Since February 2012, many Ash trees in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have suffered fatal blows by a mysterious fungus known as Chalara fraxinea. The fungus is a new form of ash dieback, and originated in Poland 1992. The fungus infects Ash trees and causes their cells to die, and has been affecting a large population of ash trees in the UK.
Recently, scientific experts have sequenced part of the RNA of the fungus. Researchers at the Sainsbury Laboratory and the John Innes Center have made a first step in discovering the spreading methods of this ash dieback fungus. By extracting a sample of the fungus from the twig of a deceased ash tree in Norfolk, experts could sequence the RNA of the fungus which was mixed up with the genetic information of the plant. The plant health expert Michael Shaw (who did not participate in the experiment), noted this process as the first step to discovering why some strains of the fungus cause disease while other strains are benign. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about the fungus, as pointed out by Shaw, is that only certain strains of this fungus are different from the fungus that lives in ash trees naturally, meaning that they are closely related. This creates an even bigger mystery surrounding the fungus, as there must be some key genetic difference between the two strains.
After scientists had accomplished this 'first step' to "decoding" the mysterious fungus, they perpetuated their progress by publishing their results on the internet, leaving it open for analysis by other scientists. A similar strategy was taken in Germany with the 2011 E. Coli outbreak, which had tremendously successful results in enabling the scientists to track the source and spread of the infection.
I felt that this article was interesting and insightful. I really enjoyed that the author cited specific scientists and included them in the article, as it gave me a sense of where the research was stemming from, and how it affected broader regions of science. One thing I disliked about the article was the lack of specificity in regards to the steps of 'solving' the mystery of the fungus. I would have liked to have learned more about, specifically, how they were able to decode the RNA, and what, specifically, their future steps and plans were to identify the properties of the fungus.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20719507
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4 comments:
First off I really liked Tatiana’s article review. I thought it was very detailed and easy to understand. For example when explaining about sequencing the RNA I had an easy time understanding. I also liked how she gave in italics above the writing what is going on that causes scientists to feel a need to do this. Many people in the past have just written what scientists are trying to find without giving a scenario which forces scientists to do this. Lastly, I liked how she said that the scientists than posted their findings on the internet because it was kind of a follow up on how they can get more insight to solve this.
Although the article was very well explained the one thing I didn’t get was when she said “other strains are benign”. I just didn’t know what the word meant. Secondly, I think she could have explained more about how the strains of are so similar. Maybe she could of wrote that they have similar genetic codes or something, but she didn’t say how they are similar.
One thing that really interested me is the fact that something with similar genetic makeup can harm another being. That is like one human being a parasite to another.
-jimmy purdy
After reading this article, one thing I thought was very interesting is that I didn’t know about the tree affecting fungus that is currently happening in Great Britain. Honestly, I didn’t even know fungus could even affect trees in the first place. Well anyways, I thought Tatiana did a good job summarizing the article about fungus. Gave me a clear concept about what is going on and what attentions was needed to fix this problem. I loved how she used step by step details on how to solve this fungus issue. However, she did state how it wasn’t clear enough; conversely for me it was pretty clear. Even reading the main article itself, I am still curious how it is going on today as I type this review. And because she separated the body paragraphs, I could easily understand the new subject that is presented in this article, not just all jammed into one compact paragraphs. Overall, a pretty interesting article, kudos to you Ms. Diaz.
Tatiana did a very nice job reviewing this article. She gave lots of background information at the beginning so it was easy to follow the rest of her review. She also did a nice job explaining in a simple way what scientists are doing to combat this epidemic. I liked that she noted there have been other outbreaks such as this, since it clarifies infectious fungus is not a new thing. I think she could have added a little more detail about what the fungus does to kill the cell. However this information may not have been provided to her. The only other thing that could have embellished this review would have been to explain there are non harmful strains of the fungus that naturally live on the trees, earlier in the review. It would add to the background knowledge she gave at the beginning of her review. One thing I found interesting was that the scientists posted their findings on the internet. They didn’t just claim it as their own top secret information. I think this shows that they truly want to make progress and are willing to share their discoveries to save these Ash trees.
Matt James
Article comment
I really liked Tatiana’s review of the article “More information on Ash Fungus Genetic Data in the UK” the topic was very interesting and she did a thorough summary. In fact, that is the first thing that I liked about this review, it left little to no questions to be asked without feeling any need to read the actual article. Being that this article was more focused towards the Biology side of science, not my best subject, I liked the in-depth description she gave of why the process they were doing was made possible by the characteristics of the fungus. Another thing that I liked about this review was how she related this new discovery to other close attempts made by scientists that showed the true progression in this area of study.
One thing I did not like was the lack of information about the future of this finding and how it could help further scientific studies, and benefit the people.
One thing that I learned is that there are many things to learn from organisms even seemingly as insignificant as fungus.
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