proposal-examples

Crack Baby Scare- Lack of Scientific Method ( synopsis/summary)

Sat, 04 Jan 2014 19:15:18 +0100

Synopsis:

In the 1980's, Dr. Ira Chasnoff began a study using 23 babies to develop his theory of the devastating effect crack cocaine had on in utero babies and new born babies.

In his study, he claimed that they were more likely to be premature, higher chances of newborn seizures, and much smaller newborn sizes as well as brain damage, lack of eye contact with their mothers and predicted decreased social abilities similar to that of Autism. The "crack babies" were "very shaky" and "tremulous".

In the 90's, Dr. Claire Coles refuted his evidence as socially irresponsible, especially since from the publishing of Chasnoffs studies, law enforcement was now taking the study out of context, using distorted information with inaccurate research to justify prosecuting pregnant addicts to the full extent of the law, many times charging them with child abuse and in some cases, attempted murder.

Studies have now shown that Chasnoff's studies were wrong in most ways because many of his "crack baby symptoms" were simply symptoms of pre-mature babies. Cole exerts that crack cocaine was not the leading cause of this problem, but rather substance abuse in itself, social issues and maternal behavior.

In 2000, Chasnoff retracted his previous statements and explained that the effects of crack cocaine on the babies was not in fact "devastating" and "could easily be reversed and helped for the mother and the baby with treatment".

30 years later we follow a "crack baby" as she leads a perfectly normal, fulfilling life and is even the first in her family to graduate from college.

Scare tactics and propaganda in the 80's blew an easily treatable problem into epic proportions, pulling attention from the real danger to in utero babies, alcohol.

Watch Video HERE.

Watch a Student Totally Nail Something About Women That I've been Trying to Articulate for 37 ...

Sat, 04 Jan 2014 18:41:10 +0100

Shrinking Women

Across from me at the kitchen table, my mother smiles over red wine that she drinks out of a measuring glass.

She says she doesn’t deprive herself,

but I’ve learned to find nuance in every movement of her fork.

In every crinkle in her brow as she offers me the uneaten pieces on her plate.

I’ve realized she only eats dinner when I suggest it.

I wonder what she does when I’m not there to do so.

Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return; it’s proportional.

As she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast.

She wanes while my father waxes. His stomach has grown round with wine, late nights, oysters, poetry. A new girlfriend who was overweight as a teenager, but my dad reports that now she’s “crazy about fruit.”

It was the same with his parents;

as my grandmother became frail and angular her husband swelled to red round cheeks, round stomach

and I wonder if my lineage is one of women shrinking

making space for the entrance of men into their lives

not knowing how to fill it back up once they leave.

I have been taught accommodation.

My brother never thinks before he speaks.

I have been taught to filter.

“How can anyone have a relationship to food?” He asks, laughing, as I eat the black bean soup I chose for its lack of carbs.

I want to tell say: we come from difference, Jonas,

you have been taught to grow out

I have been taught to grow in

you learned from our father how to emit, how to produce, to roll each thought off your tongue with confidence, you used to lose your voice every other week from shouting so much

I learned to absorb

I took lessons from our mother in creating space around myself

I learned to read the knots in her forehead while the guys went out for oysters

and I never meant to replicate her, but

spend enough time sitting across from someone and you pick up their habits

that’s why women in my family have been shrinking for decades.

We all learned it from each other, the way each generation taught the next how to knit

weaving silence in between the threads

which I can still feel as I walk through this ever-growing house,

skin itching,

picking up all the habits my mother has unwittingly dropped like bits of crumpled paper from her pocket on her countless trips from bedroom to kitchen to bedroom again,

Nights I hear her creep down to eat plain yogurt in the dark, a fugitive stealing calories to which she does not feel entitled.

Deciding how many bites is too many

How much space she deserves to occupy.

Watching the struggle I either mimic or hate her,

And I don’t want to do either anymore

but the burden of this house has followed me across the country

I asked five questions in genetics class today and all of them started with the word “sorry”.

I don’t know the requirements for the sociology major because I spent the entire meeting deciding whether or not I could have another piece of pizza

a circular obsession I never wanted but

inheritance is accidental

still staring at me with wine-stained lips from across the kitchen table.

-Lily Myers

Watch Lily with her slam poetry live HERE.

10 Reasons to Love Science ( Summary)

Sat, 04 Jan 2014 17:22:10 +0100

10 Reasons to Love Science

By Neil deGrasse Tyson

Adapted by Nicole Toro

I really wish that Science would get more media coverage don’t you? We as the general human collective have made exponential leaps and bounds in all branches of Science and Exploration in just the last few decades alone! Check out this amazing compilation on why YOU should love Science and watch the video to see these awesome things in action.

10) Did you know that if you wring out a water saturated cloth in a zero gravity atmosphere, the water basically just hangs out around the cloth, just floating. Amazing.

9) There is a super awesome deep-sea fish with a see-through head. You can see the lenses of its EYES…THROUGH its head. With 95% of the Earth’s Oceans yet to be explored, what other crazy fish things are out there?

8) The Northern Lights in Finland. Everyone should just automatically have this wondrous sight on their bucket list from birth. I mean really, the colors! Watch the video to check out some footage, but let’s be honest, you should just go ahead and buy a plane ticket…you leave tomorrow.

7) Liquid Oxygen can set things on fire… in mid-air. What??

6) Felix Baumgartner decided to casually fall off the edge of space to Earth, breaks the sound barrier in the process, and lives to tell the tale. Who needs to jump off that old bridge down by the creek when you can jump off SPACE?

5) Ever thought about maybe possibly visiting some distant Stars someday? Check out the Sagan Series: The Frontier is Everywhere and learn everything you could ever want to know about anything with Carl Sagan.

4) Welp, apparently Scientists have created a Cheetah robot that can (and will) run faster than Jamaican runner, Usain Bolt (lol a runner named Bolt). Fascinating creation I think, until they take over the world!

3) Quantum Levitation is a thing. Super conductors, magnetic fields…future flying cars?!

2) Anamorphic Illusions: darn it eyes! I totally thought that Rubik’s Cube was REAL!!

1) We all want to know what the PURPOSE of the universe is don’t we? Well I do, and Science is there to answer that question along with countless others. Number one reason to LOVE Science, it asks and answers the questions that haven’t even been thought of yet. Wrap your mind around that one.

Watch the video HERE.