Letitia+Claybourn

=**WikiPost #1: How Science Can Build a Better Human Being (Body Systems)**=

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** Cathy Hutchinson was paralyzed by a stroke, however she recently drank a her first canister of coffee by herself using a prosthetic arm controlled by thought. This was possible by a device called Braingate (see picture one), a tiny bed of electrodes that are surgically implanted on to her motor cortex are connected to a computer by a wire. A team of neuroscientist from Brown University then asked Cathy Hutchinson to picture that she was moving her own arm to pick up the canister of coffee. As her neurons started to fire Braingate the metal command, sending the single through the wire to the computer to the prosthetic arm. Raising the first cup of coffee Cathy Hutchinson was able to drink on her own without the help of her aid in 15 years. **


 * Unfortunately Braingate has just barely worked on a handful of people and is still years away from actually being useful to anyone. Braingate is a type of technology that has the potential to change lives not only for people suffering from an impairment, but also for those without impairment. If you would like to know more about Cathy Hutchinson, click here.**




 * The Limbic System is a part of the brain where our emotions reside, where our memory starts and this is also the part of the brain where those two functions come together and give behaviors either a positive or negative feeling. There are four things located in the Limbic System. The Amygdala, which plays a large role in producing our emotions. The Hippocampus, which is all about memory and learning new things. The Hypothalamus, which controls many of the body's functions. The fourth thing located there is the Thalamus where most of the sensory signals pass through on their way to the brain. It also has a part in motor control. But we want to focus on the Hippocampus and the part it plays in memory.****Over the course of a couple of years during different lectures and talks Mr. Duncan has asked thousands of people the same hypothetical question, "I could offer you a pill that allowed your child to increase his or her memory by 25%, would you give it to them?" The show of hands showed that 80% of the parents said no. When he asked a follow up question of "What is this pill was sage and increased your kid's grades from a B average to an A average?" The parents all looked around nervously to see how the other parents were voting, which resulted in about 50% of the people voting yes and many parents did not vote atall. When he asked his final question, "And what is all the other kids are taking the pill?" All of the nervous looking around the room stopped and nearly 100% of people in the room had voted yes. If you would like to read more about what Mr. Dunca has to stay on this subject, click here. and if you would like to know about the different sections of the Limbic System, click here.**


 * Ekso Bionics is a engineering company that bilds first-generation exoskeletons where the goal is to allow patients with paralyzed legs to walk again. However, like most new technology it is still only in baby-steps phase. This summer Oscar Pistorius competed in the Olympics using the artificial half legs blades known as cheetahs. Neuroscientists are developing more advanced prosthetics that one day maybe be able to be operated from the brain via fiber optic lines embedded under the skin. Effectively making them react just like flesh and blood legs. If you would like to know more about Oscar Pistorius, click here.**

=**WikiPost #2: You Find That Cute? (Evolution)**=

**J****an.19th, 2013**
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 * Video: The Origins of Cute**

 **What is it about babies that make them just so darn cute? It's not even just human babies, we also find that puppies, kittens, ect... It is because as human beings we find a specific set of characteristics** ** to be very attractive; it is something that we just cannot help. These characteristics include large heads, large eyes, small mouths and small noses. Now the question you might be asking yourself is “Why do we find those specific things to be cute?” The answer to that question lies in evolution.If you want to know if babies are extremely cute to everyone, click here. [|If you want to know why baby animals are so cute, click here.] **


 * Darwin said that individuals of any given species will start to demonstrate a new trait if it aids them in survival and reaching sexually maturity. But how does evolutionary fitness have anything to do with how cute we find babies? According to Kurtland he suggest two different evolutionary theories as to why he believes that we find babies to me cute. The first theory is that a distant female ancestor was born with a slightly different genetic makeup, possibly due to a genetic mutation of her genes. This mutation caused her to prefer babies with the genes that we deem “cute”.**
 * The second theory is that the cuteness is more than skin deep, this theory is a lot like the first theory, however in this cause the mother prefers the babies who are cute because to her, they just look better. She passed on this preference to future generations so that infants that were deemed cute had an increased chance of survival and reproduction.**** [|To learn more about why babies are cute, click here.] **

media type="custom" key="21973276" width="160" height="160" align="left"**In the case of the second theory the infants don’t only look better, they are better from an evolutionary stand point. Kurtland believes that the infants who display these cute features may actually be healthier than those who do not; he also theorizes that they may become more sexually attractive as adults. Since the cute babies have grown up into sexually reproducing adults it cause them to pass on their own cute genes to future generations, leaving the non –cute babies who have grown up into adults who are capable of reproducing sexually to die off. Over the course of many generations only those expressing the “cuteness” gene were left to reproduce sexually. If you want to know if cute babies make for sexually attractive adults, click here.**

=**WikiPost #3: That's Really Sexy, Why is that Sexy? (Genetics)**=

**J****an.21th, 2013**
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 * Video: Why Sexy is So Sexy?**


 * [[image:http://img2-1.timeinc.net/people/i/2012/news/121126/channing-tatum-2-300.jpg width="233" height="315" align="right" caption="Sexiest Man Alive 2012- Channing Tatum"]]Have you ever looked at someone and thought to yourself “What makes that person attractive?” Roger Dobson has discovered that someone’s good looks and sexiness are determined before they are even born. The reason is that human being find bilateral symmetry to be very attractive, bilateral symmetry meaning that the features on both sides of the body are the same. People who do not have bilateral symmetry have something called fluctuating asymmetry which means that your features are unbalanced on one side of your body, therefore making you less attractive to the human eye. Scientists believe the reason that people who have fluctuating asymmetry is because they may have experienced some kind of traumatic event during early development which he/she was not forceful enough to endure; causing that person to become less attractive as a potential sexual partner. If you would like to know more about why symmetry is important for what humans find attractive, click here.To your right to can see a picture of Channing Tatum who was voted People's Sexiest Man Alive 2012. If you would like to know about the sexiest man alive 2012, Channing Tatum, click here to read the article.**


 * Body shape also plays a role in what we find attractive in a potential partner, more importantly the waist to hip ratio. Women with a waist to hip ratio of 0.7, which means the waist is considerably narrower than the hips, are most desirable to a man. However, in general a waist to hip ratio of 0.67 to 1.18 in females is attractive to men. However a study done in 2004 shows that a waist to hip ratio of 0.8 to 1.0 in men is attractive to women, although having broad shoulders is more of a turn-on. Where fat goes on your body is determined by your sex hormones; testosterone in men and estrogen in men, if a women produces the right amount and the right mixture of estrogen her waist to hip ratio should fall in between the desired range. The same goes for men and testosterone. [|If you would like to learn more about why Waist to Hip Ratio is attractive, click here.] **


 * Another way that humans pick potential mates is by a chemical singles called, otherwise known as pheromones, they have long been known to draw animals together within the same species. In experiments done with mine it is shown that pheromones act as something that draws males and females together, so long as they are genetically similar, expect that they prefer partners with a different kind of immune system than themselves. This difference is actually beneficially to the offspring because once you combine the two different major histocompatiblity complex it gives the child a better chance at fighting off infections. A study to see how sensitive women are to a male’s order, the test involved 49 women and 44 men and they were all selected for the mixture of major histocompatiblity complex gene types. The men were each given a white shirt to wear for two nights and then had to return it to the scientist. One by one the women to sniff seven of the boxes with the shirts inside of them and had to describe each odor on how pleasant and sexy it was. Over all the women preferred the scents of the shirts worn by men whose major histocompatiblity complex gene was different than their own. If you'd like to know more about this, click here.**


 * Humor is one trait that both men and woman look for in a partner, the difference being women loom for a man who is able to make them laugh and men look for a woman who can appreciate their sense of humor. An  evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque , Geoffery Miller, argues that humor is understood as a result of sexual selection. Women prefer funny men where as men learn to use humor to wit and attract a mate, as well as outsmart another man. Men use humor to compete with other men for a woman and women tend to use humor to bond with others. Women are more attracted to men who can make them laugh, so any male that is talking to a women and she keeps genuinely laughing at your jokes it means she is interested in dating you. Women it does not work the same way with men, if a man is laughing at your jokes and such he just finds you funny; there is no correlation of men who want to date women who make them laugh, however there is a correlation for women dating men who make them laugh. If you'd like to know more about why humor is sexy, click here. **