Journalism Blog

The other one.

2009-11-05T16:22:00.000-08:00

Since I have been neglecting this blog, one may be led to believe that I am neglecting the web altogether. This is not so! Check out my OTHER blog which I have created for my Science News writing Class on Ecotourism. You'll be happy you did.

Peace, Love, Travel.
www.treetravel.wordpress.com

Blog Post on Fiji

2009-10-28T16:57:00.001-07:00

Check out my blog post for the Bookstore on my travels to Fiji.

http://globecornerbookstore.com/blogs/2009/10/27/bula-fiji/

Bula Fiji!

Published by Meghan at 8:14 pm under Travel

Tags: Beach Travel, Fiji, South Pacific

The freezing weather of New England this October has led my mind to stray to better days and warmer climes. About this time three years ago, I was fortunate enough to find myself lying on a deserted tropical beach, befriending locals, and running around without electricity or running fresh water.

What drew me to Fiji was, of course, the tropical weather, white sand beaches, and palm trees, but what really interested me was the culture. Fiji is a country comprised of hundreds of small islands, some of the more remote of which house tribal populations. The last reported case of cannibalism, historically a tradition among some of the Fijian peoples, was in 1994.

You can buy touristy versions of ‘cannibal forks,’ a four or five pronged object that looks very little like our traditional fork. The prongs are arranged in a circle and point outward like a funny crown on a stick – the design, I suppose, is a result of perfecting the best instrument to glean human flesh from bone. Cannibal forks were something that I sought out and brought back en masse for friends and family. I can officially say that it is a curio unique to Fiji, and that you’d be hard pressed to find one in your local World Market. In the souvenir department, Fiji does not disappoint.

At the airport we were abducted by a friendly travel agent, who helped us arrange our travels. She gave us Fiji water, shell necklaces, and boat tickets to the Manamuca islands. Our first stop was with her brother’s family at his resort called Seaspray. We ended up staying there for several days – it was the most rustic island that we could reasonably get to in the chain, and also the furthest away from the big island of all of our stops. We took daily snorkeling trips to the nearby reef and hiked over the palm tree-filled sand dunes to the fancy resort on the other side of the island. There we used the Internet, got piña coladas, and went scuba diving (for my birthday). We also explored the mangrove forests at night with lanterns while the tide was low.

"Beware Falling Coconuts" sign - photo by Meghan

My friend Bill was the cook and the son of the owner of Seaspray. He showed us around the island and took us into the forest at night. He was quite the cultural experience himself – he caught a baby shark with his bare hands and ran around with a machete to chop down coconuts for our meals. No one wore shoes (including me) – you didn’t need to, it was paradise. I was able to attend a Catholic church service, which I’m pretty sure is different from Western Catholic church services, in that we sat on the floor in a wooden slatted hut wearing sarongs and chanted in Fijian (well, I just sat there, really) toward an altar of tropical flowers. I had no idea what was going on, but it was certainly a spiritual experience.

Another character at Seaspray was Queen, the transvestite house cleaner, who was, in a word, fabulous. There were a surprising number of transvestites on this particular island, working in the tourism industry, and they put on a dance/play every other night for people staying in the smaller resorts along the beach. We got there through the trees with lanterns when the sun went down, avoiding the crabs scuttling between our feet, as though they also wanted to see the transvestite plays.

While I did not see any cannibals, what I did see was a very unique, varied, and conflicted little piece of paradise.

Book Review

2009-10-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

Check out my book review of The Last Fish Tale on Globe Corner Bookstore.com!

http://globecornerbookstore.com/blogs/2009/10/13/review-of-the-last-fish-tale/

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Expanded (6pm deadline on 10/7)

2009-10-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

Three researchers will share the 101^st Nobel Prize in chemistry today for their discoveries which have implications in antibiotic development. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of Cambridge University, UK, Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University, New Haven, CT, and Ada E. Yonath, of The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, will split the award equally for their findings that shed light on basic bacterial cell functions, and contribute to the battle against antibiotic resistance.

“Up until now we never understood how antibiotics work, why antibiotics are toxic to bacteria. Now we also have the possibility to take this knowledge to design new antibiotics to push forward the resistance problem,” said a spokesperson for the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, the institution that awards the prizes, this morning in a press conference.

Ada E. Yonath, pioneer of the subject, joins an elite group of women to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry since its inception in 1901. There have only been three other female chemistry laureates: Marie Curie in 1911, Iréne Joliot-Curie in 1935, and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodkin in 1964.

An excited Yonath told press this morning, “I’m very, very happy. This is above and beyond my dreams. I am very thankful too.”

Yonath published the first atomic structures of ribosomes in 2000 and 2001, something which critics said could never be done. She found a way to decode the atomic structure of ribosomes, a problem that scientists have been working on since ribosomes were discovered in the mid-1950s by Romanian cell biologist George Palade. In a cell, ribosomes are essential; they manufacture the proteins that sustain the life of the cell. Until the discoveries of Yonath, Ramakrishnan and Steitz, it was not known exactly how ribosomes made proteins.

If a cell were a factory, DNA, the basic building blocks of all life forms, would be the instructions for the creation of a new product. DNA contains recipes that are used by ribosomes, the machines, to make proteins, the end product. Proteins sustain life and dictate its functions. In knowing the chemical structure of the ribosomes, we have learned the mechanisms behind the machinery that creates all life.

The three laureates, although in the same field, worked independently of each other. According to a member of the prize awarding committee, this was a case of friendly competition, and the laureates did not collaborate.

Ramakrishnan was also excited about his new position as Nobel Laureate. In an interview with NobelPrize.org following the announcement, he said he would take the day off although, he added, “I haven’t even told my wife yet, I couldn’t reach her, she’s probably gone for a walk and she doesn’t use a mobile phone.”

Their discoveries in the structure and function of ribosomes help to shed light on exactly how antibiotics kill bacteria and help us to better understand antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a cell to alter its DNA to withstand chemical attempts to kill the cell. Many antibiotics target the ribosome, breaking it in half and killing its ability to make proteins, and since a cell cannot function without proteins, the cell dies. Bacteria can create a resistance to antibacterial drugs if the ribosome can be reformed and if the mechanisms for protein creation are unharmed. Resistance can now be overcome as antibacterial drugs can target a specific area on the ribosome and the mechanism that makes proteins. If such antibiotic is discovered, keeping the structure of the ribosome in mind, most bacterial infections could be cured with the new drug.

When the atomic structure of the ribosome was published, co-winner Steitz admitted he had no idea what it would look like. “I have to say it was the most exciting time in science that I’ve had by a lot. It’s like getting to the top of Mt. Everest and seeing the view,” said Steitz, in a press interview following the announcement of the award. Since the structures were published by Yonath in 2000, Steitz has created a company called Rib-X Pharmaceuticals that is devoted to creating and manufacturing new antibiotics using the knowledge of the structure. The company now has new drugs that are in the clinical trial phase.

The laureates also say that they did not set out to uncover the secrets to combating antibiotic resistance. For each of them, the original goal was just solving how the ribosome works. “Basic research is very important because it can have applied consequences that you didn’t even think about. There was an article in the NYT about a year ago, two years ago, that said that 20,000 people a year that died of MRSA [antibacterial resistant] infections a year in US hospitals. That’s a lot of people.”

Despite these amazing findings, some people were left out, and not everyone is happy about the results. “It’s an amazing accomplishment to decode the structure of the ribosome. All of us here are a little surprised that Harry Noller didn’t share in the award, as he was instrumental in discovering the structure of the ribosome,” said Todd Lowe, Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, and fellow faculty member of Harry Noller at UC Santa Cruz.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded this Morning

2009-10-07T04:42:00.000-07:00

The 101^st Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded today to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of Cambridge University, UK, Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University, New Haven, CT, and Ada E. Yonath, of The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel for their discoveries in the studies structure and function of the ribosome. Their discoveries have important implications in the struggle against antibiotic resistance.

Ada E. Yonath, pioneer of the subject, joins an elite group of women to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry since its inception in 1901. There have only been three other female chemistry laureates: Marie Curie in1911, Iréne Joliot-Curie in 1935, and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodkin in 1964.

Yonath, in 2000-2001, published the first atomic structures of ribosomes. In a cell, ribosomes are essential- they are used to create proteins that sustain the life of the cell. These models showed detail so fine that, from it, we could learn chemically how ribosomes made proteins. In the years since, that is exactly what this year’s laureates have done.

Until the discoveries of these three individuals, it was not known exactly how ribosomes made proteins. This discovery then paved the way for understanding the relationship between bacteria and the antibiotics that kill them.

Their findings help to shed light on exactly how antibiotics kill bacteria and help us to better understand antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a cell to alter its DNA to withstand chemical attempts to kill the cell. The discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic, was made in 1928 by Alexander Fleming (he also won a Nobel Prize for his work in 1948). It has taken over 80 years to understand the exact chemical mechanisms behind how penicillin and other antibiotics kill cells.

Antibiotics target ribosomes in bacterial cells, killing the cells’ ability to create the proteins it needs to stay alive, thus killing the cell. “Up until now we never understood how antibiotics work, why antibiotics are toxic to bacteria. Now we also have the possibility to take this knowledge to design new antibiotics to push forward the resistance problem,” said a spokesperson for the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, the institution that awards the prizes, this morning in a press conference.

An excited Yonath told press this morning, “I’m very, very happy. This is above and beyond my dreams. I am very thankful too.”

A blog post

2009-09-27T14:05:00.001-07:00

Here is a blog post that I wrote for my work's website. I work for a travel bookstore called Globe Corner in Harvard Square.

http://globecornerbookstore.com/blogs/2009/09/26/whining-my-way-up-kilimanjaro/

My Travel Blog

2009-09-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

My travel blog is a bit old. It follows my around-the-world trip that I took in 2006, as well as travels since then to Jamaica, Ireland and Alaska, in-so-far as I had time to write!:

www.xanga.com/nothing_but_a_plane_ticket.

Also you can read the only article that I've ever published, and some background information here (beware, it's long):

http://www.fishermensvoice.com/archives/1107safetytrainingsa%23F4672.html

And background:

http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/fsb/Misc/closecallsatasea/Miner/minerindex.htm

Here is a profile that the UM press department did on me:

http://www.ur.umich.edu/0304/Apr19_04/08.shtml

Wali Kuku!

2009-09-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blogspot, the place where I will post my journalistic ongoings.