Extra Credit Article Summaries
The purpose of this assignment is to write a summary on a news article or video about microbiology, microorganisms, or diseases caused by pathogens. Make sure to find and summarize your own articles do not use the same article as another student, and do not copy from others. Each Summary is worth up to 6 points added to your lowest test grade.
Articles must be a news piece no more than 3 months old, and must have a length of at least 250 words. A news video must be at least 1.5 minutes. A general educational summary or encyclopedia-style article will not count – it must be current events news. Do not use articles posted or covered by the instructor.
Summary Format
Put the title, date the article was published, and source of the article as the heading of your summary.
First Paragraph: In 50 to 75 words, write a summary of the article. Describe what subjects the article talks about, but keep it concise!
Second Paragraph: Address the following questions:
1) “How is this information relevant to me?” and
2) “How is this information connected to microbiology content studied in class?” There is no word limit for this paragraph, but try to keep the entire abstract at 1-2 pages.
Bottom: Put the web browser URL of the article or video at the end. Double check the URL; if the article can’t be found, the abstract can’t be graded. You may wish to save a copy in case there is a problem.
How to Find Articles
When searching, use general terms if you get too few choices and specific terms if you get too many
News Web Sites: The Health and Science sections of Google News (news.google.com) are useful sites for current news. Reputable websites that post news articles should be used. Good examples are USA Today, ABC News, Reuters, Associated Press, WBTV, Charlotte Observer.
Do not use newsletters, reviews, personal essays, social media, and websites that are unprofessional or ‘sketchy’. CCC’s Summon Tool: Go to http://clevelandcc.summon.serialssolutions.com This will take you to a page where you can type in what you are interested in, and pull up articles from multiple sources and databases.
Can use on campus or off campus with username and password. Click on and download the articles you want to use. Be sure you save the complete article URL.
Sample Summary
Virus may affect memory decades later, study finds
October 23, 2006 – from Reuters
This article is about a family of viruses called neurovirulent picornaviruses and how they may affect the brain over time. The article talks about different types of related viruses and frequency of infections. The article also discusses results of tests conducted using infected mice. The article concludes by listing viruses presently known to kill brain cells.
This article is relevant to me because of my increased exposure to potential infection as an RN giving direct patient care. Even the common cold could be related; so good hand washing can make all the difference in control and prevention to other patients, my family and myself.
It relates to viruses we studied that affect the nervous system, like rabies. I will definitely follow this as more information is discovered. http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-10-23T181949Z_01_N23353127_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEMORY.xml&WTmodLoc=HealthNewsHome_C2_healthNews-3
Sample Article
Virus may affect memory decades later, study finds Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:20 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Forget where you left your glasses? Did those keys go missing again? Now you do not have to blame your spouse — a virus may be to blame.
A family of viruses that cause a range of ills from the common cold to polio may be able to infect the brain and cause steady damage, a team at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota reported on Monday.
“Our study suggests that virus-induced memory loss could accumulate over the lifetime of an individual and eventually lead to clinical cognitive memory deficits,” said Charles Howe, who reported the findings in the journal Neurobiology of Disease.
The viruses are called picornaviruses and infect more than 1 billion people worldwide each year. They include the virus that causes polio, as well as colds and diarrhea. People contract two or three such infections a year on average.
“We think picornavirus family members cross into the brain and cause a variety of brain injuries. For example, the polio virus can cause paralysis,” Howe said.
“It can injure the spinal cord and different parts of the brain responsible for motor function. In the murine (mouse) virus we studied, it did the same thing and also injured parts of the brain responsible for memory.”
The Mayo Clinic infected mice with a virus called Theiler’s murine encephalomyelitis virus, which is similar to human poliovirus.
Infected mice later had difficulty learning to navigate a maze. Some were barely affected, while others were completely unable to manage, and when the mice were killed and their brains examined, a correlating amount of damage was seen in the hippocampus region, related to learning and memory.
One virus particularly likely to cause brain damage is enterovirus 71, which is common in Asia, the researchers said. It can cross over into the brain and cause encephalitis, a brain inflammation that can lead to coma and death.
“Our findings suggest that picornavirus infections throughout the lifetime of an individual may chip away at the cognitive reserve, increasing the likelihood of detectable cognitive impairment as the individual ages,” the researchers wrote in their report.
“We hypothesize that mild memory and cognitive impairments of unknown etiology may, in fact, be due to accumulative loss of hippocampus function caused by repeated infection with common and widespread neurovirulent picornaviruses.”
Other viruses are known to kill brain cells, including the herpes virus and human immunodeficiency virus or HIV.
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