Projects Update, week of 08/0/17 - 08/14/17

Monday 08/14/17. The goals that I had set for the past week were:

1. Read one book and write one book review
2. Finish the first draft of my August Essay: "Why I am an Anarchist."
3. Finish building the circuit for the PCR machine
4. Read 10 scientific papers.
5. Install the necessary frameworks for Android development.

Here's what I actually accomplished on each of these tasks:

1. I completed the audiobook for the Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and put the review up today.
2. I made significant progress on the first draft, bringing the word count from ~4,000 words to over 7,000 words. I underestimated the size of the essay.
3. I made 0 progress on the PCR Machine.
4. I read 3 or so scientific papers. I will publish a list and commentary on them later tonight.
5. I made 0 progress in terms of installing Android frameworks.

I failed to achieve most of my weekly goals, but I did make some progress with reading the articles, as 3/10 is better than 0/10. I made a fair amount of progress on the essay, but all of that waited until Sunday night. One thing I need to work on is the refusal to procrastinate, as I largely wasted Saturday for this reason. I do not think any of this will preclude me from completing these projects by the end of August, which is the overall goal.

Here are my notes on the articles I read:
Gene drive systems for insect disease vectors
Steven P. Sinkins* and Fred Gould
Notes:

Introduces a number of possible methods of creating a gene drive in a population. The main ones involve transposable elements, Homing EndoNuluclease Genes, and Wolbachia

Different methods have different possibilities, transgenes has the risk of duplicating itself into multiple places on the genome.
Homologous ones seem to be more consistent in copying itself onto the corresponding gene on the other chromosome, but do not appear to be present in insects.

Wolbacia are a type of infectious bacteria for some insects that are capable of modifying the genome of their hosts, to the extent where some infected can only produce offspring with other infected.
A minmum mendelian ratio of >0.5 is needed to eventually take over a population.

Automated, Quantitative Cognitive/Behavioral Screening of Mice: For Genetics, Pharmacology, Animal Cognition and Undergraduate Instruction
C. R. Gallistel, 1 Fuat Balci, 1 , 2 David Freestone, 1 , 3 Aaron Kheifets, 1 and Adam King 4
Notes:
Introduces a new piece of lab equipment that involves a standardized environment for rats to give cognitive and behavioural tests. It is designed where tens of rats can be run at one time, each having it's own setup and the machines take real-time data.

It involves procedures for sticking the rat's paw in a hopper to recieve pellets, and tests are set up to measure the rat's ability to recognize and discern spaces physically, as well as measure the amount of time it takes to get a pellet (i.e. it can distinguish between hoppers spacially and identify which one delivers food faster at the moment). Other protocols have been written for it as well.

Investigating cognitive genetics and its implications for the treatment of cognitive deficit
A. Payton
Notes:
This article is a meta-analysis. It is significant that this article was published in 2006, as the amount of dna sequencing will have increased vastly since then. This article lists a number of potential genes associated with cognitive ability along with citations towards the corresponding papers, and compares issues between papers on the subject. Some of the issues in articles that it cites come from lack of statistical power that result from more tests performed on smaller sample sizes. One of the major proposals to ameliorate this is to sequence large numbers of people at extremes in the IQ spectrum.
Some interesting things of note are that genes associated with cognitive diseases and mental retardation are not necessarily associated with higher cognitive ability when functioning properly.

Genes affecting the rate and prevalence of cognitive decline in aging may not be linked to cognitive ability in younger specimens. This article cites a study which suggests certain phenotypes related to dopamine receptors may affect cognitive ability. Two other articles contradicted it, but the subjects were several decades younger: Neurotransmission declines with age, so it could be that older people are more sensitive.

Genes affecting Histological responses can also affect cognitive capacity and would be expected to be more relevant as the individual ages, as with the onset of Alzheimer's and other diseases, the brain rightly attracts more immune attention.
An interesting question to look in: would identifying precursors in dopamine and eating increased amounts of said precursors aid in slowing cognitive decline?