week 14 homework post a brief paragraph describing why I choose my research topic

My research topic is mitochondria. The reason why I choose it is because mitochondria have their own DNA, which tells us they are genetically and ultimately not part of us. But we rely on them for the most important physiological activities--energy production and storage. Pretty amazing. I just gotta know our most important life partner better.

week 13 homework Aspirin a day could dramatically cut cancer risk

Maybe, but I'm not gonna do that.

Aspirin makes me uncomfortable, and I don't wanna subscribe it just because reducing cancer risk.

Some medical doctors try to "advertise" how magical this drug is (and I know in North America the fame of Aspirin is pretty high-- every family has it), but there are many other ways to reduce such a risk.

week 13 homework People should still eat healthy food- do re rely too heavily on supplements?

Some people are just lazy enough like me. 

I know supplement is just for supplement purpose, and we gotta eat healthy everyday, but still busy days make us rely too much on such products.

I don't believe any person in Silicon Valley has time to cook his own salad.

July 30 week 12 homework check the following link and post impression

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/21vaccine.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&

Some people (or parents) decides not to take vaccination for various reasons.

Maybe because it's economic reason, or maybe their beliefs.

Vaccination itself is not completely risk free.

But in order to protect public welfare, government promotes vaccination.

It's like the tradeoff between individual decision and public welfare.

July 30 homework post thoughts on one of our class discussion

Vaccines--how and why?

I like this one because it gives the details about the history of vaccination. The way vaccination was found is pretty immoral, but that's maybe because human rights and morality were still immature those days.

week 12 homework post your thoughts on one of our class discussions

July 23 homework In your view, what more should we be doing about global warming?

Not really... we just keep going as we were. We can invest our work to new technology invention instead of doing ecological stuff like reducing CO2. It is the matter of our decision, but I would rather choose new tech development.

July 23rd homework How would you prioritize the reintroduction of the American Bison?

Since I am not born in US, I don't know how US people value the American bisons, but it looks like they are pretty famous.

July 16 homework How would you assess the end goals of Social ecology?

I have no idea. Well, we can guess any kind of goals but we don't know what will happen until it really comes. We don't even know if the goal we want is really what we need.

July 16 homework Can you explain why ecosystems are both strong and fragile?

That's because ecosystems literally controls our planet physiology, but losing just one small component will cause huge trouble.

July 16 homework What do you think about the eight-point deep ecology platform?

I think it's good.

But I'm not gonna follow it.

It's pretty ideal, but just like Mose's ten commandments... Who is gonna follow?

week 8 homework what do you think of the deal that saved the whale?

I have no comment at this point.

Still it's complicated matter and some extra time and argument should be made. 

Week 8 homework Can TCM strengthen our immune system?

I thinks so, although not always.

The goal of TCM is not reducing the symptoms from disease but trying to balance our physiological system.

week 8 homework How do you feel about western approach to HIV?

I just feel like western approach is that subscribing medication with bunch of side effect.

It is just like no pain no gain.

Even if AIDS is properly prevented, if subscriber gets lots of side effect, I can't completely go with AIDS medication.

week 7 homework comment on today discussion

Discussions about cancers were interesting.

I just started studying for cancer in my other class.

So it was just like reinforcement and extra information about what I just studied. 

week 7 homework how does TCM approach to cancer

Western medicine thinks about cancer as sudden mutation in gene and the mutated cell starting doing something bad to our body.

But TCM regards cancer as imbalance in our body system--Yin and Yang. 

week 7 homework how sophisticated is our understanding about cancer

Not that much...

The actual survival rate of cancer is way higher due to inclusion of survival rate of tumor.

Scientists are trying hard to get solid solution to cancer, but still not single solution at this point.

week 6 homework DNA doesn't determine race

I pretty much agree with it. American born/grown Asians are just like American, nothing like Asian.

I mean their life style, habit, philosophy are just American!

week 6 homework how to distinguish living and non-living

living things propagate, where non-living things don't.

week 5 homework chicken first or egg first

eggs first, although its parents might not be chickens.

Here is another example of our new idea, sudden mutation from currently existing species.

week 5 homework how i think new species emerge

I think new species emerge by sudden mutation from currently existing species.

But I also think unlike evolution theory, the mutation itself does not have to be in order to adapt to current challenges--it can occur randomly(in the sense we never know why it happened. Maybe God knows)

For these weeks we read a lot of articles about species, but scientists and researchers still need some more steps to get there.

week 4 homework post thoughts on how we view animal intelligence

For long time we have not paid that much attention to animal intelligence.

Maybe because it doesn't make any money

Or maybe it does not interest many scientists.

Now things are different.

Quite a few scientist began to pay attention to research for animal intelligence, and they found actually they are way smarter than we thought.

week 3 homework Post a comment on one of this morning's discussions

Meat made from stem cells

purely lab-grown burger gives me new insight of future food solution and potential business opportunity.

Still costing too much, $385000, but eventually as technology grows this will be reduced dramatically.

We need meat! 

week 3 homework check out http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/tutorials/pev/page2.html

Interesting homepage telling us how different our life and sexual style will be if we were bacterias.

The page clearly shows the difficulties of bacteria life by converting ourselves in them for simulation. 

week 3 homework 99.4% of the most critical dna sites are identical in human and chimp genes

Nothing surprising.

Many scientists have been telling us we and apes are very close, perhaps we are part of apes.

So it's not completely new idea, just an extension of what we already knew.

week 2 homework: check out the following link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis

I just read about the article but it's talking so complicated.

I feel like it's just saying "we make ourselves", "we make ourselves to make ourselves", "we make ourselves to make ourselves to make ourselves", and so on.

week 2 homework: how does Darwinism matter to me

Darwinism is very controversial both academically and due to religious reasons.

I feel Darwinism itself is romantic.

When something emergent happens some of our ancestor made their evolution and others not--make it or break it.

We are alive and make decision everyday.

Isn't like we make our evolution everyday?

week 2 homework: post thought on Evo-Devo

Evo-Devo is fairly new, highly interdisciplinary studies across different fields.

So it has many participants from many areas, and that's why it's so active and many discussions arise everyday.

How we developed? Why we developed in this way? What really made our evolution?

Many questions are still unrevealed, but that's why it's interesting.

week 1 homework: Darwinism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinism

Basic idea of Darwinism: superior species thrive

Darwinism are controversial: in some country it involves religious argument

week 1 homework: choose one of this week's discussion to talk

This week we talked about animal intelligence.

We are pretty surprised that animals have intelligence, which means we essentially separate human beings from other animals.

But animal intelligence is just showing we, human beings are subgroup of animals.

We just live like animals.

We organize society, we compete, we help each other, we kill each other...

week 1 homework short bio intro

nickname: Nori

born in: Tokyo

Language: English, Japanese

formerly: college student

now: acchs English program 1st year