Group Project: Garbage Island

Sources:
Christian Mendoza:
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm


Steven Lewis:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/oprah-shines-light-on-gre_n_190552.html

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1


Alex Brunsell:
Kenneth R. Weiss, Altered Oceans: Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas, L.A. Times, Aug. 2, 2006, at A1

Jose G.B. Derraik, The Pollution of the Marine Environment by Plastic Debris: A Review, 44 MARINE POLLUTION BULL, 842, 844 (2002)

Linnea Harris:
Coulter, Jessica R. "A Sea Change To Change The Sea: Stopping The Spread Of The Pacific Garbage Patch With Small-Scale Environmental Legislation." William & Mary Law Review 51.5 (2010): 1959-1995. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 May 2014.

MacIver, Corey. "The ''Great Pacific Garbage Patch'' : Responsibility And Obligation In An Uncertain World." Conference Papers -- Western Political Science Association (2009): 1. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 May 2014.

Organ Donation

Organ donation is something that hits close to home for me. My cousin was born with a genetic heart defect and by the age of 2 needed a heart transplant. While he waited, his health deteriorated drastically, but fortunately he was able to hold out until a heart became available. I also have experience with the other end of organ donation. A close friend of mine was killed in a car accident a few years ago and she was able to donate her organs and tissue to about 8 different people. Knowing that something good came of her tragic accident gave her family some peace in a terribly difficult time. I believe organ donation is such an important thing and that everyone should become an organ and tissue donor. While organ donation saves thousands of lives each year, many people die each year waiting for an organ to become available. It saddens me to think that so many deaths could be preventable if only everyone became educated on the importance of organ donation. Some interesting facts that might help people choose to become an organ donor would be that ANYONE and EVERYONE can become an organ donor no matter their race, ethnicity, or gender. Also, most major religions support organ donation saying that it provides one last gift of love and generosity to those in need. The cost to become an organ donor is free! It doesn't cost the family of the donor anything for their organs and tissue to be donated once they have passed. It's also super easy to become an organ donor. If you go to http://www.organdonor.gov and follow the link "Becoming a Donor" you will be led to your state's website to donate. It takes less than 10 minutes! 10 minutes well worth it. I believe that if everyone was more educated on the facts and how easy it is to sign up to donate, we could get a greater percentage of the population to become donors.

Affordable Care Act

Cancer Movie Poster

Chapter Objectives

The Immune System

How does stress affect the immune system?
      Our textbook talks about a few different theories that explain the effect stress has on the immune system. One of these is the General Adaptation Syndrome. The GAS includes 3 stages. The first is the alarm stage in which the body is more vulnerable to disease or injury because the body is geared up to deal with a stressful situation. The next stage is the resistance stage. With continued stress, the body develops a new level of homeostasis to better handle normal life and normal stress. The final stage is the exhaustion stage in which the body experiences a life-threatening type of exhaustion due to the amount of energy required to deal with the first two stages. As time has passed, this theory has proved to be a little outdated. The Allostatic Load, another theory on stress and the immune system, states that the susceptibility to disease is actually due to the effects of the stress response and not to exhaustion. Long term exposure to stress hormones has been linked to health problems. Also, although the resistance stage promotes homeostasis, it has negative effects on the body. The last theory mentioned in the book is called psychoneuroimmunology. This studies the interactions of the nervous system, the endocrine system, and the immune system. The main idea is that stress, through the actions of the nervous and endocrine systems, impairs the immune system and therefore affects health.
         A study was conducted with people who had been hospitalized with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The study was showing the affects of stress on these patients and how discharged patients who experienced stress were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital. Those conducting the study monitored patients who had been hospitalized for ACS and had them record the instances in which they felt stress over a two week period. Those who reported having high stress were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of their original discharge date than those who reported low stress levels.
      From the information in the textbook and the study found, it is clear that stress definitely affect the immune system in a negative way. The more stress we have, the more our immune system suffers and the more likely we are to get sick.

Edmondson, Donald, et al. "Psychological Stress And 30-Day All-Cause Hospital Readmission In Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients: An Observational Cohort Study." Plos ONE 9.3 (2014): 1-4. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.

"Stress: The Constant Challenge." Health Education/Fitness. 12th ed. N.p.: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2012. 28-30. Print.

The Miracle of Life

     After watching this video there are a few things I thought were interesting or that I didn't know prior to watching this movie. One thing I thought was pretty crazy was that a lot of people get pregnant unintentionally. After watching the movie, I learned how time specific and detail specific it is for a sperm to fertilize an egg. There are so many different factors that contribute to the fertilization of an egg. The sperm has to make it to the egg and has to fit the egg like a puzzle piece for the egg to envelop it. The egg must be fertilized in a specific region and the sperm must fertilize it there before dying. There are so many factors that contribute to this process that I just found it shocking how many people actually get pregnant. It seems like such an intense process yet people are getting pregnant every day.
      I haven't seen a live birth until I watched this video. An actual birth, not one in a movie or television show was pretty crazy to see. In the movies, they show it being a difficult process but this video really showed just how difficult it is. The process is so long and tiresome, but the result is miraculous.