Generally I think criteria is good. Ugh, need better adjective, don’t care. It seems like it should all be common sense stuff…. But looking at the world today part of me can’t help but think that Anneliese needed to illustrate those criteria. Although with the first criteria, I think Anneliese underestimates how controversial among the scientific community some of the stories in the “objective sciences” can be. While yes it is easy to fact check what all this new chemical compound can do, what about the side effects that so many scientists argue over (does X compound cause cancer for instance). Although, I think that such squabbles among scientists usually aren’t known until X compound has been made public, kind of an after-story thing like “Oh, that fantastic compound X might cause cancer”, but now I’m rambling. So, nevermind, that specific requirement was fine. Source quotation and citation. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hate that you feel the need to mention these two things in your criteria, though. I don’t have much more to say on it, but thanks. As far as the time line things is concerned, I’m not sure. I agree by and large that it is interesting and it is helpful to many less knowledgeable readers, but there have got to be other ways to talk about a scientific discovery without covering the history and future of said topic. I’m not sure. As far as what makes it and what doesn’t, it’s all about the public. With major news sites it’s all about what the public wants to hear, and the news cites give it to them. So, unfortunately some wonderful discoveries will be swept under the rug while some “scientific article” about what foods will do what to you be run every other month on msnbc (or better yet that health article about the risks of that Duggar lady having a twentieth kid, it’s about medicine that scientific right? Scientific enough to be touted as such by a major news cite apparently).
Free Wiritng 11/9/11
Free Writing 10/26
The biggest and most memorable hotspot for me would be Jesse’s funeral, that’s what stands out, actually I’m not even sure that that could be considered a hotspot, but I’m gonna call it one, wow I just said gonna… It was very emotional in my opinion and the fact that the surgeon, Something Raper, who administered the lethal dose of the treatment to Jesse was very… moving? Startling? Touching? I dunno.
As far as updating. I would focus a lot on the results of the investigation into his death, assuming that the people doing the investigation were competent and that after 12 years it is indeed over. I would also work to illustrate just how this even impacted the progress of gene therapy and gene therapy research, as I’m sure it did. I’d also talk about gene therapy’s role in medicine today and its progress. Another hotspot I thought of, Jesse’s actual death, duh. Just that entire lead up to his death and the death itself was very moving. So… Do I really need to explain why that part was a hotspot? I mean come on! I young man died. Death of a young person is generally an emotionally charged area in any story. 10 minutes? I doubt it. I find it very curious that the father doesn’t blame the doctors for his son’s death, but I can’t really say whether or not they are to blame since I don’t really know the final results of the investigation. The story did say they couldn’t find any human error… I’m rambling and not at all on topic. So… Words. I really don’t have anything more to talk about here. I mean about the story itself, but gene therapy could use a nice discussion.
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On September 19, 1999, Jesse Glesinger died as a result of the administration of gene therapy in the form of injection of an adenoviral vector. While the the following investigation into his death found no human or scientific errors on the parts of the scientists, the Food and Drug Administration did rule that the scientists conducting the trial at the University of Pennsylvania had violated several rules of conduct including: substitution of Gelsinger for another volunteer who had dropped out of the trial despite Gelsinger’s high ammonia levels, failure to adequately report the serious side effects that two other trial participants suffered from, and failure to inform trial participants of the deaths of monkeys given a treatment similar to the one administered to Jesse. While Jesse’s parents did not sue, on November 3, 2000 the University of Pennsylvania announced that it had reached an out of court settlement with Jesse’s parents for an undisclosed amount of money. As a result of Jesse’s death and the subsequent investigation, University president Judith Rodin announced that the Institute for Human Gene Therapy would no longer conduct clinical trials on humans. Additionally, the FDA and NIH announced new regulations of gene therapy, including FDA monitoring plans for any gene therapy tests and fines for any researchers or research institutions found to be in violation of the previous regulation or any other previously standing regulations.
Ok, so in my free writing last week, I talked about organ growth and replacement, and I’ve finally found the article that made me think about it.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2011/07/08/stem-cells-and-synthetic-scaffolds-save-man-from-tracheal-cancer/
I’m not sure what else to say about it that I didn’t say in my free writing (which is posted on my blog), so I think I’ll just leave it there for now.
Very odd. She was very instructive, but I definitely got hippy vibes from her. When she was talking about all of us being energy beings I couldn’t help but thinking, “Man, she is tripping balls.”
Ok, entire talk is trippy as anything. I mean really. Granted it’s all about how she’s having a stroke and her brain is shutting down, so that makes sense. She did some interesting philosophizing, but near the end I couldn’t help but think that she sounded like the recruiter/leader of some cult. Very interesting all around though.
Oct. 19 Free Writing
#2 that’s the prompt I want to do. Science and religion is all well and good, but I’m fed up with that topic for now,I get enough of that on the internet sorry Christina. So as far as invention/development/discovery, I’d want organ growth. Growth of organs in from stem cells for use in transplants. I realize we can already do some simpler organs (I can’t remember which ones), but I’m talking the more complex stuff (hearts/lungs/etc). Used correctly, that’s a huge step towards immortality for us. Just imagine, whenever an organ wears down or ceases to function, simply have a new one grown and replace the failing one. Granted, this doesn’t help those with genetic conditions affecting certain organs, but it’s still a huge step. Cancer, omigosh. We wouldn’t even need to worry anymore. Liver cancer? F*** saving the liver, get a new one! (Life saver for alcoholics too) Lung cancer, prostate cancer, etc, etc. Now, the largest problem I would see here is skin. Could we grow new skin and replace it bit by bit with multiple surgeries when our current skin becomes worn and weathered by age? What about brains? Would it affect behavior, personality, etc? I don’t know. Eventually the brain would need to be replaced just like the other organs. After organs, what’s next, limbs? Grow a new leg for that amputee! Granted this type of discovery would need to deal with the ideas and problems addressed by movies such aas Repomen and Repo! The Genetic Opera, but until we actually reach the point where we’re doing this I’m not going to worry.
I think it was fairly effective. I learned something previously unknown to me in a way that was very easy to understand. It was interesting due to the subject matter, but that’s about it. It wasn’t any great opener or wonderful writing that kept me hooked, it was the topic, I’m sorry to say. Anyway, very effective in my opinion. How long are we writing about this? I should ask. Done.
Free Writing My Prompt
I would focus on biology, more specifically, evolutionary biology. Funny considering I have a hatred of biology, especially molecular biology, but evolutionary biology has very little to do with that (molecular biology that is) at least I think it is. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding (possibly even willful ignorance) on both sides of evolution debate. This is what I would hope to clear up, look at both sides of evolution debate (are there more than two major sides other than evolution and ID? Must research. Don’t think so). This would of course take some substantial research and as to the focus of the piece it would probably be essentially a compilation of the merits and flaws of both (or more) ideas. Words, words words. I think as far as science goes, this can be some of the most misunderstood science by the general public. I would have to overcome a personal bias for this project, which I think I could do. Note, this does not mean removing my bias, but merely not letting it show in my writing. I don’t think that this wpould be an easy task as there is A LOT of material to cover on the subject of evolutionary ideas on both(?) sides of the debate and making sure to adequately represent them would probably result in the longest piece of writing I have ever done. That said, the idea of me doing this realistically is negligible as I have little desire to actually devote all that time to research and writing. Need more writing, not flowing well today. Isn’t that last sentence contradictory to my own prompt?
I have a writing prompt for this week! I’ve spent the past week drilling my brain trying to think up a writing prompt for class this week and do you know what I came up with? S***! That’s what I came up with. Absolutely nothing, until I did the Zinser reading this morning and it just popped into my head.
We’ve already done free-writing on how we would write about our field or a project in our field and we’ve done writing on the biggest obstacle to progress in our field. F*** our field! All this time we’ve been doing science writing most of the science writing and most of the stories about science writing have been written by people outside the field being written about!
So my prompt is: What field (or fields) that are not your own or intimately related to your own, would you write a piece of science writing about? Why? Is there some specific area/event/specialization/project/etc. in that field you would focus on?
Memo to self
Watch Office Space. If not, avoid Chris.
The prompt was “How do you think you will use science writing in your chosen career field?”
I’m not sure. I expect that I won’t. Assuming I don’t go beyond a Bachelor’s in Computer Science, I can assume that my career will start and end with me spending 8 to 12 hours a day soullessly typing away behind a computer screen, or whatever medium we use for interaction for computers in the future, and earning a decent salary. I will essentially be a code monkey, the programming equivalent of a mindless drone, ok mindless drone was bad, because I’d have to think, but you get the idea, or the idea has been made clear. The extent of my interaction with others dealing with explanations of my work would be in emails to my superiors and/or those I was working with and comment lines in my code. That said, it would hardly be science writing, being filled with jargon and stuff that the common person may or may not understand, but that’s irrelevant as the people I will be communicating with will be other programmers (and some higher ups who are just managers, so I may have to use science writing techniques in dealing with them, but not science writing as an actual form.
The only other instance I can think of is in presenting code to customers, assuming I actually interact with them (this would really only happen in free-lance programming, something I hope I won’t do). In which I would need to make it very clear to the customer how to work the program or explain the things the program does to them. That’s more of technical writing really, I think… Not sure.
So, after reading Altered Oceans I’ve decided I’m never living on the coast… EVER.
