TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: On June 21 2020, the Facebook page “The Runic Witch” shared the following meme, which described a garden in England “dedicated entirely to plants that … can kill you”:At the bottom of the meme was a photograph of a black gate, the archway of which read “The Poison Garden.” Both doors featured a skull and crossbones symbol and the words “these plants can kill.” Text at the top read:There’s a garden in England dedicated entirely to plants that are deadly and can kill you. It’s the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killers [such as hemlock], strychnine, and nightshade.The Alnwick Garden is a “complex of formal gardens” not far from the Scottish border. It contains a number of sub-sections, including a massive treehouse, a cherry orchard, a bamboo labyrinth, and water features:Number nine on the above “Map Key” is marked to the left of the center fountain, and a rendering of the iron gates seen in the meme is visible.The Poison Garden was added in 2005, and a page on the Garden’s visitor site says of the deadlier plant section:The Alnwick Garden plays host to the small but deadly Poison Garden—filled exclusively with around 100 toxic, intoxicating, and narcotic plants. The boundaries of the Poison Garden are kept behind black iron gates, only open on guided tours.Visitors are strictly prohibited from smelling, touching, or tasting any plants, although some people still occasionally faint from inhaling toxic fumes while walking in the garden.An archived version of the page shed a bit more light onto the garden’s creation:It’s not often that the Home Office becomes involved with plants in the setting of a public garden, but in this instance a number of the ‘inmates’ have to have their very own license in order to be there at all.Many of the plants are already well-known for their medicinal properties, but as its creator, the Duchess of Northumberland said:‘I wondered why so many gardens around the world focused on the healing power of plants rather than their ability to kill… I felt that most children I knew would be more interested in hearing how a plant killed, how long it would take you to die if you ate it and how gruesome and painful the death might be.’Another since updated section, titled “Intoxicating inhabitants,” described some of the plants growing in the garden as the ones mentioned in the meme:There are over 100 plants of varying deadliness grown in the Poison Garden. Some of the plants are beautiful despite being deadly, and other look so harmless it is hard to imagine their dangerous, even fatal, qualities.Nux vomica’s Latin name implies much, but it perhaps rings more bells as strychnine. Interestingly, hemlock, a poison in its own right, can be used as an antidote to Strychnine, but don’t tell Socrates, who was sent to his death with a cup of hemlock.Those of a certain age will be familiar with Castor Oil, which is made from the plant Ricinus communis, but a single seed from the same plant will kill an adult in the most horrible way. Ricin causes nausea, severe vomiting, convulsions and subsequent disintegration of the kidneys, liver and spleen…In 2014, Smithsonian Magazine profiled the Poison Garden and spoke to Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland about the macabre project’s inspiration:The duchess thought she might want to include an apothecary garden, but a trip to Italy set her on a slightly different course. After visiting the infamous Medici poison garden, the duchess became enthralled with the idea of creating a garden of plants that could kill instead of heal. Another trip—this one to the archeological site of the largest hospital in medieval Scotland, where the duchess learned about soporific sponges soaked in henbane, opium and hemlock used to anesthetize amputees during 15th-century surgeries—reinforced her interest in creating a garden of lethal plants.“I thought, ‘This is a way to interest children,'” she says. “Children don’t care that aspirin comes from a bark of a tree. What’s really interesting is to know how a plant kills you, and how the patient dies, and what you feel like before you die.”[…]“What’s extraordinary about the plants is that it’s the most common ones that people don’t know are killers,” the duchess says. Visitors are often surprised to learn that the laurel hedge, nearly ubiquitous in English gardens, can be highly toxic. But some visitors have had experience with laurel’s sinister side—the duchess has heard a few talk about how, after loading up their cars with pruned laurel leaves to take to the dump, drivers have fallen asleep behind the wheel of their car from the toxic fumes the branches emit.In the meme, plants in the nightshade family (which also contains potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant) were mentioned. In the article, a more specific explanation appeared alongside a detail about the garden’s other interesting inhabitants:As part of the Poison Garden’s educational mission, the duchess grows a variety of drugs, from cannabis to cocaine (derived from the leaves of the coca plant), which she and garden guides use as a jumping-off point for drug education. “It’s a way of educating children without having them realize they’re being educated,” she says.Other poisonous plants might be less well-known to visitors, but are no less potent. One of the duchess’s favorite plants is Brugmansia, or angel’s trumpet, a member of the Solanaceae family (which includes deadly nightshade) that grows in the wild in South America. “It’s an amazing aphrodisiac before it kills you,” she says, explaining that Victorian ladies would often keep a flower from the plant on their card tables and add small amounts of its pollen to their tea to incite an LSD-like trip. “[Angel’s trumpet] is an amazing way to die because it’s quite pain-free,” the duchess says. “A great killer is usually an incredible aphrodisiac.”As such, the “Poison Garden” meme was both popular and largely accurate. The Poison Garden is a sub-attraction as part of the larger Alnwick Garden, and it is grown behind the depicted, imposing iron gates. Among the deadly plants in it are hemlock, Nux vomica (strychnine), and Ricinus communis (ricin).Comments

SOLUTION: There's a garden in England dedicated entirely to plants that are deadly and can kill you. It's the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killers [such as hemlock], strychnine, and nightshade.

PROBLEM: Coaches and many youth athletes automatically would undergo training to detect signs of a concussion and understand the potential consequences of a brain injury under rules proposed by the New Mexico Department of Health. The agency has scheduled a public hearing later this month on the proposal requiring annual training about concussions not only of coaches but also parents and young athletes themselves — once they turn 11. Agency official were unavailable Friday for comment. Those children would sign a form each year that shows they completed brain-injury prevention training session linked to standards from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2010, New Mexico adopted far-reaching prevention and education measures to address concussions and potential brain injuries in school sports, and more recent legislation in 2017 extended training and education to student athletes. State Senator and high school teacher Bill Soules of Las Cruces said he sponsored the 2017 bill after conversations with students who felt left out of decisions about concussions in athletics. He said protocols for non-scholastic youth sports were not fully addressed at the time — and applauded the idea of expanding youth education. “The idea is that students have an awareness as to what the symptoms are of concussions because sometimes they don’t show up until one or two hours afterward, and the coach is long gone,” he said. The newly proposed brain injury rules echo many guidelines already in place at statewide youth sports organizations affiliated with national governing bodies, such as New Mexico Youth Soccer that oversees a long list of clubs and leagues across the state. Gloria Faber, executive director of New Mexico Youth Soccer, said the new state rules may be help independent youth sports groups keep up with evolving research on brain injuries and ensure that athletes take adequate time off after a concussion. She said standards for non-scholastic sports are especially important because many coaches are parent volunteers and competition begins at a young age. New Mexico’s proposed new rules include a standard sit-out period for symptoms of a concussion or brain injury — of at least 10 days. Players would return only with a written medical release. In 2015, a New Mexico judge overruled state concussion protocols to allow a high school football player in Rio Rancho to play in a title game after his parents challenged the school’s diagnosis.

SOLUTION: New Mexico seeks concussion safeguards for more youth sports.

PROBLEM: The suggestions come from 23andme, one of the companies offering to point you toward the optimal eating and exercise habits for your genetics. As with most dieting schemes, the idea is appealing because it implies there’s an elusive reason why you can’t get in shape — in this case, your genes. But Isaac Kohane, a biomedical researcher at Harvard, said research in the field is still limited and that there’s little evidence any small effects from genetic variations can be translated into meaningful dietary advice. “By and large, these are not giving a lot of value to the people who are purchasing them,” he said, adding that other factors play a far bigger role on health, such as how much we eat. Still, it’s tempting to think your DNA holds clues to your ideal diet. To see what my genes might reveal, I tried two services, 23andMe and DNAFit. 23andMe If you pay $99 for a 23andMe ancestry report, you can spend $125 more for its health reports based on the same saliva sample. Among the extras you get are several wellness reports, including one that predicts your “genetic weight” and offers other dietary insights. These findings are based on comparisons to data from other 23andMe customers. After adjusting the default setting from European to East Asian descent, my report said I’m predisposed to weigh “about average.” For a 40-year-old, 5-foot-6 woman, the company defined average as 138 pounds. 23andMe notes that most its customers are of European descent, and that its data for other ethnicities is more limited. The report then lists 10 habits associated with healthy weights for your DNA profile. For me, that included limiting red meat, avoiding fast food and exercising at least twice a week. Given how formulaic that sounded, I wondered how much results vary for others. It turns out everyone gets the same 10 habits, since those are the ones 23andMe decided to survey people about. But the order in which they’re listed varies to indicate the magnitude of their supposed effect for you. Alisa Lehman, senior product scientist for 23andMe, said the top two habits for most people are limiting red meat and avoiding fast food, as they were for me. Like many other nutrition studies, the findings do not establish cause-and-effect relationships, but are links the company makes between customers’ genes and the survey results. Other wellness reports said I’m more likely to be lactose intolerant (check), to flush when drinking alcohol (check) and to consume less caffeine (check). They were more interesting because of their specificity, but didn’t reveal anything surprising. Another report said my weight isn’t likely to be affected by my intake of saturated fat, which is commonly found in meat. The only surprise was learning I have a genetic variant “common in elite power athletes.” When I followed the link, however, I saw about half of customers have the same variant. DNAFit For $99.99, you get a saliva collection to produce reports on a variety of fitness and dietary traits. If you already have your DNA file from 23andMe, you can upload it to get instant results for $79. DNAFit says its reports are based on the broader universe of scientific research about genes and diet. Given the general fear of carbs among many dieters, I started with the “carbohydrate sensitivity” report. It started with an overview explaining the difference between complex carbs like brown rice and refined carbs like sugar that are digested more quickly. After scrolling down, the report said I have a “very low” sensitivity, meaning I’m less susceptible than others to sugar highs and diabetes. Despite this carb tolerance, it suggested I limit refined carbs to 10 percent of daily calories. Again, this sounded like fairly generic advice and made me wonder how much the recommendations vary for others. Andrew Steele, head of product at DNAFit, said that depending on people’s sensitivity, the recommended limit for refined carbs ranges from 6 to 10 percent of total calories. For someone who eats 2,500 calories a day, that’s a range from 150 calories to 250 calories. While that may not seem like a big difference, DNAFit notes cutting back from 10 to 6 percent would mean a 40 percent reduction. Still, the relatively tight range reinforces the idea that dietary advice would be largely consistent regardless of your genes. Another report said my sensitivity to saturated fat is low, and suggested limiting it to 10 percent of calories. DNAFit said the range for that recommendation is also 6 to 10 percent. Other reports were more nutrient specific. One said I have a raised need for omega-3, the cholesterol-lowering fatty acid. Another said I have a raised risk for DNA damage from chargrilled meats and should limit them. (This advice was provided over an image of candle-lit steak.) On the fitness side, the reports said I’m more prone to endurance activities than high intensity activities. I don’t know if I’ll take this into consideration if I start exercising. Others have questioned the accuracy of the fitness reports, which rated one Olympic runner’s aerobic potential as “medium.” DNAFit and 23andMe say knowing your genetic predisposition can motivate you to stick with diet or exercise routines. You may also have specific reasons for wanting to try the services, particularly 23andMe, which most get for the ancestry tests and provides many other reports. But for me, the findings from both felt too broad to influence my habits. One small note: DNAFit is based in the United Kingdom, so if you decide to try it, you may notice a small currency exchange fee on your credit card statement. ____ Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

SOLUTION:
What my DNA told me: Avoid fast food, eat vegetables.