Cancer Cells

Cells go through a cycle which includes many processes. These are:
1. Interphase
2. Prophase
3. Metaphase
4. Anaphase
5. Telophase

How do cancers...happen??
When cancers develop, it is because proteins don't work the same way because cells don't go from one stage to the next properly in their cycle. The cancer cells reproduce at a far faster rate than normal cells do. But those cells all seem to have a loss of function. This happens because the cell division does not happen properly. In most cases, cancer takes many years to develop.

So...give an example of a cancer and how it happens...
Let's use breast cancer as an example!
So breast cancer is a type of cancer that will form in any part of the breast. It's more commonly seen in women, but men are also at risk of getting this cancer, too. When cancer begins to occur, cells begin to go through a change which rapidly spreads through the body (as previously stated). Women release a hormone, estrogen, which stimulates cell division, but may effect cells and DNA to be damaged or permanently effected. Women who have not been through a first term of pregnancy still have immature cells and can be more easily effected by this because their cells contain carcinogens that are not as strong or able to repair damaged cells as easily.

How can one treat this?
Through cell technology and radiation techniques, scientists have found new ways to practically zap away the bad! Treatment programs can be created to help the side effects of the cancer be reduces and can even eliminate the cancer altogether!

Sources:
Scitable by Nature Education

The Biology of Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer

As it is the new year, I would like to present to you this month's end-of blog-picture topic! The snake! Happy 2013, the year of the snake!

What You'll Wish You'd Known Response

What You'll Wish You'd Known

     In the article, What You'll Wish You'd Known, I read about how the average graduation speech about "never giving up" and "following your dreams"...is all misleading and wrong. I definitely agree with this speech because things are always different in high school than they are in the real world. When we are in high school, we are still fairly new to the world, and learning exactly where our place is. If we follow the dreams that we have while we don't really know ourselves, we're bound to end up somewhere later on that we don't want to be. However, if we do what the article tells us to do and just keep pushing on, believing that we're gonna make it, then we're more fit to get somewhere good. I can see how this speech was denied for graduation, however. At this time in our lives, we've all figured out that the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and even the Easter bunny are all- yes- fake. But we still believe in some kind of magic. A magic of hope, dreams, and never giving up. We're still children, in this sense. But if we hold on to something forever, we're bound to have so many corpses of dreams that it could potentially lead down a path to self destruction. So basically, we must go with the flow and keep fighting!