Urbino - English oasses

Registration for the following passes in English will be on 13th June from 14:00.
I will give the exact marks then. Please do not ask for them before.

Alessandra	Agrimano		Giulia	Gattuso
Alessandra	Leoni		Giuseppe	Avella
Alessandra	Miccono		Giuseppe	Porzia
Alessandra	Di Quirico		Katsiaryna	Kryshtaliova
Alessandra	Alessi		Laura	Pierluigi
Alessandra	Leone		Laura	Magrini
Alessandro	Medoro		Laura	Pugliese
Alessia	Nicolais		Laura	Balsamo
Andrea	Arduino		Lorena	Passaro
Andrea	Gile		Lucia	Parenti
Angelo	Varlotta		Maria Grazia	Lanzilao
Anna	Sarcina		Maria Rita	Vitturci
Anna	Borgia		Marialicia	Pisani
Anna Paola	Moretti		Marica	Marasca
Arianna	Di Lorenzo		Massimo	Salvo
Aurora	Diotallevi		Matteo	Canale
Barbara	Troiani		Nicol	Vidali
Caterina	Gentile		Nicola	Valentino
Caterina	Romagnoli		Noemi	Bigini
Chiara	Ninfali		Patricia	Gabrielli
Daniela	Mastrosimone		Paola	Zizzi
David	Savelli		Paolo	Manfredi
Davide	D'alessandro		Pierpaolo	Paniccia
Denise	Stoppello		Raffaele	Mariotti
Elisa	Falappa		Roberta	Lombardi
Elisabetta	Mazzara		Salvatore	Carbone
Elvira	Coviello		Salvatore	Piombino
Emanuele	Foderà		Serena	Contarelli
Enrica	Zaffini		Silvia Anna Celeste	Cassaro
Fabio	Mengucci		Simona	Palusci
Fatima	Ardito		Simone	Luchetti
Federica	Maruzzella		Stefani	Melchiorri
Francesca	Scoleri		Ugo Maria	Bruschi
Gaia	Donati		Umberto	Gargiulo
Giovanni	Isabella		Valentina	Indo
Giulia	Bettini		Vanessa	Arbore
Giulia	Baschi		Vincenzo	Zaccaria
Giulia	Bartolini

Medicine and its rivals

http://www.economist.com/node/21552554 sunshine	liver
stream through	striking
peacock	supporters
feathers	taxpayers
healing	meagre returns
notion	spawn
treatment	research outfits
campaigner	float
brand	members
foundation	to shame
task	dwindling
the sick	futile
mainstream	to budge
to urge	to leak
flourish	baseless
Double-blind	rituals
random	failings
sift	point out
to blur	hurried
vary wildly	soothing
broadly	rationales
pain	what matters
ailments	unsuited
believers	to jar
cure	sham
imprint	inhalers
deride	lung
claim	dummy

A NEW DOMAIN OF LIFE

http://www.economist.com/node/18437900?story_id=18437900

A new domain of life – Plenty more bugs in the sea - and the vocabulary

Tantalising – possible, tempting

gap – space, hole

lumps – groups
arguably - not certain, can be disputed

creatures – e.g. animals

disease – sickness

crucial – essential, very important

ring – circle

float around – move, but without any power of their own

methane – a gas

stretch back – go back, stretch = make longer

in the shadows – not highlighted, not in the sunlight

missed – not seen

tools – instruments

suggest – imply

draw a conclusion (conclusion was drawn) – deduce, answer, find a solution

having been fired – lost his job, thrown out, made redundant, sacked
wider - broader, bigger

hard cash – readily accessible money

killer app – revolutionary application, application that beats the competition, major advantage

shotgun – a gun for shooting birds, it fires pellets, not bullets

handle – deal with, process

stitches – sews, joins

overlaps – parts that duplicate, one part is the same as another

trick – clever solution

sample – representation, partial collection, example

hot springs – natural sources of hot water (like thermal baths)

guts - intestines

combing - analysing in detail

accrete – accumulate

ubiquitous – found everywhere, omnipresent

and lo – old English - “what a surprise” - “look”

novel – new

uncharacterised – not defined

lacuna – gap, space, lack

winnow – extract in small quantities

and of course the important difference between: known unknown and unknown unknown

What are the current 3 domains of life ? - Eukaryotes, Bacteria, Archaea

Where was evidence of the new domain found ? In the sea

What is the new evidence ? – parts of the evolutionary trees of 2 genes – RecA RpoB - do not fit with existing ones -

so either the trees are wrong or this is a new domain of life...

Why did Craig Ventner have time to “cruise the world” ? - he had no other job, he was paid to leave Celera Genomics

M

Uni Urbino - Scienze Exam

The exam will be in two parts.
The first part is a vocabulary test of words from the articles we have done in class in 2012.
The articles and the specific words will be posted on this blog up to the end of classes which is 31 May.
30 minutes.
No dictionaries - no phones - no PCs... no aids, except a pen.

The second part is a comprehension exercise. 30 minutes. Dictionaries, physical, PC or internet based are allowed - no communication with anyone except me is permitted - so no SMS, no email, no chat, etc...

Fano 9/5/12 - Future Drugs

http://eca.state.gov/forum/journal/future.htm

AIDS: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. First reported in 1981, it has since become a major global epidemic, killing over 10 million people and infecting tens of millions more. The disease is caused by HIV, a virus that destroys the body's ability to fight infections and certain cancers. Go to the NHGRI glossary for more information.
Alzheimer's: A mental disorder that gradually destroys vital nerve cells in the brain. Symptoms include loss of memory, judgment and reasoning, and changes in mood and behavior. It is not a normal part of aging.
Antibiotics: Drugs that fight infections.
Antibodies: Protein molecules produced by the body to fight infection
or disease.
Artery: Blood vessel carrying blood away from the heart.
Arthritis: An inflammatory condition that often causes pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints, often making even minor movements uncomfortable or painful.
Blood pressure: The pressure caused by the blood moving against the walls of the blood vessels, especially the arteries. It varies with the strength of the heartbeat, the flexibility of the arterial walls, the amount of the blood, and a person's health, age, and physical condition. Normal adult blood pressure is 120/80. If a person has high blood pressure, medication is often prescribed to lower the pressure.
Cancer: A general term for more than 100 diseases that are characterized by uncontrolled and rapid growth of abnormal cells. Cancer cells can spread locally or through the bloodstream to other parts of the body.
Chemotherapy: The treatment of cancer using specific chemical agents or drugs that harm fast-growing cells. This treatment kills fast-growing cancer cells, but often harms other fast-growing cells as well, such as the cells for hair and fingernails.
Cholesterol: A white substance found in many foods that is an important element in cell walls in the body. An unusually high level of cholesterol in the blood is often a symptom of heart disease.
Colon: A section of the large intestine, in the digestive tract. The total length is approximately 5 feet (approx. 150 centimeters) in the adult. It is responsible for forming, storing, and expelling waste.
Diagnose: To identify a person as having a certain disease or condition.

Genomic: (adj.) (medicine, treatment, drugs, researchers) Using genetic material or research.
Heart disease: A problem that prevents the heart from working normally. This problem can be with the heart's shape or how the heart works, or with the blood vessels supplying the heart.
Human Genome Project: An international research project to map each human gene and to completely sequence human DNA. (See NHGRI glossary for more information.)
Hypodermic needle: A hollow needle used to inject medicine or drugs directly into the blood.
Immune system: The body system, made up of many organs and cells, that defends the body against infection, disease and foreign substances. The immune system is often stimulated in specific ways to fight cancer cells.
Inhaler: A hand-held device used to take medicine by breathing in through the nose or mouth. Also called inhalator.
Leptin: A hormone produced by fat cells for regulation of appetite. It controls how much you want to eat, how much of the food your body stores, and how much is used for energy.

Liver: A large organ in animals that is important for digesting food and removing waste products.

Mental illness: Any of various conditions which cause problems with a person's normal thinking, feeling, or behavior, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma. Also called emotional illness, mental disease, mental disorder.

Microchip: An extremely small piece of semiconducting material, which can contain a very large amount of information.
Neuron: A cell that sends electrical signals across distances. Neurons receive input from sensory cells or other neurons and send messages to muscles or other neurons.
Obesity: (n), Obese (adj.) (1) Having too much body fat.
Parkinson's: A problem with the central nervous system. A neurological disease that continues to get worse. Symptoms include uncontrolled shaking of the body and difficulties with muscular coordination.
Poison: A substance that causes injury, illness, or death

Protein: Essential components of all living cells that allow a body to function work well (including enzymes, hormones, and antibodies). Proteins are essential in the diet of animals for the growth and repair of tissue.
Radioactive isotope: Elements with an unstable nucleus that act as poisons, killing cancer cells without destroying other parts of the body.
Skin patch: A small piece of material put on the skin. It contains medicine that gradually enters the body through the skin.
Smart bomb: A genomic drug that contains natural antibodies targeted directly at cancer cells.

Swallow: (v) To cause (food or drink, for example) to pass through the mouth and throat into the stomach.
Symptom: An indication of disorder or disease that signals a change from normal function, sensation, or appearance.
Trophic compounds: The body's natural substances that help cells grow and develop.
Tumor: A mass of abnormal cells that are the result of rapid cell division. Tumors perform no useful body function. They may be either benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous).

Ultrasonic: (adj.) (1) Sounds that the human ear cannot hear. (2) Of or relating to acoustic frequencies above the range that the human ear can hear, or above approximately 20,000 hertz.
Vaccine: Weakened or dead poisonous cells injected into the blood in order to stimulate the production of antibodies.

Urbino Science 18/4/12

Economist – Nutrition and Poverty

http://www.economist.com/node/21547771 misleading peers favela spouse charity squirrel away filling clinically obese campaign sedentary shift in approach puzzling pay attention fourfold how-to stunningly good stand for cheap nail colours to the mast next to nothing galvanising lifelong underlying tackle stress the norm iron fancy wedding crops stealth harvest staple crop undermine cassava, beans, millet biblical proportions intractable taught sheer complexity spike household held flat sucklng child sink in backfire bloated tick off a list ravages push all the buttons veiled smalholder impairments gobbledegook stunted cajole struggle broad-based

Urbino Science 4/4/12

Economist Resistance to Antibiotics

http://www.economist.com/node/18483671?story_id=18483671 mould/ mold healthy underdose throat prompted rein in stand alongside inappropriate haunted diluted despite strict fair understanding hence laziness Aid agency perverse financial incentives charity sheer bad luck safeguard threat link come to pass counterfeit gnaw away unwitting misuse mushrooming colds popped Self-indulgence sterner useless against the grain to rid smart surgeries slogan prescribed breakthrough guilty never been bettered over the counter Empty-handed human reaction vessels target congresswoman Brute-force Four-fifths pipeline livestock axed bugs shifted stay in hospital befall chronically ill flashy tuberculosis effects troublesome boutique calculus emporia think tank take a chance to turn to drop dearer patent burden soluble state of affairs scourge counsel of perfection moral hazard resonance Life-enhancing trick a shame cosseted