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“How a Children’s Toy Could Help Fight Malaria” by Jason Daley One of the most basic and necessary pieces of equipment in a med...Question
“How a Children’s Toy Could Help Fight Malaria”
by Jason Daley
One of the most basic and necessary pieces of equipment in a medical lab is a centrifuge. Often bulky and expensive, this device (in the most simple terms) spins things. And spinning things like blood can separate out its components, allowing doctors to diagnose diseases like malaria. But the lack of electricity and resources in rural regions around the world means no centrifuge. Now, a simple new 20-cent gadget could change all that, and it's based on an unusual source of inspiration: the whirligig.
"There are more than a billion people around the world who have no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity," says Manu Prakash, a physical biologist at Stanford and inventor of the new gadget. When he visited Uganda in 2013 he found that clinics either did not have centrifuges or didn't have the juice to power them. “One clinic used its broken centrifuge as a doorstop,” Prakash tells Devin Powell at Nature.
"I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee,” Prakash says in a press release.
When he returned to Stanford, Parkash began brainstorming ideas with one of his post-docs, Saad Bhamla, examining at all sorts of spinning things, reports Madeline K. Sofia at NPR. They quickly began focusing on old-school, preindustrial toys like yo-yos and whirligigs.
“One night I was playing with a button and string, and out of curiosity, I set up a high-speed camera to see how fast a button whirligig would spin. I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Bhamla says in the press release. The button was rotating at 10,000 to 15,000 rpms.
The pair began prototyping small hand-powered centrifuges based on the whirligig principle. Their final model, the Paperfuge, spins at 125,000 rpm, the equivalent of a centrifuge costing $1,000 to $5,000, according to the press release.
The Paperfuge is made of a disk of paper coated in a polymer, reports Sofia. The disk is attached to two pieces of wood or PVC pipe via string. When the strings are pulled, the disk in the middle spins, acting as a centrifuge for a blood sample attached to the center of the disk. The team describes their work in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Prakash and Bhamla recently returned from successful field trials of the Paperfuge in Madagascar where they used it to test for malaria. While the gadget only takes two minutes to separate blood, reports The Economist, it takes 15 minutes of whirligigging for malaria-diagnosing separations.
Once the blood is separated, however, it needs to be examined by a microscope. Luckily, several years ago Prakash also created the Foldscope, a $1 paper microscope with optical quality similar to conventional microscopes that will begin distribution in 2018.

Question
Use the article to answer the question.
In 3–5 sentences, explain what the article infers about why Prakash and Bhamla turned to old-school preindustrial toys as a solution.
(4 points)
by Jason Daley
One of the most basic and necessary pieces of equipment in a medical lab is a centrifuge. Often bulky and expensive, this device (in the most simple terms) spins things. And spinning things like blood can separate out its components, allowing doctors to diagnose diseases like malaria. But the lack of electricity and resources in rural regions around the world means no centrifuge. Now, a simple new 20-cent gadget could change all that, and it's based on an unusual source of inspiration: the whirligig.
"There are more than a billion people around the world who have no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity," says Manu Prakash, a physical biologist at Stanford and inventor of the new gadget. When he visited Uganda in 2013 he found that clinics either did not have centrifuges or didn't have the juice to power them. “One clinic used its broken centrifuge as a doorstop,” Prakash tells Devin Powell at Nature.
"I realized that if we wanted to solve a critical problem like malaria diagnosis, we needed to design a human-powered centrifuge that costs less than a cup of coffee,” Prakash says in a press release.
When he returned to Stanford, Parkash began brainstorming ideas with one of his post-docs, Saad Bhamla, examining at all sorts of spinning things, reports Madeline K. Sofia at NPR. They quickly began focusing on old-school, preindustrial toys like yo-yos and whirligigs.
“One night I was playing with a button and string, and out of curiosity, I set up a high-speed camera to see how fast a button whirligig would spin. I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Bhamla says in the press release. The button was rotating at 10,000 to 15,000 rpms.
The pair began prototyping small hand-powered centrifuges based on the whirligig principle. Their final model, the Paperfuge, spins at 125,000 rpm, the equivalent of a centrifuge costing $1,000 to $5,000, according to the press release.
The Paperfuge is made of a disk of paper coated in a polymer, reports Sofia. The disk is attached to two pieces of wood or PVC pipe via string. When the strings are pulled, the disk in the middle spins, acting as a centrifuge for a blood sample attached to the center of the disk. The team describes their work in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Prakash and Bhamla recently returned from successful field trials of the Paperfuge in Madagascar where they used it to test for malaria. While the gadget only takes two minutes to separate blood, reports The Economist, it takes 15 minutes of whirligigging for malaria-diagnosing separations.
Once the blood is separated, however, it needs to be examined by a microscope. Luckily, several years ago Prakash also created the Foldscope, a $1 paper microscope with optical quality similar to conventional microscopes that will begin distribution in 2018.

Question
Use the article to answer the question.
In 3–5 sentences, explain what the article infers about why Prakash and Bhamla turned to old-school preindustrial toys as a solution.
(4 points)
Answers
Answer
"Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?"
by Berly McCoy
Everyone wants to save the bees. But as populations decline every year, we may be saving them to death.
Human efforts to breed more of these insects in artificial beehives and plant more flowers may seem the obvious way to stave off heavy losses.
New research shows the answer is not that clear cut, because viruses may be spilling over from commercial honeybee colonies into wild bee populations, according to a study from the University of Vermont published Wednesday in PLOS One.
1 of 8
Question
Use the article to answer the question.
Select two or more supporting details from the text. In 3–5 sentences, explain how those details skillfully shape and refine the central idea of the text while also convincing you that the author’s central idea is reasonable.
(4 points)
by Berly McCoy
Everyone wants to save the bees. But as populations decline every year, we may be saving them to death.
Human efforts to breed more of these insects in artificial beehives and plant more flowers may seem the obvious way to stave off heavy losses.
New research shows the answer is not that clear cut, because viruses may be spilling over from commercial honeybee colonies into wild bee populations, according to a study from the University of Vermont published Wednesday in PLOS One.
1 of 8
Question
Use the article to answer the question.
Select two or more supporting details from the text. In 3–5 sentences, explain how those details skillfully shape and refine the central idea of the text while also convincing you that the author’s central idea is reasonable.
(4 points)
Answer
"Why Journalism Has a Gender Problem"
by Corinne Segal
A group of journalists holding microphones in front of an interviewee.
The journalism industry is severely lacking in leadership by women and racial minorities, according to the Nieman Reports story published Wednesday.
This year’s census by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), which looked at diversity at print newspapers, shows women accounting for 35.4 percent of supervisors. This barely marks an increase from 1999, when women made up 33.8 percent of supervisors. Women run three out of the 25 biggest U.S. titles and one of the top 25 international titles. They make up 37.2 percent of overall newspaper employees, a whole three-tenths of a percent increase from 1999. Racial minorities fare even worse, comprising 13 percent of overall employees.
1 of 6
Question
Use the article to answer the question.
In 3–5 sentences, explain how the author orders information in the article to support the central idea.
(4 points)
by Corinne Segal
A group of journalists holding microphones in front of an interviewee.
The journalism industry is severely lacking in leadership by women and racial minorities, according to the Nieman Reports story published Wednesday.
This year’s census by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), which looked at diversity at print newspapers, shows women accounting for 35.4 percent of supervisors. This barely marks an increase from 1999, when women made up 33.8 percent of supervisors. Women run three out of the 25 biggest U.S. titles and one of the top 25 international titles. They make up 37.2 percent of overall newspaper employees, a whole three-tenths of a percent increase from 1999. Racial minorities fare even worse, comprising 13 percent of overall employees.
1 of 6
Question
Use the article to answer the question.
In 3–5 sentences, explain how the author orders information in the article to support the central idea.
(4 points)
Answer
"Why Journalism Has A Gender Problem"
by Corinne Segal
The journalism industry is severely lacking in leadership by women and racial minorities, according to the Nieman Reports story published Wednesday.
This year’s census by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), which looked at diversity at print newspapers, shows women accounting for 35.4 percent of supervisors. This barely marks an increase from 1999, when women made up 33.8 percent of supervisors. Women run three out of the 25 biggest U.S. titles and one of the top 25 international titles. They make up 37.2 percent of overall newspaper employees, a whole three-tenths of a percent increase from 1999. Racial minorities fare even worse, comprising 13 percent of overall employees.
1 of 6
Question
Use the article to answer the question.
In 3–5 sentences, write an objective summary of the article.
(4 points)
by Corinne Segal
The journalism industry is severely lacking in leadership by women and racial minorities, according to the Nieman Reports story published Wednesday.
This year’s census by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), which looked at diversity at print newspapers, shows women accounting for 35.4 percent of supervisors. This barely marks an increase from 1999, when women made up 33.8 percent of supervisors. Women run three out of the 25 biggest U.S. titles and one of the top 25 international titles. They make up 37.2 percent of overall newspaper employees, a whole three-tenths of a percent increase from 1999. Racial minorities fare even worse, comprising 13 percent of overall employees.
1 of 6
Question
Use the article to answer the question.
In 3–5 sentences, write an objective summary of the article.
(4 points)
Answered by
GPT-4o mini
The article infers that Prakash and Bhamla turned to old-school preindustrial toys, such as yo-yos and whirligigs, as a solution because these toys demonstrated simple yet effective mechanics for spinning, which could be harnessed for human-powered centrifuges. Their exploration of these toys revealed that they could achieve high rotational speeds, which was essential for separating blood components effectively. By drawing inspiration from these accessible and inexpensive toys, they aimed to create a low-cost, portable device that could facilitate malaria diagnosis in resource-limited settings where traditional centrifuges were impractical or unavailable.
Answered by
GPT-4o mini
The article presents the central idea that efforts to save bees, particularly through cultivating commercial honeybee populations, may inadvertently harm wild bee populations due to the transmission of viruses. One supporting detail is the finding that viruses are spilling over from commercial honeybee colonies into wild bee populations, highlighting a potential risk associated with breeding more bees in artificial settings. Additionally, the article notes that such human interventions, though well-intentioned, might not effectively address the broader ecological challenges faced by bees. These details skillfully refine the central idea by illustrating the complex interplay between human efforts and the health of bee populations, which convinces the reader that the author's argument about the unintended consequences of such interventions is reasonable.
Answered by
GPT-4o mini
The author organizes information in the article by providing statistical evidence that highlights the lack of female and racial minority leadership within the journalism industry, which supports the central idea of the article. Beginning with the findings from the Nieman Reports and the American Society of News Editors, the author presents specific percentages that illustrate the stagnation in women's representation in supervisory roles since 1999. Additionally, the mention of women leading only a small fraction of major publications underscores the severity of the issue. By presenting statistics in a structured manner, the author effectively emphasizes the ongoing challenges of diversity in journalism, reinforcing the central premise that the industry has a significant gender problem.
Answered by
GPT-4o mini
The article discusses the significant lack of female and racial minority representation in leadership roles within the journalism industry, as highlighted by a recent report from the Nieman Reports. According to the American Society of News Editors' census, women hold only 35.4 percent of supervisory positions, a slight increase from 1999, and lead only three out of the 25 largest U.S. publications. Overall, women comprise 37.2 percent of newspaper employees, indicating minimal progress over the years. Additionally, the representation of racial minorities in journalism is even lower, making up just 13 percent of overall employees. The article underscores the ongoing challenges in achieving diversity within the field.