Samantha+Williams

Wiki post #1 Genetic Disorder

=**Microcephaly**=

Microcephaly is a disease that is not heard of frequently in our society. This disease is somewhat rare and strange to hear about, it affects 1 out 666,666 Americans. Microcephaly is not a common disease but it is usually tagged with Down Syndrome.

The child in this picture is a victim of Microcephaly. This disease that causes the brain to not grow to its full size or stop growing is usually detected in the womb. Sometimes if the disease was not detected in the womb it can be discovered a few years after birth. The cause of the disease is a genetic cause from the mother's actions while being pregnant. The problem occurs when the child is still in fetal stage and damage is done to the cerebral cortex. This damage to the cerebral cortex happens if the mother while pregnant abused drugs or alcohol, got the chicken pox virus, was exposed to chemical or toxins and if had untreated phenylketonuria. There have been other cases were other factor were the causes as well like damage to the Nervous system early in the pregnancy.

The two pictures above are of two different diseases that often get grouped together, one very common and the other not well heard of. The first child is a young boy with Down Syndrome, the other is of a boy with Microcephaly. The two are different diseases but they have very common symptoms. Commonly to Down Syndrome, Microcephaly victims have mental retardation depending on the severity. This is because the brain cannot grow to the natural size therefore the learning process is severely altered. Another linkage between the two diseases is that they both cause dwarfism. As stated above this disease causes the brain to not fully develop into the normal size. This happens in infancy and in early childhood. The picture above shows the difference in the brain size of a normal child and one with Microcephaly. The cases with this disease vary as many diseases do. There are victims with a severe version of the disease and others that will experience minimal problems. Some people have normal brain functions even with the disease and very little signs of mental retardation. On the other hand there are children that have serious complications from the disease. Some children will lose their motor skills, their sense of balance, they can have seizures and they can even have facial distortions.

This image is another example of the difference in the head size of a child that has Microcephaly. This disease is unfortunately one without a cure. Even though there is no cure for the disease at the moment research in the area is looking very hopeful. Many improvements and advances have been made in the field of neurological technology and understanding. For the time being the victims of Microcephaly are still living with the disease but are being made as comfortable as possible with the technology that does exist.

media type="youtube" key="0zkWFXNlcJA" height="353" width="425" align="center"

This video is a really hopefully clip on how technology for this disease is advancing. It shows how some children with the disease act and that tests can be done to see if another child in the womb will be born with the disease.

Interesting Links [|University Of Maryland] [|The Genetics of Microcephaly] [|Causes of Microcephaly] [|Genetics of Microcephaly] The reason that all of these links were placed here was because they all have a lot of information about this disease which isn't well know. It's important that diseases like theses get recognized so that hopefully one day there will be a cure.

Sources: [|10 Rarest Diseases] [|MedicineNet] [|CNN health] [|Children's Hospital]

Wiki Post #2 Evolution of the whale

=Whales=

Whales are very popular animals that are very well known. There are around 84 different species of whale living on the planet today and about 400 extinct species. The ancestors of the whale was not know for quite a while and was only in the last few years that the discovery was made.

The closest animal that resembles the whale is the hippo. Many people initially believed that hippo was the ancestor of the whale. However this theory that some had was proven wrong. The hippo's ancestor was originally a land dwelling animal. The whale's ancestor was proven to be a wolf liken animal that was aquatic. This wolf like animal that is know known to be the whale, dolphin and porpoises ancestor is called the Pakicetus. Above are pictures of the ancestor of the whale. The first picture is of the bones that were found and proven to be similar to the whale. The connection between the two is better described in the video below. However they noticed a similarity in the bone structure and the density of the bones that were collected. The bones were found to be very dense and this lead scientists to believe that this animal was an semi-aquatic mammal. The second picture is the assumed look of the animal. Scientists believe that it was a very wolf like animal. Obviously this animal looks nothing like a whale, it has a long skull and has very large sharp teeth. The animals have the most similarity in the ear region. They share similarities that no other mammals share. media type="youtube" key="lx079oEgKKs" height="353" width="425" align="center"

This video explains the ancestry of the whale very well and is easy to follow. It shows the bones of the ancestors, which is very interesting.



The next ancestor after the Pakicetus in the family tree of the whale is the Ambulocetus. Ambulocetus is the next mammal on the evolutionary chain. This animal really shows the change in the features, and shows many more similarities to the whale. The ambulocetus has changed in many ways but the most prominent is the legs being shortening and more resembling paddles than legs. Another difference is that the tail became longer and much more muscular. This animal was almost an alligator like animal.

This is a nice chart to show the evolution of whales. Even whales themselves have evolved, there are many different types of whales that exist. As stated about there are about 84 different species of whale. Even though they are all whales they can be very different. One type of whale is the killer whale. This whale is most most ferocious in the whale family however it isn't a threat to humans. This whale is white and black. Another type of whale is the humpback whale. This whale is close to half the size of the killer whale. It is known for it's very distinctive shape and unfortunately is very vulnerable to human hunting. The sperm whale is another type. This whale is known as the largest toothed mammal on earth. It got it's name from the white waxy substance that comes from it's head. The pictures below show the whales respectively.

Interesting Links: [|Whale Hunting] I wanted to add this site because it talks about whale and dolphin hunting. It is really sad and really hard to see. It's really important for everyone to realize how horrible whale hunting is. [|The Origin of Whales] I chose this site because it went really in depth about the evolution for anyone who was really interested in finding out a lot more information. [|Whales] This site is really nice and has many different types of whale. It is designed well and has a little bit of information on each of the whales. [|Pakicetus] This is just a little more information on the ancestor of the whale.

Sources: [|Types of Whales] [|National Geographic] [|The Evolution of Whales] [|Science Daily]