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Lack of Solitude

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 13:50

Solitude, or a lack thereof, is a significant issue brought about by the ever-expanding age of technology. Solitude has long been a great social and spiritual value. With the increase in activity on social media websites, there has been a very apparent decrease in the amount of time people spend alone. In today’s world, young people are all vying for renown and versions of fame on the internet. Like William Deresiewicz stated in his article, The End of Solitude, “The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? How many people are reading my blog? How many google hits does my name generate?” As time goes on, it is increasingly harder for people to remove themselves from the comfortability of the constant socialization provided by the internet. Though it takes much courage to let go of the desire to gain renown through various technologies, being alone has always been a significant social and religious value, so its benefits should be reaped as often as possible.

How Deviance is Exhibited in Television

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 13:49

Deviance is defined as, the recognized violation of cultural norms. The topic of deviance is highly applicable to television, especially in today’s culture. When you look at television shows such as “Jersey Shore”, “Are You The One?”, “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead”, the premises are inherently violent and sexual. Each and every individual storyline has violent and sexual undertones and overtones. This deviant behavior is so prevalent in television that you will seldom find a popular program without at least one of the two. Why is deviance so common in television? And what it is doing to change our society? People are attracted to deviance in TV for the simple fact that it is behavior they themselves would not commit to. The characters on these television shows share values and characteristics with many of the viewers, so they become highly relatable. Because of this relatability, the deviance being committed seems more real to the audience. Often times, on TV, deviant behavior is just that, deviant. Because it is TV, this behavior does not wander into the realm of crime. Crime is defined as the violation of society’s formally enacted law. Viewers are not going to commit crimes just because they saw their favorite character do it on TV, so to achieve the same feeling they got when they first watched deviant behavior on television, they return for more. While violence and sexually explicit activity seem like obvious deviant behavior, deviance is often times subtle.

 

Gene Mutation and How Snakes Evolved To Use Venom

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 13:48

Gene duplication is the copying of a region of DNA that contains a gene. This is different from a regulatory mutation, which is a loss of an enhancer portion of a gene. This changes the way the gene is regulated, affecting the development of the part of the organism that it corresponds to without losing this part of the organism. Finally, a coding sequence mutation is a mutation that causes a change in the coding sequence. The coding sequence encodes for the gene product. These mutations include frameshift mutations, missense mutations, nonsense mutations, and silent mutations. Gene duplication, coding sequence mutations, and regulatory mutations are all significant factors in how snakes gained the ability to use crotamine as a defense mechanism. Crotamine genes, which encode for the venom that snakes use to hunt and defend, evolved from defensins. Defensin is an antimicrobial gene that underwent gene duplication, which altered the regulatory and coding sequences of the original defensin gene. This created a crotamine gene and allowed for the production of venom.

Gene Mutation

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 13:47

Gene duplication is the copying of a region of DNA that contains a gene. This is different from a regulatory mutation, which is a loss of an enhancer portion of a gene. This changes the way the gene is regulated, affecting the development of the part of the organism that it corresponds to without losing this part of the organism. Finally, a coding sequence mutation is a mutation that causes a change in the coding sequence. The coding sequence encodes for the gene product. These mutations include frameshift mutations, missense mutations, nonsense mutations, and silent mutations.

Archaeology and Community

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 13:47

Communication with the population of the area being excavated is key when working on a project as an archaeologist. If the community is not served properly, then the end product is generally bad for everybody involved. Community based archaeology is based on the indigenous peoples’ experiences with archaeology. A partnership must be formed with the community; its needs and goals must be met. If I were to formulate a community based archaeology platform, the needs of the community would outweigh the needs of the archaeologists. I would form goals that line up with the goals of the community and allow the community full access the the archaeological site.

When engaging the public, it is important to remember that it will not always be a positive experience. People will disagree and there may be arguments that could turn into larger problems. To best avoid situations like these, the first public engagement method I would use would be a committee dedicated to sorting artifacts, presenting them to the public, and deciding where and to whom they should go. This would serve to avoid unwanted conflict upon discovering artifacts that may be claimed by more than one member of the community. Beyond this, as archaeologists, we could make sure the names of the members of the community are carried on throughout the project. When an important discovery is made, or a new artifact discovered, then the names linked to that artifact would be acknowledged.

 

Archaeology and Food

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Tue, 04/02/2019 - 13:46

The study of food, food waste, and foodways is an excellent way to observe our culture’s eating and spending habits. It can answer the many questions that are posed in regard to waste. We can understand the socio-economic state of an area by looking at what is in their dumpsters. We can determine where food deserts are and if people are spending too much on food. Most importantly, we can determine whether or not food is being wasted. In most cases, food is certainly being wasted. People do not fully understand what they are using and throwing away. By looking at trash we can discover what is being wasted and how much of it is being wasted. We can, by determining the quantity of what is thrown away, provide a rough estimate of how much is being wasted in terms of money. On top of this, we can understand the environmental and cultural impact of food waste.

 

Archaeology and Development

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Thu, 03/28/2019 - 18:40

Archaeologists and development have a complicated relationship. Because of development, archaeologists are presented with fantastic opportunities to document and recover sites that they otherwise would have left untouched. It provides them with a greater understanding of certain areas as well as a more vast lexicon of knowledge that may be applied to other archaeological projects or even another area of study. Then there is the tourism aspect. This can mean both good and bad for a community, which reflects upon the archaeologists since they are usually at the forefront of the development process. This is the downside of development. It can sometimes give archaeologists a bad name. Development of dams, pipelines or commercial housing is usually received badly by most communities. They do not want largely disruptive developments on their communities. In some cases, it even destroys indigenous peoples’ sacred sites, which can be seen in the movie “Standing on Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Tourists”. The Wintu people of California are opposed to the building of a dam because it would destroy places they hold sacred.

 

Evolutionary Game Theory

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Thu, 03/28/2019 - 18:39

Game theory is the study of strategic interaction between two separate decision makers. Evolutionary game theory is communicated in the context of biology and the interaction between two animals for a valuable resource. This particular game theory is used to determine which behavioral strategy, among a series, is likely to evolve in a species. To understand the behavior of the two separate species it is important to ask when individuals should cooperate or not and when should an individual be dominant versus submissive. An example of evolutionary game theory can be seen when hawks and doves compete for food. Each animal has to decide how they should behave to maximize their fitness; should they share the resource or should they fight? A hawk will first show aggression and escalate until it wins or is injured. A dove will first show aggression and then retreat if faced with escalation. This relationship can be communicated mathematically. First, the variables must be defined. V = value of resources, C = cost of losing a fight, and a value of 0 represents no reward. If a hawk and dove are in competition, the dove will leave the interaction with a value of zero. If a hawk competes with another hawk, the interaction can be represented with the equation: (V-C)/2. The value of resources minus the cost of losing the fight is divided by two because half of the time one hawk will win and half of the time the other hawk will win. If a dove is in competition with a dove, it will be represented as V/2, because they will share the resource.

Cost Benefit Analysis in Animal Behavior

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Thu, 03/28/2019 - 18:38

Cost benefit analysis is a concept encapsulating the idea that animals’ traits all have benefits and costs. If the costs of a trait outweigh the benefits, that trait will decrease in the population. If the benefits of a trait outweigh the costs, that trait will decrease in the population. For example, group hunting in lions is a trait essential to their survival. A few benefits of this behavior are that the lions may hunt bigger prey, conserve energy, and decrease risk of being killed. Some costs of this trait might include the lions being more easily spotted by prey, having to share the food with the pride, and the spread of disease is more likely if hunting with diseased lions. For this behavior trait to remain, it must mean that the benefits of group hunting outweigh the costs.

What is selection pressure in the context of natural selection?

Submitted by ddoyleperkin on Thu, 03/28/2019 - 18:38

Natural selection is a process by which organisms are selected for based on deleterious or advantageous traits propagated by intraspecies variations in the genome. Selection pressure is a concept defined by an impact on a trait from a population’s environment, from human activity, or from other organisms. For example, if there is a population of beetles whose variations in genetics translate to a variation in color, then there are various selective pressures that might impact which color beetle is more frequent in the population. Darker beetles may benefit from increased heat absorption, which would lead to better thermoregulation and better metabolism. Beetles may also benefit from being a certain color because that is what mates are looking for. Additionally, a lighter beetle may fare better in an environment with a lighter backdrop so as to avoid predation. While there are many selective pressures, there are not as many traits. One trait can be acted upon by many selective pressures and the direction of that selection can be different for different traits.

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