three youtube links

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1YhP5zSicdk

http://youtube.com/watch?v=q96M0jRqn7k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ix6vtuehQ

LETTER

Dear Author,

First off, I think this is great news about the genome-wide map of the spinal cord. I feel like any study, even if it is on mice help us learn about the human body better. Now that we can understand how the spinal cord works, I am sure we can stop many diseases and learn how to fix vertebrae breaks. I love how all the scientists talked about how important this break through is to them. First I was wondering, Did you go to the press conference In washington D.C?
Next are you a scientist, Is this important to you? and When do you think the next breakthrough in science that has to do with the spinal cord will come>?

From,
Sean Ross

problem complaint in class writing

One problem that I have to complain about is the fact that we do not have a cafeteria in the school. I think that it would help everyone out, students who live on and off of campus. It would save me money, being able to buy a meal plan, and knowing where I could go eat. I would ask for the school to get someone to work in that small cafeteria that we have.

monday reading

This project Muse reading was about technology and youth today. We are currently subject to a lot of bad thing in the media, which lead to violence and drug use, smoking and not being in shape. However even if I am seeing all these things on the media, I know that violence is still wrong. It is still my own choice to do things, and it is not the radio station or televesion that controls me. Obesity, however could be easily marketed and could be eaten that day just because some hungry guy saw it on tv. However that is just part of the industry today. This article has been talked about all the time for the past 5 years but so far, nothing has happened to the amount of violence on tv, or in video games. I believe that the conservatives of this world see evil in too many things.
I like the story on the video games alot. It was very interesting to me because In the begiing of this year my friends and I used to play a super nintendo, and even with the very basic graphics and game play I still thought it was alot of fun. I think that the original games are very important, because they are a part of our culture, but also they can still be fun to play

SPINAL CORD UNDERSTANDING!

Scientists will today unveil the first genome-wide map of the spinal cord of the mouse, a move experts say will accelerate research - and point to potential treatments - in human spinal cord diseases.

The map, dubbed the Allen Spinal Cord Atlas, charts the genetic activity within the mouse spinal cord and will help researchers understand various diseases and disorders, including ALS, multiple sclerosis, paralysis and other spinal cord injuries.

Experts say it will shed light on how the spinal cord works, something scientists do not yet completely understand, and will likely lead to new therapies.

"It's the first time that somebody has explored the expression of particular genes within the spinal cord," said Christine Vande Velde, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Montreal who focuses on the underpinnings of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"Many people focus on the brain, but that's very different from the spinal cord," Vande Velde said.

"This (map) provides us with a new avenue to look at the type of genes unique to motor neurons and will provide targets for us to explore in the future."

The map, to be unveiled today at a press conference in Washington, D.C., was created at the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science, a non-profit research organization launched in 2003 by Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft Corporation.

In 2006, the institute released a genome-wide, three-dimensional map of gene expression in the adult mouse brain.

Studying mice is the primary way researchers learn about spinal cord diseases.

That's why it was important to come up with a basic map of all the different genes, cells and pathways in the rodent's complete spinal cord, said Dr. Jane Roskams, the project's scientific advisor and associate professor of neuroscience at the Brain Research Centre at the University of British Columbia.

"Mice and rats are our main model for research," she said. "That's where potential therapies will first be developed."

Roskams, who will be part of the official launch today, said the map was more than 18 months in the making and cost roughly $3 million.

The baseline data generated from the map will be most valuable to new researchers in the field because it will provide them with a starting point for their investigations, something that would usually take months or years to develop.

"Their legwork will be decreased considerably by using this," she said.

"It's like a little (Global Positioning System) that tells you where you are in the spinal cord and where you need to go."

All of the data will be publicly available for free online, with the first set released by mid-July and the entire map by 2009.

Vande Velde, who plans to use the map immediately in her research, said the large-scale project could not be done by individual scientists or even universities.

"This is a giant undertaking," she said.

"It's not something the average academic lab can do. It's something really unique."

Nor-LANS

The prologues are great, I love the pictures, cartoon-like but very descriptive. All the angles are different and I think that the picture of the storm is the best. Everything is pretty accurate right down to the hand grenade in the bum's hand.
This story can connect to every type of reader. I mean every kid thinks of a hurricane as a a day off of school. Also every person does not want to leave a hurricane because they do always turn at the last minute. To many people work so hard, the lady should of just evacuated, or not gone to work at all. That way the guy could of saved all his comics.

The next thing that stood out to me was the dialogs. The way everyone speaks, and how it is spelled makes the reader connect again. Most the things said are something someone would say. Not proper English, and a lot of curse words.

Once the storm started to hit, the destruction in the pictures was very vivid. You could also see the fear in the person's face and the problems that ensued on them. Once the cat is injured and the bed where the lady slept is destroyed, I was pulled into the story. The ending is also very powerful and brings up a lot of theories about what happened.

I like Hamid's story the best. It was the most exciting although I think they should of got on the boat. I like how they talk about Jesuit to, a couple of my friends go there...


I thought the novel was very good and powerful, I hope there is more to the story and a ending to what happened to everyone else, besides Miss Williams.

Persepolis

First off, I do not know much about the middle east right now as it is, and to learn about Iran in the 1980's was a very interesting reading for me. I also like how it is not from a historic perspective but rather a personal one. Even though the reading talks about how a child's perspective is simple, and how not only one perspective can fully represent trauma. I do not know the actual feelings one would have when going through such trauma and problems as a young girl did while living in Iran, and I did not read the story to understand her true feeling. I did not get many of the arguments made in this story.

The best part about the reading;s was the pictures, although they are really simple, I think the stories could be better understood while looking at the pictures. My favorite picture was the one where all the girls are looking straight ahead wearing veils. The picture then names all the girls, even though they all look identical, wearing the veil with black hair, white face and the really simple drawing of a mouth and eyes. I think that was the purpose though. Many of the pictures capture the important parts in her life, when she was a child. Today, I doubt she is happy about remembering her first cigarette, but when she was a child, she valued that day. I do not think it was actual the day she matured into a adult. But the picture shows how important this time in her life was, as a young child.


Furthermore, this short story gives the reader a little insight on the oppression of women. I wonder what the writer thinks of oppression in the world today, especially in places like China, and Latin America.

Was this originally written in English?

The 2nd reading stuff

PrOJect MUSE

After reading everything for this week, I did not agree with Frank Mathis, I do not believe that you can really judge a memoir. All memoirs are good in their own way. Many of the personal stories that I read help me understand people better. Like all the stories of the students from New Orleans. Those ones teach lessons. The other style I saw was the FSU memoirs, they were very different in telling life stories.

Narratives from students at the center, That does not sound to interesting at all, until I sat down today and started to read the short stories without getting up once. In the Journey to a memory the strong metaphors and tragic mood creates a powerful story about everything being gone. These authors all have stories about moving on, and it is easy to see why they would do that. The lifestyle in New Orleans is hard and sad, and it is a long uphill climb for many of these people.

Maria Hernandez already had a hard time before the storm, she was trying to survive and help her school improve. When the school finally has some success, the storm comes. She goes through lots of horrific ordeals and the problems keep on building up. She has a very sad, and hard life. She feels betrayed by the school board. But from all these problems we realize she is a strong girl who fights though everything even with all hope lost.

Another student Janay is scared of the unfamiliar and does not want to know what happened. She compares the destruction in her house to death. Eventually she found comfort in the familiarity and the only way for her and everyone else to move on is to try and survive. She knows she is helping New Orleans just by moving back there.
Seeing a adults perspective brings allot of thoughts about writing and students thoughts about tragedy. Students first showed lots of hatred to the storm for all the damage it has done. Students did not want to talk or write about it. But when students wrote about their already hard lives, they were able to bond together. Katrina brought a lot of problems and unfamiliarity. Many students did not know their classmates which created tension within the classroom. But instead of writing about Katrina and their memoirs they read about them so they could understand other people have problems to. It is always easy to read something you can relate to. The stories brought the students together because they could understand each other, they all had good and hard times. One of the lessons I learned is that being productive after some destruction in your life helps you. But the students needed to be motivated to be productive. The bored students created such a different atmosphere because of the test review they had to do. They were not trying in class and many failed the GEE test. Once the students were able to reindentify themselves by writing memoirs again, the productive atmosphere was created again.

Why is Melvin able to not be phased by the storm?
Maybe since his level of tragedy he could take was so high because his Dad got shot, everything else that happens is " under the bar" and does not affect him. There are lots of strong characteristics in humans around the world today. I would like to learn from these kids because I know I am not that strong and I do not know how many people are mentally strong enough to handle this. Would you want a tragedy like this to happen so you could become stronger because of it? and How do you plan on helping Katrina victims in the next year?

Nola Hurricane

The story we had to read and the personal story we listened to were both about finding one self. Jerry Waxler would try and find himself through writing. He felt like he could understand the things that go on in his brain. With all the problems people have the only way to express your thoughts is to use some sort of speech or writing.
When the hurricane survivors spoke about their problems, the girl who was about to cry talked about loosing someone. She was able to release her feelings. Through talking, she understands herself and others in a similar situation.

Does writing help you as much as talking does?

Talking about where she came from made OtherS understand her. Jerry found out who he was by writing down memoirs.
What does Jerry want to find out about himself?
Are tragedies such as the hurricanes in 2005 worth writing about and remembering?


Franklin, Antoinette, and Iriel Franklin. "“I Really Miss So Much About New Orleans…”."
StoryCorps. NRP. 1 July 2008.

Waxler, Jerry. "Is Writing a Memoir Theraputic?"
Memory Writers Network. 28 Sept. 2007. 1 July 2008.