Imagine being 16, and being convicted of a crime that you didn't commit? Do you wanna build a snowman? Well, you can't because you're in PRISON! You would be charged, as an adult, and sent to an adult prison. That is what four boys had to go through, being convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering a girl. They spent 15 years behind the bars, trying to prove their innocence and get out of the prison. Omar, Larry and Calvin were the only boys who were interviewed by KSUT.
All these boys had been tried individually, as adults, in front of a courtroom full the people who were on the victims side. The only person that showed up for the boys, was a cousin. They were all convicted and sent to prison with a life sentence. When they were in jail, Calvin was trying to prove their innocence and after fifteen years he found a lawyer that would help them prove their innocence. Larry had an idea that the killers DNA could still be in the body, and that they should give a donate to have it compared to the killers.
In the end, they were able to get a new court and the DNA tested. They were released after being in jail for 15 years, they had missed some major parts of their lives. They still live together, and are living life to the fullest.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Laughter Is The Best Medicine
Many people have heard all the sayings, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," and "laughter is the best medicine." But what if these are really true?
In the article, "Humor and Laughter May Influence Health..." they talk about how humor could be beneficial both psychological and physical to your health. Laughter and a good sense of humor tend to lower chemical that cause stress. For some people can find something hilarious, while another person might be sitting their stone-faced. But to work out this issue, they would let the patient to chose their own videos that would entertain them. "Humor response is known to be affected by environmental conditions, and it can be difficult for subjects to relax and laugh at a humor video when experimental conditions require blood draws for laboratory testing. To help control for this, it is critical that future humor research includes some measure of subject response to the humorous stimulus. Videotaping subject responses and then measuring these responses with observer rating scales such the Humor Response Scale can help document the effect of individual humor responses to the stimulus." This is an excerpt from the article, explaining how the environment makes it easier or harder to relax and laugh.
I actually thought that this was a really cool experiment and trial'n'error. I don't know if I would want to be a person who was a test subject but I want to know where the idea came from, and who started getting all the patients together to have an experiment that is unknown in the end. I would love to meet someone who went through this procedure and what they really thought.
In the article, "Humor and Laughter May Influence Health..." they talk about how humor could be beneficial both psychological and physical to your health. Laughter and a good sense of humor tend to lower chemical that cause stress. For some people can find something hilarious, while another person might be sitting their stone-faced. But to work out this issue, they would let the patient to chose their own videos that would entertain them. "Humor response is known to be affected by environmental conditions, and it can be difficult for subjects to relax and laugh at a humor video when experimental conditions require blood draws for laboratory testing. To help control for this, it is critical that future humor research includes some measure of subject response to the humorous stimulus. Videotaping subject responses and then measuring these responses with observer rating scales such the Humor Response Scale can help document the effect of individual humor responses to the stimulus." This is an excerpt from the article, explaining how the environment makes it easier or harder to relax and laugh.
I actually thought that this was a really cool experiment and trial'n'error. I don't know if I would want to be a person who was a test subject but I want to know where the idea came from, and who started getting all the patients together to have an experiment that is unknown in the end. I would love to meet someone who went through this procedure and what they really thought.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Blurred Lines
When you first hear that you will be listening to a documentary about chimpanzees, and especially one chimp who was raised as a human from birth. Her name was Lucy, and her parents had taken her away from her chimp mother when she was just two days old. From then, she was treated as a human. She was able to get herself dressed, make tea and learned sign language. But as she began to sexually mature, her parents began to notice some changes in her; she was stronger, she started to masturbate to pictures of human men and when they tried to introduce her to a male chimpanzee, she was signing "scared". Had they taken it to far? Raising her as their own? So the Temerlin's decided to move her into the jungle with some other chimps that had been in human care. Lucy was persistent, and wouldn't leave her human guide, and this went on for many years, Lucy internally battling herself. In the end, they found Lucy's body with out the hands, and they believed that some poachers had stopped by the island, and Lucy went to investigate and say "hi."
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
"Thinking Like A Mountain"
What do wolves and the forest have in common? If you try to remove it, everything else will become unbalanced and will fall apart. A mountain has a very balanced ecosystem, and if something is added or removed, it creates havoc. Even though mountains can't really talk, or even think, they are more intelligent then the human race.
This story was about how the mountains need everything, but the ranchers were ruining the mountain. They started to kill off the mountain lions so the lions wouldn't touch their cattle. But then, with the receding mountain lion population the deer began to over-populate and kill the mountain. The deer were eating all the plants, and the mountain couldn't recuperate to the growing number of deer. But it was more artistic value to it, it was very well written.
This has changed my perspective on the ecosystem and deforestation. I didn't realize how much taking away just one thing from the habitat it can completely ruin it. Even if someone thinks that there are plenty of the species, and starts hunting them or takes them out of the ecosystem, then something will go wrong. For example, if the bunny would eat only one type of grass, but then an epidemic comes and takes out the grass then the bunny will starve and then whatever eats the bunny will have some problems trying to find other food to eat. It is a chain reaction, or a domino effect.
Monday, September 2, 2013
TED Talk : "The Oceans Glory-- And Horror" by Brian Skerry
So on Friday August 29th, in Biology, we were told to go onto www.ted.com/talks and were told to search for certain key words. I am very into animals and want to learn more about the ocean and it's creatures.
The TED talk was about a photographer, who worked for National Geographic, and how his pictures would try to capture the readers eyes. He had been photographing for the past thirty years, and he mainly jumped into the water because he wanted people to know what was happening in the deep ocean blue. Brian doesn't just take the usual 'clear blue ocean water with fish' but also sharks caught in nets, whales with rope scars around it's tail. He was showing the truth.
He said that this shark caught in the net looked almost like a sacrifice, with the fins out-stretched and her eye still visible. Brian told the crowd that 100 million sharks are killed yearly, while only, on average 100 humans are in a shark attack. Also, the hammerhead shark population has decreased by 80% in the past thirty years.
From this video, I realized that if we don't take care of the resources that we have now, we might never get them again. Such as coral reefs, with more and more people vacationing or building on the islands, all the chemicals and garbage washes down to the ocean, and slowly kills the ecosystem. But when we protect the habitat, life will come back to it. All in all, we need to protect our Earth and our resources.
The TED talk was about a photographer, who worked for National Geographic, and how his pictures would try to capture the readers eyes. He had been photographing for the past thirty years, and he mainly jumped into the water because he wanted people to know what was happening in the deep ocean blue. Brian doesn't just take the usual 'clear blue ocean water with fish' but also sharks caught in nets, whales with rope scars around it's tail. He was showing the truth.
He said that this shark caught in the net looked almost like a sacrifice, with the fins out-stretched and her eye still visible. Brian told the crowd that 100 million sharks are killed yearly, while only, on average 100 humans are in a shark attack. Also, the hammerhead shark population has decreased by 80% in the past thirty years.
From this video, I realized that if we don't take care of the resources that we have now, we might never get them again. Such as coral reefs, with more and more people vacationing or building on the islands, all the chemicals and garbage washes down to the ocean, and slowly kills the ecosystem. But when we protect the habitat, life will come back to it. All in all, we need to protect our Earth and our resources.
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