Stolen Future Chapter 13 and 14

                              Quote Master 

1.) "Declining sperm counts loom ominously over this discussion, for these reports harbor implications that 

extend beyond the question of male fertility."

This quote is extremely important because it introduces the problem and foreshadows the possible results that it might have which is much of what the chapter is about. In fact, this problem seems to extent beyond control and is not applied to male fertility.  

2.) "Animal experiments indicate that contamination levels sufficient to impair sperm production may affect brain development and behavior as well."

This quote's significance lies in the fact that the contamination levels have a great impact of human health.  It not only impairs sperm production but it also affects brain development and human behavior as well.

3.) "What is at stake is not simply a matter of some individual destinies or impacts on the most sensitive among us but a widespread erosion of human potential over the past half century."

This quote shows that the disease not only affects individuals but it greatly impacts the nation as a whole.  If detrimental, it can have a negative impact and harmful results on the entire human race.  This quote also states the the time over which the disease might affect humans for. 

4.) "Falling sperm counts could be an unfortunate historical episode- an unforeseen consequence of the midcentury experiment with persistent chemicals, which many countries have now wisely discontinued."

This quote is the most important one of all.  It states that the problems and disease was an unforeseen event that have devastating results.  However, because countries have discontinued these chemicals, the continuation of the problem is also stopped. 

5.) "It would be comforting to know that hormonally active chemicals are not casting a shadow on the next generation, but the evidence provides no such assurance."

This quote's significance lies in the fact that the hormonally active chemicals are indeed casting a shadow on the next generation.  The fact that the chemicals are having an impact of the next generation is potentially dangerous because it shows that the chemical is inheritable and is able to affect many generations onward.

Stolen Future Chapter 10, 11, and 12

1.) What is the first warning in the scientific literature that synthetic chemicals could have the inadvertent effect of disrupting hormones? 198

2.) What did the paper by two Syrause University zoologists, Verlus Frank Lindeman and his graduate student Howard Burligton, described? 198

3.) As young cockerels mature, tall red combs blossom on what? 199

4.) The study provided alarming evidence of the power of a synthetic chemical to derail sexual development, but what happens? 199

5.) By what measure was DDT a remarkably safe product? 200

6.) What does hormone systems do not behave according to the classical dose-response model inform?200

7.) Exposure to a hormone-disrupting chemical before birth does not produce what?207

8.) Despite alarming signs, such as the report of dropping male sperm count, the lion's share share of research money what? 207

9.) Leading researchers investigating hormone-disrupting chemicals frequently find it impossible to what? 207

10.) Feelings of fright and helplessness are what?

11.) Defending ourselves from this hazard requires action on several fronts aimed at eliminating new sources of what? 211

Stolen Future Chapter 7 and 8 and 9

1.) Toxicologists: The science dealing with the effects, antidotes, detection, etc., of poisons.

2.) Dioxin: a general name for a family of chlorinated hydrocarbons, C ₁₂ H ₄Cl ₄ O ₂ , typically used to refer to one isomer, TCDD, a by-product of pesticide manufacture: a toxic compound that iscarcinogenic and teratogenic in certain animals.

3.) Arsenic: a grayish-white element having a metallic luster, vaporizingwhen heated, and forming poisonous compounds.  A mineral, the native element, occurring in white or graymasses.

4.) Contaminant: Something that contaminates.

5.) Feminized: to make or become feminine.

6.) Hormone: Any of various internally secreted compounds,as insulin or thyroxine, formed in endocrine glands, thataffect the functions of specifically receptive organs ortissues when transported to them by the body fluids.

7.) Uterus: The enlarged, muscular, expandable portion of the oviduct in which the fertilized ovum implants and develops or rests during prenatal development; the womb of certain mammals.

8.) Pathological: Of or pertaining to pathology.  Caused by or involving disease; morbid. Caused by or evidencing a mentally disturbed condition.

9.) Lethal: Of, pertaining to, or causing death; deadly; fatal.  Causing great harm or destruction.

10.) Fertility: The ability to produce offspring; power of reproduction

11.) Lordosis: An abnormal forward curvature of the spine in the lumbar region, resulting in a swaybacked posture.Compare kyphosis, scoliosis.

12.) Prowess: Exceptional valor, bravery, or ability, especially in combat or battle.

13.) Androgen: Any substance, as testosterone or androsterone, that promotesmale characteristics.

14.) Methoxychlor: A white, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C _1 6 H _1 5 Cl ₃ O ₂ ,used as an insecticide.

15.) Hydrocarbon: Any of a class of compounds containing only hydrogen and carbon, as an alkane, methane, CH ₄ , an alkene, ethylene, C ₂ H ₄ , analkyne, acetylene, C ₂ H ₂ , or an aromatic compound, benzene, C₆ H ₆ .

Stolen Future Chapter 5 and 6

                                                                Discussion Questions

1.) What problems did DES  cause? (68)

2.) Twelve years after the advent the advent of these compounds, researchers as Syracuse University learned what? (69)

3.) However much these two synthetic chemicals resemble each other, these impostors do not look like what? (69).

4.) Each hormone and its particular receptor have a "made for each other" attraction, which scientists describe as what? (71)

5.) What does the hypothalamus in the brain have and what does it allow the brain to do? (71)

6.) What is the analogy of the hormone and their receptors compared to? (72)

7.) The early 1940s seemed like a particularly promising time for the sheep ranchers in the gently rolling hills south of Perth in western Australia because of what three reasons? (75)

8.) After extensive detective work that involved not only the state agricultural specialists but federal scientists as will, researchers finally determined that the cause of the sterility epidemic was not to be found in poison or disease or a genetic defect, the actual cause was? (75).

9.) The more Hughes explored the notion that plants might be making contraceptives, the more evidence he found to be what? (77).

10.) What is Hughes background and his job? (77).

11.) What did Whitten find out about the exposure to plant estrogens early in life? (78).

12.) The pups in this experiment did not suffer obvious genital defects or other physical abnormalities in the reproductive tract as seen in the DES experiments, but they showed what? (78).

13.) To date, researchers have identified at least fifty-one synthetic chemicals-many of them ubiquitous in the environment- that disrupt the endocrine system in which way? (81).

14.) Most discussions of hormone-disrupting chemicals inevitably focuses on what? (81).

15.) As the number of hormone-disrupting chemicals mounts, what does it emphasizes? (81).

Stolen Future Chapter 3 and 4

1.) Tantamount: Equivalent, as in value, force, effect, or signification.

2.) Endocrine: Secreting internally into the blood or lymph, of or pertaining to an endocrine gland or its secretion.

3.) Hypersensitivity: Excessively sensitive, allergic to a substance to which persons do not normally react. 

4.) Caesarean: surgery, a short word for Caesarean section. 

5.) Intrauterine: located or occurring within the uterus/ womb.

6.) Uterine: Of or pertaining to the uterus or womb, related through having had the same mother.

7.) Puberty: The period or age at which a person is first capable of sexual reproduction of offspring, in common law, presumed to be 14 years in the male and 12 years in the female. 

8.) Virulent: Actively poisonous; intensely noxious, highly infective, causing clinical symptoms; violently or spitefully hostile, intensely bitter, spiteful, or malicious.  

9.) DES: used in French names as a contraction of de and the article les.

10.) Circumstantial: of pertaining to, or derived from circumstances, of the nature of a circumstance, secondary, incidental, dealing with or giving circumstances, detailed, particular, pertaining to conditions of material welfare. 

11.) Thyroiditis: Inflammation of the thyroid gland.

12.) Androgens: Any substance, as testosterone or anderosterone, that promotes male characteristics.

Stolen Truth Chapter #2

                                            Discussion Questions

1.) What happened when Colborn started to chase the specter of cancer? (page 19)

2.) How did Colborn respond to Bengtsson’s speech?  What did she think the speech contained?  Did she take any action?  If she did, what action did she take?

3.) What showed up in the tissue analyses done on the wildlife?  Where did they show up again?

4.) What was Colborn’s latest discovery?  When did her discovery come?

5.) Where was the hand-me-down poison found in?  What did they all have in common?

6.) What did the hand-me-down poison disrupt?

7.) Who was John Harshbarger?  What did he contribute to the studies?

8.) What happened when the researcher fed contaminants extracted from the sediments to the fish or applied then to the skin?

9.) A team from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had ruled out viruses, but what did they also rule out?

10.)                   Who researched on an international collaborative effort that was shedding light on how PAHs did their damage inside the body?

Our Stolen Future

                                                    “Our Stolen Future”

                                                         Quote Master

  

Quote #1:  “Long before the abandoned nests with broken eggshells appeared, he noticed the eagles were acting strangely.” (Page 1)

This quote is taken from the first passage about the bald eagles in the Gulf Coast of Florida.  As the title of the chapter (“Omen”) suggests, this quote also foreshadows a catastrophe.  The significance of the quote lies in the fact that the bald eagles have taken up an abnormal behavior which can be very detrimental to the population of bald eagles in Florida.

Quote #2: “But at nesting sites he had visited for thirteen years, two-thirds of the adult birds, easily recognized by their white heads, appeared indifferent to the nesting ritual.  They engaged in no courtship activity.  As Broley noted in his diary, they showed no interest whatsoever in mating.  The birds just “loafed.”(Page 2)

This quote correlates to the previous quote; it is the same incident of where the bald eagles in the Gulf Coast of Florida obtain an irregular manner in which they are neglecting their mating rituals and not engaging in courtship activities.  This irregular behavior of the eagles will jeopardizes the reproduction of the bald eagles and will eventually affect the overall population of the eagles in Florida.  An extinction of the bald eagles might be a consequence of this abnormality.

Quote #3: “Although the symptoms were strikingly similar, the second crash among fish-fed mink could not be linked to DES, and the connection between the two declines remained a mystery.” (Page 4)

This quote is about the decline of the population in minks.  A rapid decline in the minks is shown in both those that are domestically raised and those that are wild.  Initially there was an explanation for the rapid decline of the mink; however, the explanation proved to be useless since the second crash among the fish-fed mink could not be linked to the DES.  This quote’s significance lies in the fact that the real explanation for the decline of the minks could not be found and therefore no solution can be made.  If this were to continue, the whole population of minks would decrease significantly. 

Quote #4: “Significant numbers of dead animals began hitting the beaches as the disease ripped through the dolphin schools inhabiting the deep, open waters a dozen miles offshore.” (Page 8)

This quote targets the dolphin in the Mediterranean Sea; strangely the dolphins have acquired a destructive disease that is rapidly killing off the entire dolphin population in the Mediterranean Sea.  This quotes significance lies in the fact that the both the disease and the cause of the disease are still unknown.  With no information and solution for the harmful disease, there is no cure for the infected dolphins and no hope to save the dolphin population.

Quote #5: “Many of the disturbing wildlife reports involved defective sexual organs and behavioral abnormalities, impaired fertility, the loss of young, or the sudden disappearance of entire animal populations.  In time, the alarming reproductive problems first seen in wildlife touched humans, too.” (Page 10)

This quote is the most significant and powerful one.  All the previous quotes revolved 

around animals and how their population is slowly declining because of the unknown and rapidly spreading disease.  However, the significance in this quote is that humans are starting to be affected.  If the reproductive problems start to affect the humans too, then it would be a serious problem.  Each of these incidents had a clear sign that there was something that was seriously wrong, but the problem is still unidentified. 

"Your Inner Fish"by Neil Shubin (Audio Summary)

https://secure.soscollaborate.com/shared/=Fzn3G1w4MP0D

Acrostic Organic Chemistry Poem

 Carbon accounts for the large diversity of biological molecules, including DNA, carbohydrates, and proteins.

Amino acid is the primary structure of proteins.

RNA enables living organisms to reproduce their complex components from one generation to the next.

Bonding in organic chemistry is the building code that governs the architecture of organic molecules.

Organic chemistry is the study of carbon.

Nucleic acid serves as a blueprint for proteins and, through the actions of proteins, for all cellular activities.