Author: jones.6396

Khadejah’s Travel Journal

| jones.6396

  Day 1: Went to Charles Darwin’s house in London, had shepard’s pie at a local pub. Got yelled at by a british lady in her car on the bus. Enjoyed seeing Darwin’s garden. Went to more pubs at night and wondered around London. Went to a bookstore and got some interesting books.

 

 Day 2: Went to Kennsington Park and saw alot of great monuments. This one in particular was really great. Didn’t even know who Albert was. Had great food at the park. Love the freedom the british like to give their dogs. A lot of cute dogs and birds were great to see at the park aswell. Saw a fat pigeon.

 

Day 3: On the third day had alot of fun at Borough Market. A nice lady gave sold me a wheat grass smoothie while I was there. It tasted really bad but I was happy that she looked happy making it. I drunk a good amount of it. Also walked around London Bridge. The tower bridge was the best bridge we saw. Got to go up to the top of the tower and take a lot of selfies on it. They had a clear floor so you can take pictures of yourself laying down and you can see everything on the ground. Looked scary at first but it looked really cool. Also got a lot of souvenirs in the gift shop for my family. Also went to a cool retro looking ice cream place.

 

Day 4: Touch down in Paris! Got to see Notre Dame and try an actual Crepe made in Paris. I really loved the crepe with nutella, butter, and ice cream in it. Tried alot of other crepes afterwards too. Loved the architecture in Notre Dame. Had a very chill vibe, which is to be expected since it’s one of the more holier sights. Loved the glass windows on the inside and the beautiful statues as well. Also walked around with Caroline along the Rue De Monge which had amazing restaurants.

 

 Day 5: Went to the fossil museum and had a great time seeing the fossils. Looked very interesting considering the fact that I’m typically not a fossil person. Had very interesting structures. Almost fell a couple times in the secret garden because of the rain. Loved the mineral museum as well. Also went to the Louvre for the first time but had a hard time finding the Mona Lisa. A little disappointing when I found her but I thought everything else in the museum was amazing. Also went to an awesome fondue place with other people and LOVED the cheese.

 

 Day 6: Last day in Paris. Very sad but had a great time spending the day venturing out on my own. Wanted to go to a popular macaron place and buy some macarons. Didn’t know the Louvre and other important sights were right next to it! They blocked off a lot of important sights because of the protests and took me a while to get around a gate. Loved seeing my first lock bridge, very beautiful to see how much they value love in Paris. Then went to a mall district 30 minutes before the malls close. Went to this one place that I didn’t think was name brand but had a 300 euro jacket. I’ll come back when I make the money in a couple hundred years. Went to a McDonald’s to end the night, not the same as in America but still okay.

 

 

Douglas Kinghorn Presentation

| jones.6396

This presentation was pretty unique to me because I believe it was the only one so far that discussed plants and medicine in depth. I found it very interesting that 3/4 of the world’s population rely on plants as a resource of medicine. Also, more than 200,000 known compounds are found in vascular plants. I found it interesting to learn about the organic structures of plants as well and how they are used to make certain drugs. I also liked the fact that are speaker was able to travel the world and do what he loves for a living because that is something that I would love to do in the future.

Pasteur Discussion and Reflection

| jones.6396

It was interesting to hear all of Louis Pasteur’s contributions to science, one that really stands out to me is the sterilization technique that he used to eliminate germs in food because I never knew that there was a way to keep food clean but not lose it’s taste. I think one of his biggest accomplishments that made him very famous was his work on rabies which was considered to be a really strange disease during the early 1900’s. Louis Pasteur’s house in Arbois also looked very interesting on the inside and the outside. The outside looked very nice with plants around it and it was very interesting how he was able to build a laboratory in his own house and it looked more complex than I expected considering the time period. Overall I think this was a pretty interesting discussion about Louis Pasteur and his life and I think it really helped me understand the movie better.

Christopher Otter Presentation

| jones.6396

I think that this was a nice and informative presentation to help provide more insight on the aspects of the paradigm shift spinned in Kuhn’s book. I really like conceptual thinking so I think the history of past paradigm shifts and the discussion of how they disrupt other paradigms is very interesting because it corresponds to human nature a little bit. I also liked how we talked about what makes a fact a fact and that they are really just social constructs not truth. I also liked how we talked about the idea of anomalies and how they have to fit into the established paradigm or the vast majority won’t believe the theory.

Dr. Samir Mathur Presentation

| jones.6396

So far, I believe that this was one of the best presentations by a long shot. I find it really interesting to talk about the unknown and what we know so far. I really liked dissecting Steven Hawking’s loss of information theory as well. I think it’s so interesting to discuss how big the universe is and how much we don’t know that is beyond the tools we have today. I also enjoyed talking about a possible multiverse that exists. I really like talking about stars and space in general because we really don’t know how much is out there and we can’t do a lot of experiments out there because no human can live out there except for the moon.

Goldish Presentation

| jones.6396

What I liked most about this presentation is that it was centered around astronomy from the bit I could here when I was there. I thought the discussion of Copernicus’ model of the universe was very interesting. I did know previously that people used to think that everything was centered around the Earth. I also thought the Epicycles was a very interesting thing because I had no idea that the Earth moves slightly backwards when it would revolve.

Women in Science

| jones.6396

I think that this presentation for women in science was interesting and more eye opening for me at the same time. I liked learning about the various contributions that different women made in England and France. Elise Widdowson was a particular one  that stood out to me because I like food and hearing about how she self experimented by only eating cabbage and potatoes was very interesting to me. I really like those type of involved experiments. I really do respect the barriers that these women broke in science but I really would have liked to see more scientists who are women of color, especially black women because in the STEM field especially, they are very overlooked. I just think more representation matters and it helps for other minorities to see that as well.

John Cogan

| jones.6396

Overall, I thought this was a really interesting presentation and actually one of my favorites so far. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I am a chemistry major and I enjoy the subject in general but the points made about Lavoisier and Priestly were interesting to me. I found the concept of thinking about air as if we never made any discoveries on it to be a good concept to imagine. I loved how we talked about the different components of air and you spoke more about the combustion side of air which I like the most. Finding out that Priestly had tuberculosis was also very interesting to me because that really helps me grasp how his dabbling in air came about. Great presentation about ancient chemistry and how it’s evolved to different ideas.

Elisabeth Root

| jones.6396

Overall I think this was a really nice presentation because it informed me on how people study diseases and vaccines. I learned about Vaccine Efficacy which is calculated at different scales like worldwide and local. I also learned how Vaccine Efficacy is calculated and how different cultures have different outlooks on diseases. I also liked seeing different maps of how many people took the vaccine and didn’t get sick compared to people who did get sick. I really think it was nice to talk about the environment as well because that plays a huge role in disease as well.

Carol Anelli Charles Darwin Presentation

| jones.6396

History is very important in understanding the biology and discovery of multi cellular organisms especially when studying Darwin’s theory of evolution. Geology and natural theology played a very important role in Darwin’s work. As new advancements in technology continue, it strengthens Darwin’s theory even more which shows how strong of a foundation Darwin’s theory laid for us. Hutton introduced the rock cycle which is always constant and shows how the Earth is always changing. Fossils would be embedded in rocks in the Paris Basin which makes us question what happened overtime. In the times of the church hierarchy, geology and religion would often conflict with each other because of the idea that God created all living things and it is impossible for evolution to occur. The Paradigm of Natural Theology was very interesting to me because of how it used a basic watch to make the analogy that God’s creatures must have a designer like the watch had. I really like how much theology is linked to science because most people would consider theology to be a more abstract idea than science. Overall I think this was a really interesting presentation because I haven’t taken biology in a long time and it really helps to brush up on important scientists like Darwin that had such an influence on modern science. I also liked how we talked about Darwin’s upbringing and his relationship with his wife and children. He was a distant person at times and it shows how much of a thinker he was and how he was always curious about the world and I love when people are curious and go out and find the answers to their curiosities.