week 13-- to live is to know.  Well, yes, there are a lot of different ways of "knowing",  any living thing is having some kind of cognition. I have to go to sleep now. Sorry to be not so articulate. 

This was a great class, Larry. Thanks for organizing it the way you do. It was a pleasure even though I didn't have enough hours in the week to really do it justice.  I am saving these packets for future reference!

Peace on ya---- Jean

week 12:  photographed auras..... I plan to do this again on Jasper's birthday, and on my birthday --- make a tradition of it!   Jasper is obsessed with crystals now.  it could get expensive.

wk 11:  the "cool animation site" one about the krebs cycle is very pretty and kind of mesmerizing to click back and forth on.... I still can't explain the Krebs cycle to someone else though. 

TCM and cell biology.  I don't have much to articulate there.  Systems. Systems with rules that all fit together and have their own sense.  Causes and effects that can be predicted and seem to flow naturally.......

week 11--- How Cells Divide: Mitosis vs. Meiosis  -- The flash animation comparison  side by side is really really helpful!   Love it. 

week 10---- critters in my environment:  Child. Plants. Mold. Bacteria, beneficial and not. Rat(s) in basement and possibly attic.  Redwood tree on property line is gone now for a couple of weeks (had to be cut down for safety reasons) but was formerly an ecosystem holding raccoons, squirrels, who knows what else.  No worries, there is another redwood a few feet away and they probably live in the sewer  half time anyway (the raccoons). Squirrels are as big as housecats from eating my figs, so I don't pity them.

My backyard is an ongoing experiment to see how many native weed volunteers can invade the previously groomed and fancy garden the former owners (orchid breeders, no less) had created. It pains me a bit to see the sea of wild onions that have taken over like a blanket, choking out the former inhabitants (various flowers with purpose). No time for gardening. 

week 10- Cell Biology sites--

I found the Intro to Cell and Virus Structure site to be very useful-- I loved the relative sizes and detection devices diagram. Interesting data point: human body has 75 trillion cells!

I took a lot of notes about these sites on my assignment sheet. Too tired to copy them all down now, but I swear I looked at them all!  Another interesting factoid-- "modern biology" is only since 1839 -- the idea that all living things are made of cells concept......

Also interesting-- questions about cellular evolution-- cells came from non-living chemicals--volcanic eruptions plus lightening plus UV radiation = amino acids rain down and form CELLULAR SOUP!  Or.... up from hydrothermal vents, or fell from meteors....... hmmmmmm?

Spikes Gallery-- I want to have a blown up picture of the fossil diatoms from Oamaru in my living room!   Absolutely magnificent.

Week 9:  Ethics of Gene Therapy----

Well, the fact that someone died from gene therapy due to an immune response is pretty disturbing. It all seems so risky and uncertain.... tumors can be induced if a gene is integrated in the wrong place in the genome (same fears with the genetically altered salmon that I wrote about....scientists forging ahead without considering wider consequences) The theory that info only travels from germline cells to somatic cells (DNA~RNA~protein)  is just a theory (Weismann barrier)-- and if it turns out that it is not true and this "barrier" is actually permeable, and genetic treatments of somatic cells may result in inheritable changes to the genome THAT would be scary genetic engineering of the HUMAN SPECIES!  Bad idea.