ACE Class Report: 12 Essential Scientific Concepts.
Begin: 8/8/2023
Finish:10/24/2023
Title: 12 Essential Scientific Concepts 1.
Author: Professor Indre Viskontas
University of California, San Francisco
Why I chose to take this class:
This class is about the mysteries of science. Understanding and knowledge will enrich out lifes and reduce suffering. How science will be used to change the world. this class will help further my knowledge of science.
What I learn in this class:
The organization of Life:
Life defies simplicity, in any form and this is one property of it that we have yet to address in our search for the adequate definition of life: its complexity – The Organization that characterizes every life-form, from Amoebas to Antelopes. Life is highly organized, organization equals capability and capability equals survival and whatever else life may be for, every example of it that we know to perpetuate itself.
Evolution – The Tireless Tinkerer:
Charles Darwin, evolution is “descent with modification”. Today’s species are modified descendants of ancestors that inhabit the world in the past. The pattern of evolution is seen in everything. Observation of how the world has changed. The process of evolution refers to the mechanism that cause these patterns, and if anything remains open to modification, it’s the mechanisms by which evolution occurs that remain theoretical.
Other Mechanisms of Evolution:
Natural selection isn’t the only way by which a species can change over time; there are other mechanisms of evolution. The other forces that drives evolutionary change – from genetic drift and geneflow to natural selection, which leads to consistent adaptations to specific environments.
DNA and Heritability:
Heritability, the idea that traits are transferred from one generation to the next. Several fundamental topics in genetics, including what is a gene, how gene store information, and how that information is used by the body to perform various functions.
Epigenetics, Mutations, and Gene Insertion:
The environment and out experiences impact not only how we use our genes, but how are genes are expressed. There are three major ways by which out genes change across our life span: chemical modification called epigenetics, sequence modifications called mutations, and the insertion of new DNA as a result of viral infection.
The Illusion of Coherence – How We See:
Different aspects of vision are processed by different parts of the brain. Our brains are taking the world apart and putting it back together again, filling inn details where we can’t see and making inferences.
Acoustic Perception Deconstructed:
Perception is not just about seeing and hearing what is around us: a far more important function of our senses is to tune out what’s not important. The modular nature of the brain comes in. WE have evolved to pick out what’s important for survival and create a personalized experience of the world in our mind.
Our Changing Brain:
Myth that our brain are fully developed is young adulthood, it was fixed for life, with gradual decline in function as our as our bodies age. However, the brain is plastic, that structural and functional changes are a fundamental property of the organ. The brain is plastic, or malleable, rather than static and rigid.
Plasticity, Brain Training, and Beyond:
The brain is dynamic and changeable through the life span. There are certainly no easy way to improve our minds. Many of the brain training exercise and tools on the market have not shown to work. However physical exercise can improve the minds. So are chess and learning a new skill or language.
Magnetism and It’s Magic:
We don’t really know why magnets always have a North and South pole. No one has yet explained why we can’t isolate a North and a South pole by itself, the way that we can separate negative and positive charges. We don’t really know why particles create magnetic field in the first place.
How will this class contribute to my success upon release:
This class help me improve my critical thinking skills. I will share the knowledge learned with the communities that I volunteer my services.
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