Reflection on the movie

When I first started watching the video I was curious as to what the lab was like and how cramped it looked. Being in New York, the space was limited, but graduate students were still able to get their work done. I would have liked to have known exactly how many people worked in that lab not just the students they interviewed.

I was surprised as to the main character, Rob. I could not believe how many set backs he had in life and how he overcame them. I can definitely understand how graduate students are not able to survive on success alone, but I did not realize how independent it was. I guess I was just not aware that students don’t always pick their own projects, but they also often work independently. I feel as if the lab environment would be incredibly stressful and students would devote the majority of their time to their research in the hopes of not only publishing a paper, but also being able to graduate in a reasonable amount of time. Relating back to the articles, I now know why it is important to choose a good mentor over a project of interest. Having someone who will support you in times of failure is crucial not only in terms of sanity, but also in terms of being able to graduate in a reasonable amount of time.

I can identify with not having much of a life outside of graduate school and focusing your time mainly on research… maybe one hobby, not anything excessive. People often have different views on marriage in graduate school and people who are efficient would most likely be able to handle it. I’m not sure I would be able to be married though because not only would I neglect my spouse, but I would also (and maybe my opinion will change) prefer to spend my time training for marathons and reading novels than doing his laundry and attempting to cook (which I don’t know if that is possible considering I don’t even cook now). That is selfish of me, but it is true. I’m assuming that Kim’s fiancé in the movie was an attorney (because of her shirt) and I don’t think finances were the sole issue. I feel that time spent together as well as time in terms of graduating were both too stressful for them.

I would like to know how science graduate programs compare to graduate programs in other disciplines. Is the time spent working on a thesis comparable? I feel as if science graduate programs contain the most stress because the unknown is so great. I felt that the video did an excellent job of really stating that graduate students come into a program not really knowing what will happen.

I also did not understand the process of graduate students getting paid. I knew they were, but I also thought that students had to pay some tuition. I’m confused now as to why students would drop out. I can understand wanting to go out into the world and find a job that makes more than $24,000 a year, but I still feel that Gabe could have stuck it out.

All in all, I felt that the video not only portrayed the science graduate correctly but that it also displayed a very clear idea of perseverance and other strong character traits that are important in students pursing graduate school.

Extra Blog Post...sorry about the font from below. How has my opinion changed regarding intensive research?

How has my opinion changed regarding intensive research?

Hmmm, this is a challenging question for me because I’m not sure I really thought about research thoroughly before taking this course. For me, research always meant coming to see Dr. Schnee and shadowing him in the lab junior year. I had no idea what an aspirator was and was convinced that I would somehow find interest in flies.

 I finally decided that I wanted to study something that combined neuroscience with biology. Dr. Schnee and I began collaborating on different experiments that I could possibly test. I chose to run an experiment testing aggressive behavior types in females. I used yeast as a way to elicit such a response from these females in terms of where they would lay their eggs (flies tend to want to lay eggs near resources, such as yeast). After getting poor results and not seeing much action, Dr. Schnee introduced me to working with cadmium. I then began to think of numerous ways in which I could test flies with cadmium and found that mating behavior was probably the most common and useful in terms of applying my research to live experience.

I had no idea the effects cadmium had on the human body before starting research with Dr. Schnee and I am now more fully aware of environmental factors that can cause damage to oneself. For example: tobacco smoke contains cadmium. I did not realize this and I also learned that second hand smoke, in terms of cadmium, can cause just as much damage. Cadmium is responsible for bone demineralization, renal filtration disturbances, and lung damage.

I feel that my opinion regarding intensive research hasn’t really changed, but possibly grown. I am now more fully aware of what research entails and the amount of time graduate students and researchers invest in their projects. I know that I could come to develop a love hate relationship with research and that it is important to find balance in order to maintain sanity. Dr. Schnee always tells me that when people get tired or do the same things monotonous times, that it can become very sloppy. It is important to not be spending more than 60 hours a week in a lab and to find time to do other things as well.

Intensive research to me is valuable not only for the community it impacts, but also for the researchers who invest their lives into making drugs or discovering new techniques in science. I do feel that researchers are not given enough credit in terms of their work ethic as well as the actual projects that they continuously pursue.

I’m not sure if society is not aware of the demand placed upon researchers or if researchers are looked at as an indirect means when it comes to helping fight diseases and illnesses. In the next 10 years I predict that research will be more popular than ever, and more students will be going to graduate school to work towards a master’s/PhD in a certain discipline. I also think that research might be more competitive and that the research burden students carry might be worse than what it is today.

Extra Blog Post...How has my opinion of intensive research changed?

How has my opinion changed regarding intensive research?

Hmmm, this is a challenging question for me because I’m not sure I really thought about research thoroughly before taking this course. For me, research always meant coming to see Dr. Schnee and shadowing him in the lab junior year. I had no idea what an aspirator was and was convinced that I would somehow find interest in flies. I finally decided that I wanted to study something that combined neuroscience with biology.

Dr. Schnee and I began collaborating on different experiments that I could possibly test. I chose to run an experiment testing aggressive behavior types in females. I used yeast as a way to elicit such a response from these females in terms of where they would lay their eggs (flies tend to want to lay eggs near resources, such as yeast). After getting poor results and not seeing much action, Dr. Schnee introduced me to working with cadmium. I then began to think of numerous ways in which I could test flies with cadmium and found that mating behavior was probably the most common and useful in terms of applying my research to live experience.

I had no idea the effects cadmium had on the human body before starting research with Dr. Schnee and I am now more fully aware of environmental factors that can cause damage to oneself. For example: tobacco smoke contains cadmium. I did not realize this and I also learned that second hand smoke, in terms of cadmium, can cause just as much damage. Cadmium is responsible for bone demineralization, renal filtration disturbances, and lung damage.

I feel that my opinion regarding intensive research hasn’t really changed, but possibly grown. I am now more fully aware of what research entails and the amount of time graduate students and researchers invest in their projects. I know that I could come to develop a love hate relationship with research and that it is important to find balance in order to maintain sanity. Dr. Schnee always tells me that when people get tired or do the same things monotonous times, that it can become very sloppy. It is important to not be spending more than 60 hours a week in a lab and to find time to do other things as well.

Intensive research to me is valuable not only for the community it impacts, but also for the researchers who invest their lives into making drugs or discovering new techniques in science. I do feel that researchers are not given enough credit in terms of their work ethic as well as the actual projects that they continuously pursue.

 I’m not sure if society is not aware of the demand placed upon researchers or if researchers are looked at as an indirect means when it comes to helping fight diseases and illnesses. In the next 10 years I predict that research will be more popular than ever, and more students will be going to graduate school to work towards a master’s/PhD in a certain discipline. I also think that research might be more competitive and that the research burden students carry might be worse than what it is today.

http://www.mcrfmd.com/links/New_Cardiovascular_Horizons_Conf_2008_MCRF_Abstract_2.pdf

Here is an abstract from a previous study that I talked about in my blag.

Research Articles

I think that the article, How to Succeed In Science, is very accurate and portrays science in a correct manner. An outsider of science who is reading this article may be surprised or claim that the article is written in a harsh way. I thought one of the comments regarding small schools in the first article (Part I) was very true and I could even relate to it for the undergraduate level college decision. I, personally, wanted to attend a large university after high school and my mother thought that was a bad idea. I have come to learn that pursuing a science degree from a small school is beneficial to students in that opportunities really do exist because of the close professor to student ratio. Students are able to access professors easily and when interested in research, students can engage in a project that brings interest to them.

I do agree with the idea of very few people, “an elite crowd” being able to become principle investigators. It is competitive to become a principle investigator and also incredibly demanding and stressful. For the past three years of my college career I have worked in the cath lab at my hometown hospital doing cardiac research. I have primarily worked on a left-main drug eluting stent study in which patient outcomes are compared to those patients who undergo CABG. The cardiologist who is our principle investigator chose to perform this study because he is the doctor who performs most of the left main stenting in the cath lab compared to the other cardiologists who are not as experienced with that type of stenting procedure. He is always telling me that the best studies are the studies that not only include all accurate information, large sample sizes, cover a broad range of time, but also include extra components to them. My work has been completed since July of this year and while I work on a new study, and my principle investigator works on our written paper, a new cardiologist was hired through grant money to perform angiograms on all of our subject files. I did not understand why we needed this extra step, but now I know why having all components in a paper help to make the study more creditable.

I am also able to relate to how studies are constantly being updated and new categories are being added. I was not very happy when I had to add 6 more categories onto my database, but as times goes by; I now know the importance of covering all aspects of patient recovery.

I still feel that after reading this article, the best researcher is one who studies a couple different things, but studies them thoroughly and in-depth. Some researchers focus solely on one project and invest their time and energy into making it work, but are not satisfied when negative results or unwanted results occur. In my research, I could analyze data in several different ways and Dr. Schnee and I have engaged in thoughtful conversation on how many different aspects I could look at when preparing my results and writing about it. I think that not all research can do that, but if possible, it is important. This adds to the study and helps other scientists to critically analyze how they may be able to perform multiple t-tests or make multiple graphs that could cover different aspects all within the same research project.

This article has not really impacted my decision on my future career. It raised some issues that I had not really thought about such as: school size and choosing the right mentor. I was aware of these key components of a good research program, but I have not thoroughly invested much time thinking about all the different factors of a science research program. I feel that the earlier a person is exposed to research as an undergraduate or even as a master’s student, the better the student will be in making a choice that fits that student academically, mentally, socially, and personally.

I leave you with a quote hanging in one of my mentor’s offices at the hospital, “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” ~ Albert Einstein

Research Articles

I think that the article, How to Succeed In Science, is very accurate and portrays science in a correct manner. An outsider of science who is reading this article may be surprised or claim that the article is written in a harsh way. I thought one of the comments regarding small schools in the first article (Part I) was very true and I could even relate to it for the undergraduate level college decision. I, personally, wanted to attend a large university after high school and my mother thought that was a bad idea. I have come to learn that pursuing a science degree from a small school is beneficial to students in that opportunities really do exist because of the close professor to student ratio. Students are able to access professors easily and when interested in research, students can engage in a project that brings interest to them.

I do agree with the idea of very few people, “an elite crowd” being able to become principle investigators. It is competitive to become a principle investigator and also incredibly demanding and stressful. For the past three years of my college career I have worked in the cath lab at my hometown hospital doing cardiac research. I have primarily worked on a left-main drug eluting stent study in which patient outcomes are compared to those patients who undergo CABG. The cardiologist who is our principle investigator chose to perform this study because he is the doctor who performs most of the left main stenting in the cath lab compared to the other cardiologists who are not as experienced with that type of stenting procedure. He Is always telling me that the best studies are the studies that not only include all accurate information, large sample sizes, cover a broad range of time, but also include extra components to them. My work has been completed since July of this year and while I work on a new study, and my principle investigator works on our written paper, a new cardiologist was hired through grant money to perform angiograms on all of our subject files. I did not understand why we needed this extra step, but now I know why having all components in a paper help to make the study more creditable.

I am also able to relate to how studies are constantly being updated and new categories are being added. I was not very happy when I had to add 6 more categories onto my database, but as times goes by; I now know the importance of covering all aspects of patient recovery.

I still feel that after reading this article, the best researcher is one who studies a couple different things, but studies them thoroughly and in-depth. Some researchers focus solely on one project and invest their time and energy into making it work, but are not satisfied when negative results or unwanted results occur. In my research, I could analyze data in several different ways and Dr. Schnee and I have engaged in thoughtful conversation on how many different aspects I could look at when preparing my results and writing about it. I think that not all research can do that, but if possible, it is important. This adds to the study and helps other scientists to critically analyze how they may be able to perform multiple t-tests or make multiple graphs that could cover different aspects all within the same research project.

This article has not really impacted my decision on my future career. It raised some issues that I had not really thought about such as: school size and choosing the right mentor. I was aware of these key components of a good research program, but I have not thoroughly invested much time thinking about all the different factors of a science research program. I feel that the earlier a person is exposed to research as an undergraduate or even as a master’s student, the better the student will be in making a choice that fits that student academically, mentally, socially, and personally.

I leave you with a quote hanging in one of my mentor’s offices at the hospital, “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” ~ Albert Einstein

Research Articles

I think that the article, How to Succeed In Science, is very accurate and portrays science in a correct manner. An outsider of science who is reading this article may be surprised or claim that the article is written in a harsh way. I thought one of the comments regarding small schools in the first article (Part I) was very true and I could even relate to it for the undergraduate level college decision. I, personally, wanted to attend a large university after high school and my mother thought that was a bad idea. I have come to learn that pursuing a science degree from a small school is beneficial to students in that opportunities really do exist because of the close professor to student ratio. Students are able to access professors easily and when interested in research, students can engage in a project that brings interest to them.

I do agree with the idea of very few people, “an elite crowd” being able to become principle investigators. It is competitive to become a principle investigator and also incredibly demanding and stressful. For the past three years of my college career I have worked in the cath lab at my hometown hospital doing cardiac research. I have primarily worked on a left-main drug eluting stent study in which patient outcomes are compared to those patients who undergo CABG. The cardiologist who is our principle investigator chose to perform this study because he is the doctor who performs most of the left main stenting in the cath lab compared to the other cardiologists who are not as experienced with that type of stenting procedure. He Is always telling me that the best studies are the studies that not only include all accurate information, large sample sizes, cover a broad range of time, but also include extra components to them. My work has been completed since July of this year and while I work on a new study, and my principle investigator works on our written paper, a new cardiologist was hired through grant money to perform angiograms on all of our subject files. I did not understand why we needed this extra step, but now I know why having all components in a paper help to make the study more creditable.

I am also able to relate to how studies are constantly being updated and new categories are being added. I was not very happy when I had to add 6 more categories onto my database, but as times goes by; I now know the importance of covering all aspects of patient recovery.

I still feel that after reading this article, the best researcher is one who studies a couple different things, but studies them thoroughly and in-depth. Some researchers focus solely on one project and invest their time and energy into making it work, but are not satisfied when negative results or unwanted results occur. In my research, I could analyze data in several different ways and Dr. Schnee and I have engaged in thoughtful conversation on how many different aspects I could look at when preparing my results and writing about it. I think that not all research can do that, but if possible, it is important. This adds to the study and helps other scientists to critically analyze how they may be able to perform multiple t-tests or make multiple graphs that could cover different aspects all within the same research project.

This article has not really impacted my decision on my future career. It raised some issues that I had not really thought about such as: school size and choosing the right mentor. I was aware of these key components of a good research program, but I have not thoroughly invested much time thinking about all the different factors of a science research program. I feel that the earlier a person is exposed to research as an undergraduate or even as a master’s student, the better the student will be in making a choice that fits that student academically, mentally, socially, and personally.

I leave you with a quote hanging in one of my mentor’s offices at the hospital, “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” ~ Albert Einstein

Abstract to an article that may be interesting...biodiesel!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V24-4B9557D-1&_user=7349611&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F2004&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1604085359&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000071821&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=7349611&md5=c4efc64b07ee1b5edb818e2775fac99d&searchtype=a

Shadowing

Today Ryan and I had the privilege of shadowing each other.  He did not take Bio 115, but he did catch on quickly when I showed him and explained to him what I was doing. I went into his lab absolutely clueless. I knew he was doing something with biodiesel, but was not sure what he was actually doing. He is currently comparing yields of biodiesel based on what method he used to see which one is most efficient.  I observed him immobilize an enzyme onto celite. He told me that this not only increases enzymatic activity, but it is also reusable during the activity. The enzyme attaches to the celite and is filtered out through vacuum filtration leaving it for Ryan to reuse again.

Ryan previously made a sodium phosphate buffer to help dissolve (He uses 1 L for this process).

Using liquid nitrogen, Ryan performs lyophilizing (a process known as flash freezing). It is mainly a dehydration process that Ryan uses in order to allow the frozen water to sublime and go from a solid to a gas. While I was there he was in the process of freezing, but I did not stay long enough to see him add heat to it, thus converting his product.

Ryan also uses a Roto-back vacuum for his enzyme. This works as a sublimation in which all water is sucked out leaving his enzyme as a dry powder (Celite, enzyme, and salt remain). The enzyme at this stage is attached to the celite.

Ryan then uses the immobilized enzyme and incubates it with 95% ethanol and soybean oil.  He sets it out on a watchglass to evaporate which he said is mainly a timing issue. Then he boils out all the ethanol (alcohol boils at a lower temperature compared to oils). He spoke of the importance of using boileezers (that should bring back some organic chemistry memories). Once this has been done, Ryan can then perform vacuum filtration in which oils are sucked in. Then he boils the enzyme and watches for the temperature to change. Once the temperature rises above 100 degree Celsius, he knows it just contains oil. Ryan also explained how weird it was that if you boil it, it turns brown…but if you evaporate it, it stays a clear color. This is just one unique physical property.

After spending some time in the inorganic lab today I am not so sure I would enjoy it. I could understand what Ryan was doing, but I was very uninterested in it mainly because I was not real familiar with his study. He was patient with me as I asked him many questions and he explained every technique thoroughly which was helpful in fully grasping what he was doing. I kind of realized how “timing is everything” for his research as well. I now have a fuller understanding for what he is doing and how beneficial this type of research is to the science community.

Link to sleep article...feel free to read!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025161023.htm

Article Review...SLEEP ANYONE?

In the article, Why Does Lack of Sleep Affect Us Differently? Study Hints It May Be In Our Genes, discusses a study in which people who have a gene linked with narcolepsy are monitored. 92 people without this gene variant and 37 people with this gene variant did not display any type of sleep issues during the monitoring process. During the process, subjects came to the lab and slept for 10 hours in a bed and reported feeling rested. During time trials where the subjects were constantly woken or disturbed, subjects were only allowed to sleep for 4 hours a night. In order to keep the subjects from falling asleep, researchers would do anything to entertain them.

Subjects were allowed to play card games, read, watch movies, anything to distract them for how tired they were. Sleep quality was measured and subjects also rated their sleepiness, and performed memory tests.

Researchers found that those with the variant of the gene were found to much more sleep deprivation and reported feeling more tired in both conditions: being fully rested, and running on four hours of sleep. People with the gene variant were also getting up multiple times during the night/ their sleep trial as opposed to those without the gene variant.

According to the actual researcher, this gene will help identify those people who are more susceptible to falling asleep and feeling sleep deprived. The researcher felt that this information would be most beneficial to people who work late night shifts, have severe family obligations/ are taking care of children or elderly people who might waken during the night, and people who travel through different time zones for work or personal obligations.

I did not like this review of the article because I felt as if the writer jammed together the methods and results and threw it on paper as fast as possible. When I am reading I like to know everything in order. The first thing that disturbed me was the methods. The writer did not explain the technique(s) or the process in which patients recorded their sleepiness.

 

 I did not know if they used a survey format or if the patient met individually with the researcher and spoke of their feelings. I also feel as if the activity level of the patients should have been recorded. That might be key to determine at what point people started to “slouch” or “feel too tired to function.” I did not know age or gender either, both of which are vital to a sleep study.

 

The article mentioned no previous training required by subjects and I wondered how the subjects prepped for something like this. Would they sleep a lot in order to feel rested going into this trial? Would they have “practiced” on their own? This article was originally from October and I remember it coming across my aol news feed and the title caught my eye, Why Does Lack of Sleep Affect Us Differently? Study Hints It May Be in Our Genes. I was intrigued by how researchers were studying sleep and if new improvements had been made to help patients or people in general get a better quality night sleep.

 

Sleep fascinates me and maybe it is because it is lacking in my life and so I feel the urge to read about it. It would be interesting to tie a sleep study with food or a sleep study with beverage and see how that impacts sleepiness. I am guilty of eating something just to stay awake and drinking multiple cups of tea just to help hold my eyes open.

Link to a journal article...feel free to read!

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?hid=8&sid=49ac12d7-68cd-4b03-8bed-41b61963fd18%40sessionmgr10&vid=3

Technique

One technique that I am using in my research is creating vials that shelter the Drosophila after they have been exposed to the cadmium. It takes, on average, ten days after the flies have been collected and stored in their respective concentration of cadmium to produce usable offspring that could potentially contain virgin flies. During the ten day process, it is typical to see larvae and pupae at about day four (Pupae are brown and are an older version of larvae). Once there is an abundance of flies, the parents are etherized and either dumped or used in other experiments (such as survivability). Bottles are then cleared in which all parent flies are disposed. This ensures that when bottles are observed (usually three to four hours later) virgin flies will only be in the bottles. Virgin flies are typically light in body color and can be seen with the naked eye.

The technique that I was primarily writing about was creating vials for these virgin flies. It is important to allow the flies to leave their “cadmium contained” home and be isolated from all other flies. This ensures that no mating will occur before an actual test of research observed mating occurs. Dr. Schnee and I isolate the flies not only by gender but also individually. It is a tedious process in which small glass vials are used containing .8 g of Carolina Biological Supply (Drosophila formula) and .3 mL of water. Once bottles have been prepared and labeled, virgin flies are placed individually into these vials by use of an aspirator. I currently have approximately 30 vials that have been prepared over the last two days that will be used for testing on Wednesday. The flies that were used were flies that were collected a week ago Monday while the science hall was first experiencing its heating problem (although, I did not realize it when I was in the fly room). J These flies do not need to be held in the incubator, they are fine to leave at room temperature.

Some experiments suggest four days instead of three, but I am simply testing on three day intervals due to our shared research schedule with two other science friends.

The most difficult part of this process of using virgin flies and testing their mating behavior is getting one female and one male into a vial. I typically look to if there is an abundance of prepared vials (where flies are held individually) and use those flies as my moving organisms to other vials. Losing flies in the process is common and irritating if there are a scare number of flies available. Using an aspirator I move one fly to another vial containing a fly. It is possible to move both flies to a new vial that does not contain any food and Dr. Schnee and I will probably try both methods. Once this process is complete, Dr. Schnee and I record mating behaviors and courtship time.

*Survivability (mentioned above in this blog) will be discussed in a future post.

*Mating behaviors and courtship will be discussed in a future post.

*I attached the article that I brought to class today. The intro is most beneficial to my research because it talks about the effects cadmium can have on Drosophila in terms of motor and nerve function. This could explain why certain levels of cadmium are hindering to the flies and don’t allow for successful mating to occur. The article goes into greater depth on nerve functioning and it suggests that perhaps cadmium was placed at the wrong part of the neuron when trying to determine its affect on calcium channels (which is also associated with muscle and nerve functions). Feel free to read!

*Here is a picture of a vial containing one fly taken during research time today. Enjoy!

Article on bias in the health care field

http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7404/1453.extract

Hypothesis

I always considered the hypothesis to act as a hindering block in research. Yes, it is important to know what scientists think will happen in their experiments, but I always thought it was setting the scientist up for biased or skewed results. I often wonder how many times scientists think about changing their original question or changing their experiment to get the results they want. I don’t really think that is important or appropriate, and sometimes I think it lets the research community know that something did not work and here is why…thus, allowing other scientists in that field to have that knowledge when performing their own experiments.

It was helpful to me to be reminded that a hypothesis can’t be proven, it can only be supported or falsified. If the research a scientist does support his/her hypothesis and shares it with the research community it benefits everyone in the research community who reads the journal article. However, the research has potential to possibly act bias toward another researcher’s experiment or hypothesis. This would most likely occur when collecting information for an introduction. This could potentially stop a scientist from performing an experiment and possibly even encourage the scientist to change the experiment to fit this other study.

I also think that some scientists are biased with their own experiments and I feel that a blind or double blind procedure could work best when performing an experiment. In my biostats class, my lab partner and I each counted and recorded it in our results to test for researcher bias. Although we found no significant difference between the two of us, it is possible that in some lab group situations researcher bias could occur.

Another option could be to have someone who is unfamiliar with the research “count” or do what the researcher needs him/her to do. Dr. Cooper mentioned that in graduate school they did this and often invited people into their lab to help when preparing results.  

I often have a difficult time when reading journal articles and deciding why the researcher chose a certain hypothesis. It is hard to find the reasoning behind the researcher’s decision or educated guess and I assume that most of the time it has either come from previous research/ journal articles or that it seems to be common sense. If journal articles would clearly state the hypothesis and the reasoning behind it, it might be easier for the reader to know and understand why the hypothesis is what it is.

I also sometimes see a hypothesis in the abstract, but in other papers I have not. Is this common? I don’t know if it is appropriate to place it in the abstract or not. When I have typed my own, especially in biostats, I included it in the introduction along with a purpose for the experiment within itself.

Lastly, an interesting question caught my attention in today’s class. Does knowledge never change or are the things we learn today going to be incorrect tomorrow? I thought about this question before while I was taking Bio 116. What if everything we knew was all false? Is that really possible? I think in some disciplines it could be wrong, or that it may be open to different interpretations. Science is always changing, yet it has a strong foundation that remains the same. New techniques are being discovered, new drugs, new therapies, new equipment that all lead to more accurate and faster results. Does this allow us to expand our knowledge or does it require us to constantly filter out old information and replace it with new information? I disagree with the idea that students should only use the most current information because some information, say 25 years old, is still fairly accurate. It may not include the most up to date technique, but it may still provide creditable information worth using.

*I have attached a web address that has the first two paragraphs of a journal article about researcher bias in the health care field and how that influences health care personal. Feel free to read.