DNA Exoneration

It is well known that no system is perfect. this unfortunately also includes the justice system in the united states. An estimated five percent of the people in U.S. prisons today are innocent. They are there for various reason such as Eyewitness identification, improper forensic science, false confessions among other things. There is a way to prove the innocence of  these people and it is called DNA exoneration.

Exoneration is what happens when evidence is reviewed using DNA profiling and it is proved that the person incarcerated is innocent. Since DNA profiling was developed in the 1980's it has been used to prove many people innocent. The innocence project is dedicated to using DNA profiling to exonerate 318 people.Now that we have DNA profiling we are able to tell with much more certainty who the perpetrator was in homicides and sex crimes.

DNA exoneration is a very good tool to have to determine the guilt of people suspected of crimes such as murder or rape. It is much easier to trust hard facts of a persons DNA than it is to trust the word of a man accusing another. Not only can people lie in these cases but improper forensic science can contribute as well. DNA profiling takes out all these variables so it is much easier to tell who committed the crime. If DNA sample is found on the victim and a DNA sample from a suspect can be collected to find a match it is a much more reliable way to convict someone of a crime.

Laughter and the Immune system

Growing up, we are told that "Laughter is the best Medicine." We tend to believe this, Laughing almost always turns the hard times into the good times. We are always ready for a good laugh. But scientifically there may be some truth to this. But there is still controversy to whether or not this is true.
 This document was a literature review of research done about Suggestions that the immune system is actually boosted by laughter. However this document has lots of anecdotal evidence, but no hard scientific evidence. So in order to make a claim  about whether or not laughter does boost the immune, more scientific research must be done.
I think that this paper is interesting because it presents lots of evidence that is not accurate in nature because it uses mostly anecdotal. However it does show some interesting ideas on how laughter may benefit the immune system. I had always thought that laughter made you feel better but the concept that it may actually benefit the body's immune system as well is just a bonus. How ever to believe this claim I would need to see much more factual evidence.

Lucy Blog Update

In our modern day. Research points to the fact that humans may be distantly related to the modern ape family. We all know that apes Have similiar traits to human beings. we learn this at a young age. We also learn that apes are still different from us Despite out similaritys.Now we know that apes are kept in zoos and as circus acts but it is rare for an ape to live in a home with humans  for more than short periods of time. But what would happen if an ape was kept in a home for ten years as an experiment and raised as a human girl?

The story of lucy is about just that. Lucy was taken from her chimpanzee parents at two days old and for the next ten years she lived as a human girl, a rather spoiled human girl at that. She lived that way for ten years but as chimppanzees get older they get stronger up to ten times stronger than human males. The family that she was with loved her as their own daughter so when she got so strong that she couldnt live in a house anymore they searched the world for a good place to put her. They eventually found a place in gambia on and Island. They left lucy on this island with one human to watch after her and other chimpanzees. The care taker left the island after three years leaving lucy to live on her. Unfortunantly one time when she visited she found lucys skeleton, she was presumably poached.

Lucy taught us that chimpanzees are similiar to humans and have similiar traights to them. They can communicate they can be toilet trained they can even show attraction to humans. They are not however as evolved as humans are and they are much stronger which makes it hard for them to live in the same enviroment as humans. This story really changed my perspective on chimpanzees I had always known that we both evolve from a common ancestor but I didnt unerstand the differences and similarities. I Didnt think that a chimp could become sexually attracted to a human this was a bit of a new concept for me. Before hearing this I knew that animals had emotion but I had no idea that chimps could so vividly express their emotions as lucy did to her care taker while she was on the island. It really made me think about human nature and how we try to connect at more than a social level with other species but at a deeper level as well. Ithink that the lucy experiment was worth while because it showed to me that chimpanzees have to potential to evolve as humans have and become even more intelligent than  they already are. The story of lucys makes me feel intriuged because I didnt think chimpanzees were capableof what lucy did and how she lived. It made me think about how if she could live with humans like this maybe someday apes could be interjected into our society in some way. The possiblities for chimpanzees an there advancements are endless.

Thinking Like A Mountain Reponse

The wilderness is one of the greatest places on the planet but there has to be balance in it for the ecosystem survive. Diversity equals stability with to much of one thing or to little of one thing the ecosytem can  fall apart. in the early part of this century people thought that predators were bad so they were killed off and we are still facing reprocusions today.

In the reading titled thinking like a mountain. Aldo leopald bases the reading around a metphor that the mountain knows more about the wilderness then we do. He starts with a peom about a wolf howling and how only the mountain knows what it means. He then moves on to one of his personal experiences with killing wolves  and how it changed him forever.He then talks about how killing the wolves in such mass as he did affects the wilderness in a negative way and how wrong it was.

 I enjoyed this article becasue I can relate to it. I love the wilderness so I know abit about extripating and have seen first hand how the lack of predators has an affect on the other animals and the landscape. For this reason I am very glad that we are now trying to reverse the mistakes that we made at the begining of the last century. Towards the end of the article he talks about how run down the land gets when there are to many deer or elk when there are not enough predators to keep their numbers down and I dont want tha to happen. Not to mention wolves are some of the smartest animals out there and I they have always been extremely interesting to me.

Ted talk reaction

The ocean, Its a wonderful place full of fish algea sharks whales and thousands of other species. We all think about how fun it would be to go swim with dolfins and go diving in beautiful coral reefs. This is a beautiful eco system that we can all love and respect but what we dont know is that it can all be very easily.

In this TED talk, Enric sala talks about how the ecosystems in coral reefs every where are being destoryed and taken down to nothing but sea urchins and algea on top of bare rocks. When a eco system is heathy there should be more predators like sharks with  fewer plankton eaters but also alot of variety. But when a eco system and the reef is degraded then it is  the opposite with more bottom feeders than predators. He spoke about how when an area is protected and it will be heathlier. If we prtect reefs the wildlife will flourish and produce more fish then when it is unprotected and those fish will leave the protected area and get caught so it helps the fishing economy. 1% of the ocean is protected and it would be cheaper to prtect 20% of the worlds ocean than it would to subsidies commercial fishing. If we had more prtected waters than we could bring in more tourist divers and that would bring in more money than fishing alone will. 

My instant reaction to this is why dont we have more area protected why dont we make it a priority and the anwser came later in the video . He talked about how there is not much awareness about the subject. This made me feel like we as people need to care more about our enviroment because its the only one we have.This also made me want to learn more about how these coral reefs get degraded and why we dont stop degrading them.