"Well Its Not My Fault' - Every Kid Ever

      In the novel Frankenstein, Victor feels at fault for his role in the murder of William by The Creature.  He feels this way due to the fact that The Creature was of his creation.  This is a difficult situation to determine who is at fault. It is made even more difficult as Justine is blamed for the murder and put to death. This shows how determining who is at fault is often harder than previously thought.  
      Say, for example, that random stranger lones his broken airplane to his brother without warning him that the engine stalls at unknown increments while flying.  The end result in this situation is that his brother crashes the plane into a cliff and must climb to the top to survive.  That is all fine and dandy, but who is at fault? The brother crashed the plane, but random stranger knew the plane was broken.  In such a terrible situation as the one stated above, I believe that random stranger was at fault because he was fully aware of the consequences of allowing his brother to drive his plane.

Abort Mission!

Around this time last year, I joined a research group that had the goal of discovering different aspects of HIV/AIDS treatments.  When I came into the lab, there were already two students working on a project looking into the prevalence of a mutation that would make a person less susceptible to contracting HIV.  In order to see if a person has this mutation, we performed a PCR which synthetically makes DNA and then ran a gel. The people with the mutation will have an extra band that is physically visible to us.

The band that shows below the first band represents the mutation.

When our group began testing, we ran into a huge problem. The gels, which should have shown up as pretty and clean cut as the one picture above, showed up more like the one below.

This was a huge disappointment and the gels we ran continued to show up "blank" until just recently.  Overcoming this hurtle took nearly a hear, but was a huge accomplishment that gives me hope for the project in the future.

The Art of Exploration

People have always been curious of the unknown world around them. This curiosity is a wonderful intrinsic motivator in the exploration of all that is possible.  Exploration is not always a physical looking for answers, but a mental state in which the explorer looks into the way he/she perceives that which is around them.  When looking around actually occurs and others witness it, it is usually some sort of adventure that takes place. Trips to the New World or delving deep into the Amazonian rainforest are perfect examples. On the other hand, there is the mental exploration that takes place within the mind of every person that has ever walked the Earth. This way of looking inward has given society its backbone.  Without the desire of people to think of new and simple ways of completing tasks, society would not have the technology that it has today. Thus, both forms are of equal importance to the world and its many people. 

Devoting one’s self to discovery and advancements in, whether science or geography is a task requiring passion for the work being completed.  A person may want to do this simply because of love for the subject, while others may want to contribute to the greater good of society.  Helping others around the community and even world could be a huge underlying motive for contributions made to every form of exploration.

These passions for discovery makes having a social life difficult as those interested, are constantly looking for ways to improve what they already have accomplished. Building upon previously completed work is the foundation of all forms of discovery, therefore research must be done consistently to continue moving forward in the desired fields. Doing this would include working late and physical exhaustion from constant efforts.