Henry

= Week 4: Free Will? =

Looking back, I've touched on some pretty upsetting topics in this blog: cancer and the bacterial apocalypse to be exact. However, this topic of free will, I feel, is the most sinister thought in all of science and all of consciousness. From the side of science, organisms operate in pathways triggered by stimuli and culminating in products and results. It is all too ordered, timed, and cyclical to make sense of something as spontaneous and influential as free will. However, from the side of consciousness, how can we ourselves possibly deny it? Am I not writing this post right now because I spent an hour searching and CHOSE free will as something interesting to discuss? There's no way. Or is there?

media type="youtube" key="-i3AiOS4nCE" width="560" height="315"

This video from BBC shows a simple neurological experiment using an MRI machine to detect and track brain activity. To sum up the video for those of you who can't tolerate British accents, the participant was given a choice between pressing a button with his left and or another button with his right. Essentially his decision was confined to which finger to raise and push down again, which is just simple enough for modern neuroscience to comprehend, and the examiner tells the participant that based on brain activity and oxygen levels in different areas, he was able to predict which button would be pushed 6 seconds before the participant pushed it. Sure, there's time between when the decision is made and when the button is pushed, but 6 seconds? Needless to say those are troubling results.



To put this in perspective, this experiment seems to be saying that when you slave over your daily decisions, at least to a certain extent those decisions are finalized before you come to the decision consciously. Six seconds is little more than an arbitrary figure generated by our current understanding of neuroscience. As we progress in research, this time gap will most likely increase. Who knows to what extent we have control over ourselves? If our thoughts are left in the dust by our conclusions, why think? What happens to intelligence in this model? Us AP kids, are we determined to have the right answers if we sit down for a scantron test and answer each question upon first read without taking time to consider the options?

Of course, maybe we make our own decisions, and the delay of consciousness is merely an adaptation that holds the thought for a moment allowing the thinker to examine the situation and verify that the circumstances have not changed in the short interim. That is pure speculation on my part, but it would be beneficial to humans and there is nothing in the study that undermines it. So maybe I've gotten worked up about nothing. Like I've said before, who knows? However much we eventually know about the way the brain works, we will still always be conscious, so we will never truly be able to determine how decisions are made.

Now to connect this to sustainability. First off, it is extremely important that we continue to increase our knowledge of the way the brain operates and how a mass of electric currents make up a person's consciousness. Understanding ourselves and life in general to the greatest extent is the only way to improve upon our interactions with the planet and with each other, especially in the realm of communications. However, it is important that we do not get bogged down in the fact that free will in its purest form may not be reality. We can't resign ourselves to the truth that we have no control, and thus have no reason to try. The only way to see progress is to live as if you have a say. Make an effort to change the world, and whether it's really your decision or not, you will change the world.

Week 3: Future Antibiotics? We've talked about antibiotics in class. We've talked about the danger that faces us in the future if bacteria continues to be increasingly resistant to our antibiotics. In fact, we even injected bacteria with resistance in the lab. (I don't know if anyone else saw the eeriness of that endeavor.) However, like i said before, the accidental invention that has been one of the greatest gifts to human health may very soon become the enemies best weapon against us.



Manufacture of new types of antibiotics has slowed significantly in recent times. The reason for this is, of course, money. In the past, it was fairly easy to manipulate the existing models to formulate new antibiotics, but it seems that now, major pharmaceutical companies are out of ideas, and have turned their focuses toward more instantly profitable drugs rather than base-level research for new antibiotics. To learn more about recent obstacles and news on this topic, skim through this article.

The problem is that just as we are losing ground in the fight, new bacterial strains with incredible resistance to our current drugs are emerging. So-called super bugs, such as MRSA and the less known but more deadly CRE, are constantly entering our communities and our food supply, thanks to antibiotic fed livestock.

media type="youtube" key="rIfvLp1YHmE" width="560" height="315"

This video is a simple recap of the concept of drug-resistant bacteria and the threat posed by the use of antibiotics. It also makes a solid and coincidental connection to our topic in class of sustainability. It equates antibiotics to any resource on the planet, pleading that people must not overuse them or use them when it is not necessary. As we have seen, abuse and misuse of resources is the bulk of the reason for a sustainability issue on the planet.

In the recent weeks, the US has made a significant statement of its dedication to this issue by investing $200 million over 5 years in the British pharmaceutical company GSK. I suggest you look at this article to learn a little more.

Week 2: Genetics in Medicine (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) This week I decided to take a look at something that I've unfortunately seen too much of in the past year. Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a very aggressive and deadly form of blood cancer that takes about **14,000 American lives every year.** The far worse detail, at least in my opinion, is the treatment which today serves as the only cure for the cancer: a stem cell transplant that replaces the bone marrow of the cancer patient with that of another genetically compatible individual. This process involves bringing the patient first to near death with chemotherapy, and though it is great when it works, the transplant yields **slightly less than 50% success** for four year survival if the cancer is caught early. To me, this does not constitute a cure, not because of its low effective rate, but rather because it doesn't address the problem, it just tries to get rid of it. It's as if I broke my computer, and instead of going in and finding what happened, I bought a new one. Only this is a little worse because it is not by nature an upgrade; you are literally **replacing yourself with that your body views as an enemy**. Overall, this treatment appears almost barbaric especially considering the scientific knowledge and technology we have at our disposal today

In fact, today researchers are beginning to think about cancer differently, with AML at the spearhead of the movement.

SCIENTISTS ASSEMBLE GENETIC PLAYBOOK AGAINST AML

This article represents an optimistic update on the understanding of the cancer, explaining how researchers have mapped the genomes of 200 different AML patient tumor cells and deciphered a comprehensive list of mutations that they believe are driving the cancer in patients all over the world. With these discoveries, researchers can develop new drugs or use drugs already in use for other diseases to disturb certain gene pathways or neutralize gene products that are causing the cancerous nature of the cells.

I'm not sure if we watched this in class, but in a TED Talk, Juan Enriquez discusses this exact concept in such nonchalant tone that you would thing we've been doing this for years. The talk is really interesting but if you have seen it, cut to 14:49 for the relevant section. media type="youtube" key="5KdOPY1Iqiw" width="560" height="315"

Now, how does this relate to sustainability? Well, one important part of sustaining life is curing diseases like cancer that are such plagues on populations, but more than that, this whole conversation is an analogy for humanity's attempts to solve problems on the planet. Historically, mankind has employed resources and mechanisms, such as fossil fuels, to assist in its dealings without truly understanding the make-up and the consequences of these tools. Similarly, doctors have been fighting cancer without first taking the time to figure out what it is. We have access to the code, and with it we can find the real problems, the answers to which may be right in front of us. Whether or not it is written, it is man's responsibility to decipher the planets code to find the problems and the solutions. The most important lesson to take from the analogy of leukemia is that there are no quick fixes and one size fits all solutions to anything, and that sustainability is going to be a constant process, hopefully one that humans are willing to undertake.

Week 1 (and maybe 2-? because I think it is amazing) :
Biomimicry

As the name implies, biomimicry is the idea of mimicking mechanisms and designs employed by organisms and natural systems to develop the technologies we use to solve problems. This concept was first introduced to me by H.G. Wells in War of the Worlds, where he imagines an advanced Martian civilization utilizing animal-esque mechanics in their vehicles rather than the man-conceived wheel. Wells was, as my term paper would go on to explain, an early advocate for sustainability and a member of the minority who that while man was enjoying prosperity and ever-increasing living standards, his "progress" would eventually cause his destruction. Fast forward to the present, we are starting to recognize some of the consequences of our flawed technological and societal appliances upon which we have become dependent. However, we are also armed with a greater understanding of the natural world and its efficiency and self-sustainability, and so biomimicry has been an expanding field of study and has contributed already to major breakthroughs in our technology. Janine Benyus' presentation for TED essentially summarizes the idea and gives a bunch or really cool but also really logical, like "How aren't we doing this yet?" examples of applications. I suggest you take a look:

media type="youtube" key="k_GFq12w5WU" width="560" height="315" align="center"

Natural selection has been at play improving these mechanisms for millions of years before the existence of the human race, so why should we think that our designs are better than what seems to work for nature? Janine plugs this website, which she helped create, in the video. @http://www.asknature.org/browse It provides an organized database of natures solutions to various challenges from which engineers will hopefully draw inspiration.

Something we overlook all the time is flight, which was introduced to humans based on the basic model provided by the birds we see every day. However, scientists are still working on improving efficiency by examining more avian species and drawing from their forms and their strategies. (This blurb is a little unncecesary. I just thought the picture was cool.) The world, it seems, is in perfect sustainable harmony without our intervention, and species are able to carry out the very same basic operations as us (energy production, transportation, storage, communication), so the obvious path for humanity to achieve sustainability is to be a little less innovative and a little more observant. Thank you all for your time!