Today in class Andrew talked about how different body language creates different power levels. After looking at the results of the research study, it was concluded (although the study was small) that using ‘powerful’ body language could, in turn, make you more powerful (higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol, which is the hormone balance of powerful people). 

Yesterday, President Obama announced, one day after World AIDS Awareness Day, a new initiative for HIV research, with a total of 100 million dollars of funding. This funding will be used to discover and research new therapies for people with HIV/AIDS, with the goal of finding a treatment that will put it into remission. 

We all learned about the virus in school, and how to prevent our own exposure to it by using condoms. HIV can also be spread through use of dirty needles, from a mother to her baby, and from other contact with bodily fluids. Once you contract the virus, you may or may not pass it on to someone else (it depends on your immune system and if you are taking your medications). 

Currently, 1.1 million of the 313.9 million Americans live with HIV. HIV as of right now has no cure. Many who had the virus. From the CDC website, I was able to access a guideline for treatments for someone diagnosed with HIV, the document was 267 pages long–how daunting of a task to trudge through that and decide which options are the best for you, especially when you begin to look at the prices of the drugs that you will need to take in order to stay alive.

A person infected with HIV has an average cost range of $2,000- $5,000 dollars per month. The new funding plan that was announced Monday December 2nd, 2013 will add to state’s funding for support programs to help people with HIV obtain medications at a semi-reasonable cost. 

Another place where the 100 million dollars worth of funding is going is to research for new therapies and treatments. Currently clinical trials are being performed on HIV preventative vaccines and new treatments, but more funding will allow more research and trials to be conducted, and new staff to be hired. Hiring new researchers is an extremely important part of finding new therapies or even a cure; fresh ideas and innovation is something that new employees can bring into a lab. 

The announcement of the increased funding is something monumental for the United States; it will allow Americans living with HIV to have access to cutting edge treatments, it will make their medications affordable, and it will bring humanity one step closer to eradicating HIV. The preventative HIV vaccine research, in my opinion, is extremely important. If we could vaccinate the population against an incurable virus, then it is possible to eradicate HIV from our world, just like smallpox. 

While scanning through the research studies at Penn State that are seeking volunteers, I came across a very interesting one. It is a study seeking adult couples where one of the two has rheumatoid arthritis. My grandmother has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for most of her adult life, and in the past 4 years it has consumed her, literally. She went from some joint pain (which is what most people experience) to having only 20% lung capacity (her arthritis starting attacking tissues as well, causing interstitial lung disease), her joints has literally disintegrated leaving her dependent on a walker or wheelchair depending on how strong shes feeling that day. She has had 3 knee replacement surgeries, 2 hip replacement surgeries, many surgeries on her wrists and fingers, shes acquired colon cancer from the potency of the drugs shes on to control the rheumatoid arthritis, and it goes on and on. I’ve watched this disease ravage her body and mind, and I can see the toll it has taken on her relationship with my grandfather. His role of being her her husband has transformed into being her ‘nurse’. He gives her iv medication, makes sure she takes her other medications on time, takes her to doctors appointments twice weekly (sometimes more), and has to help her do anything and everything because she cannot support her own weight on her brittle, crumbling bones. They love each other very much, but this role change can be hard to handle. They both get frustrated and she sometimes feels helpless and falls into depression for a few days. 

In my PL SC 419 course (The Bureaucracy), we’ve been discussing organizational theory. Last week, we specifically looked at the Three Mile Island incident, and the organizational disconnects that led to the human error that produced the partial meltdown. Now, most of us were not yet alive when this disaster happened (my fellow SC 200 classmates), but the view of nuclear power after the partial meltdown at TMI was grim. Even though it produced clean energy, the public wanted no more nuclear power plants to be built because of the possible damage it could cause if something went wrong, like it did on March 28th,1979 at TMI. The fear of a mismanaged plant was greater than the benefit of clean energy without carbon emissions (fossil fuel plants give off carbon emissions). American’s problem with nuclear power lied more so in the management aspect of it than the actual technical process.  

So, 34 years after the partial meltdown, we are finally starting to see nuclear power plants being built. Nuclear power has numerous benefits; it is a clean source of energy, it is a cost effective source of energy, and the technology to develop these plants is readily available. Some drawbacks people see in nuclear power is the disastrous reality if a complete meltdown were to occur (Chernobyl). Another concern is what to do with the radioactive waste that is produced. From a political standpoint, nuclear power plants could become targets of terror attacks, if the attack that happened on the World Trade Center was to happen on a nuclear power plant, the results would be devastating to the entire globe.

Currently, there are many plans for nuclear plants in the process of coming on line.  I believe that nuclear power is a good source to use to produce clean energy. Yes, the radioactive waste is a concern, but it is one that can be dealt with. The carbon emissions from fossil fuel plants are more of a demon than dealing with where to keep the radioactive waste from a nuclear plant. Another reason why I believe nuclear power is beneficial is because the threat of another accident has been greatly reduced since the Three Mile Island partial meltdown. The official report on why the partial meltdown occurred was lack of communication between plants (the valve that failed had also failed in several other instances, but had never led to a meltdown), and because human intervention of the controllers stopped the system from fixing the problem itself. Nuclear power is designed with checks and balances to make sure that if one of the pieces fails, there is a backup mechanism to correct it. When that valve failed, the system had started to fix it by running the water over the core like it was supposed to. It was only when the human controllers shut off the water did the meltdown begin. After the TMI incident, nuclear power plant companies realized they cannot operate a nuclear plant like a fossil fuel plant. They began reforming the managerial system as well as training employees to be knowledgeable in nuclear power to know what to do when something does go wrong.

So, do you feel nuclear power is a good thing? Or that it is simply too risky and we shouldn’t be building plants?

As a kid, the cartoons that we would watch on Saturday mornings usually included Tom and Jerry. Now, everyone knows that cats don’t like mice, and mice don’t like cats, right? If there’s one thing Tom and Jerry taught us, its that cats like to eat mice! What if that’s not the case?

The parasite toxoplasma gondii is known to inhibit a mouse’s innate fear of felines, however, even after being cursed of the parasitic disease toxoplamsois, the mice that have had the disease, or who have had the disease and been cured, fear cats less than mice without the disease (Hogenboom, BBC). These mice, although they fear cats less, do however have many adverse side effects of toxoplamosis like brain cysts. The parasitic disease also affects humans, causing pregnancy issues, but can change moods in patients with schizophrenia and can lessen the effects of Alzheimer’s. Now, the discovery of mice who have been infected with the toxoplasma gondii parasite has larger effects on the practice of medicine. The fact that the parasite, once cured, has lasting effects on a person opens the door to finding cures for other aliments. Infecting someone purposefully and then curing the infectious disease in order to get the neurological/other changes brings new possibilities for treatment of diseases.

Everyone has some experience with those pesky little fruit flies that like to swarm around our kitchens, particularly near the recycle bin, trash can, and where you keep fresh fruit and vegetables. My boyfriend Nick’s apartment is no exception, and he has a decent amount of those buggers and they are the most annoying part of his apartment in my opinion (there’s several annoying parts, its a basement apartment, has no air conditioning, etc.).

Fruit flies are typically an issue in the summer/fall months, and start their reproductive cycle around your produce (that’s what the baby fruit flies eat once the larvae hatch). The total lifespan of a fruit fly from birth to death is about one week, but they can have up to 500 siblings born at the same time (which explains why it seems like there’s a never-ending stream of them!). Although fruit flies are normally just pests, they do have the potential to carry bacteria and contaminate your food (Potter para 4).

So, in order to get rid of these pests, my boyfriend, being the most innovative person I know, decided to create his own trap using a plastic cup, a banana peel, saran wrap, and some duct tape.

He placed a banana peel inside the solo cup, put a piece of saran wrap on top, taping it to the cup to make sure it stayed in place, and poked small holes in the saran wrap. The small holes let the fruit flies enter (they can detect the rotting banana peel), but it will not let them escape. After a day or so, the cup had a decent amount of fruit flies in it, and the kitchen was no longer home to 50 or so flying guests! 

Nick was also a former student of Andrew’s; he took Science 200 in Fall of 2010! He is now a law student, but his innovation in solving the fruit fly debacle makes me think he should have majored in Entomology.