Scorpions be Climbing in the Windows, Snatching Up Everyone, So Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Wife

            One of my worst nightmares has been giant spiders creeping around my bedroom, or creeping around anywhere for that matter, or even a swarm of small spiders invading. In case none of you have noticed yet, I do have arachnophobia to a fairly high degree. Although, I kind of found out that when people say arachnids, they do not necessarily mean spiders, in fact, scorpions are a type of arachnid. Recently, some people have discovered the genomes of the scorpions and have isolated some of them that allow scorpions to become immune to their own poison. It actually sounds a lot like our own immunity to stomach acid, I guess not so much immunity as it is mucous covering it. Even though it does not mention a lot of uses for it in the article, I can only begin to imagine the effects it could have on our society.

            The first obvious one coming to my mind, due to the fact that I am a nerd or a geek if you prefer, which is implementing the couple poison genes from scorpions into humans and mixing it with the DNA of humans. Imagine the beneficial effects of this before you start to judge me. Scorpions contain some fairly toxic compounds within their bodies without much adverse effects to themselves, and since they have built up this huge immunity to many poisonous substances, so scorpions are able to ingest many poisonous plants and animals. Imagine, being the reckless teenager that I am, challenging a classmate to a contest to prove your worth, and then walking into the room and to intimidate the opposition, bring a bottle of Clorox and just downing the bottle while munching on some mistletoe as a snack. This would be extremely hardcore and cool that if I saw someone do that, they would immediately become my best friend. In reality, this would help some of the hunger issues, because it would open a whole new window of possibilities.

            On the other hand, this could also be very harmful to people to, although it is a bit farfetched, at least hear me out before you write it off as stupid. With the genomes of these toxins found, it would be easy for someone to just mass produce them, and instead of having Spiderman, we would have Scorpionman, who shoots poison from his fingertips, although, if we figure out the immunity thing, it will not be much of a problem. Even without the immunity thing, the same could be said about finding the antidotes to these poisons, of course, if we have not already. Knowing the compounds in a scorpion and how it combats it will help scientists figure out a couple new ways to combat new poisons.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

            Wow, looks like some people’s paychecks are about to go on the decline. This new test works apparently well with people who have brains that are going through constant regression, like in “Flowers for Algernon”, by using a much easier and cheaper way than going to a medical professional. Well, I do not suggest making one of your own tests and refuse to bring one of your grandparents to a doctor, just because he or she can smell peanut butter from a couple meters away. The doctors have gotten a degree in their degree of study. (Very much like one of our own professionals with a Ph. Qi right? Who me? Nah, you must be mistaken.)

            This test was first meant for people with mental regression, mainly Alzheimer’s disease, and does not help with other kinds of brain diseases, such as dementia, and it has been shown also because some of the effects that people with Alzheimer’s disease had during testing did not happen to the regular people who have not had any cognitive decline yet. I still think it could use a bit more testing, because something as light as this, I think, would not call for extreme in depth testing and making sure that it works. Sure, once people hear of this method, I can nearly guarantee that people will attempt to use it, but I do not truly believe that they will not go to a doctor to either support or prove the method wrong.

            It would not be too bad of an idea even if it ended up not working, because it was a fantastic idea and extremely innovative, which I think can be easily improved upon to make it apply to other diseases or mental issues, mostly because the qualities and smells that peanut butter gives off is very unique and would easily be able to test many things. Just make sure it does not test your stupidity in taking the peanut butter challenge. I really think it could be used on other people with concussions for a quick diagnosis to see which procedure should be taken. Like most preliminary tests, it would not be the final verdict, but it is always easier and safer to do something once someone knows what has actually happened or is just generally pointed in the right direction. Even if they are pointed in the wrong direction, it would not be that much farther off from where he or she started.

The Knock Knock (No-Bell) Peace Prize

                I am almost completely sure that most of you science nerds, yes that is including myself, or anyone that just pays attention to the news would know all about the Nobel Peace Prize just awarded to a coalition of people who work together to take apart chemical weapons, but just in case you have not, you can see a summary of it here. There were many contenders for this, including a girl who was shot in order to protest women’s education. The scientific part of this though is how these people actually plan to get these weapons of mass destruction destroyed, and keep in mind, not everyone fully appreciates them.

                One of the largest concerns for me in disposing of chemical weapons is what kind of effects will it have on the surrounding environment. Think about it, these are chemicals that can easily kill many people, what could it possibly do to the environment. This organization always says “dispose of these chemicals” but it is not always as easy as that. It is not really like they can go into whatever country they want and just pick up all the chemicals and dump them into the ocean either. Of course, in order to dispose of weapons of mass destruction, because they are extremely dangerous to human health and are immoral, it thus makes obvious sense for our government to force Syria to disable their chemical warfare programs. If you could not tell, that was extreme sarcasm used in that previous sentence. To put this action in other terms, it is like if your house is made wood, and a small portion of it catches on fire, would you use Greek fire, which burns nearly everything, to burn out the fire? Obviously not.

                Although I am not trying to be extremely critical of this group, it kind of makes me think that what they are doing is not that important in the grand scheme of things, because even a Syrian criticized them. To continue the previous comparison, it would be tantamount to a town with only one fire truck going to put out a fire on the far east side of town in completely metal houses, while a fire is rages on the west side of town demolishing wooden houses. This may seem critical of me, but I really do understand the intent of their actions and that they could be extremely significant in the long run. Remember kids, one million begins with one, so although something small, like a random act of kindness does not seem like much, it could be all someone really needs. 

"Muddy Water"

            Explosive diarrhea, rushing everywhere, spraying everything inside the toilet, unable to scrape it off, because it is impossible to get off the toilet, because of the severe diarrhea. Hopefully none of you readers were eating anything during that description, but I am pretty sure you will all be glad to learn that thanks to some of these scientists, it may just be a thing of the past. I do not know how many of you know what causes diarrhea, but it is actually a virus called Norovirus, how creative right, and now have developed a mostly effective vaccine against it.

            As much as people think that water coming out of one’s rear end in spams is disgusting, it is not too extreme or severe, although it is given that 800 people die per year and is probably very uncomfortable for people, there are many more long term projects that would reap better rewards overall. These would only be short term rewards, it is very hard to imagine any long term rewards. Given that we could save 800 people a year, and not trying to sound harsh or anything, but the world as a whole could easily replace that many people in a matter of minutes, and that just shows that some people may need to get a hobby to do, and no Patrick, mayonnaise is not a hobby.

            I do see the short term goal that this provides which could possibly lead to a longer term goal. Many people obtain this virus on cruises, and since many people are congested together, the virus would spread relatively quickly. This would cause many people to become upset and thus hurt the cruise ship business, so if these people were to sell their vaccine to the cruise ship owners who could distribute them, or sell them to hospitals, where worried people could obtain them, for a small fee of course.

            This vaccine does reduce most of the virus’s effects, but if anyone has learned anything about the nature of viruses, is that they are extremely quick to adapt to whatever method is employed against them, and will probably mutate into just a slightly different form than a previous one to avoid a person’s immunity against them. Therefore, like many other vaccines, and depending on how quickly this virus adapts to the vaccine, it may be reconsidered whether the monetary value of the result was worth the cash value put in to the vaccine.

Space: How would you like to die?

                I decided to major in something relating to Science in college, of course after I graduate high school. The problem with this, though, is that I have always worried about what if things might go wrong. I then stumbled upon this article, and although it is not exactly a conventional safety thing, due to the fact that it is in space and not Earth, but it still makes one wonder about the risks of going into science industry. Astronauts are actually the physical part of the trade, but then it makes me worried, even though they say they have not yet lost anyone due to randomly floating off, because the scientists do not seem to care too much that they do not have that many recovery procedures.

                It was always one of my childhood fears to randomly float away, like gravity disappears and then I randomly float off into the atmosphere where I would just slowly suffocate and die. I know, it is pretty irrational, but as everyone knows, children have no sense of logic, and are really not that smart, since their prefrontal cortex is still not fully developed. Well, back to safety concerns, this article makes a mistake seem so horrible and dramatic. The last line just completely throws me off and feels depressed for the rest of the day. It cannot be that hard to create some sort of recovery procedure, I mean it is possible to lose two astronauts this way, but it really should be worth it to try.

                Whatever happened to, “Your safety is our biggest concern!” they say all the time in elementary, middle, and high school. Yeah, maybe if the government would put a little more funding into protect the people who might die. Well, it sounds really easy I guess, but it should be pretty impossible considering the government is not doing much right now, I wonder why? Oh yeah, it got shut down. There used to be a space shuttle that could actually save the astronauts too, but it was retired. I just do not understand the goal behind it, sure they could save some money, or they could save some people. I also just find space an extremely dangerous place, and why we want explore it with actual people is far beyond me. All in all, I really do not think we should be out in space with humans, or any living being for that matter, until we have a safe and guaranteed method of retrieval for them.

Hashtag Yolo Right? Shoot Me for Saying It, but Read the Blog First

               This post is something off the normal basis, but still stays within the loosely termed realms, is all about video games. Specifically, with the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, the ones that give you free reign over the video game area. Although, it is usually these kinds of games that adults complain about that give kids ideas about killing and how it has no consequences in games. Not for so much longer, this person invented a new type of game that actually has consequences, called DayZ.

                The idea behind it is simple, and yet I find it ingenious, though also very annoying at points. This would be an online game, where people have to survive with other people, but once a person dies, he or she must completely restart the game, so if one person kills someone else, then that one person will just have the knowledge that he or she just ended someone’s life and that one person has to now completely start over from the beginning. It may not seem like much at first, but if the person has any morals left, I am sure it will kind of haunt them for a bit. This game does probably seem tedious to start a new game at first, but the purpose is so the person knows what it feels like starting all over and will probably think before killing next time. It is these games that are not exactly educational, but teach life lessons about the value of life, unlike many other games these days.

                I know what some of you are probably thinking, but if you are not, well you will be, “What about the people who go on killing sprees because they feel like it?” Well, if that happens, I am most certain that many of the players in the community will develop a hatred for him or her and eventually will take them down. The other option is, if the community does not start a hate chain against it first, the game creators will then take a copy of the avatar being played and return fire on them. This, I believe, would be traumatizing due to the fact that it would be oneself causing one’s demise. I can somewhat relate to the feeling of it. I believe it would be tantamount to break an arm or leg because of my own stupidity. An example from my life, though not as traumatic as it may seem but trust me that it was, is when I “forget” to study, okay more like didn’t want to, then knowing nothing on the test, and afterwards realizing it was I, not anyone else, that caused my own demise.

                This is a great video game idea, and I can only hope the players do not have a toxic personality towards each other, otherwise it may defeat the overall purpose of the game. It gives the meaning of life back to video games and is a refreshing twist on video game play styles in general.

3 Robots Walk in a Bar, Which Do You Feel Comfortable Around?

                Wow, I had always felt it would be really cool to have a personal robot to take care of my needs at any time of day. I mean, I never actually thought my parents would not actually give me one for my birthday, nor did I actually plan on buying a robot to use as a slave. Thus, I never really thought out any of the details for what my robot would look like. Well according to this group of scientists, who interviewed a bunch of different generations of people in a study that can be found here, determined that it really depends on what the robot is doing for you. The ranges of a robots looks ranged from completely robot to completely human, and another choice for a kind of a mix between the two types.

                Personally, I would definitely go for the completely robot look for every situation possible. This is because once I start using robots for work that I should do, I do not really have to feel that bad about it since the robot still has a foreign quality that does not remind me so much of another human. If the robot were to look like a complete human, it still makes me kind of worried that they probably could pass off as a regular human. So, when they take over the world and real humans must start fighting back, or you know, when they are forced to do all the work that humans are supposed to do, it would still invoke some problems in the more innocent people, because it would honestly be kind of like slavery again. Well that is my opinion, and that may be just because I am part of the “younger generation” the study was talking about.

                In this study, it was shown that many of the older people preferred to have human robots while the other younger group had preferred to have either a mixed face or a completely robotic thing. My reasoning for this, of course from my extensive education of high school history, is delved from many instances occurring in history, where the elder generation is less susceptible to change, and try to remain the same, just look at the French. Younger people, who have not gotten into a “normal” routine yet, are still very flexible with how the world is run. In a different brain study, it showed that younger brains are better equipped for learning. The age gap between generations could create much debate in the future, but so far it has not happened yet, and let us hope it stays that way.