Microbes+Unit

Welcome to my Microbes Page! (if you want to see something cool - visit the 3D printer page, too!) **Microbes in Recent News** Ms. Mytko's blog from her CDC visit (2012) =About Microbes= toc
 * Check out the Contagion Billboard (or read the blog post - more info about plating microbes on agar)
 * Play around with these awesome interactive of size and scale:
 * Cell Size & Scale
 * Scale of the Universe (from the whole universe to quantum strings) Plus this "Scale of the Universe 2" was created by Cary Huang, a 14-year-old ninth grader from Moraga, Calif., with technical help from his twin brother Michael (article)
 * Read more about the five types of microbes in the [|Microbe World archives].
 * Here is a copy of the "Ultimate Social Network" article - about the microbes that live with us. It is challenging to read. Here is the accompanying interactive online page.
 * Read more about antibiotic resistance from KidsHealth.
 * I totally encourage you to watch more of the **Rx for Survival PBS video clips** we watched in class. They are fascinating! :)

=Microbe Games & Apps=
 * Check out the online game Med Myst - infectious disease
 * Check another cool online game - Pandemic 2!
 * The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just released a new iPad app - Solve the Outbreak
 * Here's the app suggested by Goren - Plague Inc - for Apple or Google Play

= The Immune Response = (Vaccines, Allergies, etc.)
 * You can re-watch the __ **Body Story video we watched class** __ . It is on YouTube in 3 parts.
 * PART 1 - Make sure to begin at 5:02, as 0:00 - 5:02 is from a previous clip about childbirth... it's school-appropriate, but rather shocking if you are not expecting it!
 * PART 2
 * PART 3
 * If you are interested, you can read more about the immune response on this HowStuffWorks article.
 * Want to see a picture of the epic battle we drew in class?
 * video: How a Flu Invades Your Body: An Animated Look (3:39) by npr
 * Here is a list of @passive & active vaccines.
 * Read more about immunity & vaccines: CDC page, Nova Science
 * Here are some great videos on microbes and the immune response
 * (optional, but awesome) Check out some of the research and interviews going on at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute research & interviews in the field of infectious disease.

=Disease Data=

THE MAJOR ORGANIZATIONS WORKING WITH DISEASE IN THE WORLD ARE:
 * World Health Organization (WHO) - Switzerland
 * Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - Atlanta, GA, USA
 * see what it's like to work in a Level 4 lab wearing a biosuit!
 * United States Army Medical Research Institute For Infections Diseases - Ft. Detrick, Maryland, USA
 * National Institutes of Health - Bethesda, Maryland, USA

BEST KIDS DISEASE SITE: Kidshealth.org (click on your age range and then find "diseases and conditions"

MICROBE / DISEASE DATA:
 * Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Stats
 * or you can read more about Diseases and Conditions
 * or you can read my favorite data set, the MMWR (look for the "Notifiable Diseases and Mortality Tables" in the Current Issue) - o ften called “the voice of CDC,” the MMWR series is the agency’s primary vehicle for timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations. //**Morbidity**// refers to the relative incidence of a particular disease. //**Mortality**// refers to the number of deaths from a specific disease or health condition
 * World Health Organization (WHO) Stats
 * National Institute of Health - kid health page
 * National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases A - Z topic list
 * California Dept. of Public Health stats
 * Illinois Dept. of Public Health stats

=Solving an Outbreak= = = = History of Epidemiology =
 * Epidemiology is "the __study__ of the __distribution__ and __determinants__ of health-related states in specified __populations__, and the __application__ of this study to __control__ health problems."
 * Read over the main steps of solving an outbreak
 * See the CDC's current outbreak list
 * Meet real-life Disease Detectives at the CDC (short videos) Their official job title is "Epidemic Intelligence Service" and you can learn more about their work on this page.
 * CDC's intro to epidemiology Epidemiologists use a variety of studies:
 * Experimental
 * Observational
 * Descriptive
 * Analytical
 * cross-sectional
 * cohort
 * case-control
 * Activities to try:
 * PBS Disease Detective
 * NIH: Emerging & Reemerging Diseases - web resources
 * The Habitable Planet - Interactive Disease Lab
 * Here is a brief story of John Snow - he is credited as the "Father of Epidemiology" with is work in London on the Cholera Epidemic in the 1800s (a novel was written on this work, The Ghost Map (2007) - see it on Amazon) Check out a picture of his famous Ghost Map.
 * Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis introduced hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions at a maternity clinic in Austria in 1847 to reduce maternal deaths from puerperal fever. His contemporaries thought he was crazy.

Throughout history, and now, epidemiologists:
 * collect data about an entire population
 * make hypothesis, then conduct analytical studies such as cohort or case-control studies
 * some form of community intervention

=Global Health=
 * Global Health: 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes
 * Read breaking stories on the WHO site.
 * Major World Health Issues
 * Polio (visit polioeradication.org)
 * Malaria
 * Cholera
 * HIV
 * Project idea? I would support clean water initiatives, with tools like the LifeStraw and H2O for Life. Learn more on Ms. M's info on clean water page, then discuss on the discussion tab!

=Misc=

NEWS & other cool stuff from the CDC (OK, so I subscribe to their newsletter and "like" their Facebook page)
 * The CDC used PulseNet (a national network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)) to solve a recent E. Coli mystery - and found the culprits to be hazelnuts! "PulseNet tracks foodborne illness like the FBI tracks criminals" by finding the 'DNA fingerprints' of bacteria from patients to find clusters of disease that might represent unrecognized outbreaks. Cool!
 * "Resistance factors — the mutations that allow bacteria to defend themselves against the attack of antibiotics — spread around the world in unpredictable patterns with remarkable speed. How do they do that?A team of researchers suggested Saturday that seagulls might be to blame ." (read the article here.)
 * In my old school district in Illinois, there was an employee who caught whooping cough last November (lots of statistics - they had to inform the Dept. of Health, and they would notify the CDC). Now, the first student at the school caught it! Funny, I spent this evening (Wednesday) chatting with Sonam, who is going through your immunization records - did you get the required whooping cough booster vaccine this year ? If your parents have not brought in the paperwork, they'll need to by this Friday! PS - The childhood vaccine is called DTaP, and the pertussis booster vaccine for adolescents and adults is called Tdap. (read more at the CDC page)


 * EXTRA INTERESTING STUFF (FROM KIDS):**
 * Who knew there was a Bristol Stool Scale, first published in the // Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology // in 1997 to classify different... uh.... consistencies of poop. (You could also buy the shirt.)
 * Check out this cool video of a slime mold "learning" to go through a maze! This slime mold,// [|Physarum polycephalum] //is  a single-celled, amoeba-like creature (protist) that doesn’t have a brain. Learn more about the experiment here.


 * EXTRA INTERESTING STUFF (FROM MS. MYTKO):**
 * I made a few pages about diseases kids have a lot of questions about.
 * Read more about HIV / AIDS
 * Read more about Polio, iron lungs, and the current state of eradication (getting rid of it) in the world
 * Read more about David Vetter, a boy who was born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), meaning his body had no immune system to fight off diseases of any sort. He had to live in plastic isolator bubble environment while waiting for a matching bone marrow donor or a cure for his ailment


 * Extra protist videos:**
 * VIDEO: explaining Good & Bad Bacteria
 * VIDEO: video of diatoms (a type of protist)
 * VIDEO: an ameoba full of diatoms it ate (so cool!)
 * VIDEO: slime molds (a type of protist we did not study)


 * Other cool microbe sites**
 * Microbe World - you can search the site using the search bar
 * PBS Intimate Strangers: Unseen Life on Earth.
 * Infection Detection Protection (American Museum of Natural History)
 * Microbe Zoo (Michigan State University)
 * National Science Foundations "Scrub Club" - includes a "villain gallery"!


 * Some interesting web resources**:
 * The FBI page detailing the case of the Anthrax letters (2001)
 * Check out this npr broadcast with Dr. Nathan Wolfe, virus hunter and CEO of Global Viral Forecasting Initiative . To hear it, visit this link and download the free podcast "NPR: 10-18-2011 Fresh Air Stories: 1) The Man Wh..." It's 45 minute s long, but it's pretty fascinating. Includes information about flu vaccines, H1N1, HIV, and a very interesting part about "good viruses" starting at 27:20. Later he talks about the HPV vaccine & the eradication of smallpox. At 34:40, she asks him if he washes his hands all of the time, or uses a facemask. Dr. Wolfe's response? Nope. He knows most viruses are good, and his immune system is good, too. Here's the TED Talk he did, too.
 * This professor's entire immunology course is online, if you are //really// into it. :)
 * The Anthrax case made it to the New York Times cover!