Nyenhuis,+C.

=**__ Dynamic Equilibrium: Cocaine and the Affects on Your Body __**= Cocaine is one of the oldest drugs around. Ancient Incas in the Andes used to chew coca so that it left their hearts racing and to quicken their breathing so the affects of living on a mountain courter-acted them. Cocaine has a lot of street names, such as coke, blow and powder are the most common ones. Cocaine was really popular during the 1980's, and it is slowly becoming the drug of choice again for teenagers.

__Sigmund Freud__
Singmund Freud was a very important Psychoanalyst and still is in today's psychology world. Freud was the first to broadly promote cocaine as a method of curing depression and lack of sexual desire. Freud was a regular user of cocaine himself, and believed that the toxic dose of cocaine for humans was "very high" and there seemed to be "no lethal dose". Freud prescribed cocaine to his friends and his girlfriend, as well as patients. In 1884 he produced an article labeled 'Uber Coca' which went on to say all the benefits from using cocaine, calling it a magical substance. Contrary to Freud's belief, he ended up killing a patient who overdosed on cocaine, a prescription that Freud gave him. We still learn about Sigmund Freud today. We look closely at his work and admire his intelligence, even to this day. So if Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, did cocaine, what could be wrong with it?

__Short Term Effects of Cocaine on the Body__
We all know that cocaine is bad, but have we ever really taken the time to look more into it; why it is so bad? Cocaine can be used in almost everyday possible. It can be snorted, injected, swallowed, rubbed into your gums and smoked. The quicker way is to smoke cocaine, in this case, crack cocaine. It reaches your brain faster, causing the high to start within about 10-15 seconds. The short term effects are the normal drug usage ones, like dilated pupils, constricted blood vessels, etc. But with Cocaine, you can experience paranoia, Euphoria and an increased sex drive. It decreases your appetite and can cause restlessness. This sounds like a fun time, right?

__Long Term Effects of Cocaine on the Body__
Wrong. Cocaine can cause all sorts of long term health conditions such as convulsions/seizures, heart disease, heart attacks, lung problems and the list goes on with potential health risks. Cocaine isn't what it's made out to be. Sure the high might be fun while it lasts, but the more high you get, the quicker the high fades. You can get weird hallucinations such as "coke bugs". Coke bugs are where the person who has done coke can visually see bugs crawling out of their skin/ on their skin. Cocaine can all cause sudden death. Even if you've only used cocaine once, you can still die from an unexpected overdose. Cocaine is dangerous and is similar to playing Russian Roulette with your life.

__What Happens to the Brain__
Cocaine increases levels of the natural chemical messenger dopamine. Cocaine then makes the dopamine make more brain circuits to the parts that control pleasure and movement. Normally, the brain will release dopamine to potential rewarding factors, such as smelling food. After the reward factor is gone, the brain will recycle the dopamine back into the cell that released it, turning off the signal between the nerve cells. With cocaine, it prevents the dopamine from going through the recycling stage, causing excessive amounts to build up between the nerve cells. With all this dopamine lying about, it ultimately disturbs normal brain communication and causes a high.

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Further readings:
[] [] [] __ [|http://luxury.rehabs.com/cocaine-addiction/street-names-and-nicknames/#cocaine] __

__** References: **__
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=__ Evolution: The Evolution of Wild to Domesticated in Cats __= Humans and cats go way back: some studies suggest that humans domesticated cats nine thousand years ago. Other studies suggest that the domestication started five thousand years ago in China. Recent findings have suggested that cats were domesticated around twelve thousand years ago. Archeologists found a eight thousand year old jaw of a cat on the Island of Cyprus in 1983. In 2004, Archeologists uncovered a body buried with a cat that pushed the domestication date back at least another two thousand years. When humans were hunters, dogs were of great use, so we can assume that dogs were domesticated long before cats were. Once human population started to settle down, cats became of great use. Humans had a lot of mice running around, and cats were hungry. It was the perfect combination.

__Studies__
In 1950, a fur farm in Russia started breeding foxes in attempt to domesticate them. They chose the fox that was not timid, but also not violent. They chose the foxes that were not afraid. Within a few generations, the foxes were wagging their tails and licking the faces of humans, similar to dogs. With this adaptation, scientists also discovered changes in the genetics. The foxes adapted curly tails, floppy ears, lighter and patchy coats. With this evidence, scientists can assume that the favouring genetics for domestication favours these traits.



__**Cinnamon the** Cat__
In 2007, scientists tried to complete an analysis on a cat named Cinnamon, but the cat died before the analysis was complete. That did not stop Warren and the scientists that he was working with. They took a relook at Cinnamon's genome (and other domesticated cats), and compared it to that of a tiger and different types of animals, ie, dog. They found out that in domesticated cats, the gene for motivation and fear had had a strong evolutionary change. They found the changes were more in favour of the furry friends we can find in most homes. The changes in the genes created the house cats to be less shy and be more driven by awards.

__Single Gene Responsible?__
Scientists are still trying to figure out which genes are responsible for domestication. They have identified many similar genes in domesticated cats and dogs, but they are not critical for domestication. It's hard to pinpoint a single gene in this case. Where cats and even domestication started thousands of years ago, the evolution of the genes have created problems for discovery. As humans, we have learned how to domesticate rabbits quite recently. There has been studies on that, where they take a DNA sequence of a domesticated and a wild rabbit and compare them. They have no found any similarities. Leif Andresson, a geneticist at Uppsala University in Sweden, has purposed that there is no such thing as a domesticated gene.

**__How Natural Selection Took its Course__**
Wild cats and house cats aren't wildly different. Wild cats have slightly bigger brains, but in terms of their skeletal structure, they're nearly identical. The biggest difference between the two types of cats is their personalities. As I have previously mentioned, the two genes of motivation and fear have evolutionarily changed in between wild and domesticated. Because of this, house cats have more mutations to these genes, which is the reason why house cats are naturally smaller.

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=__**Further Readings:**__= [|https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071031172826.htm] Cinnamon the cat [|http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/domestic-cat/]-- domesticated cats [|http://www.pet-happy.com/when-and-why-were-cats-domesticated/]--- when and why they were domesticated [] -- whether or not cats are actually domesticated [] if we've domesticated cats before

=__References:__= http://www.livescience.com/48696-origins-of-cat-domestication.html http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/no-single-gene-responsible-animal-domestication [] [] []

Nov 30 =__**Genetics: Inbreds & genetic disorders**__= As a lot of us know, inbreds are animals (or people) whose parents are closely related. Whether they be cousins, siblings or even a parent and child, their children will be inbred. There are many defects that are caused by the parents of the infant that could potentially have repercussions in their DNA. There's more of a chance that the child will have a genetic disorder because of the lack of different DNA chromosomes.

__**Why it's frowned upon**__
Inbred-ness is looked down upon because we as humans think that breeding with close relatives, for a lack of better terms, is disgusting. But it still happens, sadly. Speaking from a scientific perspective, it's not a great thing to do because there's a greater chance that the child will have genetic disorders. Since it would be family mating with family, it does not give much room for different DNA. Typically, the mother and father give 23 different chromosomes each, making up 46 chromosomes total. What makes us unique individuals is that the 23 chromosomes from each parent are vastly different. There are only 23 chromosomes, so therefore you have 2 sets of different combinations. Everyone has five to ten different genetic disorders hidden within their DNA, but it is masked by the other copy of the chromosome. So when two siblings (for example) reproduce, their DNA is very similar making their child more apt to genetic disorders.



__Incestuous Ancestry__
Incestuous ancestry dates back as far as anyone has documented. Many families of royalty used this as common practice. Various Zimbabwe monarchy's participated in this act. Kings were extremely active in polygamy, and one King is said to have claimed over three thousand wives, his daughters and sisters being his favourites. Cleopatra VII, also had a run in with incest. She married both of her brothers in an attempt to keep the wealth and royal status for her family. This didn't work out to well for Cleo, because she ended up murdering both her brothers, and her sister. Her whole family practiced the glory of inbreeding, in fact, only six people filled the roles of her supposedly 16 great grand-parents. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "keep it in the family".

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__Inbreeding with Animals__
Inbreeding with animals is a very common thing. Many side effects can happen with the parents engaging this way. For example, my cat Ala was inbred. We got her from a shelter so we didn't know straight away. We started realizing something wasn't right when she was gaging on her food and was trying to regurgitate it but couldn't. We took her to the vet, and there they told us she was an inbred cat. Ala was diagnosed with //Esophageal Diverticula.// It was a rare genetic disorder caused by her parents being so closely related. Esophageal Diverticula basically means that there was a pocket/ pouch in her throat that was made up of stretched tissue pushing out on the muscle wall. When she ate, all the food she was supposed to be digesting resided in the pouch, causing her to choke whenever it was full. The vet told us that it is extremely painful for the animal to endure, and she had a zero chance of survival. She was going to die because of this genetic disorder. We started feeding her wet cat food on the vet's recommendation, and it worked for a while. I moved to Alberta, and that's where it stopped working. She started having her fits almost daily, each time with increasing pain. She couldn't walk, and she started suffocating because of the lack of oxygen being sent to her brain. I did the right thing, even though I loved her so much. I put her down at the age of seven months. When the foundation we got her from found out about her genetic mutation, they offered me a new cat or to pay for all the medical bills to put her through surgery. Surgery was only a 25% chance that she would get better, and I didn't want to put her through the pain if she was going to die anyway. Genetic disorders come in different varieties, and some can be okay to live with. Ala wasn't lucky in that respect.

Further Readings:
http://www.fauquierent.net/zenkersquestions.htm - Any questions on Esophageal Diverticula. http://www.livescience.com/2226-incest-taboo-nature.html - Information on incest and why it's not good. http://listverse.com/2014/05/22/10-incendiary-facts-about-incest/ - Cool factoids on Incest. http://www.medicaldaily.com/kissing-cousins-everything-you-didnt-want-know-about-incest-and-why-inbreeding-isnt-321650 Good read, still don't recommend.

Sources:
http://listverse.com/2014/11/26/10-royal-families-riddled-with-incest/ http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/genetics-inbreeding https://www.britannica.com/science/inbreeding https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Habsburg-Jaw-And-Other-Royal-Inbreeding-Deformities-and-Disorders http://allday.com/post/8176-inbreeding-ruined-these-royal-families/