Technomaths

The Nepalese say that Mount Everest (in the Himalayas) is so high that birds cannot fly above it. At what altitude do birds no longer fly at? It is also said that the Himalayan ranges are so vast that they shape the world’s weather. How is this so?

Have you had an opportunity to check out Arcturus yet? When is the best time to view it? And what special facts have you been able to uncover about it?

During our discussion in Science this week, and on our TWLH chart, we shared many thoughts and understandings about micro-organisms, but still had loads of questions about them. You wondered where they live, and how they exist. We also pondered how they get into the body and how they can be dangerous.

Whilst micro-organisms are simple, they are incredibly successful survivors. Many micro-organisms (such as bacteria and yeast) are tiny individual living cells that are impossible to see with the naked eye. We can only see them when they grow and multiply to become bacterial or yeast colonies.  Micro-organisms live and thrive in virtually every environment on Earth, including oceans, hot geysers, Antarctica and The Arctic, and the dry deserts.  Did you know that micro-organisms also live inside larger creatures including us humans, where they even carry out important functions in their host, such as aiding in digestion.  But on a more sinister note, micro-organisms can also cause illness and disease. These organisms are given a special name; pathogens.

Many diseases in humans are caused by micro-organisms (for example, bacteria cause tuberculosis, tetanus, cholera and food poisoning, while fungi cause tinea and ringworm). As we discovered this week, micro-organisms also are very important in medicine and in treating diseases.  In 1945 Dr Howard Florey (who featured on the front of Australia’s $50 note from 1973-1995), Dr Ernst Chain and Dr Alexander Fleming were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the first antibiotic, Penicillin.  Penicillan is produced naturally by the mould, Penicillium. Before its discovery people died from bacterial infections and from food infections.

In 1928 Dr Fleming discovered that a bacterial culture he was studying, became contaminated by Penicillium mould and stopped the bacterial growth.  He was unable to determine which substance prevented bacteria from growing and moved on to other research. 10 years later Dr Florey & Dr Chain began to look for the substance Dr Fleming wrote about.

They discovered that penicillin had potential for treating bacterial illness after they conducted this experiment.  8 mice were infected with Streptococcus bacteria.  4 of the mice were treated with injections of penicillin, whilst the other 4 mice were untreated.  The following day, the untreated mice were dead, and the mice treated with injections of penicillin had recovered.  The doctors and their research team then had to test penicillin on humans.  When they had successfully treated people, they found effective methods of mass producing penicillin.