Stem Cells=Ethical?

In the beginning of the year, I did agree with the fact that stem cells are seemingly appropriate. Doing research on adult stem cells are fair enough, but the use of embryonic stem cells are unethical. President Obama stealthily avoids answering the question, uncommon amongst politicians. On his press conference on March 24, 2009, he may suggest that he is for stem cell research. "I wrestle with it on stem cell; I wrestle with it on issues like abortion.I think that the guidelines that we provided meet that ethical test." Saying that it passes the ethical test, it is most likely that he supports the use of stem cells. 

On an educational, scientific and medical standpoint, I do believe stem cells are good. They are an advancement in medicines and can help save many lives in significant organs that people need. The biotechnology that can be used will probably save thousands, if not millions, of lives. Recreating your own organ will be much convenient compared to attaining transplants. You would not be burdened on having to remember taking pills everyday so that the organ would not reject you and shut down, putting a patient in vital danger.

However, even though they are beneficial to the large population, I believe embryonic stem cells are unethical. Similarly to abortion, embryonic stem cells kill innocent lives. Embryos may not be considered as a life form just yet, but they develop into human beings just like you and me. Why are we killing innocent lives? So we can save another life? It is not any better to be murdering one to save another. All the young and bright minds that would have been brought into the world, all the ideas that might have come forth, discarded for our own pleasures. There are other ways to save patients, using adult stem cells is a better alternative. Conclusively, embryonic stem cells are advantageous in medical opportunities, but while doing so, you are also killing millions of ingenuous lives.

Wake-up!!!

There are many changes in your body in the morning. After sleeping, your body is weak, and over a short period of time, it fixes this problem. Right when I wake up in the morning, I tend to notice that my arms and legs are weaker than during the day. Once, my alarm went off and I went to quiet it down. As I walked back to my bed, my legs gave away and I fell. During the night, my muscular system relaxes, when I suddenly use  them again, it is weak. Also, the moment I wake up, I open the curtains. The sunlight streams into my room, making everything bright. My eyes hurt from the bright light, and I have to shade my eyes so that it doesn't hurt as much. This happens because during the night, everything is dark and my pupils are bigger, allowing more light in. However when I first wake up, my eyes in the nervous system tells me that the combinations of allowing more light into my eyes and the large amounts of light in the room make it too much for my body to take in.

Negative feedback loops are working to make sure that the changes I experience aren't too extreme. The constant effort of trying to maintain homeostasis keeps my body ready for changes throughout the day.

Rapping?

I did not think that making a photosynthesis rap helped improve my knowledge and understanding. It didn't really help because I was focusing more on putting the song and the music together. The advantages from this assignment was to put what we learned into our own words when we wrote the lyrics. Then we would apply what we learn and really absorb everything that was taught. The disadvantages of this assignment was that instead of focusing on what we learned about photosynthesis, we tried to put the lyrics to make it match and fit with the song. 

Doing a lab would help me personally because I am a "visual" learner. If I see the process visually, then I can really learn and understand the photosynthesis process better.

Thanksgiving-What I'm really thankful for.

During the season of Thanksgiving, we're supposed to spend time and reflect what we're really thankful for. That's what I'd like to express here. 

1. I'm thankful for having a house, clothes, food, and other necessities, and non-necessities. Many people out there, whether here in the United States, rural China, India or Africa, aren't as fortunate as we are. They don't have anything.

2. I'm thankful that my parents care for me and provide for my needs.

3. I'm also thankful for being fit and healthy.

4.I'm thankful for being able to make new friends at Gunderson, because all my friends are at Leland.

5. I'm am thankful that God has given me such a great life.

6. Last, but not least, I'm thankful that the world is caring enough to have funds and donations to give to the poor.

Do science fair projects really "teach" science?

In some ways, science fair projects do help teach science. When you do science fair projects, you do hands-on projects that apply what you learn from the scientific method. You make a hypothesis when you ask a question that you are not sure about and make an "educated guess" about what is going to happen at the end of the project. You experiment, or test the hypothesis when you collect data and you also learn what the cause and effect was. As you do your experiment, you also observe what is happening. You analyze what has happened with the independent variables and the dependent variables. Finally, you learn to evaluate and prove your hypothesis through your data. 

Stem Cells- Good or Bad?

I think stem cells are good. The reason for this is that these cells can be more effective and convenient for people compared to getting new organs through transplants. For example, for Claudio Castillo of Spain, doctors took a donated windpipe, stripped it from the original cells, and used Claudio's own stem cells to "rebuild" the windpipe. The organ is now made up of Castillo's own cells. This allows the body to accept the organ, so she won't have to take medicine to stop the rejection.