State of research project

So far in my project I have found that its very easy to find information in journals and databases like the library and scirus.com if you know what your topic is. I have narrowed down my topic to the Effects of Mycoplasma Genitalium and how it can help us understand the resistance of antibiotics. My general question for this project is How can we use the Mycoplasma Genitalium, the smallest free-living organism to understand the way antibiotics work with bacteria. However I am yet not sure of how i would present this as a proposal, because the studies that are now performed about Mycoplasma Genitalium are targeted to find more unnecessary gene encoding. Which in many of the papers that I found have to do with the fact that many of the genes that are found in Mycoplasma genitalium are duplicates and have the same function there for not being necessary. In other papers I find that the number of genes and how many you need to sustain life is not necessarily something you can prove scientifically, because it all depends on where the organism lives and how its surroundings affect it.

- Antibiotic resistance markers in genetically modified plants: a risk to human health?

Stem cell/cloning

How can this improve health care? Is this ethical or not? Are cells consider a living organism? when do we draw the line of a living organism? What is necessary to be able to hold a living organism? What are the down sides to cloning? Is it possible to use clones and find the cure to some pathogens? Should stem cell research be funded by the gov?

Brainstorm

Health care in third world countries, Technology advances to improve health care, stem cell research, cloning, Biotechnology and the use of genetic engineering, Minimal genome, Aids and treatment, Cancer research

Fall For the Book

Today we attended Fall for the Book at the Bistro in Mason, where we heard readings by three of the poets. Caren Scott came first and read a couple of her readings. The lady who introduced her by saying that she admired her and that she was her roommate. She mentioned that the day she walked in the room, she found her sewing "mismatched buttons". After her Ryan Walker came up to read his poems, and in his introduction they mentioned that he also played the guitar and would combine it with his poems to make music. Finally we heard Eric Pankey, who was wearing a gray suite, and I am not able to recall anything interesting I heard from his introduction.

This is my second year attending Fall for the Book, last year I attended the reading of different kinds of writers. I found that to be more educational than this one. I found today's readings to be a bit complicated, and I did not like the way some of them were read, with no emotion. However the last one was a bit more interesting and funny than the two previous, which is why i started paying more attention to him. In the first reader I found that the poems were more based on the daily life and things that you would not normally pay attention to. In general I had trouble understanding the poems and was not able to hear the reader at times, because of the freezers background noise.