andromeda+strain


 * Week One.**

Kris: Questions Lenny: Summary of Meeting and Food Max: Week's questions

Topic: Characters (Section 1 out of 5 of your text)

1. On your group's wiki page, describe the main characters in your text. What makes them interesting? What is their story or background? Why are you drawn to them? Conversely, are there any characters that you just cannot stand? Why not? (B) 2. Person D should share his/her questions with the group, as well as post the questions on the group's wiki page 3. Person C should post the meeting summary on the group's wiki page after class.
 * __Assignment__**:

1. Arthur Mancheck is the army General that alerted the U.S about the threat. 2. Stone is the scientist that studied bacteria. 3. Gladstone is another scientist that Burden is the Pathologist. 4. Hall is a surgeon. 5. Leavitt is the parasitologist. 6. Shawn and Crane are the two men that enter the abandoned town to find the satellite and discovered the dead people and Komrow was the man at the other end of Shawn and Cranes conversation who lost contact when they saw the white-robed man walking over the dead bodies.

The two main characters that we focused on where Arthur Mancheck and Stone. Mancheck seems to hate everybody and always keeps a cool head. He always keeps his emotions from affecting his decisions and has the typical military general outlook and behavior. Stone is a more typical scientist. He is not very exciting so far, but is the main character. He created the Wild-Fire to find pathogens from the upper atmosphere and bring them to earth to study. As of right now, in the first 5th of our book all the characters are just being introduced so we do not know any of their motives yet.

QUESTIONS:

1. What do you think of the story overall. a. All three of us really like this book. The book takes place around the 1950’s and it contains an interesting plot of a event where humans are exposed to deadly pathogens. The story reads really quickly and Cricton uses a lot of scientific evidence and details to make his story more interesting and believable. Overall, we think that we picked a good, fun book to read for our fourth marking period book club.

2. Do you think that the United States has a system similar to the one used in this novel to protect against extraterrestrial organisms? a. When the novel talked about the sterilization/research laboratory, it seemed like the typically Area 51 “environment”. The novel also, at this point takes place in the desert of Arizona, which further supports our theory that the novel may be based on Area 51. However, we don’t think we have any procedures/ defense in the event that we are exposed to harmful pathogens.

3. How do you think the people will react to quarantine rest of the world from the disease a. Lenny: By contacting Jeremy Stone b. Max: I think they’re just going to panic like crazy. c. Kris: I think that the way it killed off an entire population of a town, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world becomes infected.

4. As the beginning of the book, it gave us a foreshadowing of the plot by saying that current sterilization techniques will be useless. What do you think of it. a. We think that it kind of shows that the bacteria from the upper atmosphere will be resistant to human medicine and medical techniques. Therefore, the virus will spread to different parts of the world. We think that this is where stone will come in and play a large part of the story; he will most likely be the individual to solve the entire crisis.

5. What do you think of that man in the white robe? a. We think that although the characters in the story thought that the white man in the robe was someone who was immune to the disease, we think otherwise. We think that he is some sort of organism/being that came on the satellite and is responsible for either directly killing, or spreading the disease.

SUMMARY: We entered class ready for our first book discussion. Our book is Andromeda Strain and we each got the book on time, but Max left his copy at home. Lenny brought in protein bars to eat. Before discussing the book, we discussed a track meet that happened yesterday. We began to discuss the book and each of us like the story a lot. It is interesting how scientific and accurate it all sounds. Michael Crichton is one of the best Sci-Fi authors in our opinions. Next we answered the questions supplied by the Wiki-space about the characters in the book. Finally, we answered Kris’s questions.


 * Week Two.**

Kris: Summary of Meeting and Food Lenny: Week's question Max: Questions

Topic 2: Language (Section 2 out of 5 of your text)

1. On your group's wiki page, discuss the type of language that your book contains. Is it easy to read? Conversational? "Classic"? Does it use a lot of words you don't understand? What grade level do you think the book is written at, and why? (B) 2. Person D should share his/her questions with the group, as well as post the questions on the group's wiki page.  3. Person C should post the meeting summary on the group's wiki page after class.
 * Assignment**:

The language used in //Andromeda Strain// is very scientific. There is a lot of technical and medical jargon and scientific facts and statistics that make the book believable and realistic. However, even throughout all of this confusing vocabulary and information, it is still an easy book to follow because Crichton does a good job of introducing and explaining his topics. The terms are hard to understand, but they are explained. High school students are the correct age group for this book, because it is complex, but if you are old enough to understand the book, it is an extremely good read.

1. What do you think the "Andromeda Strain" is doing to the people? How do you think that it kills them?

A. The virus solidifies your blood. Some people die instantly before they get a chance to react. Others go crazy and kill themselves and even others get to move, but not very far before they die.

2. How do you think the man survived? Why do you think that he is throwing up blood, while everyone else has blood that is clotted?

A. Lenny thinks the man is immune and he is throwing up blood because he is fighting off the virus. Kris agrees.

3. Why do you think that the man thought that the two scientists were aliens and how did he relate to the deaths' of the two men in the beginning?

A. He thought that the men were aliens because all of the other humans were dead so he did not think that it was possible to see other humans. Kris thinks that the man did not have to do with the two men's death, but was merely there when they began to feel the affects of the virus.

4. What do you think the consequence of the president not destroying the infected town?

A. The consequence of this will be that isolation will not work and the disease will spread across the nation and then across the world. It will ride the current that is in that area.

5. Do you think that the baby and the man are carriers for the "Andromeda Strain" or are just immune?

A. Kris thinks that they are just immune because they are showing no symptoms of the virus. The man is throwing up blood that is not clotted.

Today we met for the 2nd time for our 4th marking period book Club. We have all unanimously decided that this is an amazing book; it reads very quickly and the plot stays interesting throughout. Anyways, I, Kris, brought in the food, these little korean moon pie things (chocolate covering on the outside and marshmallows on the inside) and soda, Max did the questions, and Lenny was responsible for answering this week's question. Also, Jess joined our group today, he had friends. Today's meeting was productive and we finished with about 10 minutes to spare. The book is great, and we look forward to reading more and more. **
 * Summary


 * Week 3**

Kris: Discussion Question Lenny: Questions Max: Summary and Food (for himself)

This book contains a type sober, scientific, and gives the reader a feeling of the necessity of haste. There are about 50 people that have died due to the disease that was brought back on the space craft. The scientists know that they must find a cure for the disease and the reader feels this sense of urgency throughout the book.
 * On your group's wiki page, discuss the mood or tone of your book.What is the overriding emotion of this book? What examples back up your claim?**


 * Questions:**

1. Do you think the 24 hour sterilization process is necessary? a. Clearly it is extremely necessary for the sterilization process to get to the bottom of the base. However, it is a shame that the process taken to get to the bottom of the base did not work to keep the contamination sealed coming up and out of the base. Not even the sterilization pools stopped the strain from reaching the surface.

2. Why did Jackson and Ritter survive the encounter with the Andromeda Strain? a. Their pH was at an abnormal level. The Andromeda Strain survives in a pH similar to that of blood, but because Jackson's and Ritter's pH's were abnormal, the Strain did not infect them.

3. If this lethal microbe was let loose around the world, would you want to be a survivor with an abnormal pH, or would you like to die with the other 99% of the world? a. It is hard to say what the world would be like if 99% of humans died. However, we agree that we would like to be survivors. 1% of the world is still a lot of people, and civilization may still be able to continue.

4. Why would the strain benefit from an atomic explosion? a. An atomic explosion would actually feed the organism, because it turns energy into matter, and would thus reproduce exponentially if the bomb were set off.

5. Do you agree with Stone that an injection of Kalocin would be too risky? a. Seeing how Stone is a Nobel Prize Winning scientist, he probably knows better than we do. But faced with such a huge decision, we think that we'd probably give Burton the injection. Stone had no way of knowing that the strain would evolve into a non-lethal strain. Therefore, I think you'd have to take the risk to inject to avoid a lethal bacteria, even if the risk was higher vulnerability to other diseases.

This week, I was by myself because Lenny and Kris were both at Teen Arts. I brought myself cookies which I ate in the corner by myself while I did chemistry homework. Everybody else had their own food with all of their book club friends, which was depressing, but I got the work I needed to do done. Later in the week, Lenny posted his questions and answered them and Kris answered the discussion questions. Not much went on this week for book club because I was by myself and there was not much I can do.
 * Summary**

Kris: Questions Lenny: Food and Summary Max: Discussion Question
 * Week 4**

Questions: 1. What do you think of the endings of the book? a. We thought that the end of the book had a bad solution. The book ended too abruptly and the solution seemed to simple to be the cure for supposedly the "deadliest disease" the world has ever seem. Michael Crichton built and built the plot throughout the book, but it just died down too quickly.

2. How did you think that the scientists would find a solution to the Andromeda Strain? a. We really don't know for sure what it could have been. They could have discovered a new drug, for found a way to inhibit it from reproducing which in the bloodstream, something. But the fact that the disease mutated on its own to become benign was too simple a solution.

3. How does this book compare to others written by him? If you haven't read a different book by him, do you think that after reading this book, you'll look into other Michael Crichton books? a. Well, we know that Michael Crichton wrote other book such as Jurassic Park. We really liked his book, and are looking forward to reading others of his. I personally read some of his other books and I thought that although it was good near the mid section of the book, it didn't meet the standard that some of his other books such as Prey and State of Fear set for his.

4. Mistakes made by the Scientists played a large role in the outcomes of the story despite having the most sophisticated computers, etc.