Blog Post #4

PART 1:

A new technique for determining what causes stem cells to change into other cell types could revolutionize our understanding of how genes function. This, scientists have been studying cell differentiation in order to use it to regrow human body parts and create a big change in medical revolution. However, not only the stem cells, our cells differentiate, too! This process is preceded when you’re only an embryo. How does cell differentiate if all the cells have the same, or similar, genetic information? Differentiation is the process where cells change in structure and become capable of carrying out specialized functions. Cells that are developing in a certain body parts “realizes” their surroundings, and this “turns off” some genetic instructions to fit into that environment, or the job that they’re assigned to. The same things happen to stem cells, which are “blank cells” that can specialize in a certain function when the body need a certain type of cell. The main advantage of having stem cells in living organisms is self regeneration, and without its ability, it is possible that we would be a blob of “things”, we would not even be a blob of flesh! An interesting fact about the relationship between the discovery of stem cell’s ability and today’s medical technology is that scientists have tried to rewire certain instructions given to the stem cells. For example, if a person lost part of his limb, and is recovering slowly, then it is possible that scientists can rewire many of the stem cells in his body to all specialize in a function which they will replace the parts of the lost limb! The discovery of cell differentiation might revolutionize the future  medical technology!

Part 2:

Cell Differentiation Research

Our cities become specialized in many ways. One particular attractive city is the Silicon Valley. In the Silicon Valley (SV) many jobs are provided because of  many foreigners and tourists to apply from. There are approximately 44,000 jobs created in the last year. According to the “Job Boom” article, Fremont and San Diego require fee called “residential impact fee” which then enters the fund for affordable housings. Therefore, this is an important action because there is not enough housing in the SV. There are consequences to SV being specialized, although. One example is, many people became poor due to the fact that housing is very expensive and families are separating because of financial reasons. Another reason, is that there so many people coming in the Valley that there isn’t enough money to pay each of them per hour. This means that if residents do not get paid the money they needed, then they would not be able to pay rent and that is why about 8,000 people(2,000 families) are living on the streets of Silicon Valley. The question now is, is this whole problem new? No, this problem of people not finding an affordable housing quickly is not new. 'Because we are poor and they are rich, and that's the way it is here.' says Ms Perez based on an article. Here in Mountain View all the way to San Jose, this problem of being poor and being in a rich family is not a new problem. Residents who are in the low class are treated very differently in our area. For low class families, they have low-income houses that look like normal high class houses because the government runs it and they have a decent amount of money to pay for things like that.  But if you were a family that still couldnt afford those low income houses, no one here in MV will be nice enough to let you pay for half the price. Either you take the house or live on the streets.

Part 3:

.It is clear that the city can learn how to multi-task from the cell. To build on this idea one person can be able to do many different jobs so if they pass by a problem, they can easily “transform” to the type of job or person that is best for that certain problem. For example, we can have police officers patrol with a certain amount of people and so when they pass by a house on fire, while one is calling the firefighters in that location the others can immediately come to the rescue! Basically, what I’m saying is one person can have their own main job, but they can do other jobs such as firefighters, police officers, doctor or paramedics, etc. Another lesson from the cell is that they can have more types of police officers. For instance, some could be a patroler, another can be a “B cell” or spy, and one more could be a soldier or “T cell”. Doing this would have a more organized department and can be able to protect easier. In addition, the city could learn how to react faster so they’ll be less crimes