiotics are no longer profitable and countries don't support companies that make them, discovery of new ones in inhibited. There are ways to solve this, however. For instance, the UK is testing a strategy where healthcare providers buy antibiotic subscriptions. But whatever we do, we need to make sure antibiotics can continue to be used.

TedEd: Exploring other dimensions

A TedEd by Alex Rosenthal and George Zaidan

We live in a three dimensional world, meaning we have length, width, and height. But what if we were squished flat onto a two dimensional plane? Edwin Abbott wrote a novella called Flatland in 1884 on these premises. It details the experiences of a square that has been exposed to the 3D world. But before we talk about that, what is a dimension? It is a direction, basically a line, that is perpendicular to others. A one-dimensional world is a line, 2D is two perpendicular lines, and we live in a 3D world with a third perpendicular. But what about higher dimensions? Flatland can help us explore these possibilities. In Flatland, the flat objects see a line. Closer objects are brighter than those far away, helping them see depth. This makes them unable to see the third dimension. However, a sphere visits one day, and the way a square sees it amazes him. Then, the square is lifted into the third dimension by the sphere, allowing him to see what no one else has ever seen before. The square wants to see the fourth and higher dimensions, but the sphere can't accept this, which is understandable. It would be very hard for us to imagine a fourth dimension. We can look at it the way the square saw the sphere. 2D cross-sections of a 3D object, replaced by the third and fourth dimensions. Or, we can take a point and extend it in all directions and eventually get a 4D hypercube (see video at 3:42 for better explanation). There could be entire 4D worlds that we can't see because of the way we see things.

TedEd: What would happen if you didn’t drink water?

A TedEd by Mia Nacamulli

Our bodies are made mostly of water. As babies, we are 75% water, which shrinks to between 55 and 60% as we grow older. Water serves to lubricate joins, regulate temperature, and nourish the brain and spinal cord. Many vital organs like the heart, brain, and lungs have high water percentages. What happens if we don't get enough of it? We lose around 3 liters a day due to sweat, urine, and bowel movements. When dehydration occurs, sensory receptor's in the brain's hypothalamus release antidiuretic hormones. In the kidneys, these create aquaporins, which allow blood to retain more water. Dehydration can cause tiredness, bad mood, lower blood pressure, and impair cognitive abilities. The opposite is over-hydration, or hyponatremia. This occurs often in athletes who drink to much. This decreases or stops output of hormones, causing sodium electrolytes to become diluted and cells to swell. In severe cases, the kidneys can't keep up with the diluted urine. This causes water intoxication, leading to headache, vomiting, and in rare cases, death. So how much is healthy? It can vary based on weight and environment, but 2.5-3.7 liters a day is recommended for men, while 2-2.7 liters is good for women. Don't forget, many of your foods also have water in them.

TedEd: Could we cure aging during your lifetime?

Made by Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell

Many human diseases and injuries are caused by aging. As our lifespans increased, the time we spent outside of good health also increased. Now scientists are turning toward increasing our health span, or the time of our lives we spend disease free. This video explains three potential methods that could slow aging. The first is destroying senescent cells. When our cells replicate, they lose a tiny bit of DNA at the ends. This could be really bad, so we have telomeres at the ends of chromosomes to protect them. As the cells replicate, however, the telomeres wear away until they are gone. At this point, these cells become senescent, kind of like zombies. These cells do not die because they lack the production of proteins that tell them to do so. However, tests on mice showed that we can inject those to kill off senescent cells with minimal damage to healthy cells. The second method involves NAD+. This is an enzyme that tells the body how to take care of itself. However, your body makes less of these as you age. Low amounts of it causes diseases like skin cancer and Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, it can't enter cells as a pill. However, it can enter as a fluid substance that turns into NAD+ inside the cell. Clinical trials on mice proved positive and human trials may begin soon. The final option is stem cells. These create new cells for things like muscles. Like NAD+, we lose these as we grow. These can be more readily injected into areas such as the brain and heart. For more info, visit lifespan.io.

TedEd: Can you solve the time travel riddle?

A TedEd by Dan Finkel

Imagine you are working as an intern for a professor. One day, he accidentally walks through a time portal. You have one minute to go through and bring him back before he is stuck forever. Once you go through, the portal will close. The portals are created by little chrono-nodules, which generate lines of either blue or red when conncted to other nodules. The colors are random, and a portal is created when a triangle of any one color is formed. The problem is that each extra nodule increases instability, heightening the chance it will close as you step through. How many should you take to be sure you will have a portal while minimizing the risk of it closing? It is easy to see that 3, 4, and 5 don't work. What about six? You don't actually need to work out each case. If you draw 5 lines from one nodule, there are six possible combinations. If you look at the cases, there is always three of each color. If the lines connecting those are the same color, you have a portal. But what if they aren't? Then those lines will form a triangle of the other color, insuring you always have a portal.

BONUS: What if the portal only allows one person before closing? Is six enough to ensure both of you get home?

Did you solve the bonus? Comment below!

TedEd: Can you solve the multiverse rescue mission riddle?

A TedEd by Dan Finkel

Imagine that you work for a superconductor lab, and there is a bug that sends you and eleven colleagues into pocket dimensions! The lab has a robot that can bring you back, but it's a little erratic. It has two levers and a button. When one person receives it, they can pull a lever to send it to another random dimension. If the button is pressed, it returns all the people who have touched a lever to reality. However, it can't be sent back through dimensions and everyone else will be trapped forever. You cannot send notes or scratch messages on the robot. You have communicators, but they only work before you use the robot, so you must plan beforehand. How will you get everyone back safely? You can't count trips by levers, there are only 4 combinations. Hmmm...you think of a plan. There are two levers, so you tell everyone this: The first time you are visited, pull the left lever down. If it is already down or you have already pulled it, pull the right lever. You will be the only person who resets the left lever. This provides a way to count how many people have been visited, and when all other 10 people have been visited, you can press the button. Voila! You are all safe, back at the lab.

TedEd: Which is better: Soap or hand sanitizer?

A TedEd by Alex Rosenthal and Pall Thordarson

The strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has an outer membrane made of lipids. They are pin shaped molecules that are attracted to water, forming a natural circular shell in water-rich environments. This is also called the hydrophobic effect. This shape helps the virus break into the cells in our bodies and infect them. However, it has many many weak points where something like soap could break in. Soap molecules, called amphiphiles, look similar to the lipids, and they fight for space in the virus's membrane. This irregularity is just enough to break the virus apart, and the amphiphiles form bubbles around the lipids and the virus's RNA to keep it from infecting cells. Now to hand sanitizer. If you dry the virus then add the alcohol in sanitizer, it makes the hydrophobic effect of the virus membrane disappear, taking the whole thing down. For COVID-19, hand washing is better, as it can get all the dirt on your hands and virus cells that may be hiding in them. This isn't true for all viruses, however. The common cold is caused by rhinoviruses, which don't have as many weak points for soap to attack. This means that sanitizer is more effective in attacking it. In the end, the best method is to listen to the health advisors and follow their advice.

Give and Take

Give and Take

By Adam Grant

Read in 9th grade

What drives success? When you envision the people at the top of your workplace, do you see them as givers who will help, or takers who have succeeded at the expense of others? Believe it or not, givers occupy the top positions (and the bottom), with takers and matchers in between. So what causes the disparity? Givers take their time to help others improve and share their knowledge. This seems like a perfect way to fall behind. However, the matchers will eventually repay this favor when a giver needs something. The most successful givers also know how to identify takers, so they won't be exploited. They do this by constantly observing behavior, because even though a taker can fake over a few conversations, the lies will eventually add up and reveal them.

Tiger Times May Issue 3

May Issue 3: Shelter-In-Place: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Read it here.

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Written by the Fletcher Newspaper Club

TedEd: Gerrymandering: How drawing jagged lines can impact an election

A TedEd by Christina Greer

Gerrymandering is a word that comes up often during election cycles. But what exactly is it? The term first appeared in Massachusetts in 1812. Then-governor Elbridge Gerry wanted to supported a bill that would allow redrawing of district lines so that his part, the Democratic-Republicans, would have an advantage. People said that his newly drawn districts looked like a salamander. A newspaper took that and added his surname to get the word gerrymander. The process of dividing up and redrawing districts to give your political party an advantage. There are two types. Packing and cracking a district. Packing is redrawing the lines so that the supporters of the opposition are crammed into just a few districts. Cracking is splitting the supporters into your districts so that they are immersed. And so, Elbridge Gerry’s salamander has completed changed political redistricting.

TedEd: How do virus tests actually work?

A TedEd by Cella Wright

In order to stop a new virus from spreading, two tests are critical. PCR and Immunoassay testing. PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction testing, and it can identify whether a person is currently carrying a disease. First, a sample is taken from a person, and tested to identify genetic material from the virus. However, this material is often very faint. Here, PCR can amplify this by copying the enzymes of DNA. Of only RNA is present in the sample, the PCR first creates cDNA by reverse transcribing. A machine can now use a fluorescent eye to find any existing viruses. Immunoassay testing is antibody testing. It scans the body’s immune system memory to find proteins that help fight the virus. There may be two different types. IgM antibodies are created at the outset of a sickness and indicate recent infection. IgG enzymes, on the other hand, circulate the body for weeks after it is gone, and suggests that one was infection a while back. These are especially important because the blood plasma from people who have antibodies can be used to help current patients fight the virus.