annotated bib

For years now, reproductive specialists have been helping couples become parents. Dr. Jeff Steinburg predicts that in one year specialist will be able to predict the sex of a baby 100% certainty and the eye color of a baby 80% certainty. "I think it's very important that we not bury our head in the sand and pretend these advances are not happening," Dr. Steinberg said. According to a survey, most people do not have a problem when it comes to removing genetic diseases. Coordinating physical traits scare some but not all. "Somebody has a taste for a particular child or a preference for a particular child," Dr. Caplan said. Prefered traits such as not having red hair or freckles is driven by our culture. Dr. Caplan argues that the rich will occupy these technologys because money will play a big role. He states that laws should be set that people should get couseling before making a decision for a physical trait. ( would this trait really make a difference to me?...Is it that important?) Dr. Caplan makes a good point that parents would automatcially set high expectations for their children. If the child does not succeed as the trait promised, the parent then becomes upset and worried about the invested money. (211)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/03/earlyshow/health/main4840346.shtml

School

I have really been stressing out about school lately because I am extremely worried about my grades. I have not made a B since probably 7th grade and I do not want to make one now. I know that sounds insane but those are the standards I have set for myself. Chemistry is really grinding my gears right now because I have Freilich, the worst possible teacher I could have gotten. All the other people that do not have Freilich have a way better average grade than people in Freilich's class. I am very worried I might have a C in that class. In comparison to many of my classmates, I am doing extremely well versus their 50s and 60s. A C is not good enough for me and what I want to do. If this stress continues, I will have gray hair in a year. (147)

Thanksgiving

Many teenagers despise Thanksgiving because that means they have to be around family all day. I guess the older you get the more tend people realize that Thanksgiving should be a time of peace and rejoice. For instance, I love Thanksgiving because I get to see all of my family at one time. Its always nice to see people you have not seen in a while. Plus, there is a never ending pit of food every house you go to. Some people really miss the point of Thanksgiving because no one really realizes what it means. Instead of enjoying the peaceful holiday, many people are chaoic because they are rushing from house to house and waiting for Black Friday so they can go shopping all day. (126)

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In the United States, there are no binding rules that restrict a private clinic from offering a menu of traits or from implanting them into a woman with a collection of embryos. A few weeks after Nadya Suleman, a single, unemployed California mother that was living on food stamps, gave birth to octuplets through in-vitro fertilization. She demonstrated that routine uses of reproductive technologies are not always unethical and unsafe. After the 33- year old Suleman was implanted by her physician with six embryos, two of which split into twins, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine suggested that no more than two embryos can be transferred to anyone over the age of 35 because of risk complications.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=regulate-designer-babies

Outside Event

I went to see Jonathon May and Emily Thrash read there absurd poets and stories. I got there right as Emily was finishing up on her reading. There were a lot of people there and I was unable to hear what she was saying. During intermission, I moved up front so that I could hear clearly even though I would later find out I did not want to hear any of these stories. Jonathon May read about his girlfriend then all of the sudden started talking about a guy and him getting it on in the dressing room. The poem he read was disgusting and perverted. Somehow, the crowd of weirdos enjoyed it. He began to tell a story about his friend Michael and how they would engage is sexual activities as he described it "sucking him off." I began to extremely uncomfortable and awkward. I wanted to get up and sprint out of there but I was scared to get up. After reading his stories, the crowd began to clap and yell "good job." I do not know how in the world anyone could actually think it was slightly good.

The iPhone

Okay, so I have/had an iPhone. Today, I was at the gym exercising and in between sets I was texting my girlfriend. While I was texting, my phone just shut off out of no where. The battery was fully charged and I have never even dropped the phone before. I figured that if I put it on the charger it would turn on. Wrong. The stupid phone still will not turn on. I'm so pissed off at Apple right now. It was a brand new phone that I waited two years to get. I had the best, up to date 3GS. You are pitiful Apple. Before you focus on "apps" make your phone be able to last.
(117)

school

Lately, I have been really stressing about the whole majoring in Biology. Biology is known to many as a very hard major in which I completely agree. Next semester and almost every semester for now on is going to hectic and difficult. Thoughts entered my head saying "you cannot do it." Yes I can. Every major is difficult just about. One think I've learned is that you only get out whatever you put in. Biology is a long and bumpy road but I will survive and I will proceed into dental school. Self-motivation is all I need. So here I come. (101)

Friday

Last Friday, I decided to have a party at my house. The party was going great there were about thirty-five people and everyone was having a good time. As the night went on my friend and I were on an eleven game win streak in the game of water pong. Two guys decided they wanted to bet $40 on the game. The match was a blow out and my team won the money. Upset about losing money, one of the guys starting saying many inappropriate things and pushed me. I pushed him back and he fell on the ground and I told him to get out of my house. When everything was over, I walked away to enjoy my company. Before I knew it, the guy blindsided me in the face. Extremely upset and raging with anger I went outside to take care of business. The guy came at me again this time I ducked and hit him square in the face. He fell to the ground and I got on top of him. I hit him probably five times before I was taken off. The whole thing was stupid. Please do not judge me for this blog. I was brought up not to let anyone pick on me.(209)

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Some people may not know it, but paying couples having been able to select their offspring’s gender since 2001. The largest organization involved in this process is Fertility Institutes. They have a 100% success rate. Fertility Institutes selects gender along with screening for breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, and over 70 other diseases. However, Fertility Institutes plans to take there technologies to the next step and begin to select hair and eye color. There is a lot of controversy that comes with this idea. The Pope himself stated "the obsessive search for the perfect child." The Roman Catholic Church objections to all PGD processes because it invariably involves the destruction of blastocysts. (111)

http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/bio/great-designer-baby-controversy-%E2%80%9909

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Last month, a clinic in California was shut down because they released an offer to the public to allow parents to choose their babies hair and eye color. "If nobody gets hurt and everybody has access," says Hughes, 'then genetic modification is perfectly fine, and restricting it is an assault on reproductive freedom." "It’s in the same category as abortion. If you think women have the right to control their own bodies, then they should be able to make this choice," he said. "There should be no law restricting the kind of kids people have, unless there’s gross evidence that they’re going to harm that kid, or harm society." People argued that Hughes' views were unmoral. William Kearnes, a medical genetist that came up with the techniques Fertility Institutes used for comestic purposes, was disgusted at the idea of designer babies.


http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/

intro to paper

Erik Bowman is my oldest brother, 22 years old, and attends the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Ever since he was in high school, he was extremely interested in science. I was only in middle school at this time and had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. My brother was fascinated by science and this caused me to be curious as to what he was so interested in. Erik's two favorite subjects were chemistry and biology. He had his mind set on becoming a doctor. In high school, he joined HOSA and ended up winning the national championship in medicine. His success only made me push myself harder. My freshman year in high school, I found out that the love for science runs in the family. I took Biology I Honors my freshman year and passed with flying colors. Not only did the subject interest me, I was good at it too. However, I never really developed tolerance for chemistry because I only liked it when I got the answer right.

Towards the end of my junior year, I forced myself to construct a plan for myself so that I could figure out what I wanted to do in life. I began researching many different occupations to see what major was required in college. I looked at the usual lawyer, teacher, and doctor requirements but nothing seemed to click. One day, my friends and I were talking about how I only think a girl is cute if she has nice teeth. It was my first impression. It was not until my friends Zach said "man you should be a dentist, your way too concerned with your teeth and everyone else." He made a good point. I was always the kid that had to bring his tooth brush if I was spending the night somewhere. I could not stand for my teeth to feel or look nasty. I did some research on the requirements for professional field of dentistry. Amazingly, biology and chemistry were the two most commonly accepted majors into dental school.

When I was registering for classes, my advisor persuaded me to join the Biological Origins learning community. The idea sounded good at the time so I went for it. The learning community brought me into Mrs. Sumner-Winter's English 1010. In class, we were constructed to choose from three topics: human tissue as property, DNA databases, and designer babies. I found out that biology was not only about the larger organism we see everyday. Biology has three main "columns": cell biology, genetics, and evolution. Out of the three, I was more interested in genetics and how it worked so I picked designer babies. I also picked designer babies because it seemed interesting how far people would go to get what they wanted. Scientists were willing to pick apart genes and stick the desired genes in. I found it hard to believe that we could even do that. I became interested in the process although I thought it would ultimately eliminate originality.

Works in Progress Reflection

Alex Bowman

Professor Sumner-Winter

English 1010

November 4, 2009



Works in Progress Symposium Reflection


Earlier today, I attended the “Works in Progress Symposium” for both English and my freshman seminar class. At first, I thought that the event was going to be extremely boring but it turned out to be a very interesting experience. Okay I lied, it was not interesting but it did bring forth some good ideas and information. I went to two presentations. The first presentation was by Jessica Volyes and it dealt with the term, prosody. The second presentation was about dialogue and comprehension by John C. Myers. Both Jessica and John are senior psychology majors that plan to move on to graduate school. Ironically, both of their presentations had to do with English.
In the first presentation, Jessica defined prosody as the lexical rhythm of conversation. She stated the prosody helps to keep away from monotonous voice and expresses emotional cues. I thought this was interesting because it made me think about how I would read my paper out loud. No one wants to read something that is monotone. I also have trouble with getting to the point. I always tend to drag on and on, eventually, leading up to the point. Throughout that process, I lose the readers interest. Prosody helps to get to the point and trigger memory during discourse. Even though prosody has to do more with speeches, it can also help me with writing because it requires me to think of my paper as a conversation.
The second presentation was a harder to follow than the first. John C. Myers He was interested in discourse processing, especially reading. John's research involved: reader characteristics, expectations, and goals. He conducted an experiment that had two categories: news and literary. The news readers read at a faster rate and better recalled casual relationships. The literary readers read slower and better recalled surface and text basic information. This suggested that the literary readers were looking deeper into the reading for more detailed information. Dialogue (speech) is easier to understand. John's study stated that expository text is more difficult to comprehend. I could relate to John’s research because dialogue is much easier to understand than monologue and expository text. I completely agreed with the results from his experiment on news and literary topics. When I read the news, I skim to obtain the basic information. However, I do not really know how this presentation would help me with my paper

Works In Progress 2

The second presentation was about dialogue. John C. Myers is a psychology major that participated in the works in progress symposium to help him get into graduate school. John's research was based on "What’s Different about Dialogue? A Comparative Approach." He was interested in discourse processing, especially reading. John's research involved: reader characteristics, expectations, and goals. He conducted an experiment that had two catagories: news and litrary. The news readers read at a faster rate and better recalled casual relationships. The literary readers read slower and better recalled surface and text basic information. This suggested that the literary readers were looking deeper into the reading for more detailed information. Dialogue (speech) is easier to understand. John's study stated that expository text is more difficult to comprehend. A conversion from dialogue to monologue may ulimately facilitate comprehension. Monologue will serve as a mid-point. His materials are two expository text. They were to read one sentence at a time to calculate reading times. He plans to obtain thirty participants, ten in each condition( expository, dialogue, and monologue). The effect of genre will also be consdiered. John predicted that dialogue are the easiest to comprehend and expository text are the hardest.

John did a good job with his presentaton. He stated good points and information to back it all up. I think the result of his experiment will give him the results he is looking for. He spoke very well and brought the conversation down a level so that everyone in the room could understand. I do not really know how this presentation would help me with my paper.

Works In Progress 1

Earlier today, I attended Jessica Volyes presentation on "Does Prosody Facilitate Retention in High and Low Knowledge Comprehenders?" She is a senior psychology major and her field of research is prosody. Prosody is the lexical rhythm of conversation. Prosody helps to eliminate a monotonous voice and to express emotional cues. Prosody is important because it allows the listener to identify sentence structure and plays an essential semantic role. Jessica said "when speaking do not be lengthy get straight to the point." Prosody helps with this, it helps to find the point and trigger memory during discourse. Prosody pertains to verbal memory. Pitch (prosody) is more essential in mental representation at the sentential level than at word level. It also increases recognition rates and removes deafness effects during monotonous voice. Prosody is similar to cohesion. Cohesion is the extent that the reader can relate one idea to the next as it flows. Highly cohesive texts help low knowledge individuals. Low cohesive do not have a detrimental effect on comprehension of high knowledge individuals. Jessica's hypothesis is that prosodic cues will have a negative effect on comprehension of low knowledge not high knowledge.

Jessica communicated her information very well because I was able to fully understand her presentation ,even though, prior to the speech I did not know anything about prosody. I thought it was quite ironic how her presentation was about prosody and she used prosody to clearly get her point across.

Prosody is a good method that I could use in the future when writing my paper. Prosody will help me with sentence structure and eliminate boredom for the reader. The use of prosody will help me to use emotional expressions to get my point across. Overall, it was a good experience and will hopefully help me with my paper.

Designer Babies

The Fertility Institutes was the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for genetic diseases or gender, but to screen for all the physical characteristics such as: eye color, height, hair color, and skin tone. The Fertility Institutes claims that this is just the beginning and one day will be able to completely customize any offspring. Many people are flocking from all over and are willing to spend any amount of money for their "perfect child." On the other hand, some people feel as though designer babies are unethical and lack moral values. Designer babies are now in science's reach and there is no turning back. (113)

Last Thursday

Last Thursday, we watched a movie about the origins of humans. The movie gave vivid explanations concluding that all humans can be traced back to one area in Africa. Scientists attended the most diverse festivals in Queens, New York. The team took swabs of countless humans of different races. Their genetic differences all traced back to "scientific Eve." The first human was known as "scientific Eve." The movie stated that the human population started out small in Africa and throughout time migrated north toward Asia and Europe. In the movie, they presented a map that showed where humans dispersed as they left Africa. (103)

This weekend

For all of you that do not already know, I am a Tennessee football fan. A few friends and I are going to Knoxville to watch Tennessee play Memphis. I am kind of in a pickle. Who do I root for? I plan on wearing orange because they have always been my team and I am going to UT Knoxville next year. I am not a hypocrite for wearing orange as many of you might say. I will be going for Tennessee but at the same time I will not be talking trash about Memphis. As much as I would like to say it would be a good game, it most likely will not because Memphis is not playing well at all this season.(124)