Exoneration

                  Exoneration is when a person is freed from being guilty, and proven to be innocent after being guilty. In class, we listened to a very interesting story about teenage boys who were guilty for a terrible crime, and later they were actually proven innocent. The radio recording shows how ineffective and untrustworthy prosecution is, and how effective DNA evidence helps in finding the real criminals that commit the crimes, instead of locking up innocent people.

                    The recording we listened to what the story of 4 black teenage boys who were wrongfully convicted of the murder of a white woman. The boys were "proven"guilty and served 15 years in prison. The police investigators who were on the case practically framed the boys to admit that they did the crime, when in reality they didn't do it. After the police brought the murder case back up to reassure, they tested DNA evidence. The police finally found out the 4 teenage boys were innocent and they were exonerated. The DNA evidence helped the police to catch the real murderers, who were 2 totally different men.   

                    This story was very shocking to hear, I was suprised that the police would frame young boys just because they thought they did the crime. In the recording, it even said that one of the police officers in charge of the case made one of the boys admit he did the crime and lied to his face. He said that if he confessed to the crime, he would return the boy back to his family. When I heard that a police man actually did that to a teenage boy, I was really shocked that he would lie like that just to get a forced confession. This story also shows how trustworthy DNA evidence is and that it is very vital that it is used in every case it can be used in. It is the most accurate and efficient way to find the real criminal, and it will decrease the number of innocent people serving time in jail for a crime they didn't commit. 
                    

               

Can We Eat To Starve Cancer?

                    Many common diseases all across our world today, such as cancer, arthritis, and obesity surprisingly all have one thing in common; malfunctioning angiogenesis, which is the growth of new blood vessels in your body. Whats a way to stop the the excessive/damaged growth of blood vessels you might ask? You're about to find out.            

                    William Li is a doctor speaking about anti angiogenesis treatment, specifically for curing cancer. In the Ted talk we watched as a class, Dr. Li explains how accurate anti angiogenesis treatment is, along with foods you can eat to advance the treatment and restore healthy blood vessels. Unlike chemo therapy, anti angiogenesis starves the cancer by cutting off the blood supply of it, so it doesn't get the nutrients it needs to grow from blood vessels. Without blood supply, the tumor can't live. Dr. Li also talked about foods that can help make healthier angiogenesis in the body, such as tomatoes, garlic, pumpkin, and strawberries. These foods help the body's angiogenesis healthier and can potentially be a benefit to fighting cancer.

                   After watching the Ted talk in class, I was very satisfied with the video and how the treatment worked so well for people and animals. Cancer is a terrible thing, and I believe if there is a beneficial way to stop the blood supply in a cancerous tumor, anti angiogeneis treatment seems to be the most effective and most advanced. Although it is a new treatment, I think anti angiogenesis is a smart way to take on tumors. In the video, it showed several animals and a few people with cancerous tumors, and after having the treatment done for a few months, their tumor was either gone or much healthier than before. It seems to be efficient and effective. I found it amazing that eating just simple foods like pumpkin, can actually help people with cancer to have healthier angiogenesis. That really shocked me in a good way to know eating such common foods can help the fight, even if its just a little bit.

Lucy the Chimp

               In class, we listened to a recording of an experiment with a chimpanzee named Lucy. Lucy was an experiment, to see how much a chimpanzee could adapt and evolve to the environment of a human. Instead of living in a jungle with all kinds of wild animals and species, she was raised by human beings. Eventually, after Lucy finally adapted to the habitat of a modern human, she was put back with other chimpanzees in a forest to see how she would act. Lucy learned to be very friendly to everyone she saw because of how she was specifically raised. One day, a women working with Lucy and the experiment went to where Lucy was located, and found her dead. Although the ending was rather disappointing, the experiment was very enticing and educational.
               The most important thing I learned through listening to the experiment of Lucy, was that all animals are oddly like in very many ways. An average chimp is a lot smarter than I would have thought, Lucy adapted to the area around her and learned to be just like a human. If an animal like her is influenced in such ways, they could very well be more like a human than we anticipate.
               The human is a very complex species to fully understand and fully adapt to, we are so much different in complicated ways from every other type of species and animal. Every animal is unique in it's own way, especially humans and apes.
               The experiment was very different in my opinion. I would have never thought that an average chimp could adapt to its surroundings so well, it was exciting to hear about. Although, I wonder if the confusion and deep emotion Lucy went through was actually worth the experiment, it was cruel in many ways and didn't seem morally correct, but it was very interesting.
               It was depressing to hear about the ending of the experiment and how Lucy died. It was very shocking and unpredictable, just imagining how nice and sweet Lucy must have been, I can't believe someone would have killed her.

"Thinking Like a Mountain" by Aldo Leopold

               In the story we read in class "Thinking Like a Mountain", the author describes many points of views about nature and how wolves affect their surrounding of nature.
             This story is mainly about how nature sees its animals compared to how we see them. The "mountain" in this story is all nature. The mountain sees importance in the simple howl of the wolf that maybe we as humans do not realize. In the story the author says, "Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf." We are unable to see the hidden meaning of an animal that the mountain does see.
              We don't live where these animals live, nor do we go through the same troubles that they face everyday. The reason we don't understand the true meaning of the howl of the wolf is because we don't hear it the way the mountain hears it. In my opinion, diversity equals stability in this story. The more diverse the animals and organisms are, the more stable their habitats and ecosystems are. This story is a great way of showing people the wolf is an important animal in nature and we need to be more aware of that.

Ted Talk Video: Response and Summary

               According to the sustainability advisor Louise Fresco, food is as economically important as things like oil and energy for our world.
               In the video a woman named Louise Fresco has two loaves of bread. One loaf is freshly baked and represents agriculture and "true beauty". The other loaf is the name brand "wonder bread". Louise believes the "wonder bread" is the better alternative for people around the world to buy because it is mass production. She claims that sound mass production foods fee the whole world, yet leave a small role for small bakeries. Only 1% of United States population are farmers today due to the modernization of agriculture and global trading.
               Louise says we need to improve our agricultural science, also known as "good science", and we also need to improve our agricultural technology in order to maintain the environmentally sound mass production of food.