Four Discoveries that were led to us by DNA.

      Discoveries in DNA, cell biology, evolution, biotechnology have been among the major achievements in biology over the past 200 years with accelerated discoveries and insights over the last 50 years. Consider the progress we have made in these areas of human knowledge. Present at least three of the discoveries you find to be most important and describe their significance to society, health, and the culture of modern life.

I decided to make my first topic of choice: 

Cancer.

      Why? Because it took from me, my Mother. 

     First I went to this site: http://www.cancercenter.com

     On that site, I decided to learn about Cancer. And I just don’t want to learn one kind, I want to see if there is a way to confront them all. 

     My Mother died of Lung Cancer, my Father in Law is dying of Prostate Cancer. My Sister in law has ovarian. Everywhere I go, it is all I hear about, and I want to know more. Is there a way to prevent it, and what can we do, and why we have yet to find a cure.

     This video tells you about cancer, and how we as people have the inability to control who gets cancer: http://www.cancercenter.com/general-cancer/

     When our normal bodies mechanism stops working, cancer is the result of uncontrollable growth of abnormal cells in the body. Cancer can occur anywhere in the body. 

     Through the cancer center site I learned that there are five main categories of cancer. Here they are:

• Leukemia begins in the blood and bone marrow.  ~This one many of us have heard of, myself included.
• Lymphomas start in the immune system. ~ This is another many of us may have heard of.
• Central nervous system cancers develop in the brain and spinal cord. ~ I believe I may have heard of this, but I believe it is most often referenced as a tumor.
• Carcinomas begin in the skin or tissues that line the internal organs. ~ This too, I believe is referenced to us more familiar as skin cancer.
• Sarcomas develop in the bone, cartilage, fat, muscle or other connective tissues. ~ I have heard of bone marrow transplants, myself, but didn’t know it was Cancer related.

How is Cancer treated? 

     For my Mother, she did chemo first, and then they realized they had discovered her Cancer much too late. Then they tried radiation. Everything was killing her quicker. They determined the whole time her ‘old fashioned’ doctor had been treating her for pneumonia and a flu that wouldn’t go away, (two years) she had Cancer in the final stages during that time, undiagnosed. They sent her home with what they called a Cancer diet, oxygen, and told her to get her last rights together. In a week she died. She was diagnosed to us, and one mother they did chemo, the next they did radiation, and a week after that: death. Two months and one week. All because an old fashioned doctor refused to believe that a woman of forty eight years old, a smoker, could have Lung Cancer, and he didn’t want to do anything about it.

     My Mother in law had her Cancer removed from her lip successfully. My Sister in law had most of her female organs removed. They left her ovaries. Her cancer has just returned. It has been two years. 

The steps for cancer are (and in no particular order):

·         Chemotherapy

·         Radiation

·         Surgery

      Let it be known, no two cancers are alike in no two people. Don’t even think because your Mother or Father were cured, that you can be too. Never assume with Cancer! Cancer is the boss, we are not.

Cancer centers will support you and your decision, and will offer up counseling for the families and the person with Cancer. Cancer centers will do everything to keep the patient happy and healthy during this trying time.

     This made me want to know the History of Cancer. So I then went here:      https://www.verywell.com/the-history-of-cancer-514101

     I wanted to know when anyone first found and documented Cancer. Here to learn: The world's oldest documented case of cancer comes from somewhere I have always wanted to go! Egypt! It was discovered in 1500 b.c. The details were recorded on a papyrus, documenting eight cases of tumors occurring on the breast. It was treated by cauterization, a method to destroy their tissue with a hot instrument which they referenced as "the fire drill." It was also recorded that there was no treatment for the disease, only palliative treatment. The Egyptians believed that the God’s gave them Cancer.

For my second topic of choice I would like to address cloning human organs:

     Therapeutic cloning can and will have pros and cons, because there will always be people who will have issues with it, and there will always be complications somewhere once in a while, sometime, to cause some sort of dilemma. 

     I do not approve of the cloning of humans, or producing another child, just to have bone marrow for your other sick and dying child, and making your second child feel like the only reason you wanted him or her, was to save the first child. That, in my own theory is just wrong. Personally, I feel it will give your second child a complex. Every child needs loved fairly.

      As for cloning body parts, to save the child who needs the bone marrow, that I can justification for. There are so long, and so many wait lists. People pray daily, wanting and needing, and yearning. Sadly, they even pray for someone else to die, so that they may live. Again wrong, but understandable. 

So herein, is my list of pro’s of cloning human organs:
 

·         Scientists and researchers can learn and study the growth and learn from this.

·         Scientists and researchers can test on these organs and find cures for other diseases without affecting people or animals.

·         Patients do not have to be put on a wait list for an organ.

·         The organ will not be refused or rejected because it will match its recipient.

·         No donor person needed.

·         We know it’s happening, and we know there is no way around it, just face it.

Here are my list of con’s:

·         Some will argue it is against God’s wishes.

·         Some will argue it is against ‘their own’ religion.

·         Cloning is not cost efficient.

·         Extracting an egg from a female is not easy nor comfortable.

·         There are not a lot of stem cells, this too will require more donation, and cost.

·         It will either be legal or illegal. Either way, there will be a controversy.

 

the cloning procedure which has been done on sheeps, as described here

     Cloning will be in our future, and has already been here. We started with a sheep, everyone knows mankind doesn’t stop learning. We will keep advancing, even if it kills us.

For my third and final topic of choice, I decided to use antibiotics.

Firstly I went to www.freedictionary.com to define the word.

     “Antibiotics: may be informally defined as the subgroup of anti-infectives that are derived from bacterial sources and are used to treat bacterial infections. 

      Other classes of drugs, most notably the sulfonamides, may be effective antibacterials. Similarly, some antibiotics may have secondary uses, such as the use of demeclocycline (Declomycin, a tetracycline derivative) to treat the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone (SIADH) secretion. Other antibiotics may be useful in treating protozoal infections.” Citing: www.freedictionary.com

     Most generally, antibiotics are used to treat, and hopefully sometimes cure a bacterial infection. 

Who created antibiotics?

From: www.enotes.com

 

      “The first safe antibiotics were invented in 1945 by British scientists Howard Florey (1898–1968) and Ernst Boris Chain (1906–1979), who expanded the penicillin research of Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming ((*the first to discover penicillin and understand it.)) (1881–1955).” Citing enotes.com with *my addition*

The oldest types of antibiotics:

Penicillins 

Next: Cephalosporins

Next: Fluroquinolones

Next: Tetracyclines

Next: Macrolides

     As with any drugs, there can be side effects, and allergies. Also, and again, as with any drug, these drugs may come in a generic version, which means their names may be different in said version. 

     To look up a drug, any drug you are uncertain of, look at the number on the pill, and the color, and type it into the search bar or google. If that doesn’t give you a result, call your local pharmacist. All prescription medications are numbered, and color coded. Any pharmacist can simply enter a code, and tell you what it is by the numbers on the pill, and color. For instance my thyroid pill is lavender. When they changed its color, and shape and number, I immediately called the pharmacist freaking it out. It was right, but still I wasn’t aware, and wanted to be safe. For years my pill had been a lavender football. For it to go while and round, to me meant a mistake. I felt better safe than sorry.

     Antibiotics are meant to help you, not hurt you. But taken wrong, they can hurt you. So make sure you follow the directions on the bottle, and finish the prescription, even if you feel better.

For my bonus topic, I decided to do DNA fingerprinting.  

When I learned about this, I thought it would make a great bonus!

     I went to this site: http://dnaforensics.com/DNAFingerprinting.aspx and this is where I learned that Dr. Alec Jeffreys wasn’t even trying to discover DNA finger printing! He was studying hereditary diseases in families in 1984 at the University of Leicester in Great Britain. 

     Dr. Jeffreys was focusing on immigration disputes and paternity methods by demonstrating the link between individuals. 

     Dr. Jeffreys used the R.F.L.P. to analyze DNA. The RFLP stands for Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism. This is where Dr. Jeffreys discovered the repetitive patterns of DNA  known as the V.N.T.R’s. This abbreviation is for: Variable Number of Tandem Repeats. This is when Dr. Jeffreys realized her could identify each person and then named the technique genetic fingerprinting. He learned that every persons pattern is different except for identical twins. 

     Since then, genetic fingerprinting has been used to convict guilty persons, and exonerate the innocent who have been wrongfully convicted. 

     Forensic science has put this technique to use immediately and now uses it daily, even by hand held finger print scanners. Morticians also have them. So long as a person has finger tips, they can be identified, even if they are dried up. They can be remoistened and still found out, and missing children and adults, can be found. 

     This discovery, although by accident was a great one, and has made the world of science a lot easier in many ways since its discovery. 

     Then I decided to ask the internet a question while I was doing my research.

     “Is Science always right?”

     Look at this: https://youtu.be/yKqTqkxdaDM

     And then this: http://sciencedebate.com/science-blog/what-science-and-it-always-right

     My question to you is this, why is it every time someone wants to talk about Science, God is brought somewhere, somehow into the topic and all heck breaks lose?

     Here is my biggest question. The ten commandments. God tells us to be faithful to our spouses, and to Him. Ok, so I understand and respect that. Obviously He admits, we are to have only one spouse, (or is He?) and only one God? He is just admitting there is actually more than one God. This means that perhaps Zues, Hermes, and all of those Gods in Mythology would’ve been our God. But which one. And why didn’t He state who He…or even she was/is. And obviously He is a jealous God, but yet we are not to be jealous. Why is that? Contradict ourselves much?!

     And if Adam and Eve were here first, and so were the Dinosaurs, who says they weren’t here at the same time? We darn sure weren’t so who are we to argue? And who says they weren’t on different sides of the planet. And the great flood, and freeze. Who says that happened on the entire planet too. Who says? God? Per who? Mankind, man who when you tell him stories, he repeats them wrong? And were supposed to believe him?

     Each and every day, we find something else to disprove the Bible, and even disprove evolution. We learn more and more about ourselves daily. Someone is lying. Someone is making mistakes. Something isn’t right.       

      And fact is, those of us, whoever we are, whoever has been on this planet we call Earth, have been here for millions of years. Something somewhere is wrong….

I’m just sayin….