I found Dr. Samir Mathur’s presentation very informative. Prior to his presentation, my prior knowledge of what a black hole was that it is a  “black form in space.” I had no idea that a black hole is actually a star that has collapsed on itself. I now know that as the star begins to shrink in on itself, it’s gravity and pressure increases (due to the Pauli-exclusion Principle), it becomes a neutron star, and begins to spin very quickly. As the neutron star continues to shrink to a central point, its density is infinite; this is how black hole forms.

I also live under a rock and actually had no idea exactly what Stephen Hawking was famous for. I can remember my physic professor reading us a Steven Hawking quote, and thus assumed that he was a physicist. I now know that Stephen Hawking is famous for discovering that blackholes violate quantum mechanics and for supporting S. Chandrasekhar’s black hole theory.

In summary, I’m very thankful for Dr. Samir Mathur’s presentation because not only did he catch me up to speed on black holes, but he made me consider just how big our universe is. Like Bryson mentioned in our book, the universe is huge! For example, Dr. Samir Mathur’s taught us that each galaxy has about 100,000,000,000 stars (the size of our Sun). If there are 100,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy and many other galaxies in the universe, there’s a lot of space out there! It just helps you put into perspective how insignificant we really are in this big universe around us.

After hearing John’s talk, I honestly have been considering reading the books he talk about considering the discovery of oxygen. The best part of his talk I found the most useful not only for most people and our class specifically, was his thought exercises on, without knowledge of science, what would you find an intuitive explanation for the things around you.  It really shows how, difficult, the ideas of science really are and how they would probably never be excepted off the logic alone, and why we must really on experiments to show us the nature of reality. Almost convinced me that there had to be foul air in sealed containers, and how I’d probably be all for that explanation without my scientific background. The easiest questions seem to have the most complex answers.

I really liked Caroline’s talk on women in science. While the number of women in science during the period of, well, most of them, is tragically low due to the many efforts of people to prevent them, I was happily surprised and glad to see the women Caroline had found that still did it against all odds. I really liked the break down into the personal lives of these women, and how often they didn’t just break the norm in term of pursuing science. Not only more than their unique personalities, but also all the situations of the time. Learning that people made a living just, scooping up fossils at the beach is something I never would have thought of. Along with all the interesting marriages or other relationships they maintained to be in the position to do their science.

This was one of my favorite talks that I was able to attend due to being able to put the past more into perspective. What these scientists were doing was insane and going against what everyone believes to be true. I like the exercise where we had to try and explain what air and oxygen were like we didn’t already know it existed. When putting myself in the general publics’ shoes when a scientist tried to explain this concept I would have been so confused and probably would have dismissed it at first. It makes senes now because the reason why we breathe is to get oxygen into our bodies, but if I believe my whole life that there was no such thing as air with all of these gases in it I would have been mind blown. It is truly amazing to see how far we have become as a society on how much we have learned, and it is crazy to think that we have truly only touched the surface. In class, I wondered how students years from now will be learning about our generation’s innovations and discoveries and they might look at them the same way we looked at the past with this notion of how did you not know that? But if you spent your whole life learning that this was the way it is and then all of a sudden someone is combating your beliefs, it would be hard to get on board.

When listening to Dr. Alber go more in-depth with Pasteur it made me reflect more on the movie we watched that previous Sunday. While most of the movie was accurate, she was able to go more in-depth on what parts were accurate and what other parts were a little bit far fetched. I also really appreciated her opinions on someone being considered a genius. I feel like our generation has such easy access to education now that it is hard to differentiate each of us. Our view is more based on the effort and hard work you put into your education and innovation rather than just being a pure genius. While I do believe that there are people who are geniuses if they don’t have the work ethic to use their abilities than it could go to waste. Back when people were truly innovating the concepts were completely insane to grasp. The fact that in order to test his theory Paseur literally injected a vaccine into a young child before testing the product. If this went south than he would have been sentenced to death. If that would have happened today, Pasteur I believe if caught would have immediately put in jail if not given permission.

I sadly wasn’t able to make the Carol Anelli talk/presentation but I instead spent time research a little bit about her. When I researched more into Carol I saw that she was apart of the Department of Entomology. To be honest I had no idea what that meant so I dug a little bit into that. Entomology is a branch of zoology that focuses on insects. In order to get the full experience, I found a video of a Q & A session that involved Carol Anelli titled “The Intersection of Faith and Evolution”. I loved Carol’s thought process on the fact that the general public especially students should understand evolution and how we have grown. By having greek mythology/natural thought of science, to the renaissance scientist thought, to today. The quote that stood out most to me was when she said “science advances only when great and curious minds are allowed to pursue it”. This quote stuck to me because this has been a very big topic in our discussions about different scientists and innovators throughout history. Whether it be an ethical dilemma, not having enough money, or not having the same privilege of getting an education if we allow great and curious minds to flourish then they can change the world as we know it. I chose this study abroad because it is completely out of my comfort zone and I wanted to be more aware of past and current scientists that have truly made the world the place it is today. Being a business major we aren’t really exposed to the past but really only what’s next to come, and this class has given me a better perspective on respecting the past and building the future on the accomplishments of the ones before us.

I really liked the fact that we were able to explore a part of the campus that I have always heard was full of fascinating things, but I just never have gotten the time to go. Dale was so enthusiastic about his work and you could truly see his passion and desire to teach by the way he talked to use. What stood out to me the most during our visit was when he brought all of the different creatures that lived in Ohio and the United States. Being able to see the mammoth tooth up close and getting to see the ridges in the teeth were amazing. I never truly understood how such large creature ate only grass like foods but seeing how the groves and edges along the tooth can grind it up much easier was really awesome to see up close. I also loved all of the pictures of him putting students near fossils in order to get a size perspective over just getting a picture for the student. Overall great guy and a great experience.

I think medicinal plants often have a negative reputation. The general public commonly associates medicinal plants with marijuana, cocaine, or opium. As Dr. Kinghorn pointed out there are many other types of plants that are used all over the world in traditional medicine. However, one thing I found interesting was that components from the same plant that creates cocaine, is currently approved by the FDA as a local anesthesia. Another fact that I was previously unaware of, was that the FDA is hesitant about certain medicines if they create an euphoric effect. I was also unaware of the high turn-over at the FDA, that was leading to policies regarding CBD, not being enforced. Throughout Dr. Kinghorn’s presentation, I noticed that there is a large gap between the general public and the scientific community where medicinal plants are concerned. I think this lack of communication and difference in knowledge, reinforces misconceptions that the general public may have. It also allows companies to take advantage of this lack of information to sell more products.