Medicinal Cannabis TED Talk

Today I was instructed to watch a TED talk of my choice and do a blog on it. As I was scrolling through the different TED talks I saw one about using Marijuana as medicine. This seemed interesting so I watched the 20 minute video. The video was primarily about one man's quest to get Cannabis legalized for medicinal use nationwide. He explained the different parts of the plant such as THC and CBD. THC is the stimulant that causes psychoactive effects in the brain. CBD however is an anti inflammatory that has many medicinal characteristics. One is an example of a child with severe epilepsy. Before her treatment she would have upwards of 20 seizers a day. After CBD was introduced to her system she had less than one seizer a month. After 6 weeks she was free of all the prescription drugs she was instructed to take. This means no more negative side-effects and the only medicine she would take was a couple drops of CBD that was extracted from the bud of a marijuana plant.

This opened many doors for similar families in need. There is one flaw however. Being from one of the only states that allows medicinal marijuana (Colorado), patients cannot travel outside of state lines with the medicine or they are considered 'drug traffickers'. This also makes it extremely difficult for other families to receive similar treatments that do not live in Colorado.

I thought this was very interesting and I fully support the use of medicinal marijuana. I think it is important that people hear these messages and encourage nationwide legalization. It is unacceptable that people are in extreme conditions or even dying just because they do not live in Colorado. Once people become less scared of this plant and they hear these positive stories I feel that one day anyone with these conditions can receive the treatments they need.

Antiangeiogenesis

In Biology we learned about anti-angiogenesis. We watched a TED talk about it.

Anti-angiogenesis is a very unique and innovative technique for eliminating cancerous tumors. The word angiogenesis means, the creation of new blood cells. Creating new blood cells sounds like a good thing unless it is to feed a cancerous tumor. Some foods are anti-angiogenic which means they slow down the creation of new blood cells which in turns starves the tumor of blood.

I think this is very cool. It is good to know that there are other less harmful ways of treating and most importantly preventing cancer in the first place. This new innovation could be revolutionary in preventing and curing cancerous tumors. I support this idea and think it could be very helpful.

Lucy Blog

Apes are surprisingly similar to human beings. In biology we listened to an intriguing story about an experiment on a chimpanzee named Lucy. Lucy was raised as by humans in a modern everyday human lifestyle. Lucy showed many human characteristics such as lying, drinking and she considered human men sexually pleasing. Lucy was later let go into the wild because the family could no longer take care of an animal that was more than twice a human's strength. Lucy did not act like a normal ape in the wild she relied on humans. Eventually Lucy was killed by poachers because she eagerly approached a human and was killed. I was very surprised that apes could act so much like humans that they lose all desires to be wild.

TED Talk

In Biology class we had the privilege of watching a TED Talk of our choice. My partner and I chose to watch a TED talk on the ecosystem in new york city if the city was not there. Apparently New York City was one of the most suitable environments for millions of species. NY would have been a more thriving place than almost any other geographic location on earth. This was a pretty cool TED Talk and I am exited to learn more about it.

Welcome To My Biology Blog

Welcome to my Bio-Blog! I am a student at Animas High School in Durango, CO.  Throughout the

year, I will post my thoughts on articles and videos that I work with in my sophomore biology class.

Check back soon to hear my thoughts on Invasive Species.