The Innocence Project: Perfect Evidence

Imagine being convicted and put in jail for a crime you didn't commit. Well over 2,000 letters from prisoners have been sent to the Innocence Project in hope DNA evidence can prove their innocence. The Innocence Project is an "organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice." In the past decade DNA testing has freed over 100 people nationwide.

There are many cases in which police have sold false details to the media and convinced suspects to confess to being a witness at the crime scene even though they had no connection to the crime. One very well known case was the 1986 rape and murder of Lori Roscetti. Four teenage boys were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 15 years before being released based on DNA evidence. Police brought in 16-year-old Larry Ollins who had previously been arrested for non-violent burglaries. After being slapped around by police, he still refused to confess to the crime. So police moved on to Larry's friend Marcellius Bradford and his 14-year-old brother Calvin in hopes they could force out a confession. Marcellius said that police beat him up until he confessed, where as Calvin was tricked as police said he would be able to go home if he just signed a confession. But instead of being able to go home and see his mom, Calvin was locked up along with Marcellius and Larry because police forced both teens to name Larry in their confessions. However, Marcellius made a deal with the authorities and because he testified against Larry was only given 12 years in prison unlike the rest who would be serving a life sentence. Along with Larry and Calvin, Omar Saunders was interrogated by police and asked to say he was a witness at the scene, but after refusing too, was charged with murder. 

After Larry, Omar and Calvin had been in jail for a while they sent a letter to their attorney Kathleen Zellner who put in over 800 unpaid hours and $50,000 dollars to get the case back into court. She also had their DNA tested after evidence showed that semen at the crime scene did not match Larry or Omar's. Zellner then tested to see if any of the boys DNA matched the DNA on the victim and it was proven that none of the boys matched. 

How can so many people be wrongfully convicted or even forced/bribed to falsely confess? I would never have guessed that our rights could so easily being taken away from us to the point we could be put in prison for a crime we didn't commit. I am thankful that DNA evidence is available and is irrefutable. With out organizations like the Innocence Project who are so dedicated to reforming the justice system there would be so many more hopeless people wishing there was a way to prove their innocence. Luckily we have been able to use DNA testing in the last decade to help free the wrongly convicted. 

Cancer TED Talk

        Can we eat to starve cancer? The answer is yes. In a TED talk, Dr. William Li introduces the idea of starving cancer cells by not allowing them to obtain their own blood supply. Without their own blood supply they can not grow and spread. Cancer cells put out signals, telling the body to make new blood vessels in the exact place the cancer cell is located. However, by eating anti-angeogenic foods which act as a natural inhibitor of angiogenesis (the growth of new blood vessels), you can inhabit the body from producing these blood vessels to cancerous cells.  

          Different anti-angiogenic drugs and foods can help starve tumors. Dr. William Li has even helped different species with his drug combinations. There are twelve different drugs already helping eleven different cancer types. In the last couple years as anti-angiogenic treatments have become available, patient survival has increased by 70%-100% for four different cancer types from the original treatments of radiation and chemotherapy. Although these treatments are revolutionary, they are starting too late in the game, when the cancer has already grown. In order to prevent cancer we need to eat these anti-angiogenic foods. Foods like red grapes inhibit blood vessel growth by 60%! The higher the potency, the better it inhibits this growing of blood vessels. With these new and amazing discoveries, we can now have a chance at preventing cancer. 

         I believe this is an incredible discovery and should be more global and talked about. Without learning this in school, I wouldn't have known about this amazing knowledge and be able to use it to benefit myself. With this new information, impoverished countries and countries lacking many medical resources, can still have a way to prevent and cure this deathly disease.

Lucy the Chimpanzee

            Lucy, a chimpanzee was taken in by Maurice Temerlin and his wife Jane. They raised Lucy as if she was their own child; treating her like any other human child. They wanted to see how human a chimpanzee could be. What they found out was indeed she could be. She could speak in sign language, which she used to combine words to create phrases for things she didn't know the actual word for proving she had an incredibly developed her brain. She even dressed herself, ate normal human meals, and even became attracted to human men, not to other chimpanzee males as would be expected. When Lucy got to old and challenging for Maurice and Jane they finally had to let her go. They let her go into the hands of Janis Carter. She became the caretaker for Lucy and many other chimpanzees as she led them to a lone island in order for them to finally be free. However Lucy's, being so human-like could not handle being abandoned and she was depressed for a long time. But, Janis, being a devoted caretaker, didn't leave for more than a year as she hoped Lucy would finally become comfortable with her surroundings and peers. Finally Janis left and returned a couple times to check up on Lucy. The second time she arrived on the island she was horrified to see the bones of Lucy. She had been poached and her hands were taken. Janis believed it happened because Lucy, being friendly and not afraid to be with humans, probably walked up to the poachers, not knowing what they were going to do to her. The last years of Lucy's life went on slowly and with not much enthusiasm, but she did teach the world about the incredible minds of chimpanzees

           Overall Lucy taught the world much about chimpanzees brain and intelligence. She taught us that by being nurtured you can become a whole other species, and that nature can only play so much of a role when one is enveloped in another (similar) species environment and culture. She taught us that the things we do subconsciously, are incredible, like language and simple things of creating words and such.
            Before I learned about Lucy, I knew chimpanzees were smart, but I never understood to what extent. Lucy was a groundbreaking discovery because she literally became a human. Besides the looks and small differences, she acted as a child. However, I never realized how close we truly are to chimpanzees.
            I believe the experiment was not worth while for Lucy's sake because it ended in disspare and sadness. However, for those who saw this as a ground-breaking experiment believe it was important and definitely worthwhile. To me, I feel it could go either way because we learned so much yet we did put the life of a wild chimpanzee at risk.
            The end to this emotional and amazing discovery put a damper on the whole story. It was already sad enough and these emotions just intensified as I heard about Lucy being poached. I was also angry that they would raise her and then leave her to her own defenses with no knowledge of the outside world. I was angry how they chose to treat her like a human and not follow up. Even though raising her for that long was difficult, I feel it was cruel to all of a sudden take away her life and make her change into a chimpanzee, which she could never return to.

Thinking Like a Mountain By Aldo Leopold

At the start of this unique story, Leopold shows the death of a deer from the perspective of a deer, coyote and human hunter. Later as the story progresses Leopold explains the unknown perspective of the mountain, that knows more than any species. The mountain, seeing everything from beginning to end, realizes all the balance needed to sustain ecosystems and all it's inhabitants. However, when the hunter killed a wolf he thinks only that it will diminish competition for deer. What the hunter does not realize, is that by doing this, he is disrupting the entire cycle of life. He doesn't know that by killing this wolf he is allowing the deer to thrive and destroy the mountain with over consumption due to a increased population. He doesn't know that by having a balance of wolves and deer, their habitat will flourish and keep both species healthy. The mountain can take in all that is around it, and realize what will happen when a cycle is tilted off balance, but the short sighted hunter only sees one aspect of this process, the aspect that supports his immediate dreams.

This article was very eye opening and took a different approach on ecological balance. Although I respect and try to see every perspective of the world, Leopold made a very interesting point about nature that is not always noticeable.

TED Talk: Sylvia Earle

Sylvia Earle: My Wish: Protect our oceans

What would the world be without the ocean? Would it even exist? Sylvia Earle, oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer believes “our fate and the ocean are one.” As a result of fishing and unstable oceanic conditions (due to plastics and other chemicals), in 50 years we have lost 90% of all the big fish. Along with many species of fish, a large population of whales, krill, and much more have been killed off. “We're clogging the oceans; poisoning the ocean's circulatory system,” claims Earle. At this rate, we may soon no longer have creatures in our oceans, leaving us with an unbalanced ecosystem and deprivation of a major food source. Because we are killing so many fish at a time, they do not have enough time to catch up to our daily needs. Because we are dumping chemicals and plastics into the ocean; we are killing the inhabitants that allow the ocean to exist.

In the Arctic, the ice is melting at a rapid pace and it may become ice free sometime in this century. This is neither good for the polar bears, nor us. Earle describes the detriments that are occurring with the melting of ice. She explains, “Excess carbon dioxide is not only driving global warming, it's also changing ocean chemistry making the sea more acidic. That's bad news for coral reefs and oxygen-producing plankton. That's also bad news for us.” Is there something we can do? The answer is yes. First and foremost, we must spread awareness. “With knowing comes caring, and with caring there's hope that we can find an enduring place for ourselves, within the natural systems that support us.”

I personally agree with what Earle is saying. It is shocking to see how we are destroying such a vital part of our ecosystem. I think what needs to be realized is that we must start this process of healing right now. Earle explains we have little time, and I hope that we can get at this as soon as possible. I have realized from this, that we cannot survive without this key part of our world, and all of us need to contribute to the mending of our oceans. This awareness and action is not only necessary for the survival of the ocean creatures, but for the survival of the human race. 

"Welcome to my Biology Blog! I am a sophomore at Animas High School located in Durango, CO. I am excited to share my thoughts, ideas, and observations on upcoming articles and videos from class. 

Check back soon, as I will be sharing my ideas and thoughts on Invasive Species."