Biology 103 Web Paper 2

A History of Big Butts

    Concussions are a frighteningly common occurrence for many athletes.  Athletes in contact sports are at the highest risk, but just about every sport carries some risk of head injury.  The CDC estimates that between 1.6 and 3.8 million sports and recreation concussions occur each year. (1) Perhaps over a quarter of those who suffer Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI, the label for concussions now most common among non-athletic medical professionals) do not report their injuries, a statistic that my own personal observations would seem to confirm.

 Recently many Americans have been reevaluating their food choices, and have started to choose organic and local produce as opposed to conventionally grown products. Green markets and Whole Foods stores are springing up across the country; even Wal-Mart has begun to carry organic meats and produce. Advocates of “green” food cite many reasons for opting for organic food, however I am most interested in the claim that organic food is healthier than conventionally farmed products, and whether or not there is actually any nutritional benefit to eating organic.

Music has always been known to affect listeners. There are countless of example demonstrating the affect of music, and one of the oldest examples occurs in the Bible with King Saul asking David to play his harp in order to relieve him of his ‘evil spirits.’ Music has the uncanny ability to make you either cry or laugh, and during the last twenty years, there has been a flurry of research to prove that music might in fact be used as a booster to one’s mental prowess. Since the coining of the term, “Mozart effect” , there has been a serious attempt to understand the relationship between music and the mind, and to prove that listening to music can make the listener smarter.

Synthetic biology is a developing field of science that may have great impact on our future. Originally coined by geneticist Waclaw Szybalski in 1974, he described it as the next phase of molecular biology, a “field with the unlimited expansion potential and hardly any limitation to building”, in which he was “not concerned that we will run out of exciting and novel ideas”. Although still in its infancy and with few, but increasing, results, synthetic biology still contains incredible possibilities but has also raised debate about the many dangers such powerful knowledge of biological synthesis and its application could produce.