Molecule Dances & Doing Less

This is the time of year when I am ready for school to be over and to spend as much time as possible outside. The nights are so long and such a comfortable temperature that it beckons you out of wherever you are - class, work, your house - to just sit and enjoy living in New England when it's not frigid outside. So that's where I am most of the time these days - ready for the school bell to ring.

But then, I get sucked back in when my professors keep teaching me awesome things. In particular, this semester, my Environmental Health class has been really cool. I feel as if I'm learning so much that every week, my eyelids are literally pulled back just a little bit more to expose all of these parts of the world I never really considered previously - like the chemicals in our pillows that keep them fluffy and without mold that are (surprise!) not good for you to breathe in, or the concentration of particles, called "PM" for particulate matter, on the T or in the air outside, and lots of other parts of all of our worlds. It's sort of been like reading The Omnivore's Dilemma on lots of different environmental topics.

This week's topic was global climate change. We talked about radiation in its various forms and from a widespread variety of sources (newflash: pretty much everywhere) as well as what a bust (check out that pun!) nuclear power has proven to be so far.

Some of the best parts of the class were the two YouTube videos about climate change from two different environmental experts. I will give them to you in the order they were shown to us, but watch them in opposite order if you want the bad news first and then the laughter.

First, Colorado State Professor Scott Denning doing the molecule dance. Though entirely laughable, this guy legitimately knows a lot and breaks down the greenhouse effect and climate change in a very basic way - especially in the list of "Key Points" at the very end. All of the people who contest global climate change should watch this. It's pretty unarguable that this is happening given the basic information presented, and Denning and his dancing skills are charming enough to win over even the most obstinate.

Second, Bill McKibben's NY Times op-ed piece has been put to a really informative and intense video about natural disasters relating to climate change. It's quite dooming, so prepare yourself. It also made me feel obligated to do more to reduce my impact on the earth - which is doing less I suppose. So... let's all do less :)

Happy Thursday!

Decisions, Decisions

I'm a wee-bit behind on this one, but I think the wait has been well worth it. The Supreme Court heard arguments about the Affordable Care Act at the end of March. At that point, I was wrapped up in preparing for Kenya which is just over a month away now and preparing for Cancun, which is sadly passed at this point.

Regardless, this little nugget of awesome reflecting on the arguments of the case came out from WBUR. It's three of my professors (well, I've had two of the three) breaking down the case for people like us who don't have advanced degrees in law-speak. There are three five-to-ten minute sections that are all very good and very informative.

I will stop benefitting from Obamacare (or, the Affordable Care Act) on May 2 (sniff) when I turn 26 (yay!) and I think it is still largely unclear what this plan means for everyone in the long term scheme of things. After spending a lot of my graduate school career watching this unfold, I am definitely not alone in thinking that something needs to be done and this isn't a terrible solution. Thinking about this solution as Glantz, Mariner and Annas do, in terms of its constitutionality, is a nice way to rise above the rhetoric of less informed media sources and get to really thinking about whether this is here to stay.

Win Win

So, Santorum has ended his campaign and as Amanda pointed out, this clever writer worked the phrase "come-from-behind" into the blog post announcing this news about a socially conservative candidate who was very publicly anti-same sex marriage. That's a win for socially liberal, pro-choice, pro-marriage equality folks and an equally exciting win for those who enjoy such tongue in cheek humor. Happy reading!

HeLa

Spotted this very concise article on boston.com about Henrietta Lacks - the woman whose cancer tumor cells have been grown in laboratories all over the world and have helped to develop many vaccines, drugs to treat many diseases and ailments, and many more things. Her cells are part of the reason many of us are employed, so the least we can do is read about her... either here or in the awesome book about her.

Connect the dots, BU

There seems to be a massive disconnect within the BU community, both on and off campus. Most prominently between what alumni, students, and faculty want to happen and what is actually happening. For those of you not entirely keeping track of this situation on your own, Jezebel has eloquently summarized the current sexual assault/Peeping Tom/insert more evidence of rape culture at BU here.

I could go on and on about how it's sort of embarrassing to be a BU alum/School of Public Health student right now... but I don't think that's entirely accurate. My professors, TAs and colleagues (the word they encourage us to use in graduate school) all share my opinions and criticisms of BU. To be frank, they are handling all of the situations of this year really really badly. I would be embarrassed if I were the only one who thought that President Brown and company were not performing well, but knowing that lots of others in this community share my view makes me think that the education and values at BU are not the problem, and at least for now, the administration is.

We need a less disconnected administration who worries more about finding out the truth and less about how it makes the University looks to outsiders.

Pee peeps

What is the sudden urge is to pee with the sun shining on your face and, ahem, where it doesn't usually shine?

In the past few weeks I have seen an alarming number of gentlemen peeing in very public places. On the side of the road, merely facing away from traffic. In the middle of a park, shielded only by some sparse shrubbery. As I was walking to the grocery store, immediately after yelling "Oh my God!" upon discovering one of these perpetrators peeing directly across the path in the park (perhaps seeing how far he could make it?), I started to think about this from a public health perspective. Naturally.

What would my anti-public urination PSA (public service announcement) say? Peeing in public areas outside is ...gross? Lame. Probably ineffective.

Public health usually tries to get people to do things that are good for them operating under the assumption that people care about their health. They don't. For instance, people are well aware that exercising and eating healthy foods are good for them, so knowledge is not the issue. Millions of federal dollars are spent on public health campaigns only to be dwarfed by the billions that Coca-Cola and McDonald's spend to lure you into spending your money and calories on their tasty products.

Keeping that in mind, I started to think about what I would say in an effective anti-public urination PSA. What do people care about? I fully recognize that this target audience is much different than myself, being (so far) entirely male and seemingly much older, among other characteristics... but I think most people care about a certain degree of modesty or have a certain degree of ego when it comes to different (certain) parts of their bodies. If you know what I'm saying.

So I've settled on, "Pee inside, where no peeps can peep!"

It's not spectacular, but I think it'll do the trick. ;) Spread the words, birds.