Henrietta Lacks

Over spring break I read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot. I had previously heard of the story last year and was immediately intrigued. Basically the story is, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks was treated for cervical cancer at John Hopkins. A sample of the cancerous tissue was sent to a lab and scientist, George Gey discovered that these cancerous cells kept dividing in the lab. However, neither Henrietta or her family knew about this sample and the experimentation that was going on. The cells were a great medical and scientific breakthrough, but Henrietta’s name was not associated with the cells. So Rebecca Skloot wanted to bring the truth to light and share the story of Henrietta.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but I think I liked the movie better. Although the book focused more on the science side and the movie focused more on the family of Henrietta and their relationships the movie was more emotional to me. The book evoked anger but the movie evoked sympathy. To be quite honest I would be awfully mad if a doctor used one of my family’s cells for research and not tell me about it.

So I want to pose a question to you, how would you feel if your family member’s cells were taken without consent?

Click here to buy the book!

May 17, 2018May 19, 2018 by kaitlynoshiro Tags: ap bio, ap biology, book, cells, cool, hela, henrietta, henrietta lacks, lacks, movie 2 Comments

Botany of Desire Reflection

Botany of Desire is a documentary by PBS which discusses human interaction with plants. There are four main chapters of the documentary: How Sweet, Beauty, Cannabis, and Potato. The first chapter, How Sweet, talks about apples and their history within the United States. Throughout time, apples have once been sold with a wide variety, but now there are only a handful of apple species we eat. In the past, wild apple trees were abundant and those apples, because of their bitterness, were used to make hard cider. Apple orchards are only growing a monoculture, one variety, of apples because those are the apples that will be sold and eaten. However, there are still people who grow, what they call, antique varieties of apples. Because most of these apples are not sweet enough to be on the market, the growers use the apples to make hard cider.

The next chapter is Beauty which discusses flowers, specifically tulips. In the past there was a tulip bulb market because tulips were a sign of high status and wealth. However, the tulip trade was hurting the European economy so tulips were now seen negatively. Today, tulips are still seen as beautiful and there are now breeders that create new varieties of tulips, these breeders are called human bees. There are tulip farms all around the world and flowers are a multi-billion dollar trade.

Following flowers, the discussion about cannabis is presented. Cannabis, also known as weed, marijuana, or pot, has been a controversial topic for the past several decades. According to the documentary 15 million Americans smoke cannabis per month. Another interesting fact about intoxicants that was presented in the chapter was that in every society there are about 1-2 intoxicants accepted and promoted but the rest are condemned such as alcohol is widely accepted in Western society. Because marijuana farms in Mexico were being taken down by United States forces, marijuana growers mixed two cannabis plants to make the new version, short to be able to grow the plant inside and unintentionally made the plant more potent.

Lastly, the discussion ends on potatoes. Potatoes are a substantial food source since  1/2 acre of land for growing potatoes can provide enough for a family to survive for a year. Thus potatoes were adapted by Europe to end the famine. However, the single potato species in Ireland were destroyed by a disease and led Ireland into an awful famine killing many people. To avoid this famine to ever happen again, scientists genetically modified potatoes and now use an abundance of pesticides. However, the moral of the documentary evidenced by each chapter, is for farmers and society to stay away from monoculture.

 

 

I definitely suggest watching the film so here are the links to the Botany of Desire documentary:

Botany of Desire part 1

Botany of Desire part 2

Botany of Desire part 3

April 13, 2018May 8, 2018 by kaitlynoshiro Tags: ap biology, apbio, biology, botany, botany of desire, desire, documentary, earth, food, fun, interesting, movie 1 Comment

Cracking the Code of Life

Cracking the Code of Life Video was very interesting.  The video focused on the Human Genome Project and how the project can help with determining mutations in a person’s genome sequence.  There are many mutations which occur with a slight differentiation in gene pairing that make a mutation.  Such as 4 out of 3 billion pairs are arranged differently and then that person can have a disease that can hinder there life and even lifespan.  I thought the most interest part of the video was the information about how the mispairing of nucleotides can create a huge difference.  Also the fact that if a protein is misshapen then the protein’s function changes and a child can have cystic fibrosis.

Overall I thought that the video is super helpful in understanding how important genes are.  At the end of the video, we were posed a question on if a parent can pick their child’s DNA, should they do it.  I believe that if you could prevent a deadly disease but should not be done to “pick” a perfect baby.  Although the human race shares 99% of the same genes we are all super different and unique.

November 21, 2017December 12, 2017 by kaitlynoshiro Tags: apbio, chromosome, cool, cracking the code of life, DNA, gene, genetics, movie, ndbtigers 2 Comments

FLOW Reflection

Although water is the majority of the Earth, so many people die from not having water.  Water sustains life, and without there is no life.  The documentary FLOW discusses the topic of water, water privatization, bottling companies, and the hardships in third world countries on finding clean water sources.  The one thing that surprised me the most in the film was that bottled water is not any purer than tap water.  I always thought that bottled water was more pure and free of chemicals but it turns out that we don’t know what’s in bottled water.  Because of this I have been drinking more tap water rather than bottled water (another perk, using less plastic!).

The entire documentary was very informative and even though I have seen this once before, there were some facts that I forgot and shocked me again.  I learned that water companies unrightfully take water from poor families and companies then make these people either pay for the water or not even give them water.  The film’s main purpose is to spread awareness of water privatization and companies taking advantage of third world countries.  The filmmaker is trying to get across that water is not a privilege but a human right.  The filmmaker is ultimately trying to get support for Article 31 to be put into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which establishes access to clean water as a human right.

The documentary was released in 2008 and in the 9 years between then and now there has been a plethora of water charities that fund water to places where clean water is not accessible.  However, bottled water companies, especially Nestle, have continued to take water from public sources, claiming its theirs, and selling it for a huge profit margin.  As seen in the film, Nestle’s main source for spring water is in Michigan and there were many petitions and court cases saying that what Nestle is doing is inhumane and unconstitutional.  With that being said, today Nestle is still pumping from wells and springs from Michigan.  Even with successes of educating the population of the water issue, companies are still unrightfully taking water from people who need it most.

Here are some images from the documentary:

September 11, 2017December 12, 2017 by kaitlynoshiro Tags: apbio, cool, documentary, flow, movie, ndbtigers, save water, water Leave a comment