Hannah+M.


 * Does Ebola Come From Bats?**

Scientist wondered whether Angolan free-tailed bats might be Ebola reservoirs after they discovered that the first victim, a small boy named Emilie Ouamouno, may have played in a tree in Meliandou, Guinea, where the bats roosted. Emilie's symptoms were stark-intense fever, black stool, vomiting-but those could have been signs of other diseases such as malaria. But soon the boys sister died too, and then their mother, grandmother, a village midwife, and a nurse. This happened three months before the word "Ebola" was spread world wide. During a stretch of 17 years (1977-1994) there was no confirmed human deaths from the Ebola virus. The outbreak began again with Emilie's death in 2013.

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Ebola was discover is 1976 and it usually begins with hunting and carcass scavenging, which are forest activities. The tree Emilie and other african villagers climbed and played on, got destroyed, leaving the bats with no home so they all branched off. Interestingly there has been field study that shows Ebola often kills gorillas and chimpanzees as well. So a man named Bob Swanepoel flew to Kikwit, joining an international team of responders had a primary task to look for the reservoir host of malaria, he said, "bats were on my mind." Swanepoel and his crew took blood and tissue not only from bats but from other animals including many insects. That experiment found no evidence of Ebola. So he personally injective the Ebola virus into 24 kinds of plants and 19 kinds of animals, from spiders and millipedes to lizards, birds, mice, and bats. Ebola failed to take hold in most of the organisms, but a low level of the virus was found in a single spider and bats sustained Ebola virus infection for at least 12 days. One of those bats was a fruit bat. Another was an Angolan free-tailed bat. It was proof of principle, though not of fact; these creatures could be reservoir hosts.



Swanepoel arranged a partnered expedition with Eric Leroy, a French virologist, who had responded to earlier Ebola outbreaks at his base in Garbon. Swanepoel said, "although i was fixated on bats, we had to cover everything." This lead to Swanepoel and his group taking home a third of new specimen, another third sent to the CDC in Atlanta, leaving a third to be tested by Leroy. The testing, moved slowly in Swanepoels lad and at the CDC, and yielded to no positives. Leroy's group went back. his team made three field trips, capturing and sampling more than a thousand animals, including 679 bats, on which Leroy too was now fixated. In 16 of those bats, they found antibodies that had reacted against Ebola virus. In 13 other fruit bats they detected very short fragments of Ebola RNA. Although, the higher standard of evidence is to isolate the virus-that is growing fresh and infectious Ebola from a tissue sample-Leroy's group was not successful with any samples.

In 2005, a journal was published on these results, written by Leroy, with Swanepoel as a co-author, titled, "Fruit Bats as Reservoirs of Ebola Virus." whether or not you believe Ebola virus resides in fruit bats, possibly it does, or not, the paper says maybe. One theory suggest a two-host system, in which the virus's ultimate host-perhaps some insect, tick, or other arthropod-must first infect a bat or other mammal. The virus can then pass to humans, typically when they handle bush meat or dead animal carcasses.

National Geographic author, David Quammen, asked experts from CDC in Atlanta why is it so important to identify the reservoir host of Ebola virus, they all agreed: because that information is essential to preventing future outbreaks. He asked another question, why that after 39 years the reservoir of Ebola is still unidentified, a brainy young virologist, Jens Kuhn said, "Its a strange host." Jens doesn't know all the answers and neither does anyone else, the mystery remains and the search continues.


 * Sources:**

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaPr0cbZ_9A

National Geographic- "Stalking the Ebola Virus" Article by David Quammen

wikipost #2 **Fatal Familia Insomnia** __**What is it?**__ Fatal Familia Insomnia (FFI) is an inherited prion disease that affects the brain and other parts of the nervous system. Prion disease are groups of rare neurogenerative conditions that occur when abnormal proteins clump together and accumulate in the brain, leading to tissue damage. This disease can be traced back in the family more than 200 years. __**Symptoms.**__ The first symptoms occur during mid-life (age 19-55). FFI usually leads to death within a few months to a few years, but disease duration, and clinical syndrome varied depending on the codon 129 genotype. Detailed clinical investigation is extremely important. There was a study done with ten patients from China. The results showed that the symptoms seemed to be various, including sleep disturbances, vision disorder, dizziness and anorexia. FFI patients remain poorly understood. Progressive symptoms in each case included, memory loss, movement disturbances, myoclonus and hypertension were also observed. The durations of the disease was 9.4 months. Clear family histories were identified in 8/10 patients. **Another case study on FFI shown in the video below.** media type="youtube" key="nIeTVVAEFn8" width="560" height="315" __**MORE ON FFI:**__ Another rare case came abroad. A teenage boy in North Carolina developed worsening movement, speech and memory problem, but doctors could seem to figure out what was actually wrong with him, he was hospitalized several times for different diseases. It was only until after he died at the age of 16, in 2012, that they figured out what was wrong. The boy- like many other victims from FFI- had a very rare brain disorder called sporadic fatal insomnia, which is caused by prions and abnormally folded proteins. This boy is so far the youngest person known to carry this disease. To this day there are no treatments and/or cures for Fatal Familial Insomnia. Six brain regions of postmortem brains from 3 FFI patients were examined. In all 3 brain specimens, reactive astrogliosis was found to be more severe in the thalamus than in the cortex regions

__**REFERENCES:**__ http://www.livescience.com/43049-fatal-insomnia-teen.html https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/gard/6429/fatal-familial-insomnia/resources/1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?linkname=omim_pubmed_calculated&from_uid=600072 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23175354 **__MORE READS ON THIS SUBJECT:__** http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19709627 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126508059 wikipost #3 **THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON THE BRAIN** **__//SYMPTOMS//__** When a person drinks alcohol there are several side effects, each side effect can be severe or not, it just depends on how much alcohol you're taking in. Symptoms could be, difficulty walking, blurred vision, slurred speech, slowed reaction time, or impaired memory. The are effected by alcohol is the brain. These symptoms can be resolved when the person stops drinking, but someone who is taking in too heavily amounts of alcohol may experience brain deficits. One who drinks too much alcohol could lead to having memory slips, or even permanent conditions that could require lifetime care. non the less, short team drinking can be just as dangerous when it comes to impairment in decision making, for example, drinking and driving accidents. **//__FACTORS TO THE EXTENT ALCOHOL EFFECTS THE BRAIN__//** //**__EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN__**// **The Cerebellum:** This part of the brain controls movement, balance, and complex motor functions. Drinking alcohol can decrease motor function and slow reaction time. So, when a person is drunk, he or she may not be able to stand or walk a straight line.
 * how much and how often a person drinks it.
 * the age he or she began drinking and how long they've been drinking.
 * the person's age, level of education, gender, genetic background, and family history of alcoholism (if any).
 * whether he or she is at risk as a result of prenatal alcohol exposure
 * his or her general health status.

This section controls judgment, behavior, and emotion. Alcohol may affect emotions, leading to crying, fighting, or a desire to be close to another person. **The Medulla:** Controls heartbeats, breathing, and other functions. During heavy drinking, these can slow down or even stop working, putting your life at risk. **The Striatum:** These parts have connections that make up the brain’s reward system and regulate impulsive behaviour. Drinking too much alcohol can affect those connections. As a result, teens may do impulsive things that they probably would not do under normal circumstances. This is also the part of the brain that is affected first.
 * Frontal lobe: **

**The Hippocampus:** This part of the brain stores memory. Even a small amount of alcohol can make teens forget what they did or learned while they were drinking.

**Neurons:** Alcohol can enter and damage these cells, or even at high levels, kill them. **Reticular Activating System:** Alcohol can depress these systems, causing a person to pass out. **Blood Vessels:** Alcohol can shrink your vessels and increase your blood pressure, which can lead to migraine headaches. media type="youtube" key="zXjANz9r5F0" width="560" height="315" **//__REFERENCES:__//** https://www.youtube.com http://sciencenetlinks.com/student-teacher-sheets/alcohol-and-your-brain/

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa63/aa63.htm **//__INTERESTING READS:__//** http://www.livescience.com/topics/alcohol/ http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/22/problem-drinkers-alcohol-industry-most-sales-figures-reveal