Emma+Billings

Emma Billings Bio 11 1 Wiki
 * Homework Post #1 **
 * Alzheimer's and Stem Cells **



(Neurons under Microscope) By: Mark Miller via Flickr Alzheimer’s disease also known to doctors as AD, is an irreversible accelerating brain disease that slowly causes memory loss, behavioral issues and eventually leading to loss of bodily functions and death. The reason that the memory loss begins is because of failures and hold ups in certain body parts. As the failures and hold ups keep occurring it will cause the cells to lose their jobs and start to die, which causes permanent changes to the brain. Doctors have now started to use embryonic stem cells and skin cells to re-create brain cells, linked to learning skills and memory loss. By doing these tests and experiments it could possibly lead to breakthroughs to help keep brain cells from dying and could potentially bring us to a cure or at least new trials for Alzheimer’s. References: Association, A. (2011). What is alzheimer's?. Retrieved from [] Rebecca, B. (2011). Using stem cells, scientists recreate memory neurons that succumb to alzheimer's. //Stem Cells//(March 4), Retrieved from [] ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍


 * Personal Post #1 – Organ Transplant History [[image:http://www.universityhospitalfoundation.ab.ca/view.image?Id=663 width="380" height="289" align="right"]] **

For a long time scientists have had the idea of exchanging an ill organ with a healthy one. There was one major issue with this idea though; the human body is not open to foreign tissue. This is because our immune systems act like an army, and are always guarding our bodies against viruses and other harmful substances. When the healthy organs would be placed into the recipient’s body the immune system would see it as a threat and attack it. The process used to destroy the organ is called rejection. Eventually scientists realized that if the donor was an identical twin to the recipient then rejection didn’t occur. But the problem with this was not everyone has an identical twin, so in the 1960’s doctors figured out a way to give transplants to people who aren’t related. The way they did this was by restraining the immune system from working with drugs like cyclosporine. These drugs were very toxic, so between the risks of infection and the immunosuppressants the patients didn’t live long after they had surgery. Thankfully by the 1980’s the drugs had improved so much that transplants were a fairly normal surgery and survival rates had been raised. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

References: Watson Stephanie. (n.d.). Organ transplant history. Retrieved from [] []

**Personal Post #2 - Dolly The Sheep**
===**Dolly has probably been the world's most famous clone but she was not the first. Cloning is when a genetically identical copy of something is made. The reason Dolly was so important and famous is because she was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell instead of an embyro, this was a major scientific achievment but brought up ethical concerns. Since 1996, when Dolly was born other animals have been cloned from adult cells. Cloning an animal from an adult cell is very complex so when scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly, the only lamb born from 277 attempts, it was major news around the world.**=== ===**To make Dolly scientists used the nucleus of an udder cell from a six-year-old Finn Dorset white sheep. Since the nucleus contains almost all the cell's genes this is why they used this organelle. They needed a way to program the udder cells so that they would stay alive but not grow anymore. To accomplish this they altered the growth medium, then injected the cell into an unfertilized egg cell which had its nucleus removed. Using electrical pulses the cells fused. The research team had managed to fuse the nucleus from the adult white sheep cell with the egg cell from the black-faced sheep, they needed to make sure that the resulting cell would develop into an embryo.They observed it for six or seven days to make sure that it developed and divided normally, before they placed it into another Scottish Blackface ewe which they had planned to be the surrogate mother.It took 277 cell fusions to make 29 embyros which were planted into 13 different surrogate mothers. Only one of these had actually made it to the full term pregnancy and this is how Dolly the first clone from an adult cell was produced.**=== Reference: Institute, R. (n.d.). Cloning dolly the sheep. Retrieved from [] []

Personal post #3 – How Your Nails Can Tell You About Your Health

The different shades and shapes your nails change to can be signs of a certain diseases. Six signals your nails can give you about your health is:

These are just a few of the many things your nails can tell you about your health so make sure to keep checking them. First of all you don’t want to have a disease or anything serious but also you really don’t want to have nasty discolorations and indents in your nails. It’s very unattractive for the men and the ladies.
 * Yellow nail Syndrome, this means your nails have a yellowish or greenish tint to them, stunted nail growth, thickening of the nail and a lack of cuticle. This condition often indicates a respiratory disease.
 * If your nails have what they call “Pitting” means that you have small indentations in your nails and they sometimes crumble which may lead to them falling off. This can be a sign that you are about to develop or already have psoriasis. Or maybe you have chronic dermatitis in some cases.
 * Clubbing is another condition that can occur to your nails. It’s when the nail curves around the typically enlarged fingertip. Usually caused by low oxygen levels in the blood and may indicate lung disease.
 * If you have Terry’s nails your nails will look dense with a dark ridge along the tip. This can be due to aging or even a more serious illness including cancer, congestive heart failure, diabetes or liver disease.
 * Horizontal indentations across the nail are called Beaus Lines. Caused by malnutrition, but also can appear after serious injuries or illnesses like heart attacks.
 * When the nail separates from the nail bed it is due to thyroid disease, fungal disease, drug reactions, reactions to acrylic nails or nail hardeners or psoriasis.

References: Wise.com, S. (2009). The 11 signals your nails are giving you about your health. Retrieved from [] []

Bubonic plague was one the most devastating pandemics that has occurred throughout the course of human history. In the early 1330’s an outbreak of the bubonic plague took place in China, which at the time was one of the world’s busiest trading nations, it was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. It was not usually spread from person to person. It was mainly from small rodents like rats, mice and squirrels carrying the infection. Fleas would live on these animals therefore carrying the disease from the rodent to humans. People may have got exposed to the bacteria from flea bites or from direct contact with an infected animal. As we know the conditions back then were not very clean so for you to have flea bites was very common. Also during the time period that this plague happened many people had reported cases of pneumonia, it was another form of the bubonic plague and the way this disease was spread was through coughing or sneezing, human contact.
 * Personal post #4 – Bubonic Plague (Black Death) **

Symptoms of the bubonic plague were: Many people would die between the second and seventh day of carrying the disease. The death rates were incredibly high, in China and India they are said to have lost 25 million people before the disease even reached Europe. When the plague was at its worst in Vienna and Pisa they lost 500 people per day. At the peak of the epidemic, Paris lost 800 people a day, and by the end of its long run with the disease half of their population of 100,000 people had died. Avignon, which is where the papacy was located, lost around 50%, and in Venice, Hamburg and Bremen lost at least 60% of their populations. Florence lost a third of its population within the first six months then when a full year came they had lost as many as 45-75% of their population. This plague killed many people and in the world today there are still cases but we have treatments now that work for 10-50% of people, plus we have prevention vaccinations for this horrible disease.
 * Swollen, tender lymph nodes, which is just an area along the lymphatic vessels, particularly at the neck, armpit, and groin that filter bacteria and foreign particles from lymph fluid. These were called buboes, and this is how it got its name bubonic plague.
 * High fever
 * Chills
 * Headache
 * Hemorrhages under the skin causing black discoloration of the tissue; this is how Black Death got the name.

References: Snell, M. (2006). The great mortality. Retrieved from [] Kugler, M. (2010). Bubonic plague. Retrieved from [] []

I play basketball and while I’m playing I notice that some girls get sweatier than others. I have always wondered why this happens so this is why I decided to do my wikipost on this. Sweating is the body’s way of cooling itself off. The body likes to have a temperature of about 37 degrees C, and if you change this temperature, it will try to bring it back down. How much you sweat depends on your gender, genetics, age, environment that you are in at the time and how fit you are. Humans can have between 2 and 4 million sweat glands it just depends on how many you are born with and obviously the more you have the more you will sweat. Women are said to sweat less because their bodies are more able to regulate the amount of water they lose and they also begin to sweat at higher temperatures compared to most men. The better shape your body is in the sooner you will begin to sweat in lower temperatures this is much more efficient to keep yourself cooler longer. But if a person who was less in shape were to perform the same task they will get hot a lot faster but not necessarily sweat more. Overweight people will definitely be hotter and sweat more than average weight people because their core temperature gets raised by the fact that fat acts as an insulator. References: Sugar, F. (2007). Why do people sweat more than others?. Retrieved from [] [] =‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍HOMEWORK POST #2 - My Opinion On Stem Cells= ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Resources : []
 * Personal Post #5 – Why Do Some People Sweat More Than Others? **
 * From the research I have done and the projects I have seen, I have been able to base my opinion around the information I've gathered. In many ways i agree with what the Volunteer Health Organizations believe. I think that discarded embryos from invitro fertilization clinics should be used for research because they are going to**
 * waste anyways so they may as well be used for research, but i think that the families should have to give consent because technically it is their property. By using these stem cells instead of having to create stem cells for research we are saving very many lives from being harmed.**
 * Around the world today there is technology like we've never seen before and we are continuing to improve on it. Since we have the resources I say we should use them for good, especially since it is proven that it can better human life.**
 * I don't believe that taxpayers should be the ones to pay for the research, they pay enough already. I do, however, believe that if there needs to be fundraising done or donations given that taxpayers should be involved in some way. Such as they do for cancer research when people go around collecting money for the foundation.**
 * The government should be the ones who regulate stem cell research but before they decide what the rules and regulations are going to be they should take into account the opinions of many stake holder groups such as what we did for Adanac. This way you have the majority of the people who live in your countries ideas and are able to make the rules around them so everybody's ideas are listened to.**
 * I think that the rules for adult stem cells should differ from the rules of embryonic stem cells. This is because they are able to perform different things, and embryonic stem cells are still able to become any type of cell whereas adult stem cells are limited. Embryonic stem cells can also still become a child, so by doing research with them you are ending a life and with adult stem cells you are not.**
 * Once again I agree with Volunteer Health Organizations opinion on therapeutic cloning, which is that if they are being used for no other reasons but to find a cure for a disease it is acceptable because it is being used for good.**
 * Since learning more about stem cells and all the good they can bring us, I have started to agree more with research and I have become interested in this topic.**

The Hot Zone is about the Ebola Virus, a deadly virus that is highly contagious. There is no cure, and no vaccine for this deadly infectious virus. The only known source of the virus is Kitum Cave, on Mount Elgon in Africa. The first known case of Ebola was found in Charles Monnet, a researcher living in Africa, who travelled to Kitum Cave. He spreads the disease by getting on a plane and going to a hospital where he bleeds out from every crevice in his body. There he infects a doctor named Dr. Musoke, who then gets a surgery and it fails to treat the deadly disease. Then, in Sudan, an entire town breaks out with the virus and the military tries to contain it.
 * Homework post #3 – The Hot Zone Part 1 Summary **

Next, Nancy Jaax, a bio hazard researcher gets exposed to the virus but doesn’t get it, and a military containment center finds out that the virus can travel through the lungs by placing an infected monkey in a cage 50 feet away from a healthy monkey in a cage, and the healthy monkey starts to bleed, its eyes turn a ruby red, and it starts to go crazy as its brain liquefies. After that, a group of researchers go to Mount Elgon, to search Kitum Cave for any sign of the virus, but strangely none of the test animals had any trace of the virus.

"Whoa"

The internal ‘whoa’ moment I had when reading this book was when Nancy Jaax was handling the dead monkey contaminated with Ebola. Since she has two kids and a husband who also works for the army it was nerve wracking to see if she would get infected. While feeling around inside the money, Nancy felt her hand get damp, she automatically started to panic so she pulled her hand out of the monkey as fast as she could. She rinsed her hand in the sink and checked her safety suit for any wholes, sure enough there was one. Her partner in there with her told her to leave immediately so that’s what she did.

From there she went to the air lock, she pulled a chain which was attached to the decontamination shower. The blood had gone all the way through her suit to her innermost layer all that was keeping her from getting the Ebola blood on her was a thin latex glove. She rinsed off the glove only to find that there were no leaks, she hadn’t been contaminated with Ebola. The reason I chose this part as my internal “whoa” moment was because as I read this part I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

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 * Personal Post #6 – SALT **

Sodium plays a vital role in many of the body's important processes and we would die without it. Sodium transmits the nerve impulses that support the contraction and movement of the muscles. It also regulates the water pressure and balances in your body. When sodium is digested, it transfers amino acids to the bloodstream from the intestines. The body also requires sodium to be able to absorb sugar. Although there are dangers related to having too much sodium in your diet, not getting enough can be equally harmful. There are disadvantages to having too much salt and not enough salt within the body. If you are a person with too much salt you are at risk of:

If you are not eating enough salt then you are running the risk of: Both are equally harmful to your health and can cause serious injury this is why we really need to be conscious of what we are putting into our bodies.
 * Hypertension
 * Abnormal Heart Development
 * Osteoporosis
 * Kidney Disorders
 * Dehydration and Swelling – Hypertonic and Hypotonic states
 * Digestive Diseases
 * Electrolyte and Hormone Imbalance
 * Altered Mental State
 * Muscle Changes
 * Fluid Overload

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Part two starts off in the city of Reston, Virginia. There is a monkey house located here in which some monkeys start becoming sick. At first they believe that it may be simian fever which is very contagious to monkeys but not harmful to humans. As more monkeys started to contract the disease they become curious that maybe it is something more serious the simian fever. As they researched more into depth they found that it could beMarburg which terrified everyone who knew because they knew that Marburg was very dangerous and killed most of the people who contracted the disease.
 * Homework Post #4 – Hot Zone Part 2 Summary **

Once finding out it could be Marburg many other level 4 hot zone units were alerted. They had a meeting and determined that it was not Marburg but was potentially Ebola Zaire. The different groups involved got split to do different jobs, one was to take care of the monkey house and the other group was supposed to take care of the humans who could have been exposed. More monkeys had died and were now being examined and the results came back that it could either be Ebola or simian fever. It is still not yet determined which one it is or if it is both.

My internal "Whoa" moment from this part was when they found out what the outbreak could be, and realized that people have been in contact with the monkeys without protection. The reason i liked this part was because it was suspenseful, and you are on the edge of your seat while reading it the whole time.

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Ever wonder why adults are always saying now to swallow your gum? Well the truth is that when swallowing a large piece of gum or many small pieces of gum over a short period of time, it can block the digestive tract but this is only in rare cases. Blockage is most likely when gum is swallowed beside with other objects, like money (coins), or when swallowed with indigestible materials, for example, like sunflower seeds. Little kids are most likely to be affected because they might not understand that gum is chewed, not swallowed. But apart from these strange scenarios, swallowing an occasional piece of gum is harmless.
 * Personal Post #7 – What Happens to Swallowed Gum? **

Gum is made of either natural or artificial materials, preservatives, flavorings, or sweeteners. The body can absorb sweeteners, such as sugar, and they can add up to a lot of calories if you chew a lot of sugary gum. But the human digestive tract can't digest the artificial materials within the gum. It's moved through the digestive tract by the normal functions of the gut. The gum's journey ends when a trip to the bathroom occurs. Too much of anything can be a problem. Chewing gum is hard on dental work and most gums that are not sugar free can cause cavities. Sugar-free gum sweetened with sorbitol also can be a problem because it can cause diarrhea. Cinnamon-flavored gums of any kind may irritate the mouth lining. They can be hot and spicy in your mouth, as you probably know. A good rule would be to stick with sugar-free gum and don't have more than one or two pieces a day. And when you're done with it, don't swallow it. Spit it out instead! Turns out it’s not so dangerous if it is chewed in moderation!

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**Personal Post #8 – Addicted to Eating Hair**
Uncontrollable eating of the hair is a disease that is scientifically called Trichophagia. How this mainly happens is by people chewing the long hairs attached to their head and then swallowing them. Many also pull hair out just so they can eat it. The hair eventually collects in the gastrointestinal tract producing symptoms such as indigestion and stomach pain. A suppository can be given to encourage the elimination of the hairball which will result if habit is continued. Usually in this disease the person will only eat their own hair but in some cases they will eat others, for example, hair found in brushes. In the psychiatric field this disease is considered a neurotic psychological disorder.

In some cases, surgery may be required to remove the bundle of hair that has grown over time in the intestines. In 2007, an article in The New England Journal of Medicine reported the removal of a hairball weighing ten pounds from the stomach of an eighteen year-old Chicago woman suffering from trichophagia. Surgeons removed the massive 10-pound hairball from the stomach of the 18-year-old girl. The teen went to her doctor after complaining of stomach pains and vomiting. She had also lost 40 pounds over a five-month period. Doctors at Rush Medical Center in Chicago carried out a scan and were amazed to find the huge mass of hair blocking her entire stomach. The hairball measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches when it was removed. Once the hairball was removed, the patient was discharged and given psychiatric help. A year later the teenager has gained 20 pounds and has stopped eating her hair.

Like many of those who are addicted to eating non-food items, this particular disorder is much more dangerous than the person may be aware of. Most things ingested have the ability to affect our digestive system, human hair ingested can cause serious side effects, including death.

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=**Personal Post #9 – Maggots and Leeches in Medicine**= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">In ancient times, leeches were used to treat everything from headaches to ear infections to hemorrhoids. Nowadays, leeches are routinely used to <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">drain blood from swollen faces, limbs and digits after reconstructive surgery. They are especially useful when reattaching small parts that contain many blood vessels, like ears, where blood clots can easily form in veins that normally drain blood from tissues. If the clots are severe, the tissues can die being drowned in the body's own fluid because they are deprived of oxygen and other vital nutrients. Maggots and leeches are so effective that the Food and Drug Administration, last year classified them to be the first live medical devices. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Maggots eat dead and infected tissue and other infectious organisms, which when eaten by maggots will be killed within their guts. They secrete enzymes that break down dead tissue, turning it into a mush they can then swallow. Leech saliva is made up of an effective combination of more than 30 different proteins that, among other things, helps to numb pain, reduce swelling and keeps blood flowing.

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=**Personal Post #10 – Okapi’s**=
 * Classification **
 * Kingdom ** : Animalia

**Phylum**: Chordata
 * Class ** : Mammalia
 * Order ** : Artiodactyla
 * Family ** : Giraffidae
 * Genus ** : Okapia


 * Taxonomy ** - Okapia johnstoni

The velvet-like coat is generally dark chestnut-brown or purplish red in colour, with distinctive pattern of horizontal stripes, much like those of a zebra, on the upper legs. The lower legs are white, with dark colors at the joints. The sort of horse-like head is generally lighter, with a black muzzle, and is supported by a thick neck. The ears are large, and the black tongue is long and able to grab hold of many things. The body is slanted, with the forequarters much higher than the rear. Males have two skin covered ‘horns’ or knobs on the forehead which develop between one and five years of age. To locate their breeding partners okapi’s use there keen sense of smell. The development period is between 14-15 months. Only one is born from every pregnancy, and after 6 months old they will start weaning. They also live to be around 30 years old. An okapi is the only known living relative of giraffe. Most tend to lie in the dense jungle near water, throughout the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their main predators are leopards. Their diet consists of leaves, grasses and fruit, making them an herbivore. They get the nutrients and minerals needed by eating sulfurous clay found along river banks.

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=**Personal Post #11 - Alopecia Totalis**= Although hair loss is not a harmful disease, it is still a hard condition to deal with for a lot of people, especially in today’s judgemental world. One such type of hair loss is Alopecia Totalis. Studies have shown that the Alopecia Totalis condition is caused by an issue in the person's auto-immune system. The auto-immune system actually attacks the hair follicles and therefore stops their growth. There are 3 types of Alopecia: Alopecia Areata, Alopecia Totalis and Alopecia Universalis. Alopecia Areata is where the hairs start’s to fall out and forms into small patches usually on the scalp. Alopecia Totalis as the name suggests is total hair loss from the scalp. Alopecia Universalis is the most severe case and this is hair loss from the scalp, eyebrows, body, hands and feet. People will be affected by the start of Alopecia Totalis in different ways. Some will be very realistic and accept that they have the condition and try not to allow it to change their life, while others will look for solutions or alopecia treatments and try and find ways to battle the condition. This could be in the form of hair loss solutions and remedies or maybe wigs. The most common Cause of Alopecia Hair Loss is also known as male pattern baldness. This is a problem that occurs in both men and women, typically in their 20s. The hair line will recede from the temples and back to the crown and form an M shaped pattern in the scalp. There has been much research done into the possibility of getting hair to grow back when male pattern baldness is a problem. At this time, cosmetic surgery is really the only practical option although there are some prescriptions and natural cures that some have used with limited success. References: []

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=**Personal Post #12 - Mascara**=

Ever wonder what your really puttin on your eyelashes when you wear mascara? The basic ingredients in mascara includes water, film formers, wax thicker and preservatives. Waterproof mascara is made using mostly volatile solvents. They are also made of a substance called isododecane. They also have waxes which are extracted from animal oil, vegetable oils and minerals. Apart from these some pigments, filmifying polymers and thickeners are also used. Mascaras are free from chemicals as they are water based cosmetics. Waterproof mascaras are highly resistant to sweat, tears, and rain. Once applied, they can be removed only by using a strong makeup remover. Non-waterproof mascara's are based on water, soft surfactants like triethanolamine stearate, animal derived waxes, vegetable based waxes like rice bran wax, carnauba wax and candeilla wax, mineral original waxes, pigments, thickening polymers like gum arabic and preservatives. These mascaras are not resistant to tears or sweat but are easily removed with some soap and water. These are light mascaras which only last a short time. Some other ingredients found in mascara are lanolin, eucalyptus oil, mineral oil, castor oil, linseed oil, or oil of turpentine, beeswax, and paraffin, among others. Sesame oil can even be one of your ingredients.beeswax, and paraffin, among others. An ingredient that may surprise that is found in mascara is the crystalline form of guanine, which is excreted from either bats or other small critters. Nylon fibers or rayon provide your eyelashes more length as well as volume. Sometimes, vitamins are added such as pro- vitamin B5. This is claimed to condition your lashes to soften it.

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Homework Post # 5 - Hot Zone Part 3 Summary

In the hot zone part 3 they now have a plan in action of what they are going to do to the Reston monkey house where all the monkeys seem to be contaminated with what they believe to be Ebola. They devise a plan to exterminate all the remaining monkeys within the building and to decontaminate the whole place. this is a procedure that was not taken lightly, all the people who contributted effort were experienced and knew about viruses and/or animals. Once all the monkeys had been ejected with an anestetic they were taken to a bleed table where they were to be hit with another needle that would then put them down. After this they were tranported yet again to an area where they would be split open and they workers would take out samples of their spleen and blood. Next all the carcus's were disposed of in an incinerator owned by the army. The temperaturs were so high that no hot agent would survive. After the monkey house had been rid of all the monkeys they got a cleaning team to come in and bleach every visible surface, then they gased the place so there was no risk of the disease remaining there. That was the end of the monkey house and luckily no person had been hurt or had contracted Ebola while working there. A few months later thy opened the monkey house back up and the same problem happened again but this time they knew what to do and acted quickly upon it.

My internal "woah" moment in part 3 was when the outbreak within the monkey house happened again. I didn't understand how the army or the center of disease control would allow the monkey house to be reopened and to retrieve the monkeys fro the same farm in the philipinnes as before. Luckily they had dealt with this before and knew exactly what to do, luckily once again nobody was injured or contracted Ebola. Which they named Reston, sometimes reffered to as Ebola Reston because they are so similar.

In the fourth and final part of the book the author himself, Richard Preston, travels to Africa to explore Kitum Cave. On his way there, he discusses the role of AIDS in the future,as the highway they had to travel to get to the cave was sometimes called the "AIDS Highway" or otherwise called the "Kinshasa Highway." This was where it first appeared. Preston was euipped with a hazmat suit which would hopefully protect him from the mystery of the cave. He enters the cave and finds a large number of animal tracks and animals themselves, one of which he assumes is the virus carrier. At the end of the book, he goes to the quarantine facility in Reston. The building there was abandoned and deteriorating. He concludes the book by say that the disease will be back.
 * Homework post # 6 - Hot Zone Part 4 Summary **

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**Personal Post # 13 - Hot Zone Spin Off - Disease Carrying Animals** There are many animals that carry different diseases that can infect humans other animals or even some plants. In the book the Hot Zone there are many animals that could be a carrier for the disease and we find this out as Richard Preston travels to the cave at the end of the novel. He saw many tracks and animals inside the cave where people seemed to be contracting the unknown agent.

Some other animals that are common carriers are: Rats and Fleas which used to carry the bubonic plague, which had symptoms of painful swelling, high fever and body aches. Worms who carry elephantiasis, which has symptoms of rough, thickened skin and body swelling. Deer ticks carrying lyme disease, which causes a rash, fatigue, muscle and joint pain. Mosquitos which carry malaria, which causes chills, weakness, fever, and excessive perspiration. Tsetse Flies which carry sleeping sickness, this disease attacks the nervous system and results in prolonged sleep.

There are many more animal carriers for multiple more diseases. Many disease can also be carried by more than one animal, this would cause the spreading to be much worse than with just one carrier. Also if the animal is a carrier it means that it is immune to the disease in which it is carrying and spreading. Within the novel the Hot Zone the monkeys would not be carriers of the hot agent because they were being victims to the disease and very few could fight it off.

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