The spy of the future...

(Paula Contreras & Ramón Fuentes' brainshark presentation)

     Could you imagine an "army" of cockroaches remote controlled being used as the next superspies?  This is one of the possibles uses for Dr. Alper Bozkurt recent discovery.  Although Dr. Bozkurt envisioned and created this device to control insects and other animals, mostly to search and find earthquake victims under destroyed buildings, media already has given it other uses.
     
     If you want to know more about how this device works, the comments of the crew in charge of this discovery and in what way media covered and published this discovery, you can visit our presentation.

http://my.brainshark.com/TERRESTRIAL-INSECT-BIOBOTS-393240805

     Finally we left the following questions for being discussed.

1. Is it correct to use animals in experiments?
2. Should humans dominate animals against their will?
3. Could it be possible that humans use this technology for dominating other human beings in the future?

     We hope you enjoy our work and questions and comments are welcomed.

The Broken Link Between Science and Humanity

“Since when did people start expecting science to be humane? To study the body, you cut it open. To study the mind, you isolate it by crushing the heart. Historically, that’s how science has advanced.”

The previous quote was taken from a videogame I recently played, and it shows clearly how science has advanced thus far. In order to get all the advances in technology, scientists have been isolating their humanity and their morals to discover new aspects of the human body or to find the cure to diseases; and most of the times, they forget that humans are not mere objects of study.

J. Marion Sims is commonly known as the “father of gynecology,” and he found a solution to a childbirth problem in the 19^th century. However, the process of finding the cure was quite polemic because he mainly used black women, and he did not use anesthesia on all the patients. There are cases of women who were tested more than one time—some of them underwent the procedure 30 times, and it is believed that he bought and rented most of his “guinea pigs.” That is not all, he refused to apply anesthesia on all the patients even though it was already available at the time.

This specific example helps me to prove what varied forms of arts have been saying for a long time: science has lost his humanity. It has never been shown clearly, for most of the times is hidden from us; but it is happening, and people will eventually know.

Animal testing must be stopped ASAP

For more than two millenniums, animals have been used during scientific experiments, which some of them include drug testing, behavioral studies or genetic and biomedical research.

Animal research (how this practice is called) supporters state that every medical accomplishment in the last two centuries has include the use of in vivo testing during their procedures. On the other hand, animal rights and welfare organizations, like PETA, describe animal testing as cruel, and obsolete; a poor scientific practice which is not enough regulated, and that doesn’t consider the animal’s intrinsic rights of not being used for experimentation. Nonetheless, the stress and boredom that affect animals while they are locked, most of the times cause them neurotic behaviors like spinning constantly in circles or biting themselves, after several years which only options are being drugged or just wait for it to happen, almost all of the animals used in experimentation finish their life being killed.

More than 100 million animals per year suffer and die as a result of these methods, and that number is not even close to the total quantity of beings killed inside a scientific facility, because mice, rats, birds and cold blooded animals (more than 95% of animals used in testing) are not considered on the Animal Welfare Act – the only federal American law that regulates the treatment of animals during experimentation. It was signed almost 50 years ago in 1966.

I think that little things like stopping dissections on a biology class or begin seeing and treating animals as friends and partners rather than objects or tools, could be a good start for a new scenario where “our little brothers” receive the respect they deserve. 

improve your life with a cup of tea

It is no news that green tea has many benefits for our health, among which we can mention that it prevents diseases such as cancer, diabetes and also gives protection against the formation of clots, which are the primary cause of heart attacks, prevents tooth decay , reduces bad cholesterol, the risk of high blood pressure and it is also famous for increasing the metabolism which has to do with weight loss.
 We are in front of a kind of "magic potion" related to our health and the list continues because a recent study   has shown that it would also help to maintain functional ability and improve working-memory, this is thanks to the great quality antioxidants that we can find in green tea which besides being useful for our skincare, it prevents cognitive decline as we age, avoiding brain disorders such as alzheimer or parkinson.
Because of all the reasons that i just mentioned green tea has become pretty popular so you can find it in any supermarket at a reasonable price. the only cons about it is that it contains caffeine so it is not advisable for people who are sensitive to this compound and i can't assure that you will find the taste pleasant, personally, i like it, but there is no accounting for taste. As you can see the benefits are superior than cons.

So what are you waiting to improve your health condition? it would only take you a couple of cups of tea a day. have you ever tried green tea? do you know about other nature gift with a lot of benefits?  

here is a tutorial about how to make a facial scrub with green tea, so it can also being applied to the skin.

GPS (Going Pro Safety?)

It is believed by many that the GPS tracking system is the solution when taking on a trip with relatives on a non-familiar road and not wanting to get lost. The GPS system has proved useful by many people in this way, and it is a current compulsory gadget for your ride.

The thing is, is the GPS always effective?

The tracking system consists of an electronic device, which is put inside a car and shows your location on a map. Protection is guaranteed as the device sends a continuous pulse to a signal reader (or antenna) that is read and decoded. The person within the system sees your location and the information is vital for finding people who has been notified as disappeared.

But nothing always works. The signal that is being continuously sent to the reader can be blocked by wet stuff, like a thunder-hit, fallen tree in a stormy night, or solid objects such as a mountain; moreover, there have been cases in which people have gotten lost because the signal got reflected by a metallic object that stood in the middle of the pulsed emitted by the device in the car, causing it to be sent off course. Both examples can make the signal get thwarted.

Although there have been remarkable technology breakthroughs, things need to improve more for guaranteeing the safety of drivers, especially the ones who drive at night or under difficult circumstances.

So, do you feel safe enough with your GPS device now?

 

What is the difference between eating organic food and natural food?

The majority of people think that these two kinds of foods are the same, but they are completely wrong. If you start doing research about organic and natural food, you find lots of explanations that might confuse you. Here are the essentials that you should know:

Basically, organic foods are farmed and produced without any chemical pesticides or fertilizers. In the case of meat we find that farmers don’t use antibiotics or growth hormones in order to increase the size of the animals.

On the other hand, we have natural food, which is essentially the opposite, where farmers just use the essentials.

A study conducted by Stanford University concluded that there is not a big nutritional difference between these two kinds of foods. However, the same study concluded that in organic food there is no presence of any chemicals, such as pesticides or fertilizers. In natural food, there is a small percentage of these chemicals. Perhaps this will make a difference when you go to the grocery to decide which product buy.

Did you know the differences between these two kinds of foods?

Based on what you just learned about the possibly lethal consequences of the foods we eat, or rather the chemicals absorbed into them, what should our society do? Should we require the government to label the different kinds of produce ‘organic’ or ‘natural’?

For further information, check out this video!

Bionic Ear: Too many risks!

Having a close relationship with someone deaf can really change your perception of life. People with severe nerve deafness in one or both ears, have to adapt themselves to society since it doesn't seem to be the other way around. 

However, science has provided a simulator of natural hearing since the middle of 1980 called COCHLEAR IMPLANT, also known as bionic ear.

The CI contains electronic circuits that processes when receiving sounds stimuli from the outside, sending electronic currents to the auditory nerve. Once it's activated, it sends hearing signals to the brain, which recognize those signals and stimulates hearing. This device is implanted in the inner ear, which is connected with a "worm", a hole made in the brain that will connect with the external components such as the transmitter, the sound processor and the microphone. 


Despite all the advantages, many people, especially from the Deaf Community, have expressed their disagreement. Many deaf people who have gotten their cochlear implants, have experienced serious problems during the surgical implant procedure since it increases the risk of infection in the skin wound, meningitis, and cerebrospinal fluid leak from the inner ear.
After getting used to the device, they start experiencing strange sounds, not being able to understand the language properly, and having "Tinnitus", which is hearing a constant ringing or hissing even if it doesn't come from the outside, making them feel dizzy, and lose their balance.
After all I've learnt, I came to understand why many people don't get them.

Would you get a cochlear implant? Or would you join the Deaf Community? 
Would you teach society about deaf culture?

Manipulating DNA

Nowadays we have entered  into a new scientific age in which scientists are not only capable of reading genetic code, but also they are capable of writing it. With the knowledge of this code through which life is programmed, they have the latent possibility of reprogramming that code and redesigning life itself. This new mastery of manipulating DNA is called synthetic biology.

This field combines science and engineering, in which standard parts (genes,cells, amino acids, bases, proteins,circuits) can be assembled using bioinformatic and software modeling tools  that will  insert or modify biological  functions to create new characteristics in organisms that don’t exist in nature. Through this, scientists seek to understand how living things work and furthermore they want to solve problems with potential applications differing from fighting pollution and cancer to manufacturing cheaper fuel and drugs.

Nevertheless we all know that when humans have such kind of power in their hands, they become ambitious, what if synthetic biology opens the possibilities to create biological  weapons, in which a genocide virus could be spread to attack enemy countries? or can you imagine “DNA hackers”  that will disperse secrets DNA codes through the internet? is this going to permit  the elite to redesign themselves to get superior organs and be more intelligent and long-lived than the rest of the world? will this power be left in the hands of only the most powerful multinational companies?what do you think? 

Do you want to see SPIDER-GOATS created by synthetic biology?  Then  you have to watch this video!

Are cyborgs among us?

This presentation will give you a closer look at this new kind of technology.
Daniel Ahumada and I talk about Smart which is a tool used for medical porpuses, and to be specific, optical surgery.
Smart is a rather new invention and for this reason, with little media coverage.
In the last part of our video we resent some questions for you to answer.
We hope you like our brief video :)

http://my.brainshark.com/Smart-578631362

Daniel Ahumada & Roxana Bueno

Slaves of technology

Nowadays, people easily have access to technology. Internet, laptops, cell phones are key factors of that. However, with all these applied science, we tent to live our lives through it. Facebook, Twitter, even our e-mails are forms of communication that make us to be always connected to a website. When was the last time that you did not stay front a computer for a long time? And by a long time I am referring to a year. Do you remember? I do not think so.

During the last years, people in companies started to use internet as a source to exchange information with their workers. It is a fast way to be in contact with employees. Nevertheless, it is normal that people get tired of receiving messages or emails all the time.  The professor of London’s Global University, Caroline Sauvajol-Rialland, found out in a study that “excessive emails and general information result in social and psychological risks to employees and impoverishes the company”. Those workers spend 30% of their time at work attending calls or emails that demand immediate answers. Because of that, people get stress easily and their family lives start to disappear.

We are becoming slaves of technology and its changes. It would not surprise me that in a few years, the only way to show that we care for our beloved ones will be through internet. What do you think?