Death awaits in your garden

Many people love gardening, so they have a garden full of beautiful plants, but they usually don’t know that some of those plants can kill you if you dare to eat their flowers, fruits, leaves, stem or root. Some plants can intoxicate only by holding their flowers or leaves in hand.

Adults are out of danger (except in the cases of plants that can be used as drugs), but children have the habit of putting everything they find in the mouth and the beautiful colors of the plants can make them attractive, that’s why the gardens can offer a great risk to kids. Some parents don’t have any information about the plants that exist in their garden, so they cannot give advice to their kids to stay far from the poisonous plants,  which makes the problem worse.

Down below there's a list of dangerous plants that are frequently found in gardens, and they can lead to death if eaten. Actually, all of them can be found here in São Carlos, SP, Brazil.

The first ones of the list are my favorite ones, the belladona family, the plants of that family deserve respect. They don´t contain only one poisonous substance, but a cocktail of dangerous alcaloids, like scopolamin, hyosciamin, and atropine. Scopolamin is a hallucinogen hundred of times more powerfull than LSD!, and atropine  can stop the muscles of vital organs and cause severe brain damage, hypertermia and dehydratation, it’s not necessary to say that those substances are dangerous.

Due to the hallucinogenic effect of those plants, they are used as drugs, in a great amount of cases bringing permanent brain damage to the user.

All the parts off the plants of that family are toxic, but the bigger concentration of poison is found in the berries or seeds. Here we go with the list of the deadly belladona family:

Scientific name:Atropa belladona.  

English common name:Deadly nightshade.

Portuguese common name: Beladona.

The English name of this plant says everything about it. Although atropine can be used as medicine in low concentrations, in higher concentrations it’s very dangerous, and the other alcaloids of the plant are equally dangerous. The poisons are absorbed by the skin, and because of this you can be poisoned if you hold the plant a long time. The berries are sweet, then if a child eat one, it will like and eat a lot of them, unfortunately five berries is sufficient to send a people to the graveyard.

A curious fact about this plant is that it is hazardous to humans, but it’s harmless to some animals like rabbits, because of that some people in ancient Europe died by eating rabbits contamined with beladona poisons.

Scientific name: Datura sp(inoxia, metel,stramonium).

English common name: Jimson weed, devil's apple, devil's trumpet.

Portuguese common  name:Cartucheira, estramônio.

This plant got famous in the 60's decade because of the books of Carlos

Castaneda, in which he described the use of this plant in xamanic rituals. After that, many people tried to use datura as a drug, but even  drug users that had the habit of taking heavy hallucinogens like mushrooms or LSD described the datura experience as traumatic scary and  very "real". If the person don´t die because of the deadly substances of the plant, the hallucinogen effect can persist for days, with high possibility of causing permanent brain damage.

There's an Indian tribe in North America who uses a drink prepared with datura in their rite of passage. This drink is called wysoccan, and the objective of drinking it is forget about the child life to ingress in the adult life, but the brain effect is very strong, making some of them to forget about their identity or even how to speak!

Scientific name:Brugmansia suavelleons.

English common name:Angel's trumpet.

Portuguese common name: Trombeta.

This one is the "cousin" of datura, and the last member of beladona family. The effects of the plants in body are almost the same. Datura is called devil's trumpet because the flowers are erect, growing from the " depts of hell", and the brugmansia is called angel's trumpet because the flowers are pendent, growing from the "upper sky". The flowers of this plant can be pink, yellow or white; all of them are equally poisonous.

The next plants don't have cool curiosity about them like the beladona family, but are very dangerous to.    

 

Scientific name:Ricinus comunnis.

English common name:Castor Beans.

Portuguese common name: Mamona.

This one is not cultivated in gardens, but grows easily in almost every place, because of this is comonly found in gardens. It contains a toxic substance called ricine, which cause nausea, inner bleeding (homorrhage), and diarrhea, and can lead to death due to renal and circulatory failure.

All the parts of the plant contains ricine in a small concentration, but the fruits and the seed have a big concentration of the substance, three seeds are sufficient to kill a people.

When he was a kid, my uncle ate half of a seed of this plant, and almost died.

Scientific name: Dieffenbachia seguine.

English common name: Dumb-cane.

Portuguese common name: Comigo ninguém pode.

The leaves of this plant contains the calcium oxalate, a substance that causes severe inflammation in the throat, which blocks the breathing, causing death in the worst cases.

Scientific name: Jatropha curcas.

English common name:---------.

Portuguese common name:Pinhão Bravo.

This one is really dangerous, the leaves and the fruits of this plant contains curcin, a substance that causes nausea, diarrhea and cardiac arrhythmia, complications can lead to  cardiac stop. The poison of this plant is used by some Indian tribes to make their arrows more deadly.

Scientific name:Thevetia peruviana.

English commmon name:-----------.

Portuguese common name:Chapéu de napoleão.

All the parts of this plant are toxic, but almost all of poisoning cases are caused by the fruits, when they are confused with edible nuts, principally by children. The plant have a mix of toxins that affects the heart, and can cause death by cardiac stop. This one is very common in São Carlos; if you all readers see the fruits of this small tree, don't try to eat them.

I hope this post contributes to help people protect themselves and specially their children.

by Daniel Yoshio Akamatsu

Barone English's student

level 3
Material Engineering student at UFSCar


Note: This text is result of Barone English’s methodology. Different writing techniques are developed every unit. Besides that, the students make presentations about the same theme, based on their researches.

VOCABULARY:

(to) dare (verb): if you dare to do something, you are not afraid to do it, even though it may be dangerous or shocking or may cause trouble for you;

to await (verb): if something awaits you, it will happen to you: Well, I wonder what surprises await us today;

hazardous (adjective): dangerous, especially to people’s health or safety;

edible (adjective): food that is edible is safe or good enough to eat.

New discovery prevents the spread of cancer

Waldirene Biernath

cancer cell

Scientists have discovered how cancerous cells can "elbow" their way out of tumours, offering clues for new drugs to prevent cancers spreading. They have identified a protein called JAK which helps cancerous cells generate the force needed to move.

These cells contract like muscle to force their way out and around the body.  When cancers spread, a process known as metastasis, they become more difficult to treat.

division of a cell

Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research  say cancerous cells can move in two ways. They can "elbow" their way out of a tumor or the tumor itself can form corridors down which the cells can escape.

Lead researcher Prof Chris Marshall said both processes were being controlled by the same chemical.

JAK is not a new culprit in cancer. It has been linked to leukaemia, so some drugs are already being developed which target the protein.

The study suggests that such drugs may also stop the spread of cancer. The clinical tests will start in the next few years.

"A huge challenge in successfully treating cancer is stopping it from spreading around the body, and keeping cancer that has already spread at bay”, said Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information.

Source: BBC News

See more:
http://www.icr.ac.uk/press/press_archive/press_releases_2011/21468.shtml;

http://noticias.uol.com.br/ultnot/cienciaesaude/ultimas-noticias/bbc/2011/08/16/estudo-abre-caminho-para-tratamentos-que-evitem-o-alastramento-do-cancer.jhtm;
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/health/16cancer.html?ref=science

Vocabulary:

(to) elbow (verb): push forward;

clues (noun): hint, evidence;

culprit (noun): a person who is responsible for a crime or other misdeed; the cause of a problem.

Earth's two moons? It's not lunacy, but new theory

source: internet images

A new theory suggests the Earth once had a small second moon that disappeared after a collision with its big sister. Researchers say in an article in the journal Nature that the slow speed of the collision may explain the build up of highlands on the rarely seen part of the Moon.

This new theory builds on the idea that around four billion years ago the Earth was struck by a Mars-like planet, but instead of the smash producing enough debris for one moon, there was enough for two.  

The small second moon become stuck in a gravitational tug of war between the Earth and its much larger sibling.

After millions of years in this position the new moon was drawn into a collision at a speed of less than three kilometers per second.

A previous collision with a smaller 

companion could explain whythe 

Moon's two sides look so different.

        Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug

The scientists say this slow paced crash may have caused a build up of material and the formation of highlands on the Moon's far side. 

For decades scientists have been trying to understand why the visible near side of the Moon is covered in craters while the far side has mountain ranges higher than 3,000 metres.

The researchers hope that Nasa observational missions might prove this new theory within a year.

source: internet images

Earth had always been an oddball in the solar system as the only planet with a single moon. While Venus and Mercury have no moons, Mars has two, while Saturn and Jupiter have more than 60 each. Even tiny Pluto, which was demoted to dwarf status, has four moons. 

Vocabulary:

build up (verb):  enlarge, develop, or increase by degrees or in stages; bolster or strengthen

highland: relating to mountains and hills

struck (verb): (the past tense and past participle of strike) to strike: to hit; to crash

smash (noun): violent collision

debris (noun) /də’bri/: the broken pieces that are left when something large has been destroyed, especially by an explosion, fire, or accident.

stuck (verb): (the past tense and past participle of stick) to stick: if something sticks in, into, or through something else, its end remains pushed into or through it.

gravitational tug of war: pull in opposite directions by the force of gravity

sibling (noun): brother or sister

draw into (verb): to pull someone or something into something; to attract someone or something in.

slow paced: moving at low speed

far side: face of the Moon that can't be seen from the Earth

oddball: (things) strange; bizarre; (people) someone whose behavior is strange or unusual

demote (verb): to give something a less important position

dwarf: (SCIENCE) a very small star that does not shine brightly.

Read more:  http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110803/full/news.2011.456.html

Journalist and Barone English's press agent

by Waldirene L. Biernath

What if computers could think?

 

Machines have overcome humans in many tasks involving simple logic and strength, but in the matter of ambiguous situations or complex problems none of them can be compared with human intelligence. It would be a great advance in technology if computers systems could learn by themselves and improve their previous knowledge by experiencing new information (like we do!). To make this picture clear, I’ll show you a basic example:

Imagine that you, every Friday night, go down to the same bar and request a pineapple and mint juice. As weeks go by, the bartender will already know what you’ll order and make it for you automatically (but that doesn’t change the fact that he stills considers you a nerd who drinks juice on a Friday night instead of ordering a booze). That happens because he learned through experience the same event over and over and noticed a pattern!

So, in order that computers be able to learn, they must identify patterns. There are many programming techniques and running systems you use them all the time, such as your web browsers (like Explorer, Chrome, Mozilla firefox), if you type the letter “F” inside the address bar, probably it will show up “facebook.com”, that happened because most times you type “f”, you ended up writing “facebook.com”. For a bunch of wires, boards and code lines it’s pretty smart, isn’t it?

 Of course this is just an ordinary and commercial application. It will cause a dramatic change in society if these systems learn from medical records, for example, and discover new kinds of treatments or vaccines for AIDS, cancer and other diseases. In the economics field, they could predict what kinds of investments are the most profitable and secure. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? But unfortunately these solutions belong to the future, nowadays we can’t obtain a relevant performance yet, such as a human being, but we are not too far from it.

An attempt of implementing a machine learning system is NELL (or Never-Ending Language Learner) which is a Natural Language Processor, this system simply reads the web continuously and learns from the huge amount of information present on it. NELL started as a project inside Carnegie Mellon University (USA) and 2 years ago the system run for the first time. Professor Estevam Hruschka Jr, who is one of the researchers of this project, is also a faculty member in UFSCar and for sure the Brazilian authority in Machine Learning. For the past 6 months I had the pleasure to work with him in a brief university project that allowed me to acquire plenty of knowledge and renewed my passion for computing, it was a nice experience that I hope to explore even more.

You can check this video to see Tom Mitchell (world’s authority in machine learning) being interviewed, it’s very informative, take a look!

http://www.techcrunch.tv/watch?id=1yZTlyMTqnbxc0F_wYjkcMt4tOofe5Q1#ooid=1yZTlyMTqnbxc0F_wYjkcMt4tOofe5Q1

Here’s NELL website, you can check all the things he learned. Last time I checked he didn’t know what Barone English is, but he did know that Mary it’s the mother of Christ, and that is correct!

http://rtw.ml.cmu.edu/rtw/

Mary is the mother of Christ, and NELL is 100% sure!

Among the great advances thinking computers could bring to us, deep down in all of us lies fear, yes dear reader: FEAR. Once I was telling a story to my uncle about computer’s intelligence, I was just saying that in the future computers will become so smart that they could beat chess winner champions easily or perform simple human activities and how cool it could be and that’s when he just snapped! He started yelling that it’s not possible a thing like that being realistic, and if it were possible to achieve, it shouldn’t be allowed by the government because computers would take our jobs and generate unemployment, economic chaos, and afterwards when machines get smart enough, they’ll dominate us completely as they don’t have feelings, like a Tech-Dictatorship the movie Terminator described.

Vocabulary:

to make this picture clear: to clarify things.

booze:  any kind of alcoholic drink.

bunch of: a lot of.

to snap:   become extremely angry or upset because a situation has become too annoying or difficult.

mean (informal adjective) cruel, or unkind.

Scene from the movie 

Terminator 3: Raise of the Machines 

Can computers become mean?

Some people may agree with my uncle in some degree, but others (like me) find those statements hilarious! But when he said “machines don’t have feelings” it’s perfectly correct, after all they can’t feel anything, at least not any human feeling like compassion, gratitude, hate or love. His point of view doesn’t even make sense and it only would be true if your cell phone for instance mixed up or deleted all your contacts just to make you frustrated. Machines only do stuff that are programmed for them to do, so in the future we won’t be at war against mean robots, unless someone programs them to be mean…

I hope that I could separate science fiction from real science in this post and you will not afraid to use your computer or any machine next time! ;D

This was my first post in the blog, I really enjoyed the experience and I’ll gladly write again if you all liked it! Thanks for the opportunity Vivian!

See ya!

by Arnon Rambaldo

undergraduate in
Computer Science at UFSCcar

Toy story - Are the sexes really alien to one another? Science knows the true differences between men and women...

Why do girls prefer dolls and boys cars? Some put in down to cultural influences that prepare children to take on stereotypical gender roles adults. Now consider this: male vervet monkeys prefer cars even though they have never been primed to do so (Evolution and Human Behavior, vol 23, p 467), and girls who have a hormonal disorder that means they produce too much testosterone prefer them, too. This suggests an innate component to toy choice, which may be amplified by socialization processes after birth.

Intriguing new research by Margareth McCarthy at the University of Maryland in College Park points to the neurobiology underlying sex-specific play preferences – in rats, at least. Her group found that the amygdalae, twin brain structures that are important for processing emotional and social cues, contain between 30 and 50 per cent more of a type of brain cell called glial cells in female rats than in males. Male brains, meanwhile, had higher levels of endocannabinoids – naturally occurring molecules that stimulate the same neural circuits as the active ingredient in cannabis.

However, when the researchers injected day-old-female rats with a dose of a cannabis-like substance, they found that after three days the proportion of glial cells in their amygdalae was the same level as in males. These females now played like male pups too-they played 30 to 40 per cent more than regular females, and indulged in much more rough-and-tumble play (Proccedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 107, p 20535).

The main structural differences between male and female rat brains all have parallels in humans, and researchers believe that all mammals have the same neural mechanisms underlying key survival behaviours. Yet whether such similar neurobiology underpins play differences among children is unknown.

What is clear is that human behaviour is highly adaptaple, and this includes play and other behaviours that differ between the sexes. What goes on before birth and shortly afterwards is not the ultimate determinant, says McCarthy. “In the human brain, we think there´s a lot that experience can do.”

Source: Venus and Mars collide. (New Scientist, March 5th, 2011)

Glossary:

Vervet: (noun) South African monkey with black face and hands;

 Primed: (verb): to prime. To prepare someone to behave or react in a particular way;

 Cues: (noun):  a stimulus that provides information about what to do;

 Glial: (adjective):  of or relating to neuroglia;

 Cannabis: (noun):  the most commonly used illicit drug; considered a soft drug, it consists of the dried leaves of the hemp plant; smoked or chewed for euphoric effect;  any plant of the genus Cannabis.

Day-old female: one day old; 

Pups: (noun):  young of any of various canines such as a dog or wolf; an inexperienced young person; verb:  birth; 

Indulged: (verb):  give free rein to ("The writer indulged in metaphorical language"); verb:  enjoy to excess; verb:  yield (to); give satisfaction to; verb:  treat with excessive indulgence; 

Rough-and-tumble: (noun):  disorderly fighting; adjective:  characterized by disorderly action and disregard for rules ("A rough-and-tumble fight"); 

Underpins: (verb):  support from beneath; support with evidence or authority or make more certain or confirm.