HRS177|Spring2017

Response to Research Ideas

          I enjoyed reading and hearing about everyone’s final research paper topics. From the assessing the validity of the anti-GMO movement to the analyzing cultural differences in the prevalence of plastic surgery, our comprehensive book of essays is sure to be an interesting read.

GMOs? | Source: http://www.consumerthai.org/images/food/gmo/GMOs.gif

Research Topic: Art Against Climate Change Skepticism

          The Paris Agreement established at the 2015 Climate Change Conference signified the first globally unified effort to mitigate human-induced, or anthropogenic climate change (United Nations, 1). Over 190 countries, including major carbon emitters China and India, signed the agreement, pledging to prevent the global average temperature from increasing beyond two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Essay Comments

As we approach finals week and the end of our course, I must say I’ve genuinely enjoyed being a part of this amazing class! As well, with all the great ideas presented in class last week, I’m excited to see how this quarter’s book comes out. Having a class full of individuals who come from a variety of disciplines, I’m sure our final book will be reflective of our unique perspectives.

Plastic

    Lots of the project ideas presented last week intrigued me. But, the one project that interested me the most was on plastic surgery and conventions around the world. I chimed in a little on the discussion in class, but I wanted to discuss it further here.

Comments on Final Papers

I am excited to read the book that we publish from the combination of everyone’s final papers. I can tell from reading the ideas and from the sheer magnitude of time that we have each put into researching ideas and artists that we will make something very special. Each one of us has our own take on science and biotechnology depending on our relative backgrounds but we will all be brought together by a common themes of medicine and society.

Plastic Surgery in South Korea: response to Romina's project

All of the projects sound very interesting, but Romina’s project especially piqued my interest,  because of the ethical issues involved in cosmetic surgery. I immediately thought of South Korea, which actually has the most cosmetic surgeries per capita in the world. The beauty standards in South Korea are very specific, combining classic Asian beauty standards like fair skin and large eyes, as well as Western beauty standards like double eyelids. Eyelid surgery is the most popular surgery in South Korea.

The final essay idea comments for the quarter

Hello, I think there is a huge variety in this class for the topics of the essays. Some of the topics seem very interesting and I look forward to seeing the finished book.  They all seem to focus around the medical advances going on today and I think the final proposed book is going to be very interesting.  I will discuss the ones that stood out most to me.

Essay Responses

I think a lot of these projects seem really interesting. Brandon's project regarding the merging of genetics and music really struck me as interesting in the same way that Eduardo Kac's synthetic biology to insert words from the book of Genesis really struck me as an interesting use of biology.

Final Projects Review

Even though all of the ideas for the final essays are great and I can see them going far with them, I have to say that there are a couple that specifically stood out to me. One of the first proposals that really piqued my interest was that of Romina’s with the relation of Art and Plastic & Cosmetic Surgery. I really like how she related cosmetic and plastic surgeons to artists and sculptors as that is an interesting perspective.

Painting on Prozac

I was very interested in Jennifer’s proposal to examine mental illness in art, particularly depression and how treatments like SSRIs can affect creativity and artistic output. There is a huge link between mental illness and art. Some of the most well known artists, from Jackson Pollock to Paul Gauguin to Joan Miro, were said to suffer from depression (“Artists and Depression”, “Miro Offers Case in Point of Creativity’s Link to Depression”).

Response to proposed final essays

Looking at the proposed essays, I would like to start out my blog by mentioning how far I believe every individual in the class has came across taking their intellectual knowledge to another level in order to come up with advancements in the biotechnological world of today and the future. It is amazing how every individual has proposed unique ideas and I am very excited to see what the future has in store for us along these diverse trains of thought.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - HRS177|Spring2017