Week Eleven

Connections I am Making Between TCM & Cell Biology

This is a difficult question for me.  I do not make a connection between conventional western cell biology that I have studied and TCM.  I really like biology.  I like learning about the way the cell functions and learning what the individual parts of the cell are and what their job is.  I'm just not sure how to work that in with TCM.  TCM seems to be much broader and not so specific.

When I started learning TCM I had to switch my thinking around.  I was surprised to learn that in TCM the cure for a cough is not the same for each individual.  I can have a deficient cough, or it can be due to wind heat, or wind cold.  In western medicine I think we treat a cough with cough medicine and/or antibiotics...maybe brochodilators.  In TCM the herb combinations for a cough are many.  Each practitioner can have a unique approach to treating the cough.  I am not sure how the herbs I have studied work on the cellular level.  I am not sure how to combine the broad knowledge that I have about TCM with the specific knowledge I have about cell biology.  Based on what I've learned so far, it seem like the best medicine is a combination of the specific knowledge supplied by western medicine and the theories of TCM.  I'm looking forward to reading what my classmates think.  Also, I haven't had many western medicine classes at AIMC yet so I am looking forward to seeing how they integrate.  I am looking forward to western med. classes taught by instructors with TCM knowledge.

How Cells Divide:  Mitosis Vs. Meiosis

I really liked this site.  It was easy to read and I like that the two processes were side by side so that I could easily differentiate between them.  I also like that I can move to the next phase at my pace.  I thought this made the two processes very separate and clear.  It was detailed enough to be clear.  There was not so much information presented that it became overwhelming.

Other Links

I was unable to connect to the first Krebs link.

2nd link:  I still do not really have a good grasp of the Krebs Cycle.  Energy is released because of it....I liked the article we read in class..."Major Metabolic Pathways Converging on the TCA Cycle."

I loved mrskingsbioweb.  I am so sympathetic to the life of bacteria now.  It was actually very well written, funny and informative.

The Wikipedia links had a lot of information.  I got more oout of the animation reviewed above.

Week Ten

The Diversity of Species in My Environment

I live downtown in Sacramento. I think I have a typical amount of species for an urban environment. We have cats, dogs, and chickens in my neighborhood. The chickens seem to come and go fairly rapidly because if the city doesn't get them the other animals do. Once we found a snake crossing the road, but it was injured and we couldn't save it. We have rats, mice, and squirrels. Last year I planted a lot of lavender from the farmer's market and the bees and butterflies like it, so now we have them. We feed the birds and have a million tiny finches that come to eat. I built them pretend wires to sit on by the feeder and have recently added a fountain, so they spend quite a bit of time here. There are six doves as well.

The nicest thing about Sacramento is that we have a lot of trees. I think we're called the city of trees. This is a good thing because it is hotter than you know where here in the summer. The trees are as tall as 30 feet and are very helpful at shading our houses and the streets. I have been landscaping and because of our class have been using old seeds. I planted old roses last weekend...they are supposed to be extremely fragrant and are extremely disease resisitant. I also got organic seeds from Elephant Pharmacy and planted them. I suppose when I really think about it most people in Sacramento are not very imaginative. Lots of camelias, impatiens in the summer. I am trying add some diversity

In the grand scheme of things, we don't have a lot of diversity, but at least we have some life and I am grateful for that!

Microscopy Link

This was interesting. I was kind of hoping for real pictures instead of renderings, but there was a lot of interesting information. I especially liked the virtual tour of the cell, but I could not get the components to cut so I could see inside.

Spike's Gallery

I really like this link! The pictures are beautiful! This is what I was hoping for in the microscopy link. When my kids were little we used to look at pictures like this and you were meant to guess what was in the picture.

Week Nine

The Ethics of Gene Therapy

Should my children contract fever, headache, joint pain & itching followed by debilitating infection of the brain & central nervous system I would go to any length to attempt to cure them.  I feel the same about any human being suffering from severe skin disfiguration as well as long-term disease, fever & weight loss.  I am concerned about the well-being of anyone that I share this planet with and I have a great deal of compassion for those that suffer.  I intend to graduate from AIMC, get my license and go out to do the best I can to be of service to others.  

What am I missing here?  I am uncertain as to the question of ethics.  Is it because there are drugs languishing in the chemical libraries of pharmaceutical companies waiting for core genomes to be discovered?  Is it because drugs are considered to be "bad"?  Is it because were there to be a cure someone would profit from it?  Personally if someone close to me was sick I would be more than happy to pay whatever I had to see them well.  I have no problem exchanging money for goods and services.  I am happy that scientists have been able to identify the core genome of the three parasites.  I am glad that someone paid them to do it.  I don't work for free and neither do you.  You won't treat for free and neither will I.

I looked at Wikipedia for more information on African Sleeping Sickness.  It appears to me that the new class of drugs has been tested on mice, but not humans.  I think that bringing a new drug to market takes quite a bit of testing, time & money. 

The Chemistry of Life 

I had really never given much thought to what biochemistry is until we read the article in class last Wednesday.  I like the idea that biochemistry is the chemistry of life, but I think a more descriptive definition is "Biochemistry is the branch of science that explores the structure and function of all living organisms at the molecular level."  It offers a little more explanation of how the chemistry part relates to the biology part.

Animations

I was not that thrilled with the animations.  Maybe I would have like them better if they had text.  Mine did not have any sound, so I guess I was supposed to already know what they were depicting.  I did like the animation of graphite and diamond because I read about them when we were discussing the molecular structure of carbon.

Week Eight

Semiconductor of the Week:  Tellurium

Tellurium is very interesting.  It's abbreviation is Te, its atomic number is 52. It looks like tin and is used mostly in alloys and as a semiconductor. Te is one of the nine rarest elements on earth because when the earth was being formed it was severely depleted as a result of its role in the oxidation and reduction of hydrogen.  I think oxygen and water were absent so tellurium combined with hydrogen instead of oxygen.  As a result of the combination, tellurium evaporated.  The main source of tellurium today is from the byproducts of the refining other metals like copper and lead.  500 tons of treated copper ore yields one pound of tellurium.

Tellurium is used as a p-type semiconductor.  It is used by the semiconductor and electrical industries.  It's used in the media layer of CDs and DVDs. It also looks like tellurium shows great potential when used as cadmium telluride to make extremely efficient solar panels.

Commercial grade Te is usually sold as a powder but is also available in solid form.  In 2000 it sold for $14 per pound, but with increased demand it rose to $100 per pound in 2006.  That seems pretty cheap for one of the 9 rarest elements on earth.

Welcome to Chem Balancer!

This was a fun link.  I understood this in class and I understood it on this site.  And I won!  What's not to love?  I also like the tutorial, but I didn't really have to think.  I like the interactive sites.  They let me test myself and see if I really understand or not.

PH Balance

This is an interesting topic.  I looked at the links and they were interesting.  The next time I go to the drugstore I am going to buy some ph strips and see where I come out.  I have no idea.  I do drink a cup of decaf in the morning and have a diet coke in the afternoon. (as everyone knows)  I am willing to investigate this and see where I stand.  If I am acidic though, I will not be eliminating either beverage....look for me to be drinking lemon in water first thing in the morning.  It's just a matter of balancing the equation and I'm all checked out on that....