Well, today is the last day before our final projects, a culmination of all we’ve learned and our collaboration. Everyone is hard at work in preparation. It was disappointing to go to bed sick and wake up sicker. But anyways, this has been an eye-opening experience and amazing opportunity for me. I’ve been made aware of exciting new developments in biotechnology and other areas of science that I wouldn’t have heard of yet otherwise. The experience also helped me to open up and make friends quickly. It also helped me see that art and science are not as distinct as they once were to me. It’s hard to choose a favorite but I really liked the lab visits. I also liked the exposure to different types of art, including our group leaders’.
one of John's pieces of art
I’m really glad that I was given the opportunity to come here and that I took advantage of it.
how foods are genetically engineered
I saw the demo on GMO’s in the CNSI building today; it was pretty scary. I couldn’t believe that the US sees DNA inserting into food as safe and that people are unaware of all the genetically modified foods that they are eating. It’s horrible that scientists didn’t release their results of studies of how GMO’s affected the poor rats, some of which died, and many of which developed abnormal cell growth, which supports that GMO’s are linked to cancer; as well as other significant differences from those that didn’t consume GMO’s. We actually discussed genetic engineering in AP biology and also AP English/Comp class this year, but I had not seen such actual scientific data showing the consequences.
the larger rat was fed non-gm food; the smaller was fed genetically modified food
Ethically, if we have the capability to engineer better food and therefore feed and nourish more of the world’s population, I think that is our duty, but again, ethically, we need to be responsible about it and not just do it for the money, but make sure it is beneficial in the long run to our health and the environment’s health.
some of the things here that I thought were interesting:
http://www.cnsi.ucla.edu/institution/personnel?personnel_id=45967
http://www.seas.ucla.edu/ms/faculty1/dunn.html
http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/biomed/his/pain.html
GMO’s:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/guides/?article=GMOdebate
http://www.tofu-magazine.net/newVersion/pages/GM-tofu.html