Most know that our justice system is a little...tricky, but little know the full force of this system. This podcast tells the story of four teenagers who spent 15 years behind bars for a crime they didn't commit. Thanks to the evolution of DNA evidence and analysis, these teenagers now walk free from being wrongly convicted.
Here's the story: In 1986, Lori Roscetti was raped and killed in Chicago. 1986 carried an extremely high crime rate, with 284 other murders through out the year. Mostly because Roscetti was a white female killed in a black neighborhood, her murder case became highlighted in the media as a hate crime. This fact played a part in the wrong conviction because there were loads of pressure to get the killer convicted quickly. When you aim for speed rather than accuracy, mistakes happen, and four boys had to pay that unfortunate price. In a rush to appease the media, police dragged in four boys with previous criminal records and tricked them into saying they were involved with the Lori Roscetti case. The profile that an analyst compiled of the crime scene turned into the "confession" from the four suspected boys. From there, police tricked a suspect to become a witness and struck a deal to get the other suspects convicted. The media was convinced, the world was convinced, and the judge was convinced that these boys were guilty. 15 years into being locked up, The Innocence Project was discovered. The Innocence Project is used to exonerate people who were wrongly convicted by testing post-conviction DNA. Now that DNA evidence can be analyzed and tested against the suspects, it is a fool-proof way of convicting the correct killer. In the end, The Innocence Project saved these boys from life in prison, and two males confessed to the crime shortly afterwards.
After listening to this podcast, I had very mixed feelings towards our justice system. On one hand, I was infuriated that the police could manipulate people so far that they could convict someone without real evidence. On the other hand, I was grateful to hear that many trials without hard evidence are being reevaluated and are testing DNA to catch the true killer. All in all, I understand how much power our justice system holds, and how it can manipulate all of us. However, with the addition of DNA analysis, I feel this system is being refined and improved, and I am exceedingly glad I live in the twenty-first century.
To listen to this podcast, click here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/210/perfect-evidence
To research The Innocence Project, click here:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
TED Talk- Can We Eat to Starve Cancer?
I know, I know. Big words here. However, with those big words could possibly come big answers. This TED talk, Can We Eat to Starve Cancer?, explores the idea that the cure to cancer could be in a process called anti-angiogenesis, and that cure can be see in the food on our plates.
"Imagine that one medical advancement held the promise to conquer cancer, perhaps within your lifetime … the potential to also end more than 70 of life's most threatening conditions, affecting one billion people worldwide. This is the promise of angiogenesis, the first medical revolution of the 21st century." --William Li
Angiogenesis is the development of new blood vessels. Blood vessels don't normally grow in adults except in three cases: to form the placenta, to form the lining of the uterus, and to grow under scabs to heal wounds. When there is a fault in angiogenesis, big health issues arise. An example of angiogenesis out of balance is when the body is unable to produce enough blood vessels in the right place at the right time, or is creating too many blood vessels that can feed tumors. If too little are produced, problems such as wounds that don't heal, heart attacks, strokes, and nerve damage arise. If too many are created, problems like blindness, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer arise. Cancer was the focal point of this talk because cancer is a hallmark of angiogenesis out of balance and because the common factor between ALL types of cancer is problems with angiogenesis.
"Imagine that one medical advancement held the promise to conquer cancer, perhaps within your lifetime … the potential to also end more than 70 of life's most threatening conditions, affecting one billion people worldwide. This is the promise of angiogenesis, the first medical revolution of the 21st century." --William Li
Angiogenesis is the development of new blood vessels. Blood vessels don't normally grow in adults except in three cases: to form the placenta, to form the lining of the uterus, and to grow under scabs to heal wounds. When there is a fault in angiogenesis, big health issues arise. An example of angiogenesis out of balance is when the body is unable to produce enough blood vessels in the right place at the right time, or is creating too many blood vessels that can feed tumors. If too little are produced, problems such as wounds that don't heal, heart attacks, strokes, and nerve damage arise. If too many are created, problems like blindness, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer arise. Cancer was the focal point of this talk because cancer is a hallmark of angiogenesis out of balance and because the common factor between ALL types of cancer is problems with angiogenesis.
Anti-angiogenesis helps patients restore the balance of their blood vessels by targeting the blood vessels that feed a tumor. Experimental medicines with anti-angiogenic treatments have been created and tested through people and animals. The results have been remarkable, and in some types of cancer the life expectancy has more than doubled. Anti-angiogenic therapy has had remarkable results, but the problems is that results were not always consistent. Li answered that this was because they were trying to treat cancer too late in the game. The cancer had already formed and they were simply trying to ward it off. With this, Li went into researching how to get cancer to not form in the first place. Surprisingly, he found that certain foods have anti-angiogenic factors, and by eating those foods, we can keep cancer at bay. Varieties of foods and spices with seemingly no similar factors have been found to have anti-angiogenic properties and can aid in preventing cancer.
This TED talk was extremely interesting to me and left me yearning to learn more about cancer. I loved the idea of a new, less painful treatment for cancer, but the effectiveness of this cure was debatable. Why did anti-angiogenic treatments work remarkably in some cases and not at all in others? Why do some foods have anti-angiogenic properties and others don't? Lots of questions remain unanswered from this talk, but one thing remains clear: the cure for cancer is on the horizon.
To watch this TED talk, click here:
To see a list of anti-angiogenic foods click here:
To learn more about eating to defeat cancer, click here:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)