Brian Vu - "David Griffin on how photography connects us"

I watched the TED talk titled “David Griffin on how photography connects us.” The speaker is the director of photography for National Geographic magazine. He talks about how photographs have the unique ability to portray information and emotions and to move people in positive ways, all without saying a single word. First, he shows iconic masterpieces taken by professionals at the peak of their career, but explains that not only professionals take mesmerizing photos. Amateurs, too, can take great photos, as witnessed by the picture of the comet. Griffin reveals that being a photojournalist demands that the photographer take photos that poetically tell stories all the time. He proceeds to describe how a photographer set up camera traps to capture various animals in their natural behavior as they passed along the automatic cameras. The pictures included exotic animals in secluded locales. Such animals included elephants, the pride of Africa herself. A photojournalist along with a doctor followed a herd of elephants, normally protected within park grounds. But when the elephants left the confines of the sanctuary to other feeding grounds, they would fall victim to poachers. The matriarch of the herd, named Annie, along with 20 other members, was found killed and stripped of their tusks. A series of disturbing images of deceased elephants and park rangers displaying captured tusks would invoke a sense of interspecific empathy from an audience. Another National Geographic photojournalist traveled to rural India to narrate the intricate cycles of life and death and to depict the enduring human spirit in the rural community itself solely through pictures. A series of moving photos documents the journey a wounded soldier from the front lines in Iraq to recuperation in German hospital, and finally to the reincorporation into their previously active lives. Photojournalists not only show the bittersweet beauty of the world, but they also portray the various environmental and social issues that currently plague the planet.

David Griffin is the Director of Photography of National Geographic magazine headquartered in Washington, DC. He is responsible for the overall photographic direction of the magazine, working with a staff of photo editors and photographers from around the globe. Previously he was the Creative Director of U.S.News & World Report, Design Director of National Geographic Books, Associate Director of Layout & Design at National Geographic magazine. David has been honored by the National Press Photographer Assoc., University of Missouri’s Pictures of the Year competition, Assoc. of Magazine Publishers, Ohio Newspaper Photographer Assoc., the Hearst Collegiate Photojournalism Awards, the Washington Art Directors Club, the Society of Newspaper Design, Print, and Communications Art.

Photographs emulate the way that our mind freezes a significant moment. Being that we process this information in different perspectives, resulting in different interpretations, photos also depend on the right timing to portray the intended information. Photos have always fascinated me, and one of the most important reasons why is that they are of something definite and objective, yet they are still subjective to the viewer. I am attending UC Davis this coming fall, majoring in wildlife, fish, and conservation biology. I desire to learn more about the intricate complexities of life on this planet and their struggles at adapting to a constantly competitive biosphere. I would also like to involve myself in photojournalism, for my dream is to work for National Geographic as a biologist and a photographer. Much of this epitomizes my reasons for wanting to become a photojournalist. I do not desire to change the world drastically. I intend to be a simple messenger that delivers a complex message imbibed with the fantasy of emotions and the starkness of reality to an audience, and my medium is a complex union between science and art.

Dennis Hong: My seven species of robot

Evan McMahon

http://www.ted.com/talks/dennis_hong_my_seven_species_of_robot.html

This Ted talk is about engineering different kinds of robots and allowing them to have different types of motion. The work for this ted talk is based out of RoMeLa, which is a robotics lab based in Virgina. Dennis Hong is the speaker for this Ted talk and he describes seven different types of robots the lab is working on today. The first robot they are working on is called the Strider robot, which is a robot that has three legs and rotates around an axis. This robot’s movement is modeled to represent the way a pendulum moves. The second robot that they are working on is called the Impass robot, which is a wheeled like robot. In creating this one, Dennis Hong says they are basically reinventing the wheel. The interesting this about this robot is that it uses a laser range finder to calculate its necessary motions to move through obstacles. In the video, this robot climbs up a wall that is three times the size of itself. The third robot that is show in this video is called CLIMBeR which stands for cable-suspended limbed intelligent matching behavior robot. This robot was inspired by space mission where we have sent robots to scout out mars to give us video footage, but they are turned away when they have a cliff to get over or down. This robot is intended to have the ability to climb these cliffs. The next robot is called Mars, which stands for Multi-appendage robotic system. The cool thing about this robot is that they take it out to the beach and make it walk in different types of sand. This robot adapts to different environment by changing its foot soil sinkage model. Another thing that this lab is experimenting with is whole skin locomotion. This is inspired by amebiod mortality mechanism. In this, movement is created by storing potential energy in an elastic skin, then releasing it to cause motion. RAPHaEL stands for robotic air powered hand with elastic ligaments. This is a robotic hand that uses compressed air instead of robotic motors to cause movement. Most artificial hands cost thousands of dollars, but what makes this model revolutionary is that it only costs $200 to make the prototype. The sixth robot is the HyDRAS. This stands for hyper degrees of freedom robotic articulated serpentine and is a snake like robot that allows for user interface by creating motion with the use of fiber optics. The seventh and final robot is called DARwIn which stands for Dynamic Anthropomorphic robot with intelligence. This robot is modeled after actual human beings and posses artificial intelligence. I am very interest in the engineering field and what really spikes my interest is that they actually are modeling robots now after humans. I find it very interesting that there are all these different ways to create motion artificially. I think it is especially relevant to me because I obviously haven’t had the ability to experience natural human motion for the past five months. Dennis Hong is the founder of the robotics lab RoMeLa in Virginia. He has been at the forefront of many breakthroughs in robotic design and engineering. He initially got his education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he got his B.S. in mechanical engineering. He then got his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Purdue. Before he founded RoMeLa in 2003 he taught engineering classes at Purdue. I believe that the main characteristic of Dr. Hong is that he is extremely creative. His creativity are what provide him with a platform to come up with the innovative ideas that he has. He says in his Ted Talk that the inspiration he has for these robots literally comes to him in dreams he has. In order to create a robot like the RoMeLa lab does, you need to be able to step back and think outside the box. Dr. Hong does this and that is what has made him so successful in this field. I found that this Ted Talk was extremely interesting and had some points that were relevant to what I what to do in the future. I have always been very interested in the medical profession, except without the whole actually working with people thing. That is why I became interesting in the actually technology used in the medical profession. What pushed me into deciding to choose an engineering major is that I am really fascinated with robotic limbs. I plan to study engineering at UCSC next year and then I hope to move on to get my Masters in engineering as well. I want my career to have something to do with creating a better robotic limb to more accurately mimic how limbs really work. Something that inspired this is seeing people on t.v. participating in sporting events with the weird curved hook-like artificial leg that allows for people with amputated legs to walk again. I think it’s great that this provides the ability to walk again, but I think the hook leg sort of looks funny and would love to create a robotic-artificial leg that actually looks like a normal leg (with toes and what not). Overall, I found this Ted Talk very interesting and it has really led me to become excited in my future education.

Sheryll WuDunn and the Power of Women

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_wudunn_our_century_s_greatest_injustice.html

Sheryl WuDunn is a third generation Chinese American who grew up in New York City. After graduating from Cornell with a Bachelor’s in European History, she went on to earn her MBS from Harvard and an MPA from Princeton. She married reporter Nicholas Kristoff and eventually worked for The New York Times. She and her husband have been correspondents in China and have co-written books, including the one mentioned in the TED Talk, Half the Sky. She is a senior banker and is largely involved with working with women entrepreneurs and working along the lines of alternative energy issues. While working for The New York Times, she reported from North Korea, Australia, Burma, Beijing, Tokyo, and the Philippines. She has been recognized multiple times with prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize (which made her and her husband the first married couple to ever receive the Pulitzer for journalism along with making her the first Asian American to claim the Pulitzer Prize), the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and being listed by Newsweek as one of the 150 Women who “Shake the World.”

In the TED talk, she spoke about the two tenets presented in her most recent novel. The first tenet is that of gender inequity. She presented several different surprising facts. For instance, in the Western World, where men and women are equally provided with relatively stable health care and food, there are more women, and they live longer. However, in other parts of the world, demographers have shown that anywhere from 60 to 100 million females are missing in the current population. This is a result of several different things. In some places, female fetuses are aborted after seeing the gender in sonograms. And more scarily, in the last half-century, more females were discriminated to death than all the people killed in battlefields during the 20^th century.

The second tenet of her book and of the TED talk subject is that by providing women with education and access to the labor force, the terrible cycle of poverty and of oppression can stop. What she explains is that women should no longer be considered a problem in cultures but rather looked at as solutions. She quoted Bill Gates to have explained to a gender separated crowd in Saudi Arabia that further technological advance would be impossible if “half of the resources weren’t being utilized.” Sheryl then went on to relay several stories of different females across the globe that were able to transition into a more virtuous cycle but also beneficially affect their environments as well. In these stories, some women took amounts of mere 65 to 130 dollars and changed their entire lives along with the lives of those around them. The TED talk then ended with the idea that we as the audience have scored on the lottery of life. And while being able to afford the basic essentials, there are few things that can actually permanently elevate our happiness. One of such things is that of contributing to a cause larger than ourselves to benefit others indefinitely. Thus, it becomes our responsibility not only to attain stability for ourselves but to also later on help stabilize others.

In a matter of months, I will be attending Santa Clara University. When people ask me about my major, I can most often muster enough will power to say, “Undeclared.” But that’s exactly what I am. I’ve been undecided about the entire idea of what my future is for a good majority of my life. It’s most often come down to medicine or law which are two things relatively separated on the spectrum of career. That is, unless I reform health care or something ridiculously phenomenal. However, reflecting on all of it, it ultimately comes down to whether or not I’ll be able to help people benefit from my profession. With my want and need to continuously help the Philippines develop, I’ve constantly debated whether or not my path of choice at the moment was good …because in the end, if I, myself, cannot succeed, how on earth could I possibly help others? But that also comes with the question and debate of what wealth I’d measure myself in. Money? Smiles? Fed children? Happiness? It’s like what Sheryl WuDunn said in the TED Talk. Once we’re stable individual units, we should seek to stabilize the entire unit through our actions. That would not only bring us happiness but everyone else as well. While visiting Boston University, the Dean had an open conversation with us about what we would measure happiness in. GDP? How many songs we sang each day? How many poems we wrote down in our Moleskins? Or how sure we were that everyone in the country had a bed to sleep in at night? I can’t give the equation for what would give me ultimate happiness. There are so many questions that I honestly cannot possibly give a definite answer to right now.

"Sometimes our expectations are betrayed by the numbers, variables are impossible to assign a rational value." Brownie points if anybody knows the movie reference. But I didn’t expect to end up at Santa Clara University. In truth, it was far away from my first choice. But when it came down to it, the idea of being practical and possibly benefiting my little brother’s education with a full ride at a really good college was something I couldn’t turn down. Not even for a school that I was in love with like BU. But who knows, maybe all that saved up money can go to grad school for me later on. And maybe one day I’ll be able to sing that Augustana song loudly in my car knowing that when “she says I think I’ll go to Boston,” it’ll be true. But maybe that time around, it’ll actually be Cambridge and an itty bitty school called Harvard. I’m actually really ambitious…along with being really indecisive ;)

Medical Miracle on Everest

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_kamler_medical_miracle_on_everest.html

So the TED talk I watched was by Ken Kalmer. In the video he explains his incredible journey to Mt. Everest which is 29,305 feet high. On Mt. Everest temperatures can be 40 degrees below zero on the summit. Though this was his 4th time out of 6 journeying to the mountain, it was definitely the most significant for him. While he was there he served as a medical officer to assist those battling the extreme conditions on the mountain. In his visit to Everest, there were a couple of climbers who had gone missing due to an incredibly fierce storm towards the summit. One climber which should have died, was able to survive three days buried beneath the snow through the power of his mind. Through self motivation he was able to basically reverse hypothermia in his body and get up through tremendous circumstances. This TED talk really interested me because I am truly interested in science and ways to help those medically injured and hindered. The power of the brain shown in this talk really makes me interested in learning about how we can use this great power to help people in the future. I don’t necessarily want to become a doctor, but I do want help people using my knowledge of science with my job in the future.

Kalmer specializes in microsurgery. He trained at Columbian Presbyterian Medical Center (for microsurgery) and also practices extreme medicine in remote locations around the world. He received his medical education at Universite De La Mediterranee (Aix-Marseille Ii), Faculte De Medecine, in Marseille, France. He graduated from medical school in 1974. Kalmer is currently living in New York City where he does hand surgery and orthopedic surgery. In 2002, Ney York Magazine chose Kamler as one of New York City’s best doctors. Kamler has served as a chief high altitude physician for NASA-sponsored research in human psychological responses to extreme altitude and has also worked with National Geographic on Mt. Everest trips to carry out geological research. He is such an inspiring figure to look up to because of his passion for the medical field and helping those in need. Even now he is constantly trying to discover new methods of helping people and as he explained in his video the new evidence he found about how powerful the mind truly is. I believe Kamler is definitely a leader in field because of all of the high end people and companies he’s worked with not including all of the life experience gained by actually going to all these remote places.

Next year I’ll be going to CSU Northridge where I’ll be majoring in Kinesiology, the study of human movement. I truly enjoy science which is mainly the reason why I picked kinesiology. I’m not really interested to become a doctor because that’s just too much schooling for me. I’m hoping this summer to apply for some internships at local chiropractic offices to hopefully get some clinic hours and possibly some valuable hands on experience. I’m planning on pursuing Physical Therapy or an Athletic Training as my future occupation which will probably both require me to get a PH.D level degree. I’m ready to take on that challenge though. If Kamler can accomplish all he has done through sheer will power and if that man survived in the snow can reverse hypothermia through just mind power, than I can surely become a successful Physical therapist/athletic trainer helping to serve people who are in need of assistance.

Life After High School: Erin Hoey. Black holes.

Life After High School: Erin Hoey. Black holes.: "I watched “Andrea Ghez: The Hunt for a Supermassive Black Hole.” She talks about how there are three describable characteristics of a blac..."

Erin that is so exciting that you are doing a post graduate year! Topics that are sort of beyond our understanding, like black holes, are so fascinating. Taking this next year to further advance your studies in physics is such a good idea. You would be really good doing a science-related thing like space exploration. Good luck to you and have fun next year!

Schools vs Creativity

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

“What all children have in common is that they will take a chance. They’re not frightened of being wrong. I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. But if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. By the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity…we are educating people out of their creative capacities”

This thought provoking quote is from Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk concerning creativity and its place in school. He remarks that world wide there is a “hierarchy” of the subjects. Math and science are placed at the top, and the arts are at the bottom. He focuses on emphasizing creativity in our education systems, and creating equal status for all subjects.

Sir Ken Robinson (knighted in 2003 for his work in education) received his PhD from University of London. He researched the value of theater in education, which is the basis of his talks. He worked on boards (such as The Arts in Schools Project) to include theater and dance and other arts into the curriculum. He’s written several books, his most recent being a new edition of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. He was a university professor, as he discusses briefly in his talk, which is the highest level of education. Although this is not always the case, it is one of the positions in the teaching world that truly lends itself to creativity. Sir Robinson understands that creativity is not just the arts; it’s not just for the students. Creativity is also for the educators. The way material is presented doesn’t have to be in a classic textbook to practice sheet form. As Sir Robinson says in his speech, we think the way we are. There is more than just logic and linguistics to our approach to learning and problem solving. That realization is within itself intensely creative. It doesn’t directly attach itself to the arts, but realizes that there is a new way to create a learning environment. He respects his own creativity and believes in it. This is why he is so great at what he does. He inspires people and inspires their creativity through his writings, his interviews, and his talks. It is engaging, uplifting, and thought provoking. It is creativity in almost a perfect example.

I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. I actually ran into an old friend, Tony, from grade school a few weeks ago and he asked me all the usual questions about college and the like. I told him that I was going to get my AA in child studies at West Valley College, and then I’d transfer to either Cal Poly SLO, or Santa Clara to finish up my BA in child development or education respectively. Tony smiled at me and said that he couldn’t believe that I still wanted to be a teacher after all these years (he believed it to be twelve years, I think it might be even longer). But my memories of my early education are very rigid. I learned to read, add, subtract, and spell very quickly in kindergarten and first grade. (Well, the last one is debatable.) There were the intensely strict art projects in which I often was scolded because I always cut off the thick black trim instead of having it be a part of my work. We didn’t walk around with black trims, so I had no idea why my angel had to have one. I had fun but looking back I can’t help but wonder why on earth any five to seven year old would want to spend their time that way. This philosophy proposed by Sir Robinson is fantastic for my desired field of work. I want my students to love walking into my classroom everyday, and I want them to come back when they don’t have to. I want kids like my little brother who can’t sit still to be engaged in class without being drugged. I know that sounds harsh but little boys will be little boys, let them run around. Teach to their energy! That’s what makes little kids so amazing, in my opinion. I love their boundless energy, that willingness to do everything and almost always with a smile. Why has that energy we crave as we get older frowned upon in a classroom setting? It’s unreasonable for kids to be told to shut off their energy for the school day. In early education specifically, it is the teacher’s job to nurture that energy and that creative spirit in the learning environment. And that is part of what Sir Robinson is saying in his work and it’s something that I’d like to make a reality.

Life After High School: Pranav Pradhan - Music is Medicine

Life After High School: Pranav Pradhan - Music is Medicine: "http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_gupta.html The TED talk that I researched dealt with the unique ability of music to act as a cure ..."

This blog caught my interest right away. I really love music and I too use it to so my mind and make me relaxed at times. Hearing that music is clinically proven to cure some types of mental illnesses is not too much a shock for me because I use it all the time to calm me down or make me feel better. But the fact that it is actually proven is really awesome to hear because I have always thought of it that way. Thank you for this insight. And stick with music! If it is something you really like, then don't give it up!

A Second Opinion on Learning Disorders - Lauren Schmidt

For my TED talk, I looked at “A Second Opinion on Learning Disorders” by Aditi Shankardass. She talked about a breakthrough in technology that can detect the slightest abnormalities in the brain. Developmental disorders up until now have only been diagnosed based on how the child behaves; But, this new technology allows scientists to look at the brain. Shankardass mentioned how one in every six children has some sort of developmental disorder (mental retardation, learning disorders, attention disorders, autism spectrum disorders, genetic disorders, sensory processing disorder, and epilepsy, seizure and sleep disorders). She explained how you must look at the child’s brain to make the correct diagnosis. This new technology records the EEG (electrical activity) in the brain and allows us to detect the smallest abnormalities. There are also two programs that go along with this: Brain Electrical Activity Mapping and Statistical Probability Mapping. Brain Electrical Activity Mapping allows us to find the source of the detected abnormality in the brain. Statistical Probability Mapping uses mathematical calculations to determine if the abnormalities can be treated and allows us to make a more accurate neurological diagnosis for the symptoms. She also tells a story about a seven-year-old boy named Justin that was told he had autism and would never be able to interact, communicate, or really use language. Justin was brought into her clinic to be tested and it was discovered he actually had brain seizures, not autism. Two months after being on some anti-seizure medication he went from knowing how to say 2 words to over 300. He also showed so much improvement in his interaction and social skills that he got to be enrolled in a normal school. One more statistic she used was that 50% of children diagnosed with autism and other disorders are actually suffering from brain seizures. She emphasized how important it was to spread this new technology.

Aditi Shankardass was brought on a tour of her cousin’s medical school when she was only ten. She was taken to the pathology lab where her cousin let her hold a real human brain. From that day she knew she wanted to be a brain doctor scientist or something of that sort. For her BS degree, she was trained in Neurophysiology. Her MS degree is in neuroanatomy. Finally her PhD is in Neuropsychology. She has worked in various levels of the field, including cellular neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and pediatric neurology. Shankardass has also worked in both research labs and diagnostic clinics. She also worked in the UK using EEG to research the underlying neurological cause of dyslexia, as well as a neuroscience consultant for the BBS science line. She now is the head of the Neurophysiology clinic, leads the EEG Lab of the Communicative Orders Department at California State University, and serves as a board member of the Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation.

She is such a leader in her field because she is the head of the clinic that diagnoses so many children with a different problem that can be cured. This is very groundbreaking because half the kids that would have had autism or other disorders, now do not have to live with that for the rest of their life. Shankardass has been the subject of documentaries, presentations (like the prize-winning one to the British Parliament), and publications. She also plans on bringing the new technology to India which id a huge success as well.

Shankardass’ video helped me figure out what sorts of things I am interested in: It caught my interest because it popped up when I looked at both “Children” and “Medicine” categories. Although I have not quite decided yet what I want to do, I have always thought medicine would be a very likely possibility. Growing up with two parents that are doctors, I just always thought I would be interested in that. But it was not until recently that I discovered that I would be very happy in a career that deals with children. I will be attending Stanford University next year, undecided, but I am really thinking about going into something that involves both medicine and children. I truly take a lot of pleasure in being with kids; If this leads me to becoming psychiatrist for children, a doctor in sports medicine, or a pediatrician, I would really love that. After my 4 years at Stanford, I do plan on another four years of medical school so that I can earn my degree(s) or PhD in the career I choose. Shankardass has inspired me to devote my work to helping others; I want to be in a job where others can largely benefit from what I have done for them. That is where I find my satisfaction in life. I am really excited to see where I end up, and I will be working hard to get there every step of the way.

My Interests Going into College - Ben Rumptz

The TED talk that I did was that of Cynthia Breazeal. She talked about personal robots and how they could be used to interact with people in the real world in multiple ways. Some of the things that she covered during her talk were robots in communication, health, and media. She is trying to bring robots into the personal lives of everyday people. Cynthia was originally inspired by Star Wars when she was a child and vowed to bring Artificial Intelligence of some kind into the real world. I think that she is a really big name in the world of robotics because she is doing some really new and exciting stuff that not many people have the privilege to do. She works in the Personal Robots Group at MIT's Media Lab. She works on developing the principles and technologies for building personal robots that have Social Intelligence.

These robots are meant to interact and communicate with people intelligently, work with humans as peers, and learn from people about the world around them. She has developed some of the world’s most famous robots, ranging from smaller robots to highly expressive humanoids, including the social robot Kismet and the robot Leonardo who expresses human-like feelings. Her recent work is that of social robots helping people improve their quality of life in fields such as physical performance, education, health, and communication.

I feel that this video is interesting because it brings together many of my interests. These interests are that of intelligent robots, programming, and helping the community. The first interest of mine, intelligent robots, that she exemplifies is obvious to people that watch her TED talk. My second interest, programming, is something that I hope to pursue in college. In order to make her robots think and act like people, Cynthia Breazeal would need some very smart programmers to create this human-like intelligence in a piece of machinery.

In my life after high school, I would like to do many things. One of these things will hopefully be programming. As of now, I am going to go to the University of Portland as a Computer Science major. As a freshman in the University of Portland engineering department, I am required to build a simple robot that can complete various tasks. Although it will not have artificial intelligence, I believe that everybody must start somewhere and making a simple robot is the easiest way to get started in the field of robotic engineering. If I like it, I may choose to transfer out of Computer Science into Mechanical Engineering. If I choose to stay in Computer Science like I planned to, I hope to learn many things, and hopefully can get a job working on things I am passionate about. Reflecting on the life that I hope to have in the future as a senior in high school, I feel that a job working at one of the major companies in the Silicon Valley such as Google, Hewlett-Packard, or Sun Microsystems would be the best possible choice where I could work my way up the corporate ladder into a possible management possition.

Erin Hoey. Black holes.

I watched “Andrea Ghez: The Hunt for a Supermassive Black Hole.” She talks about how there are three describable characteristics of a black hole: the mass, the spin, and the charge. But, she only talks about the mass in this TED talk. Black holes are extremely difficult to study because you cannot see them; their gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape it. Therefore, black holes are the absence of light. They are truly invisible. Black holes are objects that have a mass of 0. They have no finite size. Yet, they can be “supermassive.” The Schwarzschild radius the size of any object that is so small that gravity takes over and it keeps collapsing in on itself. For example, the Schwarzschild radius of the earth is a sugar cube. If a star bigger than the sun explodes, it creates supernova dust-like remnants that surround a black hole, about three times the mass of the sun. That’s a small black hole on the scale of the universe. Galaxies are composed of stars. The light that makes up the galaxy we see comes from these stars. However, some galaxies emanate an energy that cannot be explained by stars. Some people believe that this light is caused from the energy given off by a black hole pulling so strongly mass into its center. This theory has given rise to the thought that all galaxies have black holes at their centers, but some are smaller than others. In order to see if this is true, we have begun studying the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, because it is the closest galaxy center to our planet. We can seethe center in greater detail than we could other galaxies. If a black hole existed in the center, the stars would orbit around it, just like planets orbit the stars. The bigger the black hole, the faster and tighter the orbit. To see if a black hole really exists in the center, studies need to be made of the radius and speed of the orbits of the stars closest to the center. So, big telescopes need to be used. The biggest telescope on earth is in the Keck Observatory, with a mirror diameter of 10 meters. Since the atmosphere is continuously moving, distorting the telescope pictures, adaptive mirrors must be put in that move and change with the atmosphere in order to get a clearer picture. These adaptive mirrors have improved the pictures by a factor of 20. The star SO-2 is the closet we can see with our telescopes to the center of our galaxy, with an orbit of just 15 years, compared to our sun’s orbit of 200-million years. After watching this star, it is believed that the Schwarzschild radius of our galaxy is the size of our solar system. However, this is just over what our galaxy, a mass 4-billion times that of our sun, would actually be if computed numerically. But, it is the only evidence we have, and from observations of SO-2, it seems to be the only truth we have. Since there is believed to be a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy based on these observations, there should be a cluster of old stars near the center, since new stars cannot form in the hostile environment near a black hole. However, at the center of our galaxy, there is a cluster of new stars. How are there new stars at the center of the galaxy near this supermassive black hole? This is a really big mystery, one that Andrea Ghez is still uncovering today.

I watched this TED talk because space is interesting to me. It is so big and there is so much we don’t know about it. Black holes are even more interesting, because they could destroy everything, and are believed to be what will eventually swallow up are entire universe, only to explode in a big bang and create a new one all over again. I was interested to see how they search for black holes, and thought that this talk would teach me more about them.

Ghez studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a BS in physics in 1987, and at the California Institute of Technology received her Ph.D. She is now an astronomer and professor at UCLA in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. In 2004, she was elected into the National Academy of Sciences.

Next year, I will be attending Phillips Academy at Andover, a boarding high school in Andover, Massachusetts, for a post-graduate year. It is arguably the best high school in the country. There, I can take astronomy and a variety of physics classes, which is one of my favorite subjects at school. I can take some time to decide what I want to do. Like Ghez, I will probably major in physics, or something science-related. I want to go far with my education so that I can have a variety of jobs available to me once I end school. Right now, space exploration is what is looking very appealing to me, since new technology is being developed every day. Maybe I’ll even be an astronaut.

Joe DeRisi Solves Medical Mysteries - Akash Lohia

The presentation was by a biochemist named Joseph Desiri. In this presentation, Joseph discussed about new ways to diagnose different types of viruses. He proposed using certain “DNA strips” and correlate them with the virus. This would allow the scientist to figure out the exact area of the DNA which the virus attacked, and thus be able to combat that virus. He tested his method on a variety fo viruses including herpes, polio, and the common cold. Desiri continues to test his strips on many other viruses including malaria, SARS, and much more. His work may influence the medical field and thus further our understanding of these viruses and quicken our path to finding effective treatments. This talk really interested me because I am interested in pursuing a career in college related to biology or medicine. I also really find the idea of using these DNA strips to diagnose our viruses and thus help the medical field. In the future, I might be a scientist engaged in similar research. Or I might be a doctor making use of this important information to diagnose patients. Thus, I find Desiri’s presentation extremely interesting and informative and also really interesting.

Joseph Desiri received a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1992 from the University of California Santa Cruz. He then received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford in 1999. He is currently a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator which is an extremely important job. He is responsible for researching different medical information and furthering the cause of the medical field. He is also the Vice Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and also works at the California Insitute for Quantitative Biomedical Research. He has also published many scientific journals currently published in the Public Library of Sciences journals. DeRisi has also done work studying colony collapse among honeybees. Currently Desiri is continuing to work on his improvement of his DNA strip innovation. He is a unique leader in this field because of his huge contribution to the scientific and medical field. He has many other positions already detailed above which make him a very qualified scientist in the field.

As for my own life after high school, I’m not exactly certain what I want to major in. However, I am really looking at going into some sort of biology field or medicine. I am open to any field such as biomedical, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, or just straight up being a doctor. I am most likely thinking of doing biochemistry in college as my major, as that is the major that most people intersted in the medical field seem to take. I then hope to go to some sort of high ranked medical school such as UCLA or Northwestern, or any other. I haven’t really looked into any internships either, but I would really be interested in some sort of medical or biological internship. Doctors Without Borders is one internship which I have looked into mainly because it allows you to work directly with patients in the field. Thus, I think it would be very beneficial to pursue this internship opportunity to get some critical job experience, and thus improve myself.

The Politics of Fiction - Sarah Shoemaker

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fiction.html

Elif Shafak is an internationally acclaimed Turkish writer. She has built her career on writing, internationalism and politics, which happen to be my three biggest interests. Ms. Shafak’s TED talk focuses on the power of fiction to bridge personal and cultural gaps between people. She warns of the danger of isolating ourselves within “cultural ghettos” in which we only deal with others who look or think or act just as we do. She also points out that politicizing the fictional pieces that come from different cultures limits the work’s ability to connect people personally with a character who, on the surface, is not like themselves. She argues against pigeonholing authors as representatives of their entire government, nation or culture and encourages us to connect with what is fundamentally human about a piece, not fundamentally Arab, Asia, European, African etc. I was struck by Ms. Shafak’s talk because I usually think of authors as ambassadors of their specific communities. This may not be entirely untrue, but it does puts a great deal of pressure on each piece of writing to somehow hold everything about a place and a people in relatively few words. I feel that pressure when I write. Sometimes it feels like every idea has to say something about all girls or all teenagers. But fiction is about your personal imagination. That is what is so liberating about it. I’ve always imagined writing being a huge part of my career. I’ve also always dreamed of seeing the world. Elif Shafak has done both. Moreover, she is a successful female writer from a Middle Eastern country who certainly has opinions about politics, but she does not claim to speak for all women or all Middle Easterners and certainly does not limit her creativity to political issues. I admire the way she combines the three while keeping each in perspective.

Elif Shafak has a bachelors degree in International Relations, a masters degree in Gender and Woman’s Studies, and a Ph.D. in Political Science all from the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Her thesis was titled, “Islamic Mysticism and the Circular Understanding of Time.” She published her first novel in 1998 and has been writing news articles for various publications since 2002. She currently contributes to “The Guardian,” “The New York Times,” and a number of monthly magazines in Turkey. From 2005 – 2007 she worked as an assistant professor at the Middle East Technical University in the Social Sciences department. Elif Shafak demonstrates a great deal of dedication to her education and her craft. In the time it took for her to receive her three degrees, she honed her writing skills and was able to become a successful author. She also demonstrates courage and integrity. Her political views are often controversial, as is her writing. She was indicted after publishing a novel about a Turkish and an Armenian family. Throughout the turmoil, Ms. Shafak stuck by her writing and her right to creative expression. In the last month, she has spoken out about honor killings in Turkey and faced criticism for her stance, but I doubt she’ll back down.

My life will never really match Elif Shafak’s. She spent her very early years in Turkey, but then lived in France, Spain and the United States all before she was eighteen. I have lived in the same house since I was two. I do, however, plan on studying abroad during my Junior year. I would also like to live and work abroad after college for at least a year. Macalester College, where I am going next year, has a large number of international students and places a great deal of emphasis on multiculturalism. I will try to see people as individuals instead of representatives and learn something about their personal stories rather than establishing stereotypes about a whole group. I’m interested in a degree in International Relations or Political Science. I also plan to get involved in Mac Slam. It is a spoken word poetry club that sponsors open mic nights on campus. Macalester won the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational this year, and I’d like to compete in that within the next four years. Hopefully this will keep me involved in creative writing. I would also like to get involved in politics in Minnesota. Macalester hosts town hall meetings and caucuses during the presidential elections (Minnesota is a swing state). My goal is to help organize one of these events to get a better sense of how American politics really work. By pursuing these three avenues, I hope that I will find the career path that best suits me. Elif Shafak was a student for quite a while before she became a professional writer. I would like some work experience after getting my undergraduate degree, even if it is only as an intern. My first internship could be with a political campaign. Hopefully by pursuing internationalism, writing, politics and internships, I will find a career that fits. After college, I may pursue a master in journalism if that ends up being the best way to keep writing.

The greatest TED Talk ever sold - Danny Blumenthal

http://www.ted.com/talks/morgan_spurlock_the_greatest_ted_talk_ever_sold.html

For my TED Talk, I watched “The greatest TED Talk ever sold” by Morgan Spurlock. I chose this video because it had a very high rating, and I recognized Spurlock’s name because he is the creator of Super Size Me and the television show 30 Days, as well as many other films and projects. The description of the video is what really drew me in however, because I have always been interested in marketing and advertising, and I have always been fascinated by all of the subtle tricks and skills that are used to effectively market a brand. In this video, Spurlock talks about his experiences that came with making his newest film, which is about product placement and sponsorship. His initial idea was to create an entire movie that explores the concept of product placement in modern films and television shows, but the ironic twist is that he hoped to finance his entire movie by using product placement himself. Needless to say, his idea did not go over very well with many of the big advertising companies, so he decided to cut out the middleman and go directly to the source, and presented his idea directly to companies like Old Navy and Jet Blue. Before doing this though, he explains the process that he went through in order to build his own personal brand. He goes to respected marketing specialists for help, who give him advice on how to better market himself and his ideas.

Morgan Spurlock attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in film, in 1993. After graduating, he began his career as a playwright and actually won multiple awards for his play called The Phoenix in 1999. He began to receive notoriety after the release of his first film called Super Size Me in 2004. After the success of his film, he created a documentary style television series called 30 Days, in which he would live a certain lifestyle (ex: coal miner, living on minimum wage, etc) for 30 days. Obviously, some of his success is attributed to having talent as a filmmaker and as a writer. However, the majority of his success seems to come from his hard work and determination. The majority of his documentaries show him overcoming obstacles and being too stubborn to give up. Even in the process of trying to sell his movie idea to large corporations, he is constantly shot down. However, he insists on trying to recreate himself and to improve his ideas and presentation, which is why I believe he has had so much success. He is very open to new ideas and always wants to see things in a new light, which is basically the premise of 30 Days.

Next year I will be studying Business Administration at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. However, after two years, I will have to choose an emphasis within my major such as accounting, economics, etc. I don’t really know what exactly I want to do at the moment, but I am leaning towards either marketing or management. One of the main reasons that I chose Cal Poly is that it has a very good business program, and many of the classes are very hands-on and train students to enter the workforce. I feel like this will be very beneficial to me and will help make my choice much easier after experiencing and learning more about each emphasis. Cal Poly also has a very good reputation for finding internships for its students. Almost everyone that I know that goes there has gotten an internship as a result of the school, and they have all been very happy with their experiences. I am still relatively undecided with what I want to do as a profession, but I hope that after my 4 years of college, I will have found a job that I would really enjoy and would like to pursue.

Let's Raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs - Michael Whitney

The TED talk I watched was about society and entrepreneurs. Cameron Herold argued in "Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs" that society is not teaching kids to become entrepreneurs. People are so focused on teaching kids to become lawyers and doctors, the simply forget about the job that creates its own destiny. Herold asks "why would you have a job when you can just create one?" Creating the job you want allows you to do whatever you please with in your life. Herold tells us that kids need to grow up with a stronger creative aspect in life. He argues that parents shouldn't tell kids stories, but they should allow the kids to create their own stories to tell to the parents. Herold also believes that kids need to learn saving habits and business strategies at young ages.

Cameron Herold has been an impressive entrepreneur ever since he was a child. As a young kid, Herold created a profitable business of buying comics from poor kids in poor neighborhoods and selling them to rich kids in upper-class neighborhoods. At age 21, he created his first real company, starting him on a voyage of experience. He would later form his signature idea into a business. “BackPocket COO” (COO is short for chief operating officer) was created by Herold in effort to educate the population on entrepreneurship. Herold has further coached and spoken to young entrepreneurs to help launch their companies and build their careers. Perhaps what Herold is most well known for is his creation of the company “1-800-GOT-JUNK?” Although this company may not sound like that amazing of an idea, Herold took it from a $2 million to $105 million company within six years. The company had no debts and no outside shareholders, and it spans across 46 states, 9 provinces, and 4 countries. Herold has taught programs on entrepreneurship at MIT and his work has been included in the course loads of programs at Queen’s University and Harvard University. Herold does not recognize his success as personality or luck. Instead he claims, “it’s about having the right systems.” Harold also attributes his success to his unique ability of “leading and energizing people by using quick, intuitive alternatives to build plans that reverse engineer their dreams.” Herold is looked upon as a very successful entrepreneur and he is well recognized across the country.

I will be attending Boston University in the fall. Although one of the large attractions of the school is the ability to be “undeclared” or to be simply clueless about what you want to study and pursue in life, I am currently enrolled in the “School of Management.” If I do not choose another career line, I will be working through the field of business. However, Cameron Herold has inspired me to push past the cubicle workers and the aged and tired businessmen. Like Herold, I hope to pursue some sort of entrepreneurship after I earn a degree in business. He has also steered me away from the idea of manual labor. After all, as Herold says it, “manual labor really sucks.” I want to pursue something in the line of entrepreneurship because it the power is solely in my hands to choose what I want to do with my life. Although it may be risky, I can creatively choose what I want to do for a career. I strictly don’t want to join a company. I would rather create one, enjoy what I do, and be significantly rewarded because of it. So although I cannot be exactly sure of what I want to do in life, my aspirations are clear. As said in The Social Network, “Harvard undergraduates believe that inventing a job is better than finding a job.” This is the truth.