(Photo credits to Hanna Fenstermaker)

Hello once again!

This week, we were tasked with using one of the many Campus Resources provided to us by the university. Luckily, I have been attending an event put on by the Student Wellness Center and Recreational Sports since the beginning of the year! Every week at 7 PM at the North Rec, I have been attending a class called STRONG by Zumba. STRONG is a class designed to mix a fast paced interval workout with original music specifically engineered to each move. The entire routine is driven by the music, helping participants keep track of reps as well as have a little fun along the way. According to strong.zumba.com, those who participated in a STRONG by zumba class with music burned an average of 48 more calories than those who did the same class without music. I thought this was fascinating, but I’m honestly not surprised. I often feel the beat and music pushing me to jump a little bit higher or squat a little bit lower.

I’ve been attending this class every week with a few of my friends, and so far, we’ve loved it! I feel like zumba always gets a bad reputation since people always think of the old workout tapes from the 80s and 90s that we always see on tv. Now, I can’t attest as to whether regualr zumba class offered by the Student Wellness Center is anything like this, but Strong is much more of a traditional workout, just synced to some pump up music! We actually found out recently that STRONG by zumba is actually a fairly new class in general, not just at Ohio State. It only first came to be a few years ago and Ohio State has actually been one of the front runners in it’s growth.

This past Monday, I attended one of the STRONG by zumba classes held for only 45 minutes opposed to the normal hour long session held on Wednesdays. This version of the class was very similar to the hour long alternative other than the obvious fewer songs and fewer breaks. The main difference is that this class attempted to burn you out much faster than the other due to the shorter amount of time given to do so. It was also a nice change to have a little extra time afterwards to work on my homework afterwards.

My friends and I have even started forming a connection with the instructors of our class, Raina and Victoria, staying after to talk to them about zumba and how the whole STRONG system works. Essentially, the organization that runs the program releases a new set of choreography each month for the classes and the instructors pick a mixture of them for the class each week. This provides a lot of variety to the workouts, leaving some weeks barely able to walk back to the dorm, and others leaving me barely able to open the door. Overall, I would recommend STRONG by Zumba to anyone looking for a good cardio workout with a twist.

Hello once again!

This past week, I attended the “Mechanisms and specificity of Cas10 mediated interference” seminar given by Jack A. Dunkle, Ph. D.. Dunkle is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Alabama and is on a team that has been doing experiments regarding this topic. I decided to attend this seminar because of having an interest in genetics throughout my high school biology and chemistry classes. However, what I did not expect was to be completely out of my league with this topic. I had a basic understanding of how genetics and chemistry worked together before going to the seminar, and after leaving I think I may be more confused than before. It was very intimidating to enter a seminar such as this one filled with grad students and actual professionals, and even a little embarrassing once I realized that I had no idea what was going on. It helped to be there with two of my close friends, who were both able to comprehend more than me, but still lost on several topics. Having them there made me feel like it wasn’t a complete loss and pushed me to try and understand more than I actually could. Sadly, due to the intimidation and embarrassment I felt, I couldn’t force myself to talk to anyone there, which might have actually been for the better. I think if I had gone up to anyone at the seminar I would have had no clue what to talk about other than the few basic concepts I remembered from my Honors Biology class 3 years ago. Some of the concepts I was able to pick up on were ones such as chromatography, and a basic understanding of what Cas10 actually is.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Cas10 is a subset of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats technology, also known as CRISPR. CRISPR is a genome editing technology that is still in development via the bacteria it was discovered within. It has any potential uses further in it’s developmental stages, such as correcting genetic defects, treating and preventing the spread of diseases, and improving crops. CRISPR is usually known by it’s Cas9 system, but this seminar was over Cas10, which is similar to it’s counterpart but has a couple useful differences that are still being researched. It is hoped that Cas10 will be able to do everything Cas9 is capable of with the addition of identifying genetic sequences even if they include point mutations. From what I was able to understand, most of the seminar was about why Dunkle’s team believed Cas10 was able to do this, and that’s where I was lost.

I wouldn’t say that I believe this seminar was a waste of time, I just wish I could have listened to it at a later date with a better understanding of the concepts. I’m glad that I was able to go and think that, as an undergrad, it was enlightening as to the complexity of this field. Hopefully in the future I will be able to go back and read my notes on the discussion with a higher conceptual comprehension.