Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome is a extremely rare childhood disease founded in 1886 by Jonathan Hutchinson. It is a disease where children at very young ages often start to develop aging features. It only happens in every one per eight million live births. I have never heard of this syndrome till a little while ago. When I first heard about this syndrome I did not think it was for real, I though it was a joke.. considering that I only heard about it on AOL news. When I finally saw pictures of people with this disease I realized that it was something serious. I was shocked .

Progeria is a genetic condition and usually runs in the family, it can not be inherited. You are born with it. There is no cure to this syndrome. Once you have it you most likely wont live past the young age of 13 however very few people do. Some people can live up to their late teens or 20's sometimes even early 40's. It depends on how bad your condition is. The reason why most people that have this syndrome die at the age of 13 is because there skin gets very old and can start to rot away and decay. Children that in reality are really 13 generally look like there 80 or 90 to other people.

Is there anyone else who just recently heard about this syndrome?

Below is a picture of someone who has Progeria syndrome.

Celebrity role models?

Miley Cyrus began her career as a Disney superstar on the hit show Hannah Montana. Many little children love this show and watch it all day on Disney Channel. She was on the show for about a good 3 seasons and then stopped filming new shows. Not only is Miley Cyrus a Disney superstar but also is an actress in moves such as "The Hannah Montana movie" and "The last song" which is coming out on March 31st. Cyrus is also a Singer and has many hit singles such as The Climb and Party in the USA.

I myself even look up to her. Considering she is such a hard working person and can still succeed in everything that she does is amazing. To be a singer, actress and, have your own Disney show is pretty awesome. Miley Cyrus has even toured all over the world in almost every state possible. Since she is only 16 it makes me like her even more. I'm 16 and I would never be able to multi task the way that she does and still be successful. The fact that she is living the dream that many other non professional singers or anyone would want to live makes people look up to her more because everyone wants to be like her.

However, on the 2009 Teen Choice Awards Miley Cyrus showed up to perform Party in the USA and it shocked many people. She came out wearing little short shorts with a cut up tank top and a leather jacket which she took off rarely quickly. Not only that, but she was also wearing high heel boots and all of her dancers were wearing outfits that were similar to hers. Along with that they wheeled out a candy table with a stripper pole connected to it. Toward the middle of the song she hopped on top of the candy table and started dancing on the pole in a seductive way. Considering that many little children look up to her as their role model is a little sad. It's sad that she would even think or decide to do that, when those kids watch this they will think that this is the right thing to do and will start doing the same thing just because they want to be like her. I'm sure that the parents of these children don't appreciate her dancing on a stripper pole thinking that it is perfectly fine. This leaves parents second guessing about her.

What do you guys think? Do you think that this is bad or is it OK for her to do being these things?

Below is a link to the video of her performing at the TCA 09 Party in the USA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxUr2ggLlhI

It's a win win situation.

Regents exams have been administered since 1865 they are tests that are given to measure how well you know a certain subject for example History, Math, English, Science etc. As of Jan according to the New York Post the Department of Education wants to get rid of, or hold back 13 out of 17 regents examinations keeping only one regent in Math, Science, History and English. The Department of Education also wants to get rid of the translating of tests however not Spanish but all others. They believe that by eliminating all of these regents they would save $13.7 million in preparation costs. They say that if they did end up deciding to do this they would have to end up lowering their standards all together.

"It was not something I was anticipating but when you go back and consider what the department is facing...It's not surprising" said Robert Lowry of the state superintendents council. Facing a $9 billion state deficit, Gov. Paterson's latest budget proposal suggests $4.7 million in cuts from the Department of Education and $1.5 billion more in school aid. This is a win win situation because although the Department of Education don't want to get rid of the tests we would be savings millions of dollars for school aid to help the schools which is a good thing. However schools won't have tests to judge our knowledge on of the subjects so our grades would be strictly based on how we are in the classroom and our projects, tests and, class participation in class. For many students this can also be a good thing because some students may have failed a particular regent and would have to go to summer school to retake it which takes up half of your summer, so without these regents it would give students an opportunity over the summer to get a job make money and not have to go to summer school.

By making this change I think that both sides win, what do you think?

This is a link to one article that speaks about this situation.
http://gothamist.com/2010/03/09/are_regents_exams_on_their_way_out.php

2012?

Its said the world will come to an end in the year 2012 do you believe it?

According to the movie "2012" which came out in 2009, they say that the world will end on December 21st 2012 since that is the last date on the Mayan calender. In the movie it started out with having many natural disasters all over the world and then eventually in 2012 the world came to an end. At first I didn't believe the whole story behind 2012 because it freaked me out and I didn't want to believe it. However now I'm starting to think that this could be true since over the past years there has been many natural disasters occurring for example- Hurricane Katrina and many tsunamis and mudslides. Recently there were horrible earthquakes in Haiti as well as Chile and Japan which happened just a few days ago. According to the Richter scale the Earthquakes were between 7 and 9 which means they were very affective.

According to the movie 2012 and the information they show in the movie I'm starting to believe that it's possible the world can come to an end very soon. The earth only has a limited amount of days and if people don't step up and correct there mistakes, and try to help the earth out the world can come to an end even sooner then we think. By people throwing their trash and littering all over the place this is affecting the ozone layer. People also are selfish and cant save electricity. When you walk out of a room you should shut the light, during the summer instead of having the air conditioner on all the time go take a walk outside and enjoy the fresh air. Its by doing the little things like that, that can help us save the Earth.

below is a link to the trailer of the movie "2012".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvM8fE3zCWY