ashorey's blog

Paper is obsolete. This has yet to be completely accepted as a truth, but it is indeed a whole and total truth. For anything that uses or requires paper as a means of containing information and data, it is not longer needed. Paper is used for so much, from books to tests to paperwork to reciepts. While many low level corporations and small, simple organizations use paper more often because the number of sheets is not unmanagable fr storage and keeping track of, the fact remains the paper has hugely negative affects on the environment because of production. Logging has destroyed millions of acres of land and few of those are ever considered for restoration or rehabilitation after logging. After getting the wood, the process of forming paper has large amounts of waste and emissions, although the emission sare mostly steam. Besides those factors, the cost of paper alone in camparison to the cost of data storage platforms and hardwares that exist are much smaller, especially when storage is easily accessible across laptops, computers, platforms, and locations, for example google drive, drop box, and microsoft team. Paper being used as a "formality" or "necessary hard copy" is simply an out-of-date way of thinking and modern technology has easily bypassed the abilities of paper in ever possible use. 

People often equate those who study in the heavily scientific fields to lack highly developed social skills. Many a time I have heard people say, "Oh you're a bio major" as an excuse to misspeak, get mixed up in conversation, or misinterpret social interaction. This stereotype is very incorrect and does not at all apply to biology majors. While in every group of people there will exist differences in social skills, preference for science does not equate to ineptitude in people to people interactions. I have found that in order to succeed in any field, people generally require a high degree of communication and comprehension skills in order to work around others and perform in any work environment with a boss, peers, and employees. The stereotype that this is not the case most likely stems from the thought that science is an independent and often isolating study that people do alone with chemical and compounds in test tubes. This is just never the case in any real life line of work. In order to perform well in any position, people talk to one another about what no to do, what to do, what to improve, what to contiue, etc. Science holds true for this general statement where performing experiments, even if people are not directly involved in that experiment, requires multiple sets of hands and minds working together on a project to find the solution and results. Science also includes an extensive system for sharing knowledge through publications in literature and articles. Without the ability to clearly and precisely detail, explain, and interpret experiments from one person to another, science would never be able to evolve. Working in isolation and solitude is nearly impossible to achieve in this day and age, except maybe computer coders and data analysits who can work completely through a computer and email account. Science and all fields rely on inteactions between people to expand pools of knowledge and jump from one newly found conclusion to the next. 

Flu shots are a widely used source of artificial long-term active immunity. Why then, is it just now becoming known as a threat to your child's safety when it's purpose is to improve health? The answer lies in the medical field's history of doctor-patient relationships. The underlying statues that constitutes the AMA purpose involve very specific wording that paints the doctors in an omnipotent and god-like fashion, whereas the patients are refered to in terms deeming them the obidients to the doctors willing to help them. Patients were at the will of the doctor, and the doctor determined the pertinent information of a patient's own medical record in treatment. It was true that even in the 1950s patients would die without knowing the cause of their illness in its true definition because the doctors would flirt around the topic never to fully unviel how doomed their health was. This aspect of medicine that gives the doctor the right to know and right to hide the complete truth, and therefore decieve a patient, has combined with the modern way of life that is obtaining seemingly all realms of knowledge from the interenet. Patients can now begin to control their own treatment by researching symptoms, discovering solutions, and bringing plans to their doctor's office for check-ups all without a physician involved. Now patients are learning more about their health for themselves and peaking behind the proverbial curtain. This threatens doctors who like to be the head chief in deciding things for patients. A doctor that cannot serve a patient in need of emotional counceling instead of medicial treatments will not survive in this shifting method of patient care. Patients need less medical options and more advice on what will best fulfill their needs for sustaining a life they are happy with, be it through medicial intervention. Now let us come full circle back to the classical flu shot. People have always simply been told to take the flu shot, the flu shot is good for you, it will increase your long-term active immunity. With the view of the public on high up medical practitioners shifting, the low likelyhood of detrimental effects from the flu shot, up to and including mild retardation of children, now becomes a widespread worry for parents because doctors have forever wilthheld that information from the patients. Trust in the medical field is at an all time low thanks to the availability of self-help on the interenet, and doctors did not position themselves in a place to maintain it. 

It is well known that the Boston location is often far ahead of the curve when it comes to the level of available health care and emergency medicine. As a part of the emergency response in the state, I have been able to see the exposed side of the requirements and process of becoming a first responder EMT, and have had contacts with other state EMTs. Disucssing with other EMTs has shown the differences in expectations in areas across the country and exposed the underlying causes. Firstly, Massachusetts EMT are required to pass a vigurous state practical exam that include five basic skills: splinting, long-board, medical, trauma, and KED. Next, all Maschusetts EMTs have to be nationally certified by a 80-120 question exam that can take up to four hours to complete. These two hurdles combined yield a strong professional and well training EMT fully capable of fullfilling their duty and following the protocol. While other states' EMTs are not lacking in these skills, it's a more facilitated process elsewhere to obtain the same certifications for the job. Most of the other states do not require the national certification. The reason behind this is the educational opportunity. If the national exams were required for other states, a significant amount of the emergency medicine working force would not be able to work because they often cannot pass the test. This is combined with the fact that most state protocols are much more limited than the enforced national protocol, giving EMTs less responsibility and fewer abilities on-shift. In Massachusetts however it is true that the national protocol is the limiting factor in what EMTs can perform, with the state protocol giving many abilities on the job. This is all due to the opportunity for advanced EMT education in our state in comparison to that available in other states. 

People in the scientific field hold different levels of knowledge. It is true that in order to gain extreme knowledge in a single subject, time is the only real factor that can allow and determine the amount of things you know. Knowledge takes dedication to time and subject, and also it requires interest. No one will ever know the most about something they hate the most. And so when one is invested in a subject or field of interest, their time and efoort will be precisely focussed on that subject, providing them with the ability to gain master os the topics in the field of study. Everyone however understands the limits to the possibilities of gaining expertise in a single field: time available and opportunity for education. At younger ages, you require more basic levels of education and can only achieve higher more specific and in depth knowledge after rising in the tiers of academia. You will know more in college than in high school, and more in graduate school than in undergrad, etc. Age is therefore often linked with wisdom. The older you are, the more deeply you know about your interests and the greater level of mastery you have over the subjects. This is the traditional way of ageism against the younger generations though because the older generations put down the youth for lack of knowledge and understanding due to their age and lack of experience in the world. This is very inaccurate however because age does not determine intelligence and younger people can achieve a high level of specific knowledge if they study highly specific topics. This causes a problem for older generations who mastered their field decades ago and let their knowledge plateau and stopped seaking to self-improve. The younger generation plows past them learning the newest theories and discoveries, sometimes culminating in a more education younger generation that older generations do not accept. 

The scientific method is extremely straight forward and has been driven into young brains across the country since the age of ten. Step one, pose a question. Step two, plan an experiment to exam that question with constants and variables. Step three, perform the experiment and log your observations and results. Step four, if they match, you are right, if they fail to match, you must try again with the new question being: why? This simplified pathway is perfectly useful when you question are simple and methods are attainable. The issues arise when your question seemingly cannot be answered with the tools and opportunities for exploration available to you, which is oft a problem for people like us in the scientific field. They question stops being something with a searchable answer. The plan for the experiment must start from literal scratch with tools and methods to identifiying the variables and constants. This happens all the time in science, as my post-grad in my lab once said, it took their coworker seven years to complete their experiment successfully. Seven years. At that point, the scientific method cannot withstand the possibilities of troubleshooting required. There is no "go back and design a new experiment" when you are already stuck on step 3. What I am saying is that the complexity of right and wrong and inbetween answer to question posed in research creates a never ending vortex that you fall into. Disillusionment is real and everyone who survives a career in the scientific field has experienced it. 

I'd heard of round up before but I never fully understood it and its use of GMOs. Round up relied on an edited pathway in plants that contained a single monomer that was altered in the pathway to produce three amino acids. The genetically modified plants were designed to have a new DNA sequence that yielded that same intermediate protein to produce the three amino acids but it was resistant to binding with the round up chemical that degraded the intermediate to prevent the amino acid synthesis. This meant that unedited plant genomes would produce a protein that round up would attack, killing the plant. The crops and plants of interest that the farmers grew were controlled GMOs that would not be affected by this deadly chemical because it could not bind to their intermediate proteins, but the amino acids were still successfully synthesized. This sounds great but I see potential problems this could cause. Firstly, if there is any possibility of cross-pollinating with a related species, this genetically modified sequence could find itself in an uncultivated species that could become very invasive with the use of the round up. Any transfer of the gene could cause superweeds that are immune to roundup. Also, this plathway is in many plants, making it an effective weed killer, but highly unspecialized. It could easily target species that do not compete with the crops when roundup goes deeper into the soil or runs off into streams, etc. This makes the roundup chemical highly dangerous in the use ouside a closed system like a greenhouse. Furthermore, the roundup company had a monopoly on the "roundup ready" species, meaning the genetically modified organisms that were resistant to roundup. This made the project extremely capitalistically driven, like a lot of projects, and shows a comflict of interests. They were selling the locks and the keys, which was an extremely successful business model and that high sale rate might have affected the attention to affect of roundup on the environment. People in charge would more apt to turn a blind eye until forced to look when great deals of money are involved. 

Types of differences:

- Way of photography: quality, lighting, view of plant (angle), colors

OBSERVATION: Panel A's background it brighter on the left than on the right.

INFERENCE: Panel A on the right had greater exposure

- Look of plant: differences in angle, number of leaves, length, size in picture

OBSERVATION: Panel D on the left had more water in the plant pot than Panel D on the right

INFERENCE: The plants had been watered prior to the picture on the left but not on the right.

- Style of arrows/lettering: where are arrows, what size, colors, orientation

OBSERVATION: Panel A on the left had one arrow but Panel A on the right had two arrows

INFERENCE: They did not put two arrows on the left panel

- Organization of photo placement: Are the panels the same size, same order, same distances between, same grouping

OBSERVATION: The panel B in the first photo is to the edge of the page but panel B in the second photo has room between the picture and the edge of the page.

INFERENCE: They were placed differently on the page.

The figure on the left:

-A has two arrows, one on the lower left side

-B is taken slightly closer

-C the plant has gathering water at the base in the pot

The figure on the right:

- A's exposure is higher so that the background of the sky is white instead of blue and the plant is drooping to the right, also there is only one arrow and the photo overall is more blurry

-In B the plant of interest is slightly farther away

C has an arrow pointing to the leaves of the plant where there wasn't one before, the root of the plant is less centered in the picture, and the base of the plant does not have collected water

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