Alternative to Animal Testing

For my argument paper last term I wrote about animal testing. I wrote about hot it was wrong and how it was actually inaccurate because of the differences in the genetic makeup of humans and the animals tested. Well thanks to scientists at the King's College London and San Francisco Veteran Affairs Medical Center, along with other members of this international team, a great alternative has been invented. This breakthrough could lead to the end of animal testing all together, which is the goal that I personally want achieved.
                      The team developed the first lab-grown epidermis (the outermost layer of skin). This means that something that is genuinely human can test certain drugs or creams and see how an actual human would react. Before we tested animals, such as cats or mice, and we had to get a rough estimate of whether or not a product  would work for humans. Many times they did not work, which was just a waste of time and effort. While this is a great breakthrough and it will certainly allow reduction of animal testing, I want to press scientists to continue this type of work.
                       While this lab-grown skin is awesome for testing some products, others simply need more to go on than just skin. For example skin cancer could be tested, but there are several other forms that wouldn't be able to be tested without animals, which is what we don't want. However with the type of research these scientists are doing it is plausible that we will soon be able to produce any part of the human body that we want to. This would be a huge step forward in the fight against major diseases, and in the effort to end animal testing. We would be able to get better results more efficiently, and animals wouldn't have to suffer any longer. 
                       I understand that some people will argue that stem cell research is wrong (this is the type of research being used to produce this lab-grown skin) but I encourage you to look at all the benefits that can come out of it. If we have the resources, the people, and the technology to produce something that could prevent both the deaths of many humans (by providing cures for many diseases) and that could stop all animal testing, which is a cruel and unjust practice, why would we not do it? I feel that if we don't utilize this new research we are doing more harm than good, I just ask you to do some research of the pros, as opposed to only looking at the cons. 
                       I am very excited that this type of research has surfaced so soon after I had voiced my concerns of the animal testing situation. This alternative could really be a solution to that problem, and to many others as well. It will definitely speed up the process of making new disease cures, and maybe one day this technology could lead to a disease free world. 

Science in the Future

There is all kinds of research going on right now in science, as there always has been. However recently, like in the past five to six years, I feel there has been much more progress made in the science community. Never have we had multiple groups have multiple breakthroughs year after year. So it makes me wonder where we go from here. This post will simply be what I think the future of science will look like. 
                  Some may say that the answer is simple, we just keep improving the technology we already have. I'm not so sure though, eventually it has to stop. For example, if we get to a disease free society, which I think we will, that will take out a huge portion of jobs for many scientists. We are constantly researching cures for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's. If we come up with these cures there will be many more people looking for jobs in other areas. I feel like  once this happens the competition in the science community will be so high, it may force people into other areas instead of science. This is something that I don't really want to happen. I enjoy the fact that science is so diverse, I have even blogged about it many times. 
                   Now that was a lot of negative, and I do think there are some good things that will happen in the future. To start I think that science in the future is going to get a lot more complex, and it will be much harder to actually get qualified for it. This is a good thing because right now I think, while it my be a small percentage, there are a few people who I feel get by without really being super qualified for their said position. Also I think while there will be more competition, and less people will get jobs, there will be much more opportunity for higher paying positions. This makes sense since the job security won't be as standard for a science related position. 
                Now this is obviously just my look at science today, and how I think it will progress into the future. Overall, since I don't think competition is a bad thing, I would say it is going in a good direction. There will be no reason to go into the field if you are not going to be committed. Jobs will be tight and there won't be any handouts. This will lead to better scientists than we have ever had in the past. There should be new technology and improvements. Of course this may be completely wrong, it could take much longer to discover cures for these diseases, or maybe new diseases will be discovered. There is really no way to know.

Tamiflu Bust

              Governments have spent billions of dollars stockpiling the antiviral medication Tamiflu. Earlier reviews of the drug called into question just how effective it was, and the latest analysis, published today (April 10) in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), concludes that the money has been going “down the drain.”
An international team found that while Tamiflu might reduce the duration of flu symptoms by half a day, there’s no evidence that it reduces hospital admissions or complications of an infection. On top of that, the antiviral’s side effects include nausea and vomiting. “There is no credible way these drugs could prevent a pandemic,” Carl Heneghan, one of authors of the review and a professor at Oxford University, told reporters.
              The data for this most recent review came from full study reports—data generated by clinical trials that are usually not open for scrutiny by independent researchers. Efforts by the BMJ and the research team convinced drugmaker Roche, which markets Tamiflu, to release the reports.
Fiona Godlee, an editor at BMJ, said that the picture of Tamiflu was previously much more positive than after the full study reports were disclosed. “Why did no one else demand this level of scrutiny before spending such huge sums on one drug?” she said at a press briefing. “The whole story gives an extraordinary picture of the entrenched flaws in the current system of drug regulation and drug evaluation.”
               Roche stands by the utility of Tamiflu. “We fundamentally disagree with the overall conclusions” of the review, the company told MedPage Today. And others have said that the results don’t necessitate an end to stockpiling the drug. Sabrina Spinosa of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which approved the use of Tamiflu in 2002, told Nature that the agency had reviewed the same clinical trial reports. “The review does not raise any new concerns,” she said, adding that the EMA maintains its position on the risks and benefits of Tamiflu.

Controlling Weather

                      Researchers at the University of Central Florida are working on a laser that could possibly induce some rain and put to rest the idea that we cannot control the weather. At first this sounds like a great idea, and I think overall it would be. However I think there could be some downside to this kind of technology.
                      Predicting the weather is something that turns out to be nearly impossible. I think that this kind of technology can be a big weight off of many people's shoulders. Farmers for example would not need to worry about losing their crops to extended drought. Also right now they are working purely on rain and lightning. There is no telling what else they could produce or maybe even prevent with this kind of technology. If we could prevent major storms like tornadoes or hurricanes, we could prevent major devastation that these storms can produce. However along with all those positives, there are some possible negative I can think of.
                  Of course if you have the ability to produce all of these things , there is bound to be someone who wants to use the technology in a negative way. We could easily deal with someone who used it to terrorize a city or even an entire nation if it was on a large enough scale. Even if the technology managed only to produce rain, it could still be used to negatively effect a certain area through flooding. This is something that would also be hard to stop or keep track of, so it would be the major downside to this kind of technology.
                  Another downside to this might be the cost and the effectiveness. Of course if it can prevent major natural disasters it would be worth it, but if it can't it may be a huge loss in both time and money. Another thing to consider is whether or not we are supposed to experience these things from mother nature, this is a more philosophical question, but still one that deserves an answer. There is really no way to know all of this.
                 I guess we would just have to try to weigh both sides. Since we don't know exactly how it would work, there is no way to now if we would be able to prevent it. However we don't really know all of the good it could bring either. We would have to ultimately know all of this to determine if the benefits would outweigh to downside. We just have to wait for more research and advance further with the technology, hopefully we will find some of these answers along the way. 

Stem Cell Research

                  There are many scientists around the world have been researching stem cells for over thirty years now and it is the spark of a lively debate. Many people think this type of research is completely inhumane, but many also see the potential of this research. Personally I think it is something that should be continued, as it will be an amazing asset to our entire society, maybe even the entire human race, if it is perfected.

                  Now some people reading this may not remember learning about these cells in their high school biology class. Well they are simply just cells that are not defined to any particular region of the body yet. This mean they can actually be made into anything that we really need. Ears, feet, legs, arms, you name it these things can be turned into it. However the process is obviously not that easy. The stem cell have to be taken from human embryos and then they have to be grown in a lab. The process takes a while but it can help people recover from diseases that we thought would be impossible to cure.

                 For example chronic heart disease is a very serious thing, and there are not many ways to treat it. The cells of the heart are diseased and damaged, the only way to help that patient to fully recover is to replace the cells. Stem cells could help us do that. If healthy heart cells were produced in a lab and then placed in the diseased heart, the patient could easily make a full recovery, something we don't have the capability to do yet, and we never will have the capability if we don't continue to fine tune the process of producing specific cells in a lab. This research could be used for many other diseases as well, including cancer, which is something that has surely affected all of our lives.

               Now obviously there are many problems with this type of research, we haven't even began to unravel the possibilities of stem cells and we certainly don't know the consequences that is could cause in the future. Cell rejection is a big obstacle and is something scientists have to constantly work on. We are far from being able to use it in everyday life, but I believe it will end up bringing more great breakthroughs, than downfalls.

                I understand that the argument of some people is that these cells actually have to be alive for scientists to take them from the embryos, therefore we are technically killing unborn children with this type of research, while I understand there is this side of the argument I cannot speculate based on religion. I will just say that I believe in the end this research will allow us to save and to greatly improve the lives of people who have life threatening diseases, and I think anything that can do that is worth the time and effort of our science community.

Why Would You Be a Scientist

                    Sometimes I wonder if being a scientists might be boring, and I wonder what might be some of the things that draw people into becoming a scientists. Of course you would have to have a love of science, but that is a very broad category, so why else do it? I have come to learn about what scientists can do and I think there are two main reasons. One is the fact that you can make quite a bit of money while doing what you love, and the other is that you can directly effect your community through the research you do as a scientist. 
                   The first reason is quite big. Everyone wants to be able to support themselves, and possibly a family, and you need to make money to do that. You won't have trouble doing that as a scientist. You make quite a bit of money in most fields because they require you to have a specialization in your respective subject. You do have to go through more schooling in order to be specialized, but in the end it is worth it. 
                   The second reason, which is why I think most people become scientists, is to make a difference while doing something they love. Scientists can make small discoveries, the kind that improve quality of life only slightly, or they can make huge discoveries, such as cures for diseases. Either way you can make a difference in your community simply by doing what you were meant to do. Being able to work on something for a long period of time, and then it turns out to be something that can help your neighbor, that's something that can make you feel good. Of course I'm not talking from experience, but I think you would agree that if you could help people by doing the thing you like most, you would. 
                 Another thing that I didn't mention earlier is that you can leave a legacy. Often the people we remember were those who gave us something we could use for a long period of time, and that is often discovered through the use of science. Take Ben Franklin for example, he could never had known what the impact of electricity could be, but he certainly changed the future when he discovered how to harness it. Every generation for the rest of humanity's existence will be effected by what he did, that's pretty amazing if you ask me. 
                  There are certainly more reasons to become a scientists than I listed here, but these are some of the best in my opinion. If you love science you should consider being a scientist. Why not do what you love and change the world at the same time?

Paths of Science

                As we know science can be a very different according to who you are talking to. Evolution or not, anything can be a dispute, no one really agrees with the next person. I find this to be very interesting since in general, science is pretty straight forward. Besides that there are so many different areas of science, there is no difinitive path that one could take. 
               I think it's a good thing that science is so diverse though. It keeps both competition up, but also allows for more people to have jobs in the area of science, so I think one of the reasons why science is so diverse. It keeps multiple people interested and it also allows for a wide range of reasearch to happen in the science community. There is no possible way that people could be both interested in science and productive without the diversity of the subject. We wouldn't have been able to make the medical, environmental, and psychological advances that we have in the past decades
               Another reason for all these different paths is to make specialization more specific. I am sure that people who have jobs in the science are are appreciative of this as well because of the fact that they get paid much more for being able to specialize in an area. On the other hand while you make more money overtime, you have to go to school for much longer as well. This means much more money for colleges and another group of people happy for these many fields of science. 
              The main thing that I kind of mentioned earlier is the fact that people just like different things, anything for the environment to the human body, and all of it can be researched on, so it leads to a huge amount of career options and the diversity of the science cmmunity that we see today, no doubt one of the best places to find a job that you have an interest in.
               The bottom line is that human nature is really the thing that has made science so diverse, there is no other explanation besides the fact that people just started something new that they thought could help out the world, and eventually it caught on and it helped to make us what we are today. Maybe in the future you can even start a brand new area of science, and you can talk to us about how you changed the world.

Science and Athletes

                 Athletics are a part of many people's daily routine. You get up, go to work or school, then maybe do your workout before going home to relax a bit. If you are committed to getting better, you probably do this anywhere from three to six times a week depending on what the workout is. Now, this kind of routine takes some dedication, but I'm actually looking at the scientific side of the workout.

                     Dedication is one thing, but how fit you are is another. Maybe you aren't working out, but you want to be. It can be very tough for you to get going if you are out of shape. The first week or two are going to be very rough for you, and there is no way you can avoid that. However I can tell you that you will make it. Pushing your body is probably about 90% mental, assuming that your goals are realistic. It all has to do with your attitude, and eventually, probably within a month, it will get easier. Scientifically speaking its all in the brain. Sure your muscles are the ones doing the work, but it is the brain that tells them how far they can go, and for most people that is further than you think.

                   This is something my track coach is constantly telling us, he says they are pushing us hard because they know we can go harder than we think we can. It's something that is tough to grasp but it is actually true. Your brain likes to shut down before it actually reaches 100% of anything, because its hard to do that. When exercising this number is probably around eighty five percent. Meaning your brain is telling you your done, it is your job to fight that and say you can go harder. The mental aspect of conditioning is something that is often overlooked and is definitely the most important. There is nothing you can do without the brain, and if you fail to understand how your brain works you will never reach your full potential in anything you choose to participate in.

                  Take me for example. I thought my full potential was reached in my running ability. That is until I went out for track. I am still a JV athlete, but I have dropped about 15 seconds in my 800 time this year and I'm looking to do even better than that before the end of this year. This is something that I never thought I would be able to do having tendonitis and Osgood Schlatter disease in both of my knees. I was able to overcome this and break my personal best for this race. There is no way I could have done this without joining track, and also doing research of my own, to figure out that I can push myself much harder than I thought I could.

              All I'm trying to say in this blog, is that even if you aren't in the best shape of your life, you can still definitely get what you want. It's not all about the way your body looks, it's how far you can push yourself, using your mental capacity. Set goals, achieve them, set new ones, rinse and repeat.