Week 6 BioTech+Art

Just like Professor Vesna mentioned in Lecture The crossover between biotechnology + art is arguably more controversial thing in the science world and has been an ongoing discussion for years. biotechnology is helping develop technologies that help improve outlived and the health of our planet. This has helped us with our advancement of food products.  The technologies also help with to reduce the rate of infectious disease. In the article Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications by Ellen K. Levy “It is an improbable mix of animal, plant, and fungus—an anomaly that may exemplify some of the scientific and artistic developments taking place around us.” We don’t even know all the developments that are being made or have been made to make our lives easier. I for sure don’t. I never even thought about it before. I like how in lecture Professor Vesna talks about how Kathy High questions why we treat rats like are not important to our society. They have been key factors in understanding disease. We do so much of our testing on rats.


According to Understand Animal research “In the 1950s, after 40 years of research using mice, rats, and monkeys, polio vaccines were developed and used to treat the disease.”  If it wasn’t for the testing to these animals a vaccine for polio would have never been discovered.  Polio is a crippling and deadly disease. Since they can’t test vaccine son people they must test them on animals. So they are a big part of why we have vaccines.




 Reading the article Meaning of Participation: outlaw Biology was really interesting. I didn't know there was a thing about people doing BioHackers.  To make a purple strawberry would be extremely scary to see but at the same time so cool. 


References 
Levy, Ellen K. "Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications." (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. DESMA 9. Web. 14 May. 2017.

"Benefits." Polio vaccine | Understanding Animal Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2017


"What is Biotechnology?" BIO. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2017.

Commissioner, Office Of the. "FDA Basics - Why are animals used for testing medical products?" U S Food and Drug Administration Home Page. Office of the Commissioner, n.d. Web. 15 May 2017.

Meaning of Participation:outllaw Biology




    Comments

    1. SZTMay 16, 2017 at 1:24 PM

      The author makes a strong argument for the testing of vaccines on animals and I personally agree with her. Interestingly enough, the first vaccine which was created to combat rabies was first tested on a human subject instead of rats. The vaccine was created by Louis Pasteur, a French biologist, credited for being the father of vaccines. However, I feel the most important reason why rats are used instead of monkeys, is that despite monkeys being more genetically similar to humans than rats, rats are easier to breed and mass produce.

      ReplyDelete
    2. UnknownMay 18, 2017 at 12:01 AM

      I really enjoyed your blog post this week. Your first few points brought up an interesting thought to my head. You speak about technologies helping reduce the rate of infectious diseases, and I talk about genetically modified foods, and what's interesting to me is how they contradict one another. Looking more deeply into how our food is made, it's clear to see how unsafe it is for our bodies and how it's slowly breaking us all down. Yet when you look at all these tests on how to reduce diseases they are trying to expand our life span. It's cool to be able to look at somebody else's blog and collect so many more new thoughts than before.

      ReplyDelete

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