Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Anthrax is a fatal, contagious disease that affects farm animals and humans

Paper instructions:
Anthrax is a fatal, contagious disease that affects farm animals and humans. This disease has received a lot of media attention because it is one of the several that can be used as a biological warfare agent. To learn more about this disease, scientist at the Biological Warfare Research Center at Fort Dietrich, Maryland set up the following experiment.
A herd of 100 cows was injected with liquid containing anthrax bacteria that had been heated enough to weaken, but not kill the bacteria. A second herd of cow was injected with the same liquid, minus the bacteria. Neither herd became ill with anthrax. A few weeks later , the scientists injected both herds with full strength anthrax bacteria. The cattle that had been previously injected with the weakened bacteria showed no symptoms of the disease. The cattle from the second herd, however, became ill with anthrax and died.
1. What hypothesis was being tested?
2. Which herd of cattle represents the control group?
3. Why was a control group needed in this experiment?
4. Why were both groups of cattle injected, event though one group did not receive any bacteria in the injection?
5. A Senator from the armed Forces Appropriations Committee paid a visit to Fort Dietrich to evaluate the experiments. The Senator was critical of the large number of animals being used and suggested that it would be cheaper to use only 10 animals in each group. How would you respond to the Senato

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