Exoneration

Exoneration is when a prisoner who is wrongfully convicted is released from jail. Recently our class researched this. We had a choice of shows and ted talks to watch and we listened to stories of wrongfully convicted men who are saved.  We also listened to a story on NPR of a man and his friend who were wrongfully convicted of rape and murder and were sentenced to years and years in jail. We heard the tale of his exoneration and the process he went through to become free and the people that helped him get there.

We looked at all of the facts and graphed the various exonerations from the Project Innocence web-page. Project Innocence is an organization that works hard to solve all of the unsolved cases that put innocent men in jail. The work load is enormous for the people at Project Innocence because there are more cases coming in every day and there are many built up over the past years when they did not take advantage of testing. The tests they use to determine if the arrested men are actually the perpetrators is DNA testing. Some tests are much easier, such as rape cases, because the DNA (semen in rape cases) is easy to test. If the DNA found is different than the arrested men, there is really no case as to if the man is innocent.

I find this very comforting because though this is not a very personal issue for me, There are more men every day that are released from a confinement caused by a crime they didn't even commit. This way we are closer to the truth with the real culprits because old cases that were though solved are opened up again for the perpetrator to be caught. This does not in any way hinder our police system for keeping the streets clean of the people, so I feel no qualms for supporting this cause. This also shows that our government system is flawed though, and that is an unsettling thought. Now the idea that the government will put just anyone in jail to close the case is reinforced, and our faith in the government decreases even more. At least the authorities are acknowledging their mistakes and taking the wrongfully convicted out of jail, which is better than nothing.

Can We Eat To Starve Cancer?

     Have you ever worried about getting cancer? Studies have shown that we in fact can eat to starve cancer. In class we recently watched a ted talk about cancer cells and the different foods that work to prevent cancer.
     A fascinating fact is that we all have small spots of cancer all over our bodies. This was discovered through tests done on bodies from various car crashes. Every body showed signs of cancer, even if they were minimal. Studies have shown that the right types of food reduce these groups of damaged cells and works towards preventing cancer from growing into a risk to your life. We just just started a project in biology where we have a choice to either cook an anti-angiogenic recipe and cell it, or create something funny for a child with cancer. Dr. William Li is a professional in anti-angiogenic foods and has conducted many studies on various foods to see if eating them will decrease the cancerous spots on our bodies.
     I found this particularly fascinating because my family has always jokingly threatened me about skin cancer in the past. it is comforting to know there is a way out along with the various other things I have done to prevent cancer. People are in less danger of cancer as long as they know about these foods and eat them, and so we are one step closer to a permanent cure.

Lucy Blog

    High levels of intelligence are not only found in human beings, much of our way of life is shaped by the way we are socialized. In biology we recently listened to a podcast about one of the many chimpanzees who are raised as humans by humans. The star chimpanzee of this story, named Lucy, was extremely human-like. Her "parents" ended up keeping her for ten years, an incredible amount of time to keep a chimpanzee in the house. As she matured to an age where her tendencies and instincts became more and more wild, they eventually had to let her go.
   What followed this was an extremely heart-wrenching story about a group of chimps struggling to find their way in the wild with human supervisors. Lucy ended up holding on much longer than the others, and was pining away after life as a human. She would not leave the sight of her supervisor and she would not eat anything except the small rations of food the supervisor could spare to keep Lucy alive. Eventually Lucy was brought around to the wild side and learned her way in the wild on an isolated island with the other chimpanzees that grew up as humans.
    The supervisor was eventually able to leave and her visits became rarer and rarer to this deserted island. One final visit led to the discovery of Lucy's bones minus the hands. Poachers had come by and Lucy, being overconfident around humans because of her upbringing, found herself an easy target to the eager poachers.
    This story showed me the fragile barriers between animal and human and the small steps that can be taken in the discovery of the major effects of socialization that reach even beyond our species. I was blown away by this story and am amazed by the readiness Lucy felt towards humans when she was raised like this. It is so different from the lifestyle of the traditional chimpanzee and yet chimpanzees can be so entirely human if you nudge them in the right direction.
    I have always been aware of the similarities between chimps and humans but I was never aware of the extent that this relationship could be taken. The intelligence of both species is really highlighted in this story and it puts emphasis on the small pieces of life that we take for granted but are so amazed at when another species does the exact same thing due to socialization. This experiment had a tragic end and resulted in death but I feel like it was entirely worthwhile. It explained all of the similarities and the differences in our species and it showed the truth that humans are not entirely all-powerful and untouchable, we can be directly affected and copied by close species. I was disappointed in Lucy's ending because she was killed by the compassion she inherited from the humans but it showed how once someone is socialized, habits are hard to break and, in this case, resulted in death.

Thinking Like a Mountain

"Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf."

Have you ever thought about the impact of killing wolves? Or the impact of deer upon land? Strange as it may seem, these two issues are connected. The quote above is from an article we recently read in school, Thinking Like a Mountain. This article sparked a question for me to think about. What is the true impact of animals upon land and how are we all connected?

Thinking Like a Mountain was a stirring article about a man who, after killing a wolf, realized what this will truly do to our Earth. Every living being has its place, and each is part off a cycle. When you kill the wolves, the deer overpopulate the land. To all of the hunters out there, you may think this is good for hunting. In actuality, more deer means less vegetation for the land. The deer need more to eat, so they demolish up the land seeking for it. This creates more open space for erosion. Now exposed water will dry up quicker, rains will wash away the land, mountains will deteriorate. Now ask yourself, "is more deer really a benefit to life?

I found this article really interesting because this was something I never thought about. I didn't think about the chain reaction this type of thing causes, and I certainly wasn't worrying about the land. I moved to Colorado only a few years ago, and just assumed the land was always this dry and desolate. Despite my previous ignorance, I was not actually that surprised. Humans as a species tend to see things the way they want to and never stop to think about impact. This is extremely detrimental to the rest of the world, and we cannot continue for much longer.

How Big Brands Can Help Biodiversity, TED talk

     Many people believe that to change the food we are consuming into mainly organic we need to change the consumers preference or choice. That has worked, but not fast enough. To get the largest impact though, we need to influence the big companies that control the food supply, because companies can push production in a different direction faster than the consumers can. Jason Clay said in the TED talk How Big Brands Can Help Biodiversity "we need to use less to produce more". We need to find a way to convince the companies to start supplying us with sustainable goods. To change the commodities into something sustainable, Jason Clay decided to take the top one-hundred companies with unsustainable commodities and work with them to change. He talked to Cargill and they found out that the palm oil productions can double without cutting a single tree in the next two years, if they plant on land that that is already degraded. They don't need to expand and destroy more land and they get even more of the product than before. 

     I admit, I was one of the people on board with the "convincing the consumers" idea. Listening to this TED talk though, was really eye opening. I realized that they were right. No way are we going to be able to sustain our growing population in twenty years. I have never really considered environmental  issues, and I never really worried about out food supply before now. I am wondering now, what can I do? I cant very well go around to the biggest companies and try to convince them, somebodies already doing that, and they are doing well also. Will the consumer piece still work? I am left wondering about this and now know that, as Jason said, "Its more with less and less again, thats what the futures got to be."

Introduction

Hello Friend! Thank you for taking the time to view my biology blog. My name is Katie Austin and I am a Sophomore at Animas High School in Durango, CO. Throughout my sophomore year at AHS I will be posting thoughts, articles and updates from my biology class. I hope to see you soon and will continue posting updates on my school year.