Interesting Facts

Trying to think of some good topics for the Biology Project worth 10% of the term, I'm doing some research to get an idea of what might be best. Instead of bookmarking everything, I'm going to be lazy and just copying and pasting them here on this blog. Check them out for yourself and maybe learn something you never knew before!


About Ants:
I was thinking of researching earwigs, not because I like them but because they freak the crap out of me and I know nothing about them, but when I looked on the websites even the pictures made me uneasy (they are right up there with spiders) so I switched to ants instead. I like ants. Individual ones I mean. For some reason when I see ants in large numbers I am frightened but an ant by itself I befriend. What I would really like to do is to get one of those ant colony kits and watch them that way but maybe I'll wait until I have my own place in Hamilton to do that haha.
http://www.lingolex.com/ants.htm
http://nature.ca/notebooks/english/ants.htm
http://home.att.net/~B-P.TRUSCIO/STRANGER.htm
http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/pes_carpenterants.shtml

About The New Discovery Of The Schizophrenia Gene:
I heard about this one this afternoon and was anxious to read it for myself. The thing to remember is that there are many different types of schizophrenia out there and so the gene for one type may be totally different from the gene for another type. Though the article appears to be pretty pessimistic about the whole thing, it's good because even though this is a major breakthrough it won't solve all problems and there is still much work and research to be done.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1229281.stm

Diagnosing Schizophrenia:
When reading the previous article, I saw some on the new theories of how to diagnose schizophrenia, since it's so complex it's hard to do. And the closer we get to figuring out what it is exactly and how to diagnose it, the closer we are to finding a cure!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1182065.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1119114.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1090669.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/817869.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/999816.stm

Living With Schizophrenia:
Then I found some articles talking about dealing with schizophrenia itself. Has no value towards the project but makes for a interesting and more personal read.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/621145.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/978425.stm

Nanotechnology And Cancer:
When I first heard about this in biology class towards the first of the semester, I was blown away. I had never even heard of nanotechnology and here it was, this amazing new field that just about blew my mind with the possibilities. I was half-thinking about doing this for the project but I probably won't, seeing as my teacher has already broached the subject.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4734507.stm
http://nano.cancer.gov/resource_center/nano_critical.asp
http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cancernet/400388.html

The Medicinal Value Of Laughter:
Yesterday when I was at Zellers I saw in the sale bin the dvd of Patch Adams, which is a wonderful movie (from what I remember). So of course because it was on sale I bought it and because it's the collector's edition one of the special features listed on the back was a documentary insipired by the movie by the same title as this heading. I didn't watch it but I thought it'd be neat to do some research for myself. Speaking of dvd's on sale, I've got to get to Futureshop tomorrow - in the flyer it says a two-disc version of Spiderman (the original) is on sale for $6.99!
http://www.isma.org.uk/stressnw/laughter.htm
http://www.umm.edu/features/laughter.htm
http://www.studentbmj.com/issues/03/09/editorials/308.php
http://www.happiness.co.uk/Content/InspirationRoom/Articles/DisplayArticle.asp?ArticleID=6
http://www.electronixwarehouse.com/humor/for-medicinal.htm


This project is starting to be a lot harder than I thought. Due next month, we are supposed to have at least three weeks of good research in. So far day two has become unsuccessful in even finding a topic to write on. But at least it's been interesting!