Monday, December 5, 2016

The 1950's



The 1950's was an era where many things were accomplished. Polio was defeated, integration was partly successful, and the structure of DNA was discovered.



Segregation
During the 1950's, many white American people believed in segregation. They

wanted to be separated from the black race. For example, blacks and whites, at the time, had

separate water fountains, bathrooms, and schools. This system was called Jim Crow's laws.

African-Americans felt that they were being taken advantage of. They were getting paid less

money although they were working just as diligently and as long as white people. This was

simply because they were black. Many others were getting beaten and killed if they made even

a minor mistake. Surprisingly, policemen allowed them to be beaten. Some African Americans

were brave enough to stand up for their rights. They protested that they wanted to be treated

equally to white people. Many contacted lawyers to help them fight for equality. Sadly, it barely

made a difference. A while later, a brilliant woman changed that. Rosa Parks was that woman.

She was a respected woman among the African American community and was working to

make Mountrygoumey a better place for black people. One day, a tired Rosa Parks collapsed

on the back seat of a bus. As the bus gathered more people, she

was asked to stand up and allow a white to take her seat. She refused. The bus driver called

the police and had her arrested. When Rosa Parks was at the police station, fellow African

Americans busted her out. This started the Montgomery bus boycott. Almost every black

person participated in this act. Instead of riding on the buses that took them to work, they either

walked to their destination or were carpooled by other African Americans. Over the year that

they did this, they caused the bus company to go out of business. This was

a successful start to the end of segregation.



Rosa Parks when she was arrested.


Polio and a Cure


An unfortunate staple in the 1950's was a raging summer epidemic that, when caught,



would cripple and paralyze a person. Polio was the disease that many Americans were so



desperate for a cure to. Two scientists, Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk, dramatically helped the



discovery of polio's cure. They had the same goal, however, were on opposite sides; Sabin



experimenting with a dead virus, and Salk rooting for a live one. Although both were hard-



headed men, Jonas Salk won the battle of polio's cure when he successfully discovered what



he called the Salk Vaccine. Thanks to Salk, polio is now a thing of the past.




Jonas Salk, the discover to polio's cure.

                                                     
                                                           Fidel Castro

Dying just one day after Thanksgiving 2016, Fidel Castro, was for many years, the dictator of


Cuba. Earlier in his lifetime, Fidel was a strangely caring man who believed strongly in rights for



the poverty-stricken people. He even went so far to overtake Fulgenicence Batista, an earlier



dictator of Cuba. Fidel eventually became the Cuban president, because of his hard work and



the Cubans' love for him. Later in his life, he abused his power by nationalizing businesses and



participating in murders. After many years of dictating, Fidel stepped down and gave the



position to his younger brother. Raul Castro.


Fidel Castro


 DNA’s Discoverers                                                      
                                                                  By Karis
Starting off as just James Watson’s dream, DNA’s discovery was a giant leap in the biological world. Watson literally saw DNA because of his dream, in which he dreamt up DNA’s spiral formation. Besides James Watson and Francis Crick, who are commonly credited for its discovery, there are actually many scientists who uncovered DNA. Inwardly erected of deoxyribose, a phosphate molecule, and four different nitrogenous bases, DNA is like a minuscule twisted ladder, although its shape is technically a double-helix.
Of the earlier people who discovered deoxyribonucleic acid, or at least heredity, was a man named Gregor Mendel. Differing from DNA, heredity is the passing on of physical or mental characteristics from generation to generation, almost like whisper down the lane, a popular children’s game where a word, or a person’s DNA, would change slightly as it is passed on. Mendel was a 19th-century monk. Curiously, he recognized heredity because of his pea plants.  After examining and breeding them, he noted that the results of growth varied. Although his work is somewhat unknown, he kept a notebook of his discoveries which helped scientists of the future figure out heredity and DNA more clearly.
Fast forwarding to the 1950’s, Crick and Watson had just discovered the solution to heredity. When the two scientists began on the project they recognized much of DNA’s structure. Snapping and studying photographs was another keen scientist of the time, Rosalind Franklin. Her photos were much clearer because of a more detailed microscope. The X-ray crystallography. Against Rosalind’s wishes,Crick and Watson used her photos for their discovery, and when they later received the Nobel Prize for their discovery, Rosalind’s name wasn’t mentioned.  Probably this was so because she died of cancer four years earlier, and unfortunately didn’t receive her proper recognition. DNA was like a key to heredity and opened up a whole new world in biology. Thanks to the many scientists who discovered or helped discover it, we now know what and how DNA makes people and things who they are.

The Discovery Of DNA Over A Decade
By Lexi
The structure of DNA was discovered by two scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick. They were scientists at Cavendish Laboratory which is in Cambridge, United Kingdom. They won, along with Maurice Wilkins, the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine for finding the structure of DNA. Maurice Wilkins was a DNA scientist. These three men obviously weren’t the only people to discover and learn about DNA. Rosalind Franklin was also a big help with it even though she was not recognized for her assistance. Because she was a woman, she wasn’t credited for all for the work that she put into finding information about DNA. She had provided a photo of the structure of DNA which was as clear and exact as a sunny day. Without her permission, Watson and Crick took her photo of DNA and used it to help them solve its structure. Unfortunately, Rosalind died a couple of years before the men received the Nobel reward, and she never got the credit that she deserved. Later, Watson and Crick tried to make amends when they wrote a book and thanked her for her generosity.

In his early life, Francis Crick, who was an Englishman, took physics in college and then turned to studying biology. Eventually, he went to Cavendish Laboratory. On the other hand, James Watson was an American. He dwelled in Chicago, Illinois.  When he was a boy, he was an extraordinarily clever child prodigy. During the year 1947, James was 15 years old and he attended the University of Chicago. Later, when he turned 23, he went to Cavendish Laboratory and met his soon-to-be scientist partner, James Watson. Even though these two men had different beginnings, they soon worked together as well as peanut butter goes with jelly.

DNA, which is in the form of a double helix, is a thin molecule made out of nucleoids. The nucleoids are Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine. Astonishingly, they are stuck together like glue by hydrogen bonds. Adenine always pairs with Thymine. Cytosine naturally always goes with Guanine. While the sides of DNA are called backbones, they are made out of two groups. They are a sugar and phosphate group. In the 1860s, the discovery of DNA began. It  was a process that involved many smart scientists over a period of decades.



James Watson (left) and Francis Crick (right).