The first article is called Moonlight, The Reflection of Life, it basically tells us how is the

absorbance method that they use, putting a light on one side of the object, and look at it from
the opposite side to see what wavelengths absorbed. The wavelengths that it doesn´t absorb
are passed through a prism and give us its spectrum: the fingerprint of the object, an idea of
what the chemical composition of the object is.
And wanting to know what the earth's spectrum would be, the only planet we know is home
to life is debating how to get it, even though that would mean sending an observer some
distance from Earth, and at a time when the Earth is between Observer and the Sun
measure its spectrum. But Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands together with
University of Central Florida proposed that instead of sending any observer abroad, it is
better to do it with a lunar eclipse, the spectrum presented lines of ozone, oxygen, water,
carbon dioxide, nitrogen and components of our ionosphere, it is mainly blue, purple, red.
This method isn’t only used to search for planets with spectrum like ours, also, to measure
distances, age of stars, among others.
The second article is called The Origin of Religion, it begins with a clear distinction of why it
arose to religion, which highlights the need to understand our world, that was well taken
advantage of by those who sought power. This research was carried out by Pyysi¬ainen and
Hauser.
In addition, the dilemma of whether religion is post-cognitive, then it will have a markedly
anthropological and cultural or pre-cognitive character, looking from the moral point of this.
We would have to look further back in the evolutionary tree to find the element distinctive
common to all cultures. The research makes a review of the works already published in
which it is shown that different cultures respond in an analogous way when their individuals
are asked about moral issues that had not previously been raised. This puts Pyysiæinen and
Hauser on the track that religion is pre-cognitive, and comes from a form of animal altruism
that we would not identify as religion in the first place. The authors add that this doesn’t
mean that religion can be an element that facilitates social stability and cooperation.
The third article is called Romans and AIDS. It is difficult to keep track of the AIDS virus
before its discovery, the oldest samples containing the virus were taken in 1959-60 in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. But in the story of how we got to contract HIV, it is good
to look at another aspect: in what way do humans evolve to make us vulnerable to it?
In this line, the Magazine: Infection, Genetics and Evolution published an article on the
influence that could have the Roman Empire in the genetic predisposition to contract the
virus. The thing went like this: It has been discovered that there is a gene, which codes for a
receptor protein called CCR5-Delta32. In such a way that those who have this gene are less
vulnerable to contracting HIV. The next thing was of course to make a map of how many are
the lucky carriers of that gene. The results of this map were the ones that put the
researchers on the track of the Roman Empire. It turns out that the countries that were
occupied by Rome have the lowest percentage of inhabitants with the blessed gene,
between 0% and 6%. In the barbarian and Caucasian borders the percentage improves,
between 8% and 11.8%. And beyond the Pax Romana the most encouraging results begin
to appear, over 12%.
But the coincidence of the gene with the Empire is not only spatial; it is also temporary. It
turns out that if we look at the frequency with which the gene was extended at the border of
the Empire, this frequency goes hand in hand with the shape of that border from the fourth
century BC to the IV AD.
But, how could the Romans reduce the population of carriers of CCR5-Delta32? It is little
credible that they could do it based on sexual relations with the locals of each region, since it
is known that the Romans did not have almost sex with others who were not Romans. The
most accepted theory now is that the Romans introduced in Europe some type of disease
especially fatal for the carriers of the CCR5-Delta32, perhaps with the introduction of cats or
donkeys in Europe, perhaps in another way. Another theory is that the Romans lived in
Mediterranean or warm climate, some mosquito or another species not suitable for too cold
climates spread the disease that killed the carriers of the CCR5-Delta32 where it could. The
truth is that the subject is quite open.
I chose these articles because I found the topics to be very interesting to read, I liked them a
lot and I learned something new.