Personality and Science

To become scientists, students need to have a different kind personality. Most of the time, students that are extroverts cannot pass the classes that are required for their science major. This happens to many students in their first year of college. They get into a science major and then, they get frustrated with their grades and end up changing their major. For example, when you enter to a freshman biology course in a university you could see more than 200 students, but if you enter to a senior biology class you would provably see about 30 students.

The question is how students know that they have the drive and personality to become a scientist? Well, the answer is not that simple, but there are some personality traits that scientist have that distinguish them from other people. First, it is important to mention that to become a scientist the student doesn't need to be a “nerd.” Some people think that scientists are always nerds, which is not true. Here I will make a list of scientific personality traits that most of scientists have:

They never procrastinate- Science is a very difficult field to study if students leave everything for the last minute, they won’t make it.

Punctuality- It is important to be in class or any meeting on time.
Prefer science than parties- Students should know when to party and when to study. If there is an exam, they cannot party.

Take care of body and mind- To go through science is necessary to have the body and mind ready. Physical activity relieves the tension and stress from the mind.

A balance between introvert and extrovert- When students have to study, they cannot go out to have fun. They should be in their rooms studying until they learn the material. However, if there are not exams or assignments to do, they can go out and have fun.

There are many more personality traits that scientists have, but to become a scientist those are the most important. A scientific life is not a boring or stressful life. It is just a balance between responsibility, work, fitness and fun.

Picture source: picture book

Protecting Gender Identity and Genetic Information

People should not be judged based on their sexual preference, gender identity or genetic information. “All of us are to be judged based on our skills, ability and work ethic.”(Goldner).

The gender identity and genetic information of many people could soon be protected under a law by Fort Wayne city council in Indianapolis. Karen Goldner /(D) Fort Wayne Council 2nd District submitted a bill to amend a law that protects people against discrimination. Goldner says that the idea is to put gender identity into the same category as sexual orientation, because sexual orientation is already protected by law.

Lanka says, “People who believe they have been discriminated against by a business based on sexual orientation can petition the city’s Metropolitan Human Relations Commission to investigate the complaint.” People that are attracted to the same gender, have a different gender appearance to the one they are born with or people that are discriminated because of their gender role in some kind of situation would be able to petition the city’s Metropolitan Human Relations Commission to investigate the case in the same way as a sexual orientation investigation. Goldner says that this law will ensure that people will be treated equally.

“The federal law, called the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, went into effect last year. It prohibits health insurers and employers from using genetic information to determine insurance coverage or rates, or to make hiring, firing and promotion decisions” (Genetics data law raises concern [Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn.]).

In addition, Goldner wants to protect the genetic information locally. In fact, she wants that the law from the local ordinances would be equal to the federal law. She thinks that protecting the genetic information “would prevent an insurance company from denying health insurance to a woman who was found to have a gene linked to breast cancer” (Goldner).

“The genetic information section follows the federal law preventing companies from using a person’s genetic information to discriminate” (Lanka). It is important to mention that local ordinances will soon start protecting people from genetic discrimination. This will prevent people traveling to other places to make complaints. For example, people in Indiana won’t have to travel to Indianapolis to make a genetic discrimination complaint. It will be easy for people that don’t have access to a car or are disabled.



Picture:
Gender Identity." Gender Identity Ordinace is put to FW. City Council. Web. 19 Feb 2010.

<http://www.indianasnewscenter.com>.


Sources:
"Genetics data law raises concern [Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn.]." Feb 14 2010: n. pag. Web. 19 Feb 2010. <http://insurancenewsnet.com>.

Neumeyer, Jeff. "Gender Identity Ordinace is put to FW. City Council." 9 Feb 2010: n. pag. Web. 19 Feb 2010. <http://www.indianasnewscenter.com>.

Lanka, Benjamin. "Shield sought for gender ID, genetics." Feb 6 2010 : n. pag. Web. 19 Feb 2010. <http://www.journalgazette.net>.

Addiction to Technology

After reading,"Personality and Self-Esteeem as Predictors of Young People's Technology Use." I think that certain personalities engage in certain technological behaviors because people that have a specific type of personality will chose some kind of technology that will make them feel conformable with their personality and socializing. For example, according to the experiment, disagreeable students spend more time on calls because they prefer not to talk to people face-to-face because they have bad temper and argue al lot. Also, people that know them will prefer only to contact them by phone because they don’t like to argue with them face-to-face.

In the same way, neurotic students spend more time texting because it is difficult for them to socialize face-to-face or talking by phone. They feel more confident texting because they have control over the text. They can revise it and send it when they think is the right time. Because text-messaging is not so fast like IM, so neurotic students can take some time to think what information they want to send and correct it if they need it. In the other hand, disagreeable students prefer more IM because is faster than text-messaging. Their personality provably needs a faster response than neurotic students.

To describe addiction to technology they use three indicators of addiction:

1) Withdrawal – it is a physiological or psychological response that people addicted to technology experience when they do not text, talk by phone or do IM.

2) Loss of control – Spending most of the time talking by phone, texting or doing IM.

3) Salience – Thinking all the time about texting, calling or doing IM. They just want to text or IM all day. If they are not doing it. They are thinking on doing it.

I would define addiction as a condition where the individual can experience withdrawal symptoms if he or her doesn’t engage in his addictive behavior. The addictive behavior could be texting, IM or talking by phone. Addicts can spend most of the time engaged in their addictive behavior and the withdrawal symptoms could be anxiety, getting angry, not eating, etc.

The evidence in this study does not convince me that there is exactly a correlation of neurotic students and text-messaging or disagreeable students and talking by cell phones. First of all, 200 individuals is a very small number to be statistically significant. Statistical studies need large numbers to be significant. I think that there is some kind of truth that different kinds of personalities will prefer different types of technology, but the study is too small to tell that disagreeable individuals prefer mostly talking by phone or neurotic students prefer mostly texting.

Picture source: addiction

Discovering The Structure of DNA

Technology plays a very important role educating individuals about the evolution of biology and genetics. Technology not only helps to educate people about science, but at the same time allows them to discover more valuable information. Those new findings help to educate students, professors, different fields of science and technology. In fact, technology was the principal factor that helped scientist to discover the structure of DNA. For example, X-ray crystallography is a type of technology that can make a three-dimensional picture of the arrangement of atoms or molecules within a crystal. In other words, when a beam of x-rays (type of light) hits a crystal, the light spreads out to different directions. As a result, the machine can make a three-dimensional picture of the structure of the crystal. This type of technology allowed scientists to study, and discover the structure of DNA.

This is the story. In 1950, Rosalind Franklin was a biologist that used X-ray crystallography to study the structure of DNA. She was specifically studying DNA fibers that had single DNA molecules. Because the technique of X-ray crystallography can only be applied to crystals, she had to crystallize the DNA molecules with salt to form crystal structures of DNA. She also had to adjust her X-ray crystallographer with a very small lens (micro-lens) to be able to take pictures of such small molecules. In 1952, she took a beautiful X-ray diffraction picture of DNA (below).

In 1953 Linus Paulin was a chemist and a X-ray crystallographer that published the wrong structure of DNA in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He thought that DNA was a triple helix. Stephen Lawson says that Paulin’s triple-helical structure of DNA, “turn out to be one of the most famous mistakes in 20th-century science.”



At the same time, James D. Watson and Francis Crick were also doing research trying to figure out the structure of DNA. As soon as Watson knew about the work of Paulin, he took a copy of Paulin’s work and went to see his friend Wilkins. Wilkins was other scientist that was doing DNA diffraction research with Franklin. Wilkins always had conflicts with Franklin at work. He was provably jealous of Franklin’s work. That was provably the reason why he gave Watson the best X-ray refraction pictures of DNA that Franklin took (above). That picture showed that the structure of DNA was a double helix and not a triple helix like Paulin thought and published earlier. Watson and Crick reviewed the picture, studied it and created a double helix model of DNA. However, they had a little problem. The building blocks (bases) of their DNA model were sticking out. To correct it, they had to use the data from another scientist. The data they used was known as the Chargaff’s rules. Those rules were created by Erwin Chargaff and said that the building blocks of DNA (bases) are suppose to be inside the double helix or the backbone, not outside.When their model was fixed and reassembled, they published it in the journal Nature

In 1962, Wilkins, Watson and Crick received the Nobel Price for discovering the structure of DNA. Rosalind Franklin died of cancer of the ovary in 1958 and she did not get the Nobel Price.

In the twenty century, Franklin’s work was not well known. At that time, the newspaper, television and telephone were the only ways to know what was going on in the world. People could only trust the news papers, TV or journals about scientific discoveries. If they were suspicious or wanted to know about Franklin’s DNA diffraction work. They had to go to a library or try to find her original work. In the twenty century, technology was used mainly for communication purposes. But, today technology is used also for education. In fact, readers, students, parents, and everyone else can go online and find everything about Rosalin Franklin or the structure of DNA. People don’t need to be scientists to learn about science. The internet became such a huge network that a reader can access all kind of information from a computer.

Today, Franklin’s work and DNA information educate people everywhere. People can browse the web with their cell phones or they can find information of DNA even when we are in bed. Laptops, iphones, and now ipads allow individuals to access all the information about Watson & Crick that they want to learn. However, not all the information in the internet is accurate and can be used to educate readers about technology or DNA. Some information is not reliable and can confuse the readers. The challenge is that readers learn how to distinguish good from bad information and not to trust everything they read.

Sources of pictures:

"Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids." Nature. Web. 13 Feb 2010.

"Rosalind Franklin Photo 51." Wikipedia. Web. 13 Feb 2010.
.
"The Triple Helix." Linus Pauling Institute Research Report. Web. 13 Feb 2010. .

Technology Taught People About The Blizzard of 2010

People in Washington DC did not see so much snow since 110 years ago. I never saw so much snow in my life. The city was paralyzed for almost a week. Nobody went to work or to school. Everything was closed. Everybody had to stay at home for many days. The streets were covered with snow and the snow was so high that people had to find ways to jump over the sidewalk to be able to cross the street. In addition, most of the cars were totally covered with snow.

When I looked at the cars, they looked like they were scoops of snow or tiny mountains of snow. Sometimes, you could not tell if there was a car or a mountain of snow.I took pictures of cars that looks like scoops of snow. I also took pictures from some streets and roads in Washington DC. It was almost impossible to drive and even to walk. Some people were skiing on the streets instead of walking.

When there is nothing to do and you are a college student that is stuck at home. What do you do? Exactly, you log into facebook and try to upload pictures to show your friends photos of the snow. I tried to upload some pictures, but was almost impossible. I think the reason was because Facebook was saturated by people trying to upload their photos. It took me hours to upload some pictures. In the blizzard facebook became a learning tool. People could see pictures of the blizzard everywhere in the USA and learn how to stay safe.

You could see what happened in the house of all your friends. You could read their status and know what they were thinking. For example, if you neighbors had an emergency or a problem you could try to help them. Also, you could communicate with other students to talk about homework and even study a little online.

Twitter became another important learning tool in the blizzard. CNN was twitting, NPR was twitting, people were following the weather in twitter and many people were twitting all the time. You could read the latest news about the weather, see pictures of the blizzard, sports and everything that was happening everywhere. I think that twitter taught many people about the blizzard, how to be safe, and where to find help. People were learning information about the blizzard by reading tweets in their cell phones or laptops.

In the other hand, the TV news was showing pictures of the blizzard that people uploaded in the news webpage. People were having fun taking pictures of the snow, sharing them with the TV and learning from the experience at the same time. It is important to mention that the TV, radio and Universities were using the internet to educate students about the blizzard and how to be safe. For example, University of Maryland was sending text messages or emails to students that registered to receive text or email alerts. Every day the students received alerts that told them that the university will be closed the following day. In addition, the UMD webpage had information about all the activities that were cancelled because of the blizzard.

Today everybody is using different kinds of technology to learn about disasters like earthquakes or blizzards. People are blogging about all kind of disasters. In fact, blogging has become another technological learning tool. Some universities like University of Maryland created a course that teaches students how to learn information by creating blogs. This is a nice way to make students learn more about their carriers or topics that they like. For example, Information 3.0: Exploring Effects of Our Technological Tools is a course that teaches students how to create blogs and use the technology to learn how to become good bloggers and journalists. This class lets the students to think out of the box because they can chose their own topic about technology and write a lot about it. I think that to write about something you like is the best way to learn.

In the next post I will explain how technology was used to educate scientists and helped them to discover the structure of DNA in the twenty century. This was an example of how technology helped scientists to find new information and learn from it. The discovery of the structure of DNA was one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twenty century. It is important to mention that to find the structure of DNA scientists had to learn many things from technology that they didn’t know. If technology did not show them how the real structure looked like, they will never be able to figure it out.

Discovering Genetics

In 1871 and 1872, Charles Darwin published, The descent of man and The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication, respectively. In both books Darwin talks about inherited characteristics. For example, he uses the word "pangenesis" (origin of the whole) to describe the mechanism for heredity and the word "gemmules" to describe heritable traits. The theory of pangenesis said that gemmules have heritable material from every part of the organism and the material is incorporated into the sperm and eggs. Below, we can read how Charles Darwin defined genes nine years after he published The Origin of Species. Today, those heritable traits are called genes. This is an example of how genetics and biology evolved from the ideas of Charles Darwin.

“It is universally admitted that the cells or units of the body increase by self-division, or proliferation, retaining the same nature, and that they ultimately become converted into the various tissues and substances of the body. But besides this means of increase I assume that the units throw off minute granules which are dispersed throughout the whole system; that these, when supplied with proper nutriment, multiply by self-division, and are ultimately developed into units like those from which they were originally derived. These granules may be called gemmules. They are collected from all parts of the system to constitute the sexual elements, and their development in the next generation forms the new being; but they are likewise capable of transmission in a dormant state to future generations and may then be developed (The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication).”

In 1860s, Mendel was a priest that was studying inheritable traits in pea plants. He knew about Charles Darwin’s theory, he agreed with some of his ideas, but no one knows why he never tried to contact him. Mendel came out with two laws.The Law of Segregation says that when an organism produces sex cells (eggs or sperm), genes separate and each cell receives only one copy of each gene. The Law of Independent Assortment says that genes assort independently during the formation of eggs or sperm. Those two laws became known as Mendel’s Laws. However, the importance if his work was not discovered until the 1900s.

In 1889, Hugo de Vries derived the word “pangen” from “pangenesis” to describe the units of the heritable material. In 1905, the biologist William Bateson shortened the term “pangen” to “gene.” Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre was the first textbook that had the word “gene” and became one of the first textbooks of genetics. The field of genetics began in the early twenty century, when recently scientists realized the importance of Mendel’s work. Since that time, geneticists stared doing research to learn and discover more about genes and the mechanism of heredity.

To conclude, Charles Darwin is known as “the Newton of biology,” (Wallace) and Mendel is known as “the father of modern genetics.” Their work provided a strong foundation to the field of genetics and geneticists. In the next post, we will see how scientists started to use technology to discover more information about genetics.

Picture sources: Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel

Introduction to Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution

In 1859, when Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, people didn’t know anything about the mechanisms of fertilization, genetics or paleontology. They didn’t have any human fossils to study the ancestry of man or a correct time-scale of evolution. After the scientists reviewed and accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution, The Origin of Species became one of the most important biology books. Sir Julian Huxley says that it is a “great book, one that after a century of scientific progress can still be read with profit by professional biologists.”

Darwin’s theory can be described in the following way. All organisms descended from a simpler common ancestor. Those organisms “descent by modification.” This expression means that living organisms acquired mutations or changes that allowed them to adapt and survive in different environments, temperatures or other kinds of selective pressure. In other words, natural selection that acts like a selective pressure favored organisms that developed mutations that allowed them to survive in harsh conditions. As a result, they reproduced and their offspring inherited the traits that helped them survive. Only organisms that inherited those specific traits were able to adapt to different environments.

“The survival of the fittest” is a powerful expression that Darwin used to explain how natural selection favors individuals that inherit different traits to survive and reproduce successfully. Darwin said that “it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change"(Darwin). Darwin mentions that the heritable traits are the ones that allow organisms to survive different selective pressures.

Those traits are transferred from generation to generation and are favored by natural selection. In the next post, we will see how scientists started researching what were those heritable traits and how genetics developed from that point. Examples of research from the University of Maryland will be used to explain better technology and scientific research.

Picture source: Evolution