Reaction on the Radio Programme: Dr. Hans Keirstead’s stem cell research

The radio Program we listened was about a research on Stem Cells which have the capacity of becoming any type of cell and by this, replace any cell in the body that is destroyed.
Dr. Hans Keirstead discovered how stem cells can help human beings. He first injected it to paralyzed rats and six months later, they started to move. So he realized the importance of the use of stem cells to treat human diseases. It could help long term paralyzed people, and can cure heart diseases, Diabetes, Alzheimer and every single disease. To treat them, it would be necessary to inject 20 million of these cells into a human body.
Stem cells replace the damaged cells and wrap themselves in the spinal cord, making able for the paralyzed person to walk again.
This process of injecting stem cells to human beings has been very controversial, because it involves the destruction of embryos so it has a strong criticism from the scientific community and also from President Bush who opposes to the killing of embryos because as he says, there is life in those embryos. But another group of people is in favor of the development made with stem cells like the California vote. They wanted to build a laboratory with supplies so that it can improve. Dr. Keirstead said that life must not be thrown away. If we have life, we must use it.
I think that this discovery is very useful because it is a new way of treating diseases and it is very powerful as it can cure everything. It has a grate advantage and there is a great hope for old people. But we must think that there is also a life in the middle. An embryo, even though it’s not mature, it’s a life, a persons life. It does not mean that because it’s not mature enough to talk it doesn’t have the same right of living as we have.
Although it has a lot of advantages, I think that they should keep on investigating and find the way of having the same results without killing embryos.

1º Reaction on Fahrenheit 451

One thing that I like from the book is the fact that the author criticizes many times the problem with society; a non-educated society where the government can impose anything and people obey.

An example of this is Mildred, she represents society. When she is with the script, talking to Montag, we can see that it is describing a consumer society, very empty. And at the same time, when Montag listens to one of Clarisse’s relatives talking about society also, it’s a perfect example of the criticism I was making reference to. “This is the age of the disposable tissue”, where you use something if it benefits you and then, you throw it away. A very selfish attitude, where they don’t notice the other person, but just use them for their own benefit.

This is the perfect type of society governors want: people who are selfish, who do not care about other person’s life, without own thoughts, without apprenticeship or education, so they can control them.

I think this topic in the book is really important because it is happening now, in our own country, where people (who are a considerable part of our society) does not have resources to have a proper education and as a result they are highly manipulated by powerful people. And we are part from that society, but luckily we can achieve to something more and it is not in us to change this situation, it has to come form our governors and mostly from those people’s eager to change and improve their situations. Otherwise, we would eternally have this problem and it has more and more bad consequences each day.

What we can do is just to be grateful and take advantage from what we have.