Monday, November 4, 2013

Old English



Old English, though confusing to interpret, was recently introduced in my Ap English class. Reviewing the English Declaration and American Independence exposed us to the formal, elegant style that such documents deserve. Many words were tough to understand but as a group we were able to  make sense of them. By paraphrasing line by line each document and searching the definitions of unknown words our class was able to fully admire the composition and style of Old English as well as understand the statements being imposed. Old english demonstrates how languages change over time by adopting and adding new words into our language as the english that was spoken 500 years ago differ in diction, syntax, and pronunciation.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Government shutdown and health.

Although the new affordable health care opened october 1st, some health field will be shutting down. The National Institutes of Health will not perform clinical research on new patients and will not answer medical questions in their hotline. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention will also stop the flu program and will have limited capacity to attend outbreak investigations.  
Although the majority of the population blame the republicans for the shutdown, I don't think the blame game should be played right now when so many facilities, institutions and government related companies are shutting down which will harm not only the population but the economy. The new affordable health care program will allow many to purchase a health plan for cheap, but at what cost? Old age and disabled people as well as war veterans are not being supported by the government right now due to this shutdown. 

Consequences of a government shutdown

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Always being drunk without even drinking a sip of alcohol.

A 66 year old man appeared to always be drunk although he never took any alcohol. Sometimes his blood alcohol content would rise up to .40 which the average is around 0.08. Gut fermentation syndrome, which is what this man has, occurs when your gut turns anything you eat or drink into alcohol and although it is a rare syndrome, being drunk all the time can cause many problems in your life.
This type of syndrome is quite annoying as your body is basically forcing you to be drunk all the time. Since this syndrome is not widely known and many don't get it, there are no cures or treatments right now. 

Drunk


Monday, September 16, 2013

Smoking can lead to mood and anxiety disorders

Researchers from John Hopkins University have found a correlation between smoking and mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and depression. They believe that the nicotine from the cigarettes may change the nicotine receptors in the brain thus becoming less responsive to mood transmitters. Although this may be true, correlation does not necessarily mean causality.

Link