Adriana+Spragg

=Evolution of the Moon=

Do a favor for me, look up at the sky tonight. If you can see the moon, its characteristics are probably very familiar to you. It's round and bright, and the craters and other shadows never seem to change. NASA research is tells us the moon wasn’t always full of mountains and valleys.

The most common hypothesis is that the Moon started as a giant ball of magma formed after a huge planet-sized object hit Earth. After the "Moon" has cooling down, and started to form it's own crust, the moon was hit again, creating the South Pole Basin, which is one of the largest proven impact basins in the solar system!!



The moon’s beating didn’t stop there. After magma seeped up through cracks in a series of volcanic activity and began to cool again, smaller objects battered it, eventually leaving us with the marked up moon we know now!



Watch this super cool video made by NASA to gain more understanding of the Evolution of the Moon!!!!!

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=Genetics of Muscular Dystrophy=

Every year on Father's Day, my friend Megan and her dad participate in a walk for Muscular Dystrophy. I didn't know much about the disease when they told me, but I was intriguied and wanted to learn more about it. As I scrolled through endless pages of research, I discovered a lot about this tragic disease. MD cannot be prevented, and does not have a cure. Can you imagine knowing for the rest of your life you can't run, play sports, or even walk correctly?



What is MD?
Muscular Dystrophy is the name of an inherited disease that gradually weakens the body's muscles. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy or DMD is the most common type of the condition, and it affects about 1 in every 3500 boys. Girls can be born with DMD too, but it is really rare.

What Causes MD?
It's all about the genes. Every gene carries the code required to direct the cell to make a specific protein - the molecules that carry out all of the work of the cell. It is caused by having missing or incorrect genetic information that prevents the body from making the proteins needed to build and mantain healthy muscles.

Lack of //dystrophin,// a protein that helps muscle cells keep their shape and length, causes a breakdown of muscle fibers that leads to a specific pattern that is MD.

[[image:3b58dfcee3.png width="270" height="274" align="right"]]Inheritance of MD
The way this disorder will be inherited will vary from person to person. There are three main ways of inheritance, autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, and X-linked recessive.


 * Autosomal dominant:** The disease would appear every generation with no skips. Autosomal means that the error can occur on any of the 46 chromosomes in each cell in the human body, except the two sex chromosomes. Dominant means only one parent needs to transmit the error gene for the disorder to become apparent. Which means the child of an affected parent has a 50% chance of being affected.


 * Autosomal recessive:** There is usually no previous history of the disease in the family, and both parents must be carriers of the faulty gene. Recessive means the child needs to inhererit the faulty gene from both the parents. There is a 25% the child will inherit the gene from each parent, and therefore have the disease.


 * X-Linked recessive:**The faulty gene is carried on the X chromosome that helps determine the sex of the child. Their mothers pass on the disorder to the male children. Females generally do not show muscular dystrophy, but can be carriers, since their father likely did not have muscular dystrophy and passed on at least one dominant copy of the dystrophin gene.



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