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Diseases in history

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Plague is one of the deadliest diseases in human history, second only to smallpox. A bacterial infection found mainly in rodents and associated fleas, plague readily leaps to humans in close contact. Plague outbreaks are the most notorious epidemics in history, inciting fears of plague's use as a biological weapon.

Today, plague cases still pop up sporadically around the world-including in the United States or China, where a suspected case was recently reported in the Inner Mongolia region. But the disease is no longer as deadly as it can be treated with antibiotics when available.

Here's what you need to know about the plague, including how it spreads, the difference between bubonic and pneumonic plague, the most infamous plague pandemics in history, and why it's not all that unusual to see modern cases of the disease.

Stages of plague

For hundreds of years, what caused plague outbreaks remained mysterious, and shrouded in superstitions. But keen observations and advances in microscopes eventually helped unveil the true culprit. In 1894, Alexandre Yersin discovered the bacterium responsible for causing plague: Yersinia pestis.

Y. pestis is an extraordinarily virulent, rod-shaped bacterium. Y. pestis disables the immune system of its host by injecting toxins into defense cells, such as macrophages, that are tasked with detecting bacterial infections. Once these cells are knocked out, the bacteria can multiply unhindered.

Many small mammals act as hosts to the bacteria, including rats, mice, chipmunks, prairie dogs, rabbits, and squirrels. During an enzootic cycle, Y. pestis can circulate at low rates within populations of rodents, mostly undetected because it doesn't produce an outbreak. When the bacteria pass to other species, during an epizootic cycle, humans face a greater risk for becoming infected with plague bacteria.

Rats have long been thought to be the main vector of plague outbreaks, because of their intimate connection with humans in urban areas. Scientists have more recently discovered that a flea that lives on rats, Xenopsylla cheopis, primarily causes human cases of plague. When rodents die from the plague, fleas jump to a new host, biting them and transmitting Y. pestis. Transmission also occurs by handling tissue or blood from a plague-infected animal, or inhalation of infected droplets.

Bubonic plague, the disease's most common form, refers to telltale buboes-painfully swollen lymph nodes-that appear around the groin, armpit, or neck. The skin sores become black, leading to its nickname during pandemics as "Black Death." Initial symptoms of this early stage include vomiting, nausea, and fever.

Pneumonic plague, the most infectious type, is an advanced stage of plague that moves into the lungs. During this stage, the disease is passed directly, person to person, through airborne particles coughed from an infected person's lungs.

If untreated, bubonic and pneumonic plague can progress to septicemic plague, infecting the bloodstream. If left untreated, pneumonic and septicemic plague kills almost 100 percent of those it infects.

Infamous plagues

Three particularly well-known pandemics occurred before the cause of plague was discovered. The first well-documented crisis was the Plague of Justinian, which began in 542 A.D. Named after the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, the pandemic killed up to 10,000 people a day in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey), according to ancient historians. Modern estimates indicate half of Europe's population-almost 100 million deaths-was wiped out before the plague subsided in the 700s.

Arguably the most infamous plague outbreak was the so-called Black Death, a multi-century pandemic that swept through Asia and Europe. It was believed to start in China in 1334, spreading along trade routes and reaching Europe via Sicilian ports in the late 1340s. The plague killed an estimated 25 million people, almost a third of the continent's population. The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which 70,000 residents died.

The cause of plague wasn't discovered until the most recent global outbreak, which started in China in 1860 and didn't officially end until 1959. The pandemic caused roughly 10 million deaths. The plague was brought to North America in the early 1900s by ships, and thereafter spread to small mammals throughout the United States.

The high rate of fatality during these pandemics meant that the dead were often buried in quickly dug mass graves. From teeth of these plague victims, scientists have pieced together a family tree of Y. pestis, discovering that the strain from the Justinian Plague was related to, but distinct from, other strains of the plague. ( Read how modern plague strains descended from a strain that arose during the Black Death pandemic.)

Plague in modern society

Plague still exists in various parts of the world, popping up sporadically and followed actively by the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases have appeared in Africa since the 1990s.

Between 2004 to 2014, the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported the majority of plague cases worldwide, with 4,630 human cases and 349 deaths. Scientists link the prevalence of plague in the Democratic Republic of Congo to the ecosystem-primarily mountain tropical climate. More recently, plague broke out in Madagascar in 2017, causing more than 2,300 cases.

The United States, China, India, Vietnam, and Mongolia are among the other countries that have had confirmed human plague cases in recent years. Within the U.S., on average seven human cases of plague appear each year, emerging primarily in California and the Southwest.

Today, most people survive plague with rapid diagnosis and antibiotic treatment. Good sanitation practices and pest control minimize contact with infected fleas and rodents to help prevent plague pandemics.

Plague is classified as a Category A pathogen, because it readily passes between people and could result in high mortality rates if untreated. This classification has helped stoke fears that Y. pestis could be used as a biological weapon if distributed in aerosol form. As a small airborne particle it would cause pneumonic plague, the most lethal and contagious form.

Of conservation concern, federally endangered black-footed ferrets contract another form of the plague, sylvatic plague, from nearby prairie dogs. Plague can decimate prairie dog populations, which are a critical food source for black-footed ferrets. Scientists have started to administer a vaccine to prevent plague outbreaks in prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on August 20, 2019.

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Plague (Black Death) bacterial infection information and facts

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Known as the Black Death, the much feared disease spread quickly for centuries, killing millions. The bacterial infection still occurs but can be treated with antibiotics.

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11 Gross Things that can Happen When You Don't Wash Your Hands Enough

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11 Gross Things that can Happen When You Don't Wash Your Hands Enough

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Even though it isn't guaranteed to cause health problems, there are quite a few gross things that can happen when you don't wash your hands. Because, as we all know, germs are everywhere. And it often doesn't take much to pick them up throughout the day, or pass them along to others.

Thankfully, the immune system usually steps in before bacteria and viruses can do any real damage. But if you aren't washing your hands regularly, you may be unnecessarily putting yourself at risk. After all, "the number one way to prevent disease is hand washing," Dr. Elizabeth Trattner, tells Bustle. So even though it can be easy to put it off, it's much healthier to pop off to the bathroom and give your mitts a quick scrub, especially after coming in contact with dirty surfaces or if you happen to be sick.

"The best hand washing technique is to rinse hands under warm water, then lather with soap for 20 to 30 seconds, getting all areas of the hands," Brianne Bell, registered dietician and food service supervisor, tells Bustle. "Rinse under warm water and dry with a clean towel." That should help reduce the risk of all the gross things below, which may be more likely to happen if you don't wash your hands.

1. You Might Catch More Colds

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 80 percent of infectious disease is spread by touch. And really, all it takes is the simple act of grabbing a germ-riddled doorknob and then touching your nose, in order to get infected. So let this serve as motivation to whip out the soap on a more regular basis, not only for your own sake, but for everyone else's health as well.

Of course, that doesn't mean you need to become paranoid. Most of the time your body protect you from germs, especially if your immune system is strong. But even still, washing up whenever you've been around someone with a cold is always a good idea.

2. Fecal Matter Can End Up In Your Food

It's a gross truth, but fecal matter is lurking in more places than you might think - including your hands. And rather disgustingly, those particles can get into food and make you sick, according to the CDC.

It may not be something you want to imagine. But as long as you're washing your hands after using the bathroom, changing a diaper, walking your dog, or even using public transportation, you should be able to lower your risk.

3. You Could Get Or Spread Food Poisoning

There are many ways to come down with a case of food poisoning, including eating undercooked meats, or food that has gone bad. You can also get pretty darn sick by preparing meals with dirty hands. (See above information about fecal matter).

According to the CDC, a large percentage of food-borne disease outbreaks are spread by contaminated hands. But appropriate hand washing practices can reduce the risk of food-borne illness and other infections. So do yourself, and everyone else, a huge favor by washing before you handle food.

4. You're Infecting Everyone You Touch

Sure, it's polite to cover your sneeze with your hand than it is to let if fly. And yet, how often do you really wash up after doing so? It's easy to forget, or to touch a few surfaces first - and just like that the germs spread.

Again, hand washing is the best way to prevent the transfer of disease, which is why "this is one of the first things you learn in medical school or in any health profession," Dr. Trattner says.

In a pinch, using hand sanitizer can cut back on the transfer of germs, Bell says. But nothing beats a good ol' scrub when it comes to reducing the amount of bacteria and viruses on your hands.

5. You Can Get Pink Eye

Pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis, is an eye infection many people catch in elementary school, mostly because it's highly contagious and thus spreads like wildfire among kids. But adults can get it, too.

In fact, often all it takes is a quick moment of hand-to-eye contact when you have an infected person's secretions on your hand, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, before the typical symptoms of redness, itchiness, and pus in the eyes will begin.

6. Your Snacks Can Get Contaminated

Think of all the times you've plunged a dirty hand into a bag of chips, box of crackers, or bowl of popcorn. If you aren't washing your hands, it's so easy to contaminate these shared foods with germs, according to the New York State Department of Health.

This is also why you may not want to share food or utensils with someone who is sick, especially if they have the norovirus. According to the CDC, if you get the norovirus illness, you can shed billions of norovirus particles that you can't see without a microscope, and it only takes a few of these particles to make people sick.

7. You Might Pick Up Hepatitis A

Not washing your hands can also lead to hepatitis A. "This is a serious liver virus that spreads when people do not wash their hands before making food and drinks," Dr. Tania Elliott, board-certified allergist/immunologist at NYU Langone Health, tells Bustle. "It also spreads through sexual contact with people who have hepatitis A, and by eating foods contaminated with the virus."

You can, however, make it less likely to happen. As Dr. Elliott says, "Washing your hands with soap and warm water after using the bathroom, changing a diaper, or before making food and drinks can help stop the spread of hepatitis A."

8. Diarrhea May Become A Frequent Visitor

Not washing your hands regularly can increase your chances of catching an illness that leads to diarrhea. One of these might be shigellosis, a bacterial infection with symptoms that include watery diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever, according to the CDC.

There is good news, though, in that simply washing your hands - especially after coming in contact with germ-y surfaces - can prevent about 30 percent of diarrhea-related sicknesses, the CDC says.

9. You Might Catch The Epstein-Barr Virus

We talked about poop in your food. Now what about urine, or saliva? Turns out, these are carriers of diseases like typhoid, cytomegalovirus, and Epstein-Barr virus, which are spread by contaminated hands, according to the CDC.

Epstein-Barr is the virus that causes mononucleosis, AKA the "kissing disease," which can lead to fever, weakness, swollen neck glands, and fatigue that lasts for weeks. "This is spread through saliva, so kissing, sharing food or beverages, or touching something with saliva on it are all ways in which it can be transmitted," Dr. Elliott says. "Hand washing, especially after touching the face and mouth [...] can help prevent the spread."

10. It Could Contribute To Antibiotic Resistance

According to the CDC, reducing the number of infections people get by washing your hands can help prevent the overuse of antibiotics, which is the single most important factor leading to antibiotic resistance around the world.

"Antibiotics are often overused when someone has a viral infection (remember, antibiotics only fight bacterial infections, not viruses)," Dr. Elliott says. "So, the fewer viral infections (by proper hand washing and other sanitary measures), the less use of unnecessary antibiotics."

In fact, hand washing can also prevent people from getting sick with germs that are already resistant to antibiotics and that can be difficult to treat, according to the CDC. So help out everyone on the planet, and wash your those hands!

11. Acne Can Crop Up

Not washing your hands can also increase the chances of an acne breakout, all thanks to the way bacteria can transfer from your hands to your face.

"Touching, rubbing, and picking [at the] face are common causes for more acne," Dr. Yoram Harth, board-certified dermatologist and medical director of MDacne, tells Bustle. "When the hands are not washed, the bacteria on the skin of our hands spread to the face and can cause more acne."

Germs truly are lurking around every corner. And they can obviously cause and spread all sorts of diseases, from the common cold, to the norovirus, and even hepatitis A. But by getting into the habit of washing your hands regularly - especially before touching food - you may be able to enjoy a more germ-free life.
This post was originally published on 4/12/2016. It was updated on 6/7/2019.

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11 Gross Things That Can Happen When You Don't Wash Your Hands Enough

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Even though it isn't guaranteed to cause health problems, there are quite a few gross things that can happen when you don't wash your hands. Because, as we all know, germs are everywhere. And it often doesn't take much to pick them up throughout the...

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Bilogy for Kids

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Kids learn about infectious diseases including pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi as well as transmission and other types of diseases.

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Bacteria and other microbes can make us sick. But there's a lurking danger with some germs that's far more frightening than a bout of food poisoning or an infected wound. Today, drugs exist to fight most of these germs. They're called antibiotics. Before these medicines came along, common infections frequently killed people. And that's where the danger lies: What will happen if antibiotics no longer kill germs?

Already some antibiotics have lost their superpowers. Many others are beginning to lose theirs. Biologists describe this problem as resistance. Across the globe, germs are becoming resistant to antibiotic medicines. In a sense, these "superbugs" have begun to laugh at those former wonder drugs.

But resistance is no laughing matter. As germs toughen up against drugs that are supposed to slay them, treatable conditions such as TB - tuberculosis - can spread. And surgeries that rely on antibiotics could turn from life-saving to life-threatening.

The threat is huge

"Alarming levels" of drug-resistant bacteria already exist in many parts of the world. That's the conclusion of a 257-page report published in April. It was issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This United Nations agency, based in Geneva, Switzerland, recently reviewed how well these germ slayers perform in 114 countries. In some places, it found, antibiotics no longer work for half of all people being treated against common diseases. Those diseases include pneumonia and gonorrhea.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta, Ga., also has been investigating the problem . It estimates that in the United States alone, antibiotic-resistant infections now sicken some two million people each year. At least 23,000 of them die.

But even antibiotic-resistant germs that don't kill can be a problem. Their infections become harder to treat - and more expensive. Consider one estimate - $233 million - published May 20 in the journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control. That's how much researchers calculated that it costs the United States each year to deal with just one resistant superbug. That germ causes a lung disease known as pneumonia.

Drug-immune bugs that flourish in the human gut can enter the environment with every flush of the toilet. Researchers discovered how big this problem is when they analyzed wastewater from 11 sites in one French city. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria tainted 96 percent of their samples. A May 1 paper in Clinical Infectious Diseases describes the disturbing details.

Some scientists have scouted for such germs in the environment. They collected superbugs at hospitals. Then they probed the germs, identifying parts of their genes that appear to make them resistant to antibiotics. Next, the researchers looked in the outdoor environment for that same genetic fingerprint of superbugs. And they turned up that superbug DNA in 71 places - from the soil and sea water to human wastes. The researchers reported their findings May 8 in Current Biology.

Why it's happening

Drug designers have created antibiotics to kill bacteria, as well as some fungi and other germs. But sometimes, a few treated germs survive. They survive because they're stronger. Or they may have certain genetic mutations that allow them to break down the drug. They might even have evolved a way to keep the drugs from harming their operational machinery. Over time, all germs susceptible to a drug will die off. That will leave behind only superbugs - those microbes that medicines can't kill.

This is not surprising. In fact, it's quite natural. Part of evolution, it's known as survival of the fittest.

Scientists stumbled onto the first antibiotic, penicillin, around 1930. Since then, research has produced a medicine cabinet full of additional ones. It appeared that these would make many of the worst bacterial infections ever more manageable. So, during the 1970s, drug developers began focusing on noninfectious health problems, such as cancer and heart disease. As a result, in the past 30 years, no new types of antibiotics have been developed.

Right now, bacteria are outsmarting antibiotics faster than developers can make new ones. And there are no signs things will change, says Stewart Cole. He directs the Global Health Institute at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

Writing in the May 12 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, he argues that the "golden age" of antibiotic development "is a distant memory, and the likelihood of there being another seems slim." This lack of new types of germ killers, he says, has been allowing superbugs to morph and thrive.

One of the most famous of them is known as MRSA (pronounced MER-sah). The letters stand for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus . Methicillin is a widely used antibiotic. And Staph aureus is a germ that can cause boils, food poisoning, toxic-shock syndrome and more. These bacteria sicken (and sometimes kill) by releasing potent natural poisons - called toxins - into the body.

Despite its name, MRSA is resistant to far more antibiotics than just methicillin. That makes this superbug particularly nasty in hospitals and prisons. These are places where people often have open wounds or weak immune systems. Both increase a person's chance of picking up an infection.

Too much of a good thing

Drug resistance can develop at any time. But its likelihood climbs as the use of an antibiotic increases. And this is especially true when an antibiotic is overused. That's when a doctor prescribes it for infections it has no hope of curing.

For instance, doctors sometimes prescribe antibiotics to treat an infection before they learn if the disease is caused by bacteria. If viruses are responsible, then antibiotics will be useless. The reason: Antibiotic medicines do not kill viruses. Yet by giving an antibiotic to someone with a viral infection, that drug will reach good bacteria living in our bodies. And over time, some of these bacteria will become resistant to the drug.

Last year, the CDC reported that up to half of the antibiotics that U.S. doctors prescribed went to people who didn't actually need them.

Take, for example, someone who visits a doctor for a lingering cough. Viral infections cause most coughs. So a viral cough won't be helped by drugs and will tend to go away on its own. Yet 71 percent of the time, doctors will still prescribe antibiotics for patients coming in with a common cough, a May 21 study finds.

"I think there's this perception among both doctors and patients that coughs don't go away without antibiotic treatment," Jeffrey Linder told Science News for Students . Linder, who coauthored the new report, is a doctor at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass. He and Michael Barnett, also from the hospital, tracked the drugs that doctors prescribed during more than 3,000 U.S. clinic visits between 1996 and 2010. They reported their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association .

A small number of people who visit a doctor with a cough turn out to have bacterial pneumonia. These cases do require antibiotic treatment. But Linder says doctors should easily be able to recognize these few from the hordes of people coming in with a routine, viral cough.

Perilous profit

Antibiotic overuse also has become a problem on farms. In the United States, animals - not people - receive about 80 percent of all antibiotics. Sometimes the drugs are used to save an infected animal or prevent disease from spreading through a herd. More often, though, feed suppliers put small amounts of these drugs into the food that will be given to healthy animals. These antibiotics help speed the animals' growth. And this has boosted farmers' profits.

But using antibiotics just to beef up livestock is "a direct threat to human health," argues Kellogg Schwab. He's an environmental microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. Earlier, he and his coworkers detected bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics in the exhaust air blowing out of farm buildings. That suggests these superbugs can spread through the air from animals to people.

SteveOehlenschlager / iStockphoto

Germs that are immune to antibiotics also can hitch a ride into your body through ground beef or the chicken breast on your cutting board. Biologists have found that much of the fresh beef, pork and poultry sold in grocery stores contains bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

Even if those germs don't sicken us or cause other immediate harm, they can offload their resistance genes into other bacteria that normally live inside our bodies. Sometimes, like with the MRSA superbug, resistance is carried on circular pieces of DNA called plasmids. These plasmids can slip easily from one bacterial cell into another.

In this way, our gut microbes can become "a reservoir of resistance," says Sharon Peacock. She's a microbiologist at the University of Cambridge in England. Later, "when we actually get sick and need an antibiotic, we may already carry a resistance gene" that may keep that drug from working, she says.

In the United States, farmers have fought against banning antibiotics as growth promoters. They say it will reduce their profits because more animals will get sick, slowing their growth. But that's not been the experience in other countries.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, has proposed banning antibiotic use in healthy animals. But for more than 30 years, the livestock industry and Congress have fought such action. Recently, the FDA stepped up its efforts to end this practice.

In December 2013, FDA laid out a plan to phase out within three years the use of antibiotics on farms to boost livestock growth. Its stated reason: concern that farm use of these drugs has made more germs immune to the antibiotics needed to fight life-threatening infections in people. And that's a worry because the same germs that sicken animals often sicken people.

Antibiotic resistance is a complex and growing problem. Many microbiologists worry that the time when antibacterial medicines no longer work could be coming. Thankfully, doctors and many patients are becoming more aware of the problem. Researchers also are hard at work creating new tools to keep superbugs from taking over.
Next: How scientists are trying to tackle the problem
Power Words

antibiotic A germ-killing substance prescribed as a medicine (or sometimes as a feed additive to promote the growth of livestock). It does not work against viruses.

bacterium (plural bacteria) A single-celled organism forming one of the three domains of life. These dwell nearly everywhere on Earth, from the bottom of the sea to inside animals.

boils (in medicine) A skin infection that starts as a hard, red, painful lump. Eventually, it gets bigger, softens and fills with pus. A common source of these is a bacterium known as Staphylococcus aureus.

bioengineer A researcher who applies technology for the beneficial manipulation of living things. Bioengineers use the principles of biology and the techniques of engineering to design organisms or products that can mimic, replace or augment the chemical or physical processes present in existing organisms. This field includes researchers who genetically modify organisms, including microbes. It also includes researchers who design medical devices such as artificial hearts and artificial limbs.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC An agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CDC is charged with protecting public health and safety by working to control and prevent disease, injury and disabilities. It does this by investigating disease outbreaks, tracking exposures by Americans to infections and toxic chemicals, and regularly surveying diet and other habits among a representative cross-section of all Americans.

cholera A bacterial disease that infects the small intestine, causing sever diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration. It is spread by germs from feces that contaminate water or food.

DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid) A long, spiral-shaped molecule inside most living cells that carries genetic instructions. In all living things, from plants and animals to microbes, these instructions tell cells which molecules to make.

evolution A process by which species undergo changes over time, usually through genetic variation and natural selection, that leave a new type of organism better suited for its environment than the earlier type. The newer type is not necessarily more "advanced," just better adapted to the conditions in which it developed.

fungus (plural: fungi) Any of a group of unicellular or multicellular, spore-producing organisms that feed on organic matter, both living and decaying. Molds, yeast and mushrooms are all types of fungi.

gene A segment of DNA that codes, or holds instructions, for producing a protein. Offspring inherit genes from their parents. Genes influence how an organism looks and behaves.

germ Any one-celled microorganism, such as a bacterium, fungal species or virus particle. Some germs cause disease. Others can promote the health of higher-order organisms, including birds and mammals. The health effects of most germs, however, remain unknown.

gonorrhea A serious disease that can infect the genitals, rectum and throat. This sexually transmitted disease is very common, especially among people between the ages of 15 and 24. Untreated, it can cause infertility or death. "Untreated gonorrhea may also increase your chances of getting or giving HIV - the virus that causes AIDS," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

growth promoter (in livestock agriculture) A medicine, usually an antibiotic, added in small doses to the feed given to animals raised for meat. Used as a preventive medicine, it can reduce the risk that animals will become sick, which would slow their growth. And that would decrease a farmer's profits.

immune system The collection of cells and their responses that help the body fight off infection.

infection A disease that can be transmitted between organisms.

influenza (or flu) A highly contagious viral infection of the respiratory passages causing fever and severe aching. It often occurs as an epidemic.

livestock Animals raised for meat or dairy products, including cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and geese.

microbe Short formicroorganism. A living thing that is too small to see with the unaided eye, including bacteria, some fungi and many other organisms such as amoebas. Most consist of a single cell.

microbiology The study of microorganisms, principally bacteria, fungi and viruses. Scientists who study microbes and the infections they can cause or ways that they can interact with their environment are known as microbiologists.

mutation Some change that occurs to a gene in an organism's DNA. Some mutations occur naturally. Others can be triggered by outside factors, such as pollution, radiation, medicines or something in the diet. A gene with this change is referred to as a mutant.

plasmid A small circular loop of DNA that is separate from the main chromosomal DNA of bacteria.

pneumonia A lung disease in which infection by a virus or bacterium causes inflammation and tissue damage. Sometimes the lungs fill with fluid or mucus. Symptoms include fever, chills, cough and trouble breathing.

resistance (as in drug resistance) The reduction in the effectiveness of a drug to cure a disease, usually a microbial infection. (as in disease resistance) The ability of an organism to fight off disease.

superbug A popular term for a disease-causing germ that can withstand medicines.

toxic shock syndrome A rare and potentially deadly bacterial infection caused by Staphylococcus aureus. This bacterium release toxins - natural poisons - into the body of its host. Symptoms include a sudden high fever, muscle aches, vomiting, diarrhea, a rash and sometimes seizures.

toxin A poison produced by living organisms, such as germs, bees, spiders, poison ivy and snakes.

tuberculosis A bacterial disease that causes unusual growths in the lungs or other tissues. Untreated, it can kill. The infection usually spreads when a sick individual coughs (or talks, sings or sneezes), spewing germs into the air.

virus Tiny infectious particles consisting of RNA or DNA surrounded by protein. Viruses can reproduce only by injecting their genetic material into the cells of living creatures. Although scientists frequently refer to viruses as live or dead, in fact no virus is truly alive. It doesn't eat like animals do, or make its own food the way plants do. It must hijack the cellular machinery of a living cell in order to survive.

World Health Organization An agency of the United Nations, established in 1948, to promote health and to control communicable diseases. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The United Nations relies on the WHO for providing international leadership on global health matters. This organization also helps shape the research agenda for health issues and sets standards for pollutants and other things that could pose a risk to health. WHO also regularly reviews data to set policies for maintaining health and a healthy environment.

Citations

E. Landhuis. " The war on superbugs." Science News for Students. July 16, 2014.

B. Harder. " Joining the Resistance: Drug-immune microbes waft over hogs." Science News. Jan. 1, 2005.

A.L. Mascarelli. " Infectious animals." Science News for Students. April 17, 2013.

J. Raloff. " Antibiotics afield." Science News. Nov. 26, 2005.

J. Raloff. " Growth-promoting antibiotics: On the way out?" Science News. March 23, 2012.

J. Raloff. " Retail meats host drug-resistant bacteria." Science News. Oct. 20, 2001.

N. Seppa. " Danes keeping drugs out of livestock." Science News. April 8, 2003.

Original Journal Source: M. Barnett and J. Linder. Antibiotic prescribing for adults with acute bronchitis in the United States, 1996-2010. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Published May 21, 2014. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.286141.

Original Journal Source: J. Nesme et al. Large-scale metagenomic-based study of antibiotic resistance in the environment. Current Biology. Published May 8, 2014. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.036.

Original Journal Source: S. Peacock. Health care: Bring microbial sequencing to hospitals. Nature. Published May 29, 2014. doi:10.1038/509557a.

Original Journal Source: B. Spellberg, J. Bartlett and D. Gilbert. The future of antibiotics and resistance. New England Journal of Medicine. Published Jan. 24, 2013. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1215093.

Original Journal Source: S. Cole. Who will develop new antibacterial agents? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Published May 12, 2014. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0430.

Original Journal Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Antibiotic-resistant threats in the United States, 2013.

Original Report Source: World Health Organization. Antimicrobial resistance global report on surveillance, 2014.

Teachers' questions: Superbugs: A silent health emergency

Esther Landhuis is a freelance journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked on her high school newspaper and spent a decade studying biology before discovering a career that combines writing and science.

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Have antibiotics become too popular? Overusing these medicines fuels resistant germs that pose a global health threat.

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It's not like anybody believes their shopping carts are clean. Most supermarkets place a dispenser of sanitizing wipes nearby, as if to hint at the exact opposite.

But in case you were on the fence, yes, they're gross.

A study of 85 random shopping carts conducted by Dr. Charles P. Gerba found that 50 percent carried E. coli, while 72 percent contained coliform bacteria. "The exceptionally high level of coliform bacteria suggests that fecal material may be involved in cart contamination," the report further stated.

In other words, your cart most likely harbors bathroom germs.

According to Donna Duberg, an assistant professor of clinical laboratory science at Saint Louis University, these pathogens find their way into our carriages through a number of avenues. "Certainly children can be a source of the germs," she explains, as toddlers often ride in carts when accompanying their parents, but Duberg doesn't downplay the role of the consumers either. "We may bring in germs with our hands," she adds.

Depending on our immune systems, many of these pathogens have the potential to make us sick, too. "Especially the fecal coliforms," notes Elizabeth Scott, an assistant professor of biology at Simmons University in Boston. "The concern is that we can pick up pathogens from the cart that can be transmitted directly to our mouths or to other foodstuffs."

Is this really that big of a concern, though? Germs are everywhere, from to They're always going to be present, so how bad could a shopping cart be?

Duberg cites Gerba's findings for the answer: "[There are] 138,00 total bacteria per square inch of a shopping cart - an amount which exceeds the number of bacteria in the average public restroom," she says. "These are fecal bacteria capable of causing illness."

Unfortunately, fecal germs aren't the only bacteria to be wary of. "There are bacteria capable of causing food-borne illnesses such as Salmonella, Shigella, Listeria, and, of course, E. coli O157H7 that may be hiding in the food we are purchasing, especially the fruits and vegetables and raw meats," says Duberg. "You can tell by doing a quick scan of food recalls," such as these online safety alerts posted by the FDA, she adds.

Taking both fecal and food-borne pathogens into account, it's no wonder there are disinfecting wipes in almost every supermarket. But as it turns out, they may not be as effective as we think.

"In theory, it's a good idea, but rather hard to achieve," explains Scott. "Where do you apply the disinfectant? How effective is the disinfectant? It's much better to practice careful hand hygiene and use alcohol hand sanitizer and hand washing."

Duberg adds that most of the wipes are utilizing benzalkonium chloride - and not bleach or alcohol - a disinfecting agent. This means that in order to sanitize, shoppers should be thoroughly wetting the surface areas (handles, grates, coffee cup holders) with the wipes. But if a shopper wanted to disinfect, Duberg says most brands of benzalkonium chloride recommend you leave the surfaces wet for up to four minutes.

The good news, she adds, is that if you thoroughly wet the surfaces with a benzalkonium chloride wipe, "you're going to get way over 99 percent" of the germs.

Or, if you'd rather skip that step, you can just grab a hand-held basket instead. Baskets might contain the same pathogenic bacteria as a cart, but as Scott says, "If it's baskets vs. carts, at least baskets aren't used to carry kids."

But just to be safe, you should probably make time to wipe down the basket, too.

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Maybe a bit grosser than you initially thought.

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How Do Cancer Cells Behave Differently from Healthy Ones?

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How Do Cancer Cells Behave Differently from Healthy Ones?

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How do cancer cells behave differently from healthy ones? - George Zaidan

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Cleaning Schools to Help Stop the Spread of Flu

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Cleaning Schools to Help Stop the Spread of Flu

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The diversity of viral infections in our world is immense, but most biologists don’t classify them as a form of life.

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Genetic Literacy Project

Next time you bite into a slice of watermelon or a cob of corn, consider this: These familiar fruits and veggies didn't always look and taste this way.

Genetically modified foods, or GMOs, inspire strong reactions nowadays, but humans have been tweaking the genetics of our favorite produce for millennia.

While GMOs may involve splicing genes from other organisms (such as bacteria) to give plants desired traits - like resistance to pests, selective breeding is a slower process whereby farmers select and grow crops with those traits over time.

From bananas to eggplant, here are some of the foods that looked totally different before humans first started growing them for food.

Wild banana

The first bananas may have been cultivated at least 7,000 years ago - and possibly as early as 10,000 years ago - in what is now Papua New Guinea. They were also grown in Southeast Asia. Modern bananas came from two wild varieties, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, which had large, hard seeds, like the ones in this photo.

Modern banana

The hybrid produced the delicious modern banana, with its handy, graspable shape and peelable covering. Compared to its ancestor, the fruit has much smaller seeds, tastes better, and is packed with nutrients.

Modern eggplant

But selective breeding has gotten rid of the spines and given us the larger, familiar, oblong purple vegetable you find in most grocery stores.

Wild carrot

The earliest known carrots were grown in the 10th century in Persia and Asia Minor. These were thought to originally be purple or white with a thin, forked root - like those shown here - but they lost their purple pigment and became a yellow color.

Modern carrot

Shutterstock

Farmers domesticated these thin, white roots, which had a strong flavor and annual biennial flower, into these large, tasty orange roots that are an annual winter crop.

Modern corn

Flickr/Rosana Prada

Today, corn is 1,000 times larger than it was 9,000 years ago and much easier to peel and grow. Also, 6.6% of it is made up of sugar, compared with just 1.9% in natural corn, according to Kennedy. About half of these changes occurred since the 15th century, when European settlers started cultivating the crop.

Wild peach

Peaches used to be small, cherry-like fruits with little flesh. They were first domesticated around 4,000 BC by the ancient Chinese and tasted earthy and slightly salty, "like a lentil," according to Kennedy.

Modern peach

But after thousands of years of farmers selectively breeding them, peaches are now 64 times larger, 27% juicier, and 4% sweeter.

So next time someone tells you we shouldn't be eating food that's been genetically modified, you can tell them we already are.

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Here's what your food would look like if it weren't genetically modified over millennia

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Bet you've never seen fruits and veggies that look like these before.

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Is Genetically Modified Food Safe to Eat?

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Is Genetically Modified Food Safe to Eat?

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Hugh Grant These crops [and these] technologies have been more widely tested than any other food product that came before them in history. They are very widely tested, not just here in the U.S., but in Japan [and] in Europe. ... I think the debate is moving away from food safety [toward] environmental impact.

From the food safety point of view, probably the biggest concern would be allergenicity?

... Monsanto's first product, Roundup Ready Soybeans, has been extensively tested for allergens and food allergens, and has passed all the food allergen tests here in the U.S., in Japan, and in Europe four years ago. Despite a lot of the discussion at the moment, the soybean products have been in public commerce for almost five years.

Jane Rissler, Ph.D.
... You've heard industry say, for example, that there is no evidence that these foods are harmful. After all, people in the United States have been eating them for several years now. Do you believe that statement? Isn't it a bit disingenuous? How would we know if someone had gotten ill from genetically engineered food if it's not labeled? How could there be evidence if they haven't allowed the food to be labeled? They're now saying, "Well, there's no evidence of harm." But thats because they haven't allowed any way to track any harm.

Norman Borlaug, Ph.D. [Some critics] say, "If [BT corn, for example, is] toxic to that insect, it must be toxic to us." But that's an over-simplification. Dr. Bruce Ames at the University of California, for the last 20 years, has been analyzing all kinds of foods, thousands of different samples. He finds that in the foods that we've been eating from the beginning of agriculture, there are many toxic substances, but they're present in very small quantity.
A good example to illustrate is the case of the common mushroom that most of us like to have with our steak or gravy. There are two [toxins] present in minute quantity. But if you isolate those, like Dr. Ames has, increase the dosage and incorporate it in the feed of rats, it's a beautiful carcinogen. Why don't we get [cancer from eating these mushrooms]? Simple reason is that we don't eat kilos each day of mushrooms. So dosage really makes the toxin or carcinogen. There's no zero risk in the biological world. ...

Jeremy Rifkin
Is food safety an issue here, as you see it?
[Yes], because what we're dealing with is the introduction of new genetic foods that have genes that code for proteins that we've never consumed. So when you place a Chinese hamster gene into your food crop and we consume it in raw or processed food, we just don't know what the reaction's likely to be. The fact is, we know that with traditional foods, 8 percent of children, 2 percent of adults have allergenic reaction to traditional foods. We spent a long part of our history testing various things we could eat, and a lot of people have died as part of this grand experiment to see what we could consume. ...

Many of [the genetically modified foods] will be safe, I'm sure. Will most of them be safe? Nobody knows. The fact is, even the Food and Drug Administration, in internal documents by their own scientists that were forced out in a lawsuit, suggested that these foods could pose some potentially serious allergenic and toxic reactions among consumers.

But everyone's aware of allergenicity as an issue, aren't they? This is not a secret. ...

The American public is not aware that there might be potential allergenic and toxic reactions. ... [With regular food], at least people know which foods they have an allergy to. People know if they have an allergenic reaction to peanuts, for example. Here, you don't know, because the foods aren't labeled. Because these genes that they're placing in the foods have never been tested in the human diet, it's one big health roulette gamble. ...

Jim Maryanski, Ph.D.
Would you say there's more risk of allergenicity with this technology?
We actually think the risk is very low, based on our discussions with scientists who are expert in the field of food allergy. The reason is that there are ways to scientifically assess the possible allergenicity of a protein that's derived from a source, where we know that individuals are allergic to that food. We've actually had an example where a soybean was developed with a protein from a Brazil nut. There are individuals who are allergic to tree nuts, including Brazil nuts. The scientific procedures did demonstrate that that protein was an allergen, and that product was discontinued.

In terms of proteins that would come from sources that are not known to be allergens--bacteria, for example--the feeling from the scientists was that while there's always some chance that a protein could be an allergen, it wasn't very likely that most proteins would be allergens, particularly if they did not exhibit characteristics that are typical of food allergens. Food allergens, for example, tend to resist digestion. The proteins that have been introduced into foods, to this point in time, have all been shown to be readily digestible and not similar to any known toxins or allergens. ...

[Talk about the taco shells that contained genetically modified corn that hadn't been approved for human consumption. They wound up at Taco Bell]. How could something like this happen, given our regulatory structure?

This was a case of a product that was not approved for use in food. It was approved by EPA for use in animal feed. The company that developed this particular plant believed that they had a management program that would ensure that the growers of this corn would channel that product into feed use and keep it out of the food supply. In fact, the company did explain that plan to FDA. Obviously, it didn't work. We did begin to receive reports that there had been some methods of detecting the Cry9C, the name of this protein, in taco shells. We initiated a full investigation into the matter. ... As a result of that investigation, we did determine through analytical methodology that in fact the Cry9C protein was present in the taco shells that had been provided by the company Kraft.

How widespread was this?

I don't think we know that exactly. ... Nevertheless, Kraft recalled the products. ...

[Was a] potential allergen released into the food supply?

We have no information to suggest that there is a health problem with this product. At the same time, it had not completed the review process. There were questions about whether this particular protein might have some of the characteristics that are similar to food allergens.

Larry Bohlen
I would say that the StarLink contamination incident is a serious setback for the biotech industry. ... Companies like Aventis and Monsanto have been aggresively and recklessly marketing their products, climbing over each other to get to the patent office so they can maximize their profits. That means they've ignored critical safety and environmental tests that should have been run. ...
One thing that nobody knows is whether people have been made sick by eating the StarLink corn. About 20 health reports came in to Friends of the Earth, and the FDA reports about 15 of people who are concerned that an illness they had immediately after consuming a corn product was related to eating StarLink corn. The illnesses range from swollen tongue, stomachache, nausea, to a couple of cases of anaphylactic shock. ... Until it is shown that those health incidents were not related to StarLink, it is just too risky to have genetically engineered products on the market.

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PBS - harvest of fear: viewpoints: is genetically modified food safe to eat?

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Hugh Grant These crops [and these] technologies have been more widely tested than any other food product that came before them in history. They are very widely tested, not just here in the U.S., but in Japan [and] in Europe. ...

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Newsela | Issue Overview: GMOs and engineered food

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As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students. Tween Tribune has been a valued educational brand of Smithsonian magazine, and we appreciate your continued support.

Though the Girl Scouts of the USA initially declared itself a space for all girls, the reality was different for girls of color

Erin Blakemore

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As of Monday, October 24, content that was on TweenTribune.com will now be available here on our new educational resources page and on our learning pages. While much of the content that you enjoyed will still exist, educators will unfortunately no longer be able to assign content to students.

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Genetically Modified Salmon: Food or 'Frankenfish'?

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Genetically Modified Salmon: Food or 'Frankenfish'?

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A company called AquaBounty Technologies has created a new type of salmon that grows twice as fast as regular salmon. Now it wants permission to sell the salmon as food.

But many people, including some scientists, say the company should not be allowed to farm or sell the salmon until we know more about the possible effects it could have on the environment and on human health.

The controversial fish, called the AquAdvantage salmon, has been genetically modified. That means some of its DNA has been artificially altered. (DNA is the information stored in the cells of an organism that determines the characteristics of that organism.)

The salmon is also "transgenic," which means genetic material from a different type of organism has been artificially added to the salmon's DNA.

About 25 years ago, a group of Canadian scientists wanted to create a strain of salmon that could survive in fish farms in the cold water off New Brunswick. They took genetic material from Chinook salmon and from an eel-like fish called the ocean pout and injected it into the eggs of an Atlantic salmon.

The result was a fast-growing fish that looks and tastes like a regular farmed Atlantic salmon. Some people call it a "super salmon," while others call it "Frankenfish," after the fictional monster created by Dr. Frankenstein.

In the early 1990s, the scientists teamed up with a U.S. company that wanted to produce the eggs commercially and sell them to fish farmers. But they faced a major obstacle: no government had ever approved a genetically modified (GM) animal as food.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates food in the United States, studied the salmon for several years. In 2010, they decided that the salmon was safe to eat and would have "no significant impact" on the environment - as long as it was raised in special facilities and could not accidentally be released into rivers or oceans.

But so many people objected that the FDA decided to reconsider its decision. They asked for comments from the public and received more than 35,000 responses. The FDA is still considering these comments and has not yet announced whether it will allow the salmon to be sold as food for humans.

In November 2013, the Canadian government gave AquaBounty Technologies permission to produce its transgenic salmon eggs at a hatchery in Prince Edward Island.

The fish live in special tanks inside the hatchery, and there are several filters and barriers designed to make sure transgenic salmon do not enter the natural environment. These fish are used to produce eggs that are then sent to a fish farm in Panama, in Central America, where they will grow to full size.

For now, the full-grown fish are buried in a pit near the fish farm because they cannot be sold for food.

Ron Stotish is the CEO (head) of AquaBounty Technologies. His company has conducted many experiments to show that the fish are not harmful to humans. They have spent a lot of money trying to get the salmon approved as human food.

He says the transgenic salmon look and taste just like regular Atlantic salmon, but because they grow so fast, they are ready to eat in 18 months instead of 36 months. And since the salmon are farmed, the supply is predictable and won't run out.

Stotish argues that raising transgenic salmon for food would actually be good for the environment because it would prevent the destruction of natural resources. He claims it might even end world hunger.

But many people disagree with Stotish and his plans to sell the salmon as food. They say there is not enough information available yet to know whether transgenic fish could be harmful to humans or to the environment.

One group in Prince Edward Island, called the Coalition for a GE-Free PEI, has organized public meetings and demonstrations against the hatchery.

Another group, called Ecojustice, has asked the Federal Court to review the government's decision to let AquaBounty produce GM eggs in PEI. They say the government did not have all the necessary information - like whether GM salmon could be harmful to the natural ecosystem and put wild salmon at risk if it escaped into the environment - before making the decision.

Ecojustice also says the government should have allowed members of the public to express their opinions about the hatchery. They are still waiting to find out if the court will review the decision.

Meanwhile, Canadians may already be eating GM food without realizing it. Genetically modified versions of tomatoes, corn, soya, canola, squash, milk products and other foods are grown and sold in North America.

Many of these are used as ingredients in other food products. While some countries require manufacturers to say on the label whether a product contains genetically modified ingredients, Canada does not.
Related sites
Overview of genetically modified foods.

Explanation of the genetic engineering process.

Just Label It (an organization in favour of labelling GM foods).

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly

Writing/Discussion Prompt
The company, AquaBounty Technologies, wants permission to sell this new type of salmon as food. What is food? Use your own understanding and experiences to come up with a definition. Using your definition, does this new type of salmon qualify as food?

Reading Prompt: Demonstrating Understanding
These new fish are very controversial and there are many opinions that surround them. In this article, there is positive and negative information about these new fish. Summarize the two sides using a t-chart.

Demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex texts by summarizing and explaining important ideas and citing relevant supporting details (OME, Reading: 1.4)

Intermediate
Demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex texts by summarizing important ideas and citing a variety of details that support the main idea (OME, Reading: 1.4)

Language Feature: Preposition
The article explains that the new type of fish are "'transgenic', which means genetic material from a different type of organism has been artificially added to the salmon's DNA."

Now that you know what 'genic' means, what do you think the preposition 'trans' means?

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Genetically Modified Salmon: Food or 'Frankenfish'?

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Is this new super-sized salmon real food? (kid-friendly news)

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GMO Crops Don't Harm Human Health, Report Says

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Genetically engineered crops pose no additional risks to humans and the environment compared to conventional crops, according to a report.

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What’s Really Warming the World? Climate deniers blame natural factors; NASA data proves otherwise

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Climate change describes a change in the average conditions in a region over a long period of time.

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Brain Pop video

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This page will help you understand the science behind climate change, the impacts of a changing climate, and how you can help slow climate change and prepare for it. We've also created a list of resources and activities for educators and students of all ages.

The Science

Science paints a clear picture: Climate change is happening; it is caused mostly by humans; and it creates many serious and damaging effects. The primary cause of climate change is human activities - like driving cars, creating electricity, and cutting down forests - not natural changes in the climate. These human activities release gases into the atmosphere called greenhouse gases, which slowly warm the planet, creating climate change.

The climate is very complex, and there are still some things we don't know about it. But through centuries of studies and experiments, we've been able to create a strong understanding of how the system works, and how humans are changing it.

The Greenhouse Effect

Imagine a greenhouse made of glass used to grow plants, like flowers and vegetables. The greenhouse keeps the plants inside warm even when it's cold outside because it traps heat from the sun. The earth's atmosphere acts like a greenhouse: When light from the sun passes through the atmosphere, some of it is absorbed by the Earth's surface to heat it, but some heat is also trapped in our atmosphere by certain gases. These heat-trapping gases are called greenhouse gases, and they act like a blanket, keeping the earth warm. This greenhouse effect is a natural process that makes the planet comfortable to live.

But human activities are increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. One type of greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, has reached a level in our atmosphere that the Earth hasn't seen for more than 400,000 years! Plants, soils, and the ocean can absorb carbon dioxide, but they can't keep up with all the extra greenhouse gases that we have been releasing. And some greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for a long time, from hundreds to even thousands of years. All these gases are making things hotter than natural, so we need to stop producing them to avoid climate change.

Weather vs. Climate

Weather refers to the state of the atmosphere in a short period of time, like minutes or days. It includes lots of things we are familiar with, like temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind speeds. The weather changes every day, but the climate is much more consistent because it measures the patterns of weather over long periods of time (at least several decades). Let's say you were going to visit Florida for a few days in June. You would expect it to be hot and humid, because that's what the climate of Florida is usually like in June. It might turn out to be hot during your trip, or it could rain or be cloudy. All of those are examples of possible weather during those days.

The Greenhouse Effect Explained

Where do greenhouse gases come from?

Up until about 150 years ago, humans did not produce many greenhouse gases. That changed as the human population grew, we cut down forests to make way for cities and farms, and important inventions and technology, like in-home electricity and cars, transformed the way we live.

These inventions and technologies need energy. Some types of energy called fossil fuels - like coal, oil, and natural gas - have become important sources of that energy. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We call the release of these gases emissions.

Today in the United States, electricity and transportation (cars, trucks, and planes) are responsible for almost 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The rest comes from agriculture, industry - such as factories that make products we use - and from energy we use in our homes and businesses.
Learn more about U.S. greenhouse gas emissions here.
Greenhouse Gases

The most common types of greenhouse gases are:

Carbon Dioxide (CO ₂): Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas created by human activities. It makes up 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Most carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere when fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) are burned for electricity and transportation, and because of other processes like making cement. Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored when it is absorbed by plants, soils, animals, and the ocean as part of the carbon cycle.
Learn more about how energy emissions are controlled in the United States.

Methane (CH ₄): Methane is the next most common greenhouse gas emitted by human activities. It makes up 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Most methane emissions come from raising livestock (like cows), but methane is also released when coal, natural gas, and oil are produced and transported, and when organic waste (like food) decays in landfills. Methane is a stronger gas than carbon dioxide, meaning it creates more warming, but it stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time.
Learn more about how industrial greenhouse gases like methane are controlled in the United States.

Nitrous Oxide (N ₂ O): Most nitrous oxide is emitted by agricultural activities, like applying fertilizer, but it also comes from industrial activities, burning fossil fuels, and other sources. It makes up 6 percent of U.S. greenhouse emissions. Nitrous oxide is even more powerful than methane and carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6): Try saying these gases three times fast! They're called "fluorinated gases" for short. These gases combined make up only 3 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. That may sound small, but they are very important to solving climate change because they stay in the atmosphere for a very long time (sometimes for thousands of years!) and are much more powerful warmers than all other gases. These gases are made by humans and are used to cool our refrigerators, freezers, buildings and cars.

U.S. Greenhouse Gases by Gas Type and Sector, 2021

Impacts of a Changing Climate

Because of increases in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures are rising. Each of the past four decades has been warmer than the previous one. 2016 and 2020 were the warmest years on record, and the six warmest years have all been since 2010.
Learn more about the relationship between extreme weather and climate change.
The following charts show how emissions and temperatures have gone up since 1900, and how they could continue to change in the future. If we continue to emit more and more greenhouse gases, the temperature of the Earth will rise a lot - maybe as much as 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. Even if we reduce our emissions right now, the temperature of the Earth will still rise slightly, but we might be able to keep the rise below 2 degrees Celsius (or about 4.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Two degrees might not sound like much, but scientists agree that even that small amount of warming can have large impacts on humans and the environment.

Past and Projected Changes in Carbon Emissions and Temperature

Rising global temperatures affect many things, like extreme weather, human health, food supply, and ecosystems. These impacts are already being felt today, and groups like the poor, elderly, and others are especially vulnerable.
Impacts of climate change include:

Heat waves. Heat waves are long periods of time with temperatures that are hotter than normal. As the Earth warms, more areas will be at risk for hotter and more common extreme heat waves. Learn more about the link between climate change and extreme heat.

Heavy precipitation and storms. Heavy precipitation - like rain or snow - is becoming more common in many locations, which can lead to flooding and other dangerous weather. As seas warm, coastal storms like hurricanes are also becoming more frequent and damaging. Learn more about the link between climate change and heavy precipitation and hurricanes.

Sea level rise. Sea levels have risen about 8 inches since 1880 because glaciers and ice sheets are melting and seas are warming. Scientists predict that, with 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, sea levels could rise by as much as 1.8 feet this century, which would harm communities living on islands and near coasts. These rises could be even higher if glaciers in Greenland or Antarctica melt very quickly.

Threats to habitats and animals. Warming temperatures, rising seas, melting ice, and other impacts of climate change can threaten the habitat of many plants and animals. Some species are moving to new habitats, but others may struggle to adapt and become endangered or extinct.

Ocean acidification. Extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, making them more acidic. This can make it difficult for corals and organisms that form shells to survive, which can create problems in the food chain for other sea animals.

Wildfires. These are fires that burn large amounts of forests and brush. When they are not controlled, wildfires can destroy homes and be deadly. The number of large wildfires and the length of the season when they're most likely and threatening have been increasing in recent years. Find out how climate change will worsen wildfire conditions.

Drought. A drought is a period with little rain and not enough water. Global warming will increase the risk of drought in some places and make it harder to grow food. Learn about the links between climate change and drought.

How can you help?

Even though climate change sounds scary, we still have time to avoid some of the worst impacts. Everyone can play a part, including government, businesses, and you.

There are two main things we need to do:

The first is to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change. By choosing cleaner ways to power our homes, offices, and cars, and being more efficient and less wasteful, we can produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

There are lot of things you can do to help, like turning off the lights when you leave a room to reduce the electricity you use, walking or biking where you can, or planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide. If you do any of these things, make sure you communicate with other people (like your family, teachers, and friends) about why you're doing them! Communication can inspire more people to change their habits and help save the climate.

Look for more ideas on what we can do together and individually.

The second is to prepare for life in a changing climate. Even if we could stop creating greenhouse gases tomorrow, the climate would still change some because of our past emissions. So we need to make sure our buildings, roads, businesses, and communities are ready for the climate changes that we can't avoid. This includes things like helping cities on the coast prepare for floods, preventing wildfires in our forests, and more.

Learn how communities and companies are preparing.

The power of YOUth

Around the world, young people are learning about climate change and taking action. In fact, young people are some of the most important voices in the climate movement because you can inspire powerful people to create a better future for you.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a politician to make a difference in the fight against climate change. Whatever your talents are, there's a role for you to play. Some young people, like Greta Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate, and others, are leading the Fridays for Future movement to tell their governments to create strong policies to fight climate change. Other students are inventing new technologies to cut emissions and reduce waste. And others are using their creativity to bring awareness to climate change by writing music and creating art.

You can also look for ways to get involved in your community - maybe you can help your school set up a composting program to keep food waste out of the landfill. Maybe your synagogue or mosque needs help switching to energy efficient lights. Maybe you can write a letter to your local government to encourage your community to prepare for extreme weather or wildfires. Everyone can do something to fight climate change.

Check out our Educator Resources page for activities you can do to learn more about how climate change works and how you can be a part of the solution.
C2ES thanks the Alcoa Foundation for its support, which allowed us to develop our Climate Classroom content. As a fully independent organization, C2ES is solely responsible for its positions, programs, and publications.

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This page will help you understand the science behind climate change, the impacts of a changing climate, and how you can help slow climate change and prepare for it. We've also created a list of resources and activities for educators and students of all ages.

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Climate Change 101 with Bill Nye | National Geographic

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6 Easy Ways to Fight Climate Change Every Day

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For those seeking to deny the realities of climate change, a popular counterpoint is simply: "The climate has changed before." A straightforward argument and difficult to refute. Thankfully, the ever amusing xkcd comic has just released a new visualization showing just how misleading this statement can be.

For the uninitiated, xkcd is the brainchild of Randall Munroe, a cartoonist, physicist and former NASA roboticist. The darling of scientists and nerds everywhere, Munroe has knack for humorously and insightfully illustrating complex scientific topics. From fun themes like time travel to foundational scientific concepts like DNA, Munroe has dabbled across disciplines.

For Monday's comic, xkcd tackled climate change. Looking back as far as the last glaciation-when Boston was buried under a mile of ice and glaciers stretched towards Manhattan-Munroe traces changes in the Earth's climate up through modern times. Along the way, he tracks how the climate responds to melting ice sheets, changes in the Earth's orbit and changing ocean circulations, all relative to the average temperature of the late 20th century.

Munroe aptly shows what the statement, "the climate has changed before," actually means. As you continue to scroll down and down and down, it becomes obvious that past climatic changes progress slowly and incrementally. The sudden final veer to the right at the bottom of the graphic, which represents human-caused climate change, is a stunning contrast to the otherwise minute changes.

With two climate items of note headlining the news this week, the new comic could not have been timed any better.

On Monday, NASA announced that August 2016 was the warmest August ever recorded in 136 years of recordkeeping. August 2016 actually wound up tied with July 2016 as the warmest month ever recorded, despite the fact that the seasonal temperature cycle typically peaks in July.

On the same day, Brazil announced that it had ratified the Paris climate agreement, lending a dash of optimism to the foreboding data released by NASA. Home to the largest tropical rainforest on Earth, Brazil has the third-largest emissions of any country to sign the agreement, behind only the U.S. and China. In order for the climate agreement to enter into force, 55 countries accounting for 55 percent of global emissions must sign and ratify, or otherwise approve, the agreement. Not including Brazil, 27 countries representing just over 39 percent of global emissions have signed and ratified the agreement, according to the World Resources Institute. The announcement that Brazil has now ratified the agreement is significant.

With these things in mind, take a scroll through time and check out Munroe's comic:

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New xkcd Comic Masterfully Shows How Climate Has Changed Through Time

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Scroll through 20,000 years of humorously illustrated climate data

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In parts of the Arctic, entire forests are creeping northward. Luckily, ecologist Serge Payette is hot on their trail. Like the two other scientists we will meet here, Payette has spent decades trying to understand the often surprising ways plants influence their environment.

Together, these three experts are showing how plants don't just colonize new surroundings, but also can warm and clean them. Some plants can even rid an area of any competing plants, using chemicals that continue to marvel scientists. As work by these scientists shows, plants do many things to interact with their environment - and ours.
Move on up
Across the Arctic, temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else in the world. As that happens, the tree line that marks where forests stop and the treeless tundra starts has been shifting northward. Payette is an Arctic plant ecologist who works at Université Laval in Québec, Canada. And he's been studying how trees respond to this climate change in northern Canada.

Trees growing along the tree line must protect themselves from the cold wind. His research has shown that to do this, plants tend to grow horizontal limbs low to the ground. The energy it takes for trees to grow this way means they don't have enough left over to make seeds.

But as Earth's climate has been warming, trees no longer have to just grow horizontally. Many can instead grow up, toward the sky. This takes less energy. And with all that leftover energy, these trees have started producing more seeds. Payette has seen this happening especially in places where white spruce grow, such as northern Québec and Labrador.

"White spruce, which is a North American tree, is quite able to produce a lot of seeds, which can move long distances in the wind," explains Payette. When windblown seeds end up on the tundra beyond the tree line, they eventually can sprout new trees. This explains how a forest can move.

Université Laval ecologist Serge Payette studies how northern forests respond to rising temperatures - including by creating some warming of their own. Credit: Josée Pelletier

Of course, the process would work only if the tundra was warm enough. But in recent years, the whole planet has been warming - including the tundra.

Seeds also drop to the ground in the sparse forests already growing below the tree line. But no matter whether trees sprout in new locations below or above the tree line, they trigger two important things that can warm snowy surroundings even more.

First, the new trees will shield some snow, keeping the sun's rays from reflecting off of the white surface. Instead, the trees' dark green needles absorb the sun's heat. This warms them and the surrounding air. The extra warmth encourages even more trees to produce seeds. That further boosts a forest's ability to expand.

Second, more trees will trap more snow, preventing much of it from blowing away. While snow is cold, it also acts an insulator. Like a blanket, snow can trap heat in the soil below. Warming the soil also encourages tree growth.

In northern Québec and Labrador, temperatures have risen 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-1990s. That rise has helped more trees grow past the tree line. And the more trees that grow, the warmer that region has become.

"The cold landscape that we are accustomed to in northern Canada will be a thing of the past," Payette predicts.

The speed at which trees are moving north is "not well-settled," he notes. But Payette says they are moving faster in North America than anywhere else. That's because trees that grow in other parts of the far northern hemisphere, such as birch in Scandinavia, are not as quick to produce seeds as are North America's white spruce.

Of course, warmer temperatures are bringing other changes to the far North too. Payette worries about impacts on the people and wildlife that depend on frozen conditions for food and shelter.

Right now, Payette also can't think of a job he'd rather do. "I'm very lucky," he says. "I'm doing something I love."
Indoors with the outdoors
Environmental scientist Bill Wolverton loves his work too. In fact, he surrounds himself with it day and night. Wolverton's Picayune, Miss., home - including his home office - is chock-full of plants.

His houseplants include rubber plants, snake plants, yucca plants, golden pothos and peace lilies. These common plants do some uncommon good: They cleanse the air of harmful chemicals. It's a benefit Wolverton has spent most of his career studying.

He got his start in the 1980s, working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA had worried that astronauts might spend months living in stuffy spacecraft. So it asked Wolverton to figure out if plants could make the air healthier for astronauts (and the rest of us) to breathe.

Retired NASA environmental scientist Bill Wolverton is never far from his work - the houseplants that fill his sunny home office. Wolverton is an expert in how plants can clean indoor air of sometimes dangerous contaminants. Credit: Wolverton Environmental Services

Scientists had long known plants can clean the air. Wolverton went a step further. He tested common houseplants to see which do it best. He also investigated how plants do it.

Wolverton focused on three common air pollutants: formaldehyde, benzene and trichloroethylene. Carpets, furniture and computers are among the many household products that can emit these chemicals. Their levels can be two to five times higher indoors than outdoors. And that can be concerning because people spend as much as 90 percent of their time indoors.

These pollutants can cause breathing problems, headaches and fatigue. Research suggests that some of these chemicals might even cause cancer. Luckily, bringing a touch of the outdoors indoors can help.

Houseplant leaves absorb certain chemicals, including the common contaminants Wolverton chose to study. What's more, the leaves broke these pollutants down into harmless compounds. Plants with the biggest leaves proved best at this type of cleaning.

But plants also remove pollutants from the air as they transpire water - that is, exhale water from their leaves, he found. To do this, plants must first haul water up from their roots. In the process, air gets pulled down to the roots and soil. Any pollutants in the air will get sucked down there too. Once in the soil, these pollutants can be broken down into harmless substances by microbes.

Leaves that moved water most effectively cleaned air the best, Wolverton found - "such as the palms, golden pothos, rubber plants and the peace lily." For a standard-sized bedroom, he recommends growing at least two such plants, each about 30 to 60 centimeters (12 to 24 inches) high.

Though Wolverton is retired from NASA, he now runs a company that relies on the natural ability of plants to treat indoor air. He is also working on ways to make the process more efficient. This might include adding fans and replacing potting soil with special substances that boost plant growth.
Competitive environment
While some plants can break down harmful chemicals, others make them. These plants produce poisons to keep other plant species from invading their territory. This phenomenon is called allelopathy (ah LEE loh path ee).

"Allelopathy is basically chemical warfare for plants," explains Joseph Jez. The plant biologist works at Washington University in St. Louis.

Think of plants as chemical factories, he says. Some plants make chemicals to help themselves. The sweet scent of a rose? The mix of chemicals responsible for that aroma aids in reproduction. Other plants make chemicals to poison other plants. Walnut, pecan and hickory trees, for instance, all make a compound called juglone. Juglone can trigger other plant species to wilt and die. In fact, people sometimes use juglone as a natural weed killer.

Washington University plant biologist Joseph Jez turns the chemicals plants make into crystals. That allows Jez to better understand their three-dimensional structure. Credit: Washington University

Jez studies the proteins that control the amount of certain chemicals that plants make. In particular, he studies the shape of those proteins. It turns out that a protein's shape can affect whether a plant makes a lot of some protective chemical, a little, or none at all.

To view a protein's shape, Jez has to turn the material into a crystal. He then uses X-rays to probe the arrangement of its atoms. This creates a picture of the protein's structure in three dimensions.

Better understanding the shape of these proteins should offer clues to how they control chemicals.

"I try to understand nature's machinery and how it makes proteins," Jez says. "We're still at the very early stages, but if we can figure that out, we might be able to control it." Some researchers are studying how to build useful proteins in the test tube. Others are trying to understand how to help plants boost their production of these proteins.

For example, certain crops, such as sorghum and rice, naturally produce chemicals to fight off invading species. To a farmer, those potential invaders are weeds. Not all sorghum and rice plants can do this, however.

Understanding how certain varieties of important crops protect themselves by staging chemical warfare against invading species can help plant breeders. They can use what they learn to create new crop plants that more effectively fight weeds with little help from weed-killing chemical sprays.

Of course, plants also make chemicals for gentler purposes, such as attracting pollinators.

When temperatures rise, white spruce dedicate more energy to producing seeds, like these shown here. The shape of spruce seeds allows them to be carried long distances by the wind. That movement helps the trees colonize the tundra and push the tree line farther north. Credit: Steve Hurst at USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

Pollinators, such as bees, carry powdery grains from one flower to another. When pollinators land on a flower, they drop some of those grains, called pollen. Pollen fertilizes the plant so that it can reproduce.

The lemon tree provides a good example of a plant that makes a chemical to attract pollinators. The limonene it makes has a lemony scent that pollinators - and people - like.

Limonene represents a gentler form of chemical warfare, says Jez. That's because the lemon tree is not trying to kill nearby plants. The tree instead is trying to ensure that it attracts more than its fair share of pollinators.

"It's about outcompeting the others," he explains.

The ability of plants to make chemicals fascinates Jez. However, what really thrills him is successfully turning some plant protein into a crystal. When he succeeds (and often it isn't easy), he can become the first person to ever witness the protein's structure - its skeleton.

Many more discoveries await Jez, as well as Payette, Wolverton and others. And they keep probing because they have a deep curiosity about how plants alter their environment. What they learn might ultimately help people speed those changes - or slow them down.

allelopathy A plant's production of chemicals that impair the growth and survival of other plant species.

climate change Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

ecologist A biologist who studies the relationships among living things and their environment.

transpiration A process in which plants carry moisture from their roots to their leaves, where it is then lost to the atmosphere as vapor.

microbe A microscopic organism.

tundra A large, treeless region in the far northern hemisphere where the subsoil is permanently frozen.

Word Find
(click here to enlarge puzzle for printing) This is one in a series on careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics made possible by support from the Northrop Grumman Foundation.

Sharon Oosthoek is a freelance science journalist. She likes to write about animals and their habitats. Sharon also really likes chocolate. Her sons have learned to hide their Halloween candy.

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In parts of the Arctic, entire forests are creeping northward. Luckily, ecologist Serge Payette is hot on their trail. Like the two other scientists we will meet here, Payette has spent decades trying to understand the often surprising ways plants influence their environment.

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An activist is anyone who sees the need for change and devotes their time to doing something about it. And, as successful teen activists prove, structural, social, or economic barriers don't have to stop you from pursuing your passion and creating positive change. If you are interested in making a difference for a cause you care about, you can do so by educating yourself about the issue, finding ways to get involved in-person and online, and possibly even pursuing a career in a field related to your cause.

Add New Question

Is registering people to vote a form of activism?

Bridget Connolly has volunteered on political campaigns at the local and federal level for over 10 years, most notably for the 2008 Obama campaign in Nevada and Josh Harder's Congressional race in 2018. She has gone door-to-door to help register voters and get out the vote in both California and Nevada.

Yes! Registering people to vote helps remove barriers for people who have been marginalized by educational systems, culture, and misinformation about the importance of their vote. I've had so many experiences where every vote counts. If 500 people are registering people to vote in a specific county, and we each get 1 person, and somebody wins by 400 votes, that's a really big deal. I think it's a civic duty for people who understand how politics work and understand that voting is at the bedrock of all of that. The people who don't vote are essentially disenfranchised; they aren't playing a part in what's happening with their tax dollars and who is representing them at the local, state, and federal level. All levels. It takes a lot of work to stay informed, but that's how our system is set up. You're voting people into power, so it's a civic duty.

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This article was co-authored by Bridget Connolly and by wikiHow staff writer, Christopher M. Osborne, PhD. Bridget Connolly has volunteered on political campaigns at the local and federal level for over 10 years, most notably for the 2008 Obama campaign in Nevada and Josh Harder's Congressional race in 2018. She has gone door-to-door to help register voters and get out the vote in both California and Nevada. This article has been viewed 888,355 times.

Updated: November 19, 2023

If you feel passionately about an issue and want to become an activist, start by contacting local or online organizations with a similar mission. Ask them if you can volunteer your time or donate your money to contribute to the cause. Alternatively, you can also promote your cause on social media, share news articles, and circulate online petitions to raise awareness. Be sure to stay well-informed by keeping current with any news related to your cause! For tips on finding organizations that support your cause, read on!

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 888,355 times.

"I was doing a schoolwork about teen activism, and all of these thoughts and ideas helped me with what I could write about! I loved how you explained it, and it's a really well-written article. Congrats, you should be proud!" ..." more

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An activist is anyone who sees the need for change and devotes their time to doing something about it. And, as successful teen activists prove, structural, social, or economic barriers don't have to stop you from pursuing your passion and...

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Rachel Atcheson is the Humane League's Philadelphia director. I wanted to interview her to shine a light on her incredible work as an animal rights activist and, hopefully, encourage and inspire teens to take action on behalf of animals.

Why did you decide to become an animal rights advocate?

I decided to help animals because they are the most underrepresented group of beings in today's society. Some might think that animals get sufficient attention, but cats and dogs receive the bulk of it. When we hear of a hoarder with 100 cats and none of them sufficiently nourished, we empathize with those cats. But farm animals are suffering every day in factory farms and we rarely hear their stories. I decided to help farm animals because they need a louder voice.

How did you think you would be able to make a difference?

I didn't start out thinking I could make much of a difference. I began volunteering with a local animal protection group (the group I work for now, the Humane League), but I had no idea the ripple effect my activism would have in the world. With the help of many mentors, I've been able to hone my activism skills and influence many people to be more involved in activism.

Has your life changed since you started helping animals?

My life has changed dramatically. I have become more compassionate and more empathetic toward the plight of both human and non-human animals. I have taken on the role of an activist - and I think this is the most important change in my life, because now I understand that no matter how much a person wants to change the world, it's the hard work, the elbow grease, that really creates meaningful change.

What is the main problem animals face right now?

These issues of confinement and mutilation are common for farm animals everywhere. All factory farms treat animals as if they were commodities, property, and this is, I believe, the biggest problem facing farmed animals right now.

I'd love to tell you the story of one animal in particular. Buttercup is an egg-laying hen who has lived her entire life in a cage smaller than a piece of paper. She has never met her mother. Because of her close confinement with other chickens, Buttercup's beak was seared off with a hot blade soon after she was born so she wouldn't peck any other chickens in her cage. Ever since she was young, Buttercup has lived in this battery cage. She has never been outside, never felt the sun on her feathers or the grass beneath her feet. And she'll remain there for her whole life. Her feet might become mangled in the wire mesh she stands on. If she develops an infection, she will not receive veterinary attention.

On a typical egg-laying farm, there could be 500,000 chickens, so Buttercup is just one of many chickens who will never see the outside of that warehouse.

What does it take to become an effective activist?

Be positive, set a good example, read literature on effective activism and, most of all, practice. If you want to learn more about animal activism, consider getting involved with groups such as the Humane League, Mercy for Animals, or Compassion Over Killing. All of these groups are very effective in their work.

How can we make a difference in the lives of animals?

The number-one way you can make a difference in the lives of animals is to cut back on the amount of animals you eat; consider trying Meatless Monday. And if you already do not consume much meat, consider going vegetarian. Are you already a vegetarian? Cut back on the amount of eggs and dairy you consume. And finally, try veganism.

While it may seem daunting to do anything in this list, if you take it one step at a time, one meal at a time, you'll find it easy, exciting, and fulfilling. We have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of animals three times a day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - and with your help, we will see changes for farm animals.

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Rachel Atcheson is the Humane League’s Philadelphia director. I wanted to interview her to shine a light on her incredible work as an animal rights activist and, hopefully, encourage and inspire teens to take action on behalf of animals.&nbs

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Nine Stories Made By and About Young People Making a Difference

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Nine Stories Made By and About Young People Making a Difference

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Nine stories made by and about young people making a difference

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Teen producers find and tell stories of young people making a difference in their communities for this special PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs feature.

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"Do you think this is the right color ribbon?" asked a petite brunette, her hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, her college sweatshirt engulfing her tiny frame. "And do you think these are the right length of sections I'm cutting? I don't want it to be all funky when we pin them on."

"Mmm ... I'm not sure," said the guy next to her, sucking on a lollipop, his football-player physique totally evident in his tight band T-shirt.

"Looks good to me," his roommate said without even glancing over at the ribbon or the girl.

Meet the college anti-war movement.

I just got back from a two-week campus speaking tour during which I had the privilege of hanging out in a women's center at a Catholic college, eating bad Mexican food with Mennonite feminists, and chatting with aspiring writers and activists at a college in which half the students are the first in their families to experience higher education. I heard the stories of transgender youth in Kansas City, jocks with food addictions in Jacksonville, and student organizers who are too overwhelmed to address all the world's problems in Connecticut.

When my plane finally landed with a resounding bump at LaGuardia, I felt totally inspired by the earnest enthusiasm that beamed out of almost every student I encountered -- and also terrified that the university system is sucking the life out of them. At the risk of biting the hand that feeds me (I am usually paid to speak, in part, by student organizations and women's centers), I have to attest that the institutionalization of activism on college campuses seems to be a key culprit in the absence of visible youth movements in this country.

The scene above illustrates just the kind of vibe you can find at an anti-war or nonviolence club on college campuses any day of the week. It is sweetly collaborative, mainly focused on raising awareness among students, very keyed in to particular dates (Love Your Body Day, Earth Day, Black History Month), and most of all, safe. This is not terribly surprising considering that these clubs are sanctioned and funded (sometimes with upward of thousands of dollars a year) by the school administration through a formal application process. They are structured to legitimize but also to domesticate student passions and actions from the start.

And students do have passions, contrary to what some hippies-turned-well-paid-pundits argue. A survey conducted just this year by the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA) found that 98 percent of students at their annual meeting saw the war in Iraq as one of the issues most important to them. Erin Wilson, the director of communication for NACA, reports that student involvement in campus activities is increasing all the time and adds that among their 1,040 member schools, a yearly total of $150 million is spent on campus programming.

As great as it might seem that colleges and universities are supporting student causes, I actually believe that it has tamed the critical energy necessary to be young, outraged, and active. When you're being funded by a team of white-haired academics in suits, taking real risks -- acts of civil disobedience like sit-ins, hunger strikes, boycotts -- don't seem like such a smart idea. Students rightly wonder whether they will "ruin it" for the next class if they cross the line and lose the school leadership's support. Plus, it's so much easier to just eat the free pizza and cut the three-inch ribbons than to mastermind a rebellious and potentially dangerous student uprising.

The academy, in general, encourages specialization, intellectualization, civility -- not exactly the key ingredients for effective social action. Students are surrounded by professors reminiscing about the glory days of youth activism, when groups like Students for a Democratic Society, the Weather Underground, and the Black Panther Party really ignited social change. But the professors don't seem to make the connection that none of these were school-sanctioned organizations.

Today's youth activism is largely enacted within the gated fortresses of higher learning. Students are overwhelmingly and often motivated by applying to law school or resumé-building. (How do you think they got into these undergraduate institutions in the first place?) They funnel their outrage into weekly club meetings and awareness campaigns that look good on paper -- activities that convey to future employers and institutions that they are socially involved and aware but not at odds with the system. Students seem to join sanctioned, existing clubs, rather than launch their own radical actions, without much resistance or critical questioning. Perhaps they've been socialized to accept the status quo, but even more, I believe they simply don't have the time or energy to start innovative revolutions from scratch because they are so busy taking standardized tests and building their resumés with internships and assistantships.

I watched a group of them sort through a brightly colored stack of anti-war quotations to make sure that every single one, literally, bore the stamp of approval from the college activities office so they could hang them around campus without getting in trouble. It made me cringe. This is where their energies were being diverted during the deadliest month yet in the Iraq War.

It made me reflect on my own undergraduate days -- just about five years ago now. I wasn't a rah-rah student government officer, but I certainly did my share of club activities: school newspaper, writing fellows program, resident assistant, volunteering at a Harlem preschool, even the hip-hop club (talk about taming outrage). I remember feeling so busy, so responsible, so important. Now I realize that there was a real cost to that frenzy of school-sanctioned productivity. I rarely thought beyond the borders of folding tables that lined the student activities fairs. I rarely put my body or my future on the line. While I was tutoring fellow students in grammar and composition and making door tags for my residence halls, I missed the escalation of a bogus justification for a messy war in my name.

In one of the largest studies ever conducted of Generation Y, psychology professor Jean M. Twenge found that college students "increasingly believe that their lives are controlled by outside forces" -- called "externality" in the psychology field. Twenge writes, "The average college student in 2002 had more external control beliefs than 80 percent of college students in the early 1960s."

Is it any wonder? We were raised to organize our adolescent lives in pursuit of external approval: church awards, athletic scholarships, and college admissions. More than any generation in history, we've been signed up, roped in, and overscheduled. When we get to college, many of us rush to join clubs in an attempt to recreate this safe feeling of sanctioned activity, of organized energies, of potential approval by authorities. Our innate passions and spontaneous actions have essentially been bred out of us.

The LearningWork Connection, a consulting firm on youth issues, reports that from September 2004 to September 2005, 79 percent of first-year males and 87 percent of first-year females described themselves as "volunteers." They add, however, that "Gen Y is less engaged with civic and political activities than they are with other causes."

Which prompts me to ask, what are "causes," really? The word stinks of bureaucracy and timidity, of the most educated, wanted generation in history sprawled across standard university furniture -- not planning the next revolution, but eating free cookies and voting on whether buttons or ribbons will be less destructive to students' clothing.

I saw the surefire glimmer of pure passion in these students' eyes. I know they are capable of great and ingenious uprisings, a type of protest that is totally 21st century, a trademark Generation Y invention. Viruses in campus administrators' computers with pop-up windows demanding no more expansion into poor, local neighborhoods? Mock draft cards sent home to their parents? A dance party -- 1 million youth strong -- on the Washington lawn? It all seems possible.

They need to stay out of the student center long enough to figure out what their version of outraged activism really is. Small as it may sound, big change would happen if college students today could protect their purest intentions from the pacifying force of free pizza and resumé kudos. Our generation needs to step into our raw power -- the priceless power of being young and mad. We need to stay hungry long enough to get angry.

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"Do you think this is the right color ribbon?" asked a petite brunette, her hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, her college sweatshirt engulfing her tiny frame. "And do you think these are the right length of sections I'm cutting? I don't want it to be all funky when we pin them on."

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Teen Addiction: Volunteering Decreases Substance Abuse in Teens

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Teen Addiction: Volunteering Decreases Substance Abuse in Teens

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Having trouble with your rebellious teen? Get them involved in community volunteer work. A new study from the University of Missouri found that this type of prosocial activity makes youth less likely to turn to drugs and alcohol.

Young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 report the highest rates of substance use and dependence, the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health says. Gustavo Carlo, a professor in the University of Missouri's Human Development and Family Studies Department, found that prosocial behaviors, such as volunteering and donating to charity, serve as protective factors against adolescents engaging in risky behaviors as young adults. His study was published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Good deeds pay it forward

Carlo examined data from surveys of 531 youths in rural Pennsylvania counties. The group was surveyed over a seven-year period as participants moved through junior high school to young adulthood.

"Prosocial behaviors are good for society and communities, but also they are a marker of moral development," the professor says. "Parents want their kids to be kind, selfless, considerate and respectful. We now have evidence that these prosocial behaviors make adolescents less likely to break moral codes and engage in illegal activities."

Youth in rural communities are more at risk

The study focused on rural youths because research shows they may be more likely to use illicit substances earlier. Positive, prosocial activities are less available. Rural communities tend to be more spread out, making it difficult for teens to get transportation to events and activities. These communities often have less access to recreation centers, spaces for meetings, volunteers to run programs and funding for organized activities.

Community groups and schools need to organize activities

"We need to organize prosocial activities in schools and communities," Carlo says. "If we start early in childhood, kids can practice and learn to reap the rewards of prosocialness so that it becomes normative and habitual. These opportunities are not costly and kids are very creative and can contribute to the development of these activities. In the long run, kids can become invested in their communities and become engaged community citizens."

Teens can volunteer to do community clean-up work, yard work and chores for seniors, mentor younger kids in reading or math, or help coach community sports teams.

Substance abuse prevention is less costly than treatment

The research has important implications for substance use prevention and intervention programs aimed at teens, Carlo says. "The emphasis on prevention is far less costly and likely more effective than treatment after the problem presents itself. It involves transforming the culture of our schools so that we emphasize both academics and psychological and behavioral well-being."

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Volunteering reduces teens' risk of addiction

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Having trouble with your rebellious teen? Get them involved in community volunteer work. A new study suggests volunteering makes youth less likely to turn to drugs and alcohol.

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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How Teenage Activist Malala Yousafzai is Turning Her Fame Into a Movement

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How Teenage Activist Malala Yousafzai is Turning Her Fame Into a Movement

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Last week, Michelle Obama traveled across the country promoting her "Let's Move" Campaign, which encourages schools, families, and communities to combat childhood obesity through healthy food and exercise. The First Lady is asking schools to do their part by providing nutritious meals and strong P.E. programs to their students-important goals, given that obesity can cause serious physical and mental health issues and reduce academic achievement among kids.

© MarkHatfield

But new scientific findings suggest that Mrs. Obama may need to add another component to her program: volunteering.

In a study published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, 106 10th-grade students were asked to volunteer in after-school programs where they worked with elementary-aged children for 60 to 90 minutes per week for 10 weeks; another group of 10th graders, who were waitlisted for volunteering, served as a control group.

Compared to the non-volunteers, the students who volunteered showed a steep drop in risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including cholesterol levels and body mass index, at the end of 10 weeks. These benefits were even more pronounced for students whose empathy and altruistic behaviors increased the most and whose negative moods lessened over those 10 weeks.

So, while the study didn't focus on decreasing obesity specifically, it did show that volunteering may prevent one of its potential consequences: heart disease. And it has the added value of increasing kind, helpful (or "pro-social") behavior-a nice alternative to the low self-esteem and academic troubles that can result from childhood obesity.

The findings add an exciting new physical dimension to what scientists know about the many social and emotional benefits volunteering brings students, including: higher levels of positive emotions; a stronger ability to regulate their emotions; lower levels of risk behavior, such as early pregnancy and drug use; increased civic engagement and moral reasoning; and a greater likelihood of volunteering in adulthood.

So for schools that already provide volunteer opportunities for their students-keep up the great work! Research tells us that you're benefiting your students not only mentally and emotionally but physically as well.

But for those schools that haven't yet integrated volunteering into the curriculum, or for those that would like to make student volunteering more effective, here are some research-based tips.

1) Make service social. As much as possible, provide opportunities for students to engage directly with people who are receiving the service. One study discovered that student volunteers who worked directly with people versus those who didn't afterwards felt a stronger connection to other people in general, along with the belief that they could make a difference in the world. Another study showed that direct contact made students more likely to take a stand on issues they cared about, for instance by demonstrating or boycotting about those issues. In general, research has found that social connection provides a vast array of physical and mental health benefits, whereas loneliness weakens our cardiovascular and immune systems.

While the authors of the JAMA study didn't test different kinds of service, I think it's quite possible that volunteering helped the students' hearts because it fostered greater connections between them and younger students; indeed, if they felt stronger empathic connection to others, these cardiovascular benefits increased even more. I know when I was a teacher, I saw a significant change in my older students when they were given the responsibility of working with kindergartners. It was as if they had taken an empathy pill-one that made them more patient, understanding, and kind.

2) Service-learning vs. community service-take your pick! Some schools mandate community service through formal service-learning programs, while others make service voluntary through more informal community service opportunities.

According to researchers, it doesn't matter which way you go-both have the same positive impact on students, particularly when compared with students who never volunteer. So, what's important is that students are volunteering-period.

However, I would add from personal experience that requiring service might help students who would never consider volunteering try it out-and they just might fall in love with it. Case in point: One of my best friends was required to do community service in high school and found that working with autistic children changed his life. Rather than becoming a lawyer, he decided to teach high school and start his own fabulous service-learning program.

3) Consider the people and organizations receiving service. While most of the studies on service-learning and volunteering focus on the students who perform the service, some researchers decided to turn the lens around and ask those receiving service about their experience. And what they found isn't all roses.

Imagine this scenario: An enthusiastic 16-year old arrives at your workplace, ready to save the world. However, this teen has very few skills and even less knowledge about the work your organization does. Oh-and can only help three hours a week for six weeks total. Needless to say, the organizations interviewed for the study responded with a hearty, "AAACKK!!"

So when you're sending your students off to volunteer, be sure to communicate with the organizations ahead of time to find out what their needs are and consider if your students have the skills and time to fill those needs.

I take heart that so many schools already have volunteer programs in place-together, you're creating a world of do-gooders. And as we're learning, so many activities that are good for the world are also good for students' own minds, bodies, and hearts.
I'd love to hear from those of you who work with student volunteer programs about what does and doesn't work. Please leave a comment below if you'd like to share your experience with other readers.
Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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New research shows that adolescents who volunteer decrease their risk for heart disease.

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Whether you're a freshman or a senior, high school is a great time to try things that you haven't done before - including volunteering.

Students may think it's not worth their time to get involved in the community because it doesn't pay like a normal job would. However, there are several benefits that volunteering can give you that no other job can.

Read on to find out about all the benefits of community service for you, your personal fulfillment, and practical purposes like college applications!

What Is Community Service?

Community service is when you work for free to help benefit the public or your community. Usually, students who choose to do community service do so as volunteers, meaning that they choose to help out because they want to do so. Community service can have a lot of positive effects on students, such as helping them to develop skills, making contacts, and allowing them to improve the quality of life of others.

You probably know some students in your school who choose to volunteer their free time through community service. There are many ways that you can do this, such as joining a non-profit organization, working with a church group, or you can choose a cause and create your own service project.

For some ideas of community service activities, see our list of volunteer ideas.

Volunteer work can range from the relatively simple, like helping coach the lacrosse team at your old junior high, to the much more complex, like starting a non-profit that helps settle new refugees in your area.

As I'm sure you can imagine, there are a lot of benefits to doing volunteer work. They include...

School Benefits

You may be familiar with community service already because it is something that your school requires. In fact, many high schools throughout the United States require their students to help out the community in some way in order to graduate. Though it's often on the honor system to report what you've done, these high schools may require up to 200 hours of community service before they're willing to grant a degree.

This type of requirement can be especially common at religious schools, and in particular at Christian schools. Many Christian schools set requirements based on the Biblical idea that it is the Christian's duty to do community outreach with whatever "gift" they have been given by God. Because of this, many of these Christian schools will have branches of Christian non-profits, such as the Salvation Army or Habitat for Humanity, on campus or affiliated with the school, which make it much easier for students to donate their time.

Many other schools require service learning. This term describes an approach to education that aims to connect lessons learned in the classroom with real-life lessons learned through community service. It is a practice that has become increasingly common in both high schools and universities in the United States, because educators like that the learning process benefits both the students and the communities. It allows students to learn more about their personal motivations, practice academic material outside of the context of the classroom and testing, develop critical thinking skills while solving real-world problems, and to think about problems and social issues in new ways.

This kind of experiential learning, or applying what you have learned in the classroom to the real world, has a lot of positive benefits for students apart from meeting a requirement to graduate. These include a better understanding of the value of teamwork, decision-making skills, development of leadership abilities, and the gain of practical skills.

For example, let's imagine that as part of your school-required community service or service learning, you've decided to use the writing skills you developed in AP English to volunteer at a local non-profit that raises awareness of Alzheimer's disease. As a strong writer, you may start out writing press releases for the charity. Immediately you would be developing a new skill: the ability to write for a targeted, non-academic audience. Working with a team, you would gain a better understanding of the importance of sharing information in a usable way. You might eventually expand your duties into other areas, such as managing the organization's social media accounts, which would further develop your writing skills.

Additionally, you would be gaining a new perspective on your community and on what life is like for a group of people that is often overlooked: the terminally ill. This could change how you see the world and your role in it.

In fact, many students report that this kind of personal development is the most valuable part of a service learning projects.

Personal Development Benefits

One of the big ways that students will benefit from volunteer work is through personal development.

This happens in a number of ways.

First of all, many students learn about their personal strengths and weaknesses. When you're working on campaigns and projects and getting to see real-life results, you'll get to know how your personal attributes and actions can make a difference. Many of these qualities are things that students can't get good feedback on in the classroom. For example, students may learn that they have excellent skills in coping with a crisis or other stressful situations, or may learn that they find taking charge of a team to be a struggle. This kind of exposure to different situations can then teach students how to further develop skills that they have, and how to work on areas they struggle in.

In particular, students find that they are able to develop skills in leadership, communication, working well with a team, and finding solutions for problems.

Many students also find that community service makes them more aware of and interested in issues of social justice.

For example, if you spend your days going to school, playing sports, and doing homework, you will likely not spend a lot of time thinking about the problems that homeless people encounter.

On the other hand, if you're working every day at a homeless shelter, you'll have a chance to dispel stereotypes about why people become homeless while also learning about the unique challenges that homeless people face in getting off the streets. Many homeless people face prejudice that makes returning to work and earning a self-supporting living more difficult than it is for non-homeless people.

Once people learn more about struggles and injustices that other groups of people face, they are statistically more likely to want to actively take part in making a change in the policies and social structures that keep certain groups from succeeding. This change can take many forms, such as active campaigning, voting in elections, and continuing to volunteer time to important causes.

Volunteering has also been shown to have one other, more tangible major personal benefit. Did you know that it's actually good for your health?

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Health Benefits

Numerous studies over the past several years have shown that volunteering isn't just good for your mind and conscience; it's also good for your body. By focusing on others' problems instead of their own, students have reported reduced stress, and overall improvement in mood and health.

Researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science found a link between self-reported levels of good health and happiness and formal volunteer work. Furthermore, a study by United Health Group says that 76% of people who have volunteered in the past twelve months say that volunteering has made them feel happier, and 94% of people report that it improves their mood. 78% of volunteers say that it has lowered their stress levels.

Volunteering can also help protect people from depression during challenging times, as it tends to help create a strong support system for participants. Volunteering also keeps people physically healthy by keeping them active. Certain activities, such as working to clean up a park or a beach, can be good exercise. Studies have shown that especially as people get older, volunteering in these kinds of projects can keep people healthy and can even lessen the symptoms of certain diseases.

Of course, not all the benefits of volunteering are limited to the volunteer. Another big way that people benefit is in their involvement with their community.

Community Benefits

Volunteering allows students to become directly involved in their communities. Some students don't realize how important volunteers are to the country and to many organizations. But try to imagine if no volunteers showed up to work tomorrow. Can you imagine what would change?

Volunteers are responsible for many things that we take for granted. When hurricanes hit the south coast or wildfires burn up California, volunteers are critical in helping victims get re-settled, fed, and back to their "normal" lives as quickly as possible. Without volunteers, many of our country's elderly would not be able to get food. Our parks and beaches would be much dirtier. Our children would struggle more without the help of volunteer tutors and mentors.

To get a real idea of how important volunteers are to keeping the country running, let's look at the numbers.

The Corporation for National and Community Service says that in 2013, 62.6 million Americans volunteered 7.7 billion hours of work. The estimated value of this work is almost $173 billion. That's almost as much as the GDP of Ukraine - just in volunteer hours!

The top activities performed included raising money for important causes; collecting, preparing, and giving out food to people who need it; providing labor and transportation; tutoring and mentoring youth; and lending professional expertise.

Furthermore, volunteers are almost twice as likely to donate to charities as non-volunteers. In all, just over 50% of Americans donated over $25 to charities in 2013, making at least $4 billion in donations.

The knowledge that they are making a real difference also affects student volunteers on a more personal level. When students know their work is helping someone, they show increased rates of self-esteem. Furthermore, students who volunteer are more likely to become actively involved citizens who take a strong interest in current events and local affairs, and are much more likely to vote.

Apart from helping out your community here and now, you'll also be helping out your future self.

College Benefits

Have you ever wondered if volunteering makes a big difference in college admissions?

The truth is that it's one of the most popular extracurricular activities that students list on their college applications. And while colleges don't necessarily expect students to have spent all their free time volunteering, schools (especially the more competitive ones) will usually notice a total lack of community service.

Colleges like seeing that students have done community service. Keep in mind that most universities want to admit students who are actively involved in activities that better themselves, and eventually, will better the world. Students who have been actively involved in community service in high school show colleges that they will be the type of student who will be actively involved in making the college community a better place to be. Eventually, that they will be the kind of people who care about changing the world.

On a more practical level, the personal benefits and development that you will get from volunteering can be great topic matter for a college application essay.

The people you work with on community service projects will be good people to turn to when the time comes for letters of recommendation. They'll be able to speak to your leadership abilities, passion, and character. Finally, doing this kind of work shows prospective schools that you can balance activities with your schoolwork and that you have good time management.

Did you know that your volunteer work can also be helpful in paying for college? See our list of community service scholarships to see how you can make volunteering work for you financially.

The good news doesn't end there, though. The benefits of volunteering will follow you out of school and into the workplace, as well.

Professional Benefits

Did you know that employers love volunteers?

TimeBank, a UK-based volunteering charity, and Reed, a recruitment company, partnered to create a study on how employers think about volunteer work. The results were very positive for those who have chosen to donate their time:

84% of employers agreed that volunteering is a good way for people to find work.

70% of employers said that volunteers have a better chance of getting a higher salary and a promotion.

80% of employers said that they like to see volunteer work on a resume.

23% of employers said that volunteering had helped their staff learn key skills, such as time management, communication skills, and leadership skills.

The study also showed that half of the employees surveyed thought that their volunteer experience had helped them land their job, and up to 20% of employees thought that their volunteer experience helped them gain key skills in communication, leadership, and time management that were important to their jobs.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways that your community service work will help you down the road once you start work, beginning with what you choose to do.

Volunteering is a great way to explore different interests. High school students who do community service can try different kinds of work and work environments that they otherwise would likely not be exposed to at such a young age. Most paying jobs that high school students are eligible for - such as working in fast food - are not the most interesting. But volunteering can give you a chance to try things that you will be interested in as a career, such as working in social media, organizing events, or working in a specific type of institution such as a hospital.

The experiences that you gain will also look great on your resume. Future employers will likely be much more interested in hearing about a fundraiser that you ran than they will be in hearing about your burger flipping skills. Why? A lot of the personal development benefits discussed above, such as leadership skills and the ability to collaborate with a team, are things that translate well to many jobs and workplaces.

Networking is another major benefit of volunteering. As a volunteer, you will be very likely to meet like-minded individuals who share your interests. In the future, these people can be important contacts for writing letters of recommendation and for putting you in touch with the right people for scholarships and jobs.

Now that you know that community service is an extracurricular that will help you out in your personal life, as well as in high school, college, and your professional life, what are you waiting for?

How to Get Started

If you've decided you're ready to take the plunge, here are some Do's and Don'ts to get you started in your volunteer career.

Do try to find the right opportunity for you. It's important to find something that you are going to enjoy and that you are capable of doing well. Ask yourself what kind of people you like working with (kids? people your own age?), whether you work better alone or as part of a team, how much time you have to commit and how much responsibility you can take on, and what special skills you have that you can contribute.

Don't volunteer abroad just because you think it looks better. Especially for college applications, admissions officers prefer to see a local long-term volunteer commitment than something that has only lasted a week or two during a summer break. Some volunteer abroad programs can also cause more trouble than good to local people.

Do try to find a cause that you are passionate about. If you have always had an affinity for animals, try working at a shelter or a charity working on animal rights. If you have always valued education, try tutoring or an education charity. The more you care about the cause, the more dedicated you will be to continue working for it over a long period of time.

Don't be afraid of making a change. Ask questions when something doesn't seem right. If you end up doing work that doesn't seem like a good fit, is causing excessive stress, or if the experience isn't allowing you to do the things you thought you would be working on, it's ok to leave to find something else.

Do enjoy yourself! The more you are having fun with volunteering, the more it will be a positive experience both for you and the organization you are working with.

What's Next?

Now that you know the benefits, check out the 9 best places to do community service.

If you need money for college, volunteering may be the answer. Check out our list of volunteer scholarships.

Want to use your community service for your college applications? Check out how to write a good community service essay and how to get a community service letter.

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

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Why should you do community service? What are the benefits of volunteering for teens and college applications? Learn here.

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Titanic: Captain Went Down with the Ship

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Titanic: Captain Went Down with the Ship

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Titanic: Captain Went Down with the Ship

The Titanic had eight officers, including Captain Edward Smith.

Smith was a veteran, decorated sailor, having been with the White Star Line since 1880. He was captain of the Majestic for nine years, including a stint transporting British troops to the Boer War.

Beginning in 1904, he was the captain on all of White Star Line's new ships. He was captain of the Baltic when it sailed from Liverpool to New York in June 1904 and of the Adriatic when it made a similar voyage three years later.

Smith was captain of the Olympic, a ship as big as the Titanic, in September 1911, when the Olympic collided with another ship, the Hawke, resulting in the Hawke's losing its prow and the Olympic's losing one of its giant propeller shafts. Smith and the Olympic got the blame for this incident.

Despite this incident, the White Star Line appointed Smith captain of its newest ship, the Titanic, for its maiden voyage. His first major action was to ensure that the Titanic didn't collide with the New York, a ship that broke free from its moorings because of the huge amount of water displaced when Titanic initially sailed.

Smith did not survive the sinking of the Titanic. Various accounts of his last actions have him jumping into the sea at the last second, standing in the wheelhouse as the ship went down, and even rescuing a child as his final act.

His body was not recovered. He left behind a wife and daughter. A statue of him stands in Beacon Park in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in England.

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Titanic: Captain Went Down with the Ship

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The Titanic captain was experienced in the extreme.

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Titanic: Passengers Famously Separated by Class

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Titanic: Passengers Famously Separated by Class

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Titanic: Passengers Famously Separated by Class

In many ways, the Titanic passenger list reflected the wide class divide of the times. Of the 1,296 total passengers onboard the massive ocean liner, 319 were labeled as first class, 269 were termed second class, and 699 were called third class, or steerage.

A closer look at the casualty figures reveals that of the 319 first-class passengers, 200 survived and of the 269 second-class passengers, 117 survived. Only 172 of 699 third-class passengers survived. A similar percentage can be found among crew and staff: 215 of 918 survived.

First-class passengers included wealthy businessmen, famous entertainers, high-ranking members of the military, and professional athletes. Among the second-class numbers were professors, authors, tourists, and clergymen. Most of the third-class passengers were immigrants seeking a new life in the U.S. or Canada.

Some of the people aboard the Titanic were very famous in their day.

The most prominent name was probably John Jacob Astor IV (right), the latest millionaire in a family of rich businessmen. He and his wife, Madeleine, were returning to the U.S. so Madeleine could give birth to their first child at home.

Also onboard were these famous people:

Isidor Straus, owner of the Macy's department store, and his wife, Ida

Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company founder George Wick

Charles Hays, the president of Canada's Grand Trunk Railway

John Thayer, a vice-president with the Pennsylvania Railroad

George Widener, owner of the Philadelphia Traction (streetcar) Company

Benjamin Guggenheim, a member of the powerful mining family whose brother Solomon established the eponymous New York museum.

All of these famous people died when the Titanic sank.

Among the famous people surviving the disaster were J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of White Star Line; Thomas Andrews, the ship's builder; millionaire and women's rights activist Margaret Brown; and silent film star Dorothy Gibson.

Among the more than 700 survivors were the "Titanic Orphans," Michel Jr. and Edmond Navratil, infant sons of Michel Navratil, who kidnapped his sons and took them aboard the Titanic to get them away from their mother, who lived in Nice, France. Michel, the father, died, but the boys survived and were cared for by fellow survivor Margaret Hays until their mother arrived in New York to take them home. (Hays had widely circulated photographs of the twins, and their mother had eventually seen the pictures.)

Also surviving was Violet Jessop, a nurse who was working as a stewardess on the Titanic and went on to survive the sinking of the Britannic four years later. Jessop went on to work for another ship company, the Red Star Line, and went on two round-the-world cruises.

The last remaining survivor was Elizabeth Dean, who was only a few months old when she and her family boarded the Titanic in hopes of immigrating to the American Midwest. Elizabeth, known as Millvina, and her mother and brother survived. Elizabeth died in 2009, at age 97.

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Titanic: Passengers Famously Separated by Class

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In many ways, the Titanic passenger list reflected the wide class divide of the times.

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Titanic facts for kids | History | National Geographic Kids

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Learn about the most famous ship in history with our twenty Titanic facts. How big was the Titanic? Where did she sink? How many people died on the Titanic?

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youTube video

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MORE TITANIC FACTS

* The most expensive tickets to travel aboard Titanic cost about $99,000 in today's money.

* The Titanic was almost as long as three football fields.

* To feed the passengers and crew, Titanic had 86,000 pounds of meat, 40,000 eggs, 40 tons of potatoes, 7,000 heads of lettuce, 3,500 pounds of onions, 36,000 apples, and 1,000 loaves of bread on board.

* Titanic was one of the first ships to have a telephone system and electric lights in all the rooms.

* Including the four smoke stacks, the Titanic was as tall as a 17-story building.

* Titanic had four elevators, a heated swimming pool, a gym, two libraries, and two barber shops.

* Each day, the passsengers and crew used 14,000 gallons of drinking water.

* Titanic' s engines used more than 800 tons of coal each day. The ship's top speed was 24 knots (27 miles an hour).

* Smoke and steam made by the Titanic' s boilers escaped through three stacks. Builders added a fourth stack because they thought it made the ship look better.

* Titanic could carry 3,547 passengers and crew. About 2,200 people traveled on its first voyage.

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MORE TITANIC FACTS * The most expensive tickets to travel aboard Titanic cost about $99,000 in today's money. * The Titanic was almost as long as three football fields. * To feed the passengers and crew, Titanic had 86,000 pounds of meat, 40,000 eggs, 40 tons of potatoes, 7,000 heads of lettuce, 3,500 pounds of onions, 36,000 apples, and 1,000 loaves of bread on board.

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Titanic Facts for Kids | 8 Hidden Facts about Titanic

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Everybody knows the story of Titanic and the iceberg it hit on the night of April 14, 1912. When it first set sail, the Titanic was known for its extraordinary size and was thought to be “The Unsin…

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Primary Sources: The Titanic, the Wireless Operator's Story

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Primary Sources: The Titanic, the Wireless Operator's Story

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Newsela | Primary Sources: The Titanic, the Wireless Operator's Story

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A telegraph operator survives the sinking of the Titanic

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Explore the collections of National Museums NI.

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The New York Times Upfront — Alessandra Potenza

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1Seth Lane

Seth Lane, 6, is a little boy with the big smile who captured the hearts of millions across the world thanks to a viral video.

The boy behind the "Wear Yellow for Seth' phenomenon was born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). It means he has no immune system and has to be kept in sterile, germ-free isolation from the outside world. After a bone marrow transplant that didn't take, he has been living in a bubble, unable to leave his hospital room for fear of picking up an infection or an illness and undergoing years of treatment.

Thankfully, after a second transplant was proven successful, he is now living a normal life.

2David Vetter

David Vetter is the "boy in the bubble" of '70s fame. He was born with Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID), one of the most severe types of primary immunodeficiency disease. At the time of his birth in 1971, a bone marrow transplant from a matching donor was the only cure for SCID, but there was no match available in David's family.

For 12 years, David captured the world's attention as he lived in protected environments to maintain relatively germ-free surroundings at Texas Children's Hospital. From the moment he was placed in the bubble, he never had any direct contact with another human until shortly before his death at aged 12.

The bubble was supplied by NASA, who even manufactured a special space suit for him to use to allow David to walk outside, although he only wore it six times. Everything he used inside his bubble had to be specially sterilized, including the holy water used to baptize him.

Sadly in 1984, four months after receiving a bone marrow transfusion, David died from lymphoma-a cancer later determined to have been introduced into his system by the Epstein-Barr virus. His life was also incredibly valuable for medical science. Now, more than nine out of ten babies born with SCID can be successfully treated.

3Ted DeVita

Ted DeVita, born in 1962, suffered from severe aplastic anemia requiring him to live in a sterile hospital room for a significant portion of his life - eighteen and a half years. His story, along with that of Texas patient David Vetter, was used to create the 1976 made-for-TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. In the film, John Travolta played "Tod," a teenaged boy who lived in a sterile bubble due to illness.

Severe aplastic anemia is a rare disease in which the body is suddenly unable to produce new blood cells and platelets. Its victims have no effective immune system and must be protected from infection. DeVita was admitted to the National Institute of Health Clinical Center. While scientists and physicians tried all known treatments for his condition, he was isolated in a "laminar airflow room," a living space the size of a normal bedroom. He was able to walk around and participate in many normal activities but could be touched only with gloved hands. He lived surrounded by plastic sheeting containing a door-sized space through which sterilized objects - including food, clothing, and books - could pass in and out.

On the few occasions DeVita left his room, he was enclosed in a spacesuit and helmet, with an air pump that expelled pathogens. The suit drew so much attention that he rarely chose to leave. The only time he was not stared at was at a Star Trek convention.

Ted DeVita died in 1980 at NIH Hospital in Bethesda. His death was not primarily due to aplastic anemia but was caused by iron overload from too many transfusions. Treatment for DeVita's disease is much more successful today, with a cure rate of up to 80 percent of aplastic anemia patients. Bone marrow transplants, transfusions, iron chelating regimens, and brief periods in positive airflow rooms are used in treating these patients.

4Gabriel Solís

Gabriel Solis is a typical 3-year-old. He likes puzzles, swimming, and singing. He shakes off colds like other children. Gabriel, however, is not like other children-he was born without a functioning immune system. Gabriel's healthy immune system came by way of an international gene therapy trial for "bubble boy" disease.

When Gabriel was 4½ months old, he came down with a fever and pneumonia that landed him in the intensive care unit of a hospital in the family's hometown of La Serena, Chile. A few days later, tethered to a ventilator, he was flown to Santa Maria Clinic in the capital of Santiago. "I was getting very worried," says his mother, Carolina Riquelme. "The situation was getting worse and worse."

There, Gabriel's parents received the devastating diagnosis. Their only child had X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1). His blood did not contain the T-cells that form the core of the immune system. For the next five months, Gabriel lived in the hospital's isolation unit. (Left untreated, children with SCID-X1 usually die of infection before their first birthday.)

The preferred treatment was a stem cell transplant from a matching sibling donor, which Gabriel did not have. A gene therapy trial at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center offered the family some hope. Researchers had created a mutated virus designed to correct the genetic defect that causes SCID-X1 and helps avoid leukemia that developed in one-quarter of patients in earlier gene therapy trials in Europe.

In April 2012, the family traveled to Dana-Farber/Boston Children's so Gabriel could participate in the trial. Eight of nine boys recruited to the trial, including Gabriel, are alive between 12 and 38 months after treatment.

5Wilco Conradi

Wilco Conradi, 2, was born with the so-called "bubble boy" disease. An experimental gene therapy treatment has given the toddler a normal life. In 2002, Wilco was among four boys successfully treated for the inherited disease that occurs in about one of every 75,000 births. The disorder, which initially was thought to afflict only boys, has plagued Wilco's family for generations, killing an uncle and two cousins.

6Jameson Golliday

Two-year-old Jameson Golliday was born with X-SCID, or "bubble boy disease," which means he has no immune system. At birth, he had no mature T-cells, the rugged soldiers of the immune system that sense and fight infections, due to mutations in the IL-2 gene on his X-chromosome.

In April 2012, not long after Jamie's diagnosis, his mom Jennifer took him to Cincinnati Children's Hospital where he could participate in a trial for gene therapy. Now he's free of the bubble.

7Nina Warnell

Seventeen-month-old Nina Warnell suffers from SCID, and has the appearance of a healthy child, but is unable to fight even the mildest germs - a cough or sneeze could kill her.

Her family, who were living in Poland when Nina fell ill and was given four months to live, have turned their suburban house in Maidenhead, Berkshire, into a quarantine zone and must screen everyone and everything that enters the house. A radical new treatment, devised by doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital, has its risks but doting parents Graeme and Aga Warnell have been left with few choices. A team led by Professor Bobby Gaspar, a consultant in pediatric immunology, are in the process of trialing a new form of gene therapy on the youngster. Doctors have harvested Nina's bone marrow and re-engineered it using a new type of "reprogrammed virus" to splice the essential gene she is missing into her DNA profile. Re-engineered bone marrow has been inserted into her body, and doctors hope a fully functioning immune system will develop. She has been given a 60-90% chance of having a healthy life, but the outcome won't be known till Christmas.

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7 Unbelievable Real Life Bubble Kids - Oddee

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Seth Lane, 6, is a little boy with the big smile who captured the hearts of millions across the world thanks to a viral video. The boy behind the "Wear Yellow for Seth' phenomenon was born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID).