Friday, March 13, 2020

Free Essays on Stem Cells

What is morally correct when it comes to fetal tissue and human embryo research? In article â€Å"Nod to Fetal Tissue Research May Ignite Ethical Firestorm† by Tim Friend printed in the USA TODAY this question is addressed purposed. Researchers want to use â€Å"pre-embryo’s† to have as a source of stem cells. Is This any better, as a posed to the use of regular embryos? â€Å"The word pre-embryo is a false term† according to Judie Brown, president of the American Life League in Stafford, Va. She claims â€Å"An embryo is and embryo at fertilization, period!† Though, other people in this article do an excellent job at stating the opposing view. It says that a pre-embryo consists of a tiny ball of cells, that lack a nervous system and don’t contain any limps or organs. It would be depending on religious beliefs as to if this should be regarded as human life or not. Judy Brown added to this comment that â€Å"What they’re purposing is to take tiny babies, redefine them as scientific material and destroy them for the purpose of research and experimentation.† And it is because of concerns like those of Judy Brown’s that the Roslin Institute in Scotland (whic h responsible for the cloning of Dolly) was granted twenty million do! llars in the course of the next six years. It will use the money to try and find alternative methods. The goal is to create a procedure which be called reprogramming. This would be the ability of an egg cell to reprogram the DNA of an adult and react as if it we an embryo. If that attempt to find other methods fails then it would only be patients who wanted to be involved that would participate. â€Å"†¦this would involve that you, the patient, have control over.† It would only be people who wanted to donate embryos to improve their own health. This article was written so that a variety of audiences can read it and form their own opinions. There is medical terminology us by some of the researchers or... Free Essays on Stem Cells Free Essays on Stem Cells What is morally correct when it comes to fetal tissue and human embryo research? In article â€Å"Nod to Fetal Tissue Research May Ignite Ethical Firestorm† by Tim Friend printed in the USA TODAY this question is addressed purposed. Researchers want to use â€Å"pre-embryo’s† to have as a source of stem cells. Is This any better, as a posed to the use of regular embryos? â€Å"The word pre-embryo is a false term† according to Judie Brown, president of the American Life League in Stafford, Va. She claims â€Å"An embryo is and embryo at fertilization, period!† Though, other people in this article do an excellent job at stating the opposing view. It says that a pre-embryo consists of a tiny ball of cells, that lack a nervous system and don’t contain any limps or organs. It would be depending on religious beliefs as to if this should be regarded as human life or not. Judy Brown added to this comment that â€Å"What they’re purposing is to take tiny babies, redefine them as scientific material and destroy them for the purpose of research and experimentation.† And it is because of concerns like those of Judy Brown’s that the Roslin Institute in Scotland (whic h responsible for the cloning of Dolly) was granted twenty million do! llars in the course of the next six years. It will use the money to try and find alternative methods. The goal is to create a procedure which be called reprogramming. This would be the ability of an egg cell to reprogram the DNA of an adult and react as if it we an embryo. If that attempt to find other methods fails then it would only be patients who wanted to be involved that would participate. â€Å"†¦this would involve that you, the patient, have control over.† It would only be people who wanted to donate embryos to improve their own health. This article was written so that a variety of audiences can read it and form their own opinions. There is medical terminology us by some of the researchers or...

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Nothing Like the Sun (1964) by Anthony Burgess

Nothing Like the Sun (1964) by Anthony Burgess Anthony Burgess’s Nothing Like the Sun (1964) is a highly fascinating, albeit fictional, re-telling of Shakespeare’s love life. In 234 pages, Burgess manages to introduce his reader to a young Shakespeare developing into manhood and clumsily fumbling his way through his first sexual escapade with a woman, through Shakespeare’s long, famed (and contested) romance with Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and, ultimately, to Shakespeare’s final days, the establishment of The Globe theater, and Shakespeare’s romance with â€Å"The Dark Lady.†    Burgess has a command for language.  It is difficult not to be impressed and a little awed by his skill as a story-teller and an imagist.  While, in typical fashion, he does tend to break-off at points of leisurely prose into something more Gertrude Steine-like (stream of consciousness, for example), for the most part he keeps this novel in finely tuned form. This will be nothing new for readers of his best known work, A Clockwork Orange (1962). There is an exceptional arc to this story, which carries the reader from Shakespeare’s boyhood, to his death, with common characters interacting regularly and to an end result.  Even the minor characters, such as Wriothesley’s secretary, are well-established and easily identifiable, once they have been described.   Readers might also appreciate the references to other historical figures of the time and how they affected Shakespeare’s life and works. Christopher Marlowe, Lord Burghley, Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I, and â€Å"The University Wits† (Robert Greene, John Lyly, Thomas Nashe and George Peele) all appear in or are referenced throughout the novel. Their works (as well as works of the Classicists – Ovid, Virgil; and the early dramatists – Seneca, etc) are clearly defined in relation to their impact on Shakespeare’s own designs and interpretations.  This is highly informative and simultaneously entertaining. Many will enjoy being reminded of how these playwrights competed and worked together, of how Shakespeare was inspired, and by whom, and of how politics and the time period played an important role in the successes and failures of the players (Greene, for instance, died sickly and shamed; Marlowe hunted down as an atheist; Ben Jonson’s imprisoned for treasonous writing, and Nashe having escaped from England for the same).   That being said, Burgess takes much creative, though well-researched, license with Shakespeare’s life and the details of his relationship with various people.  For instance, while many scholars believe â€Å"The Rival Poet† of â€Å"The Fair Youth† sonnets to be either Chapman or Marlowe due to circumstances of fame, stature, and wealth (ego, essentially), Burgess breaks from the traditional interpretation of â€Å"The Rival Poet† to explore the possibility that Chapman was, in fact, a rival for Henry Wriothesley’s attention and affection and,  for this reason, Shakespeare became jealous and critical of Chapman.   Similarly, the ultimately under-established relationships between Shakespeare and Wriothesley, Shakespeare and â€Å"The Dark Lady† (or Lucy, in this novel), and Shakespeare and his wife, are all largely fictional.  While the novel’s general details, including historical happenings, political and religious tensions, and rivalries between the poets and the players are all well envisioned, readers must be careful not to mistake these details for fact.   The story is well written and enjoyable. It is also a fascinating glimpse at history of this particularly time period.   Burgess reminds the reader of many of the fears and prejudices of the time, and seems to be more critical of Elizabeth I than Shakespeare himself was.  It is easy to appreciate Burgess’s cleverness and subtlety, but also his openness and candor in terms of sexuality and taboo relationships.   Ultimately, Burgess wants to open the reader’s mind to the possibilities of what could have happened but is not often explored. We might compare Nothing Like the Sun to others in the â€Å"creative nonfiction† genre, such as Irving Stone’s Lust for Life (1934). When we do, we must concede the latter to be more honest to the facts as we know them, whereas the former is a bit more adventurous in scope.  Overall, Nothing Like the Sun is a highly informative, enjoyable read offering an interesting and valid perspective on Shakespeare’s life and times.