Wednesday

Yesterday i didnt get a chance to write anything but i still want to mention that i loved the discovery lecture. The speaker really conveyed the idea that stem cell research is at the forefront of scientific research and that new things are being discovered every day. I always knew about the importance of stem cells but i never knew the biology behind them and where they came from or all of the scientific names. He was a tremendous speaker and he never spoke in scientifc language that we could not understand. I also found his background really interesting how he started his career studying fruit flies and then went on to brain research and only in the last 10 years did he get involved in stem cell research. After that we went to a lecture about science buddies which is a website database which helps students find project ideas. I was extremely exhausted but i found the talk overall very interesting. When i found out the project of the girl who spoke to us i was very surprised because i had talked about doing a similar project with algae and antibiotics a couple of years ago with my biology teacher.

Today also went pretty well. We started the day off with a morning lecture and then we were able to finish up our pendulums and we got to construct kinetic sculptures for the first time. It was really helpful to see the materials that we will be working with in order to better help us come up with our designs for our miniature sculptures and then finally our final sculpture. I was relieved today to find that we didn't have that much homework and that we will be given the opportunity to work in the computer lab with one of our TA's. I love this cluster and i am not as stressed out as the other students which is making my COSMOS experience much more enjoyable.