Month: March 2020

If I were the head of budget or funding for a large corportaion in charge of fund distribution I would focus on a few important areas of research that I think would be most beneficial. My first area of research would be microbial influence on young children, and the best way to expose them to healthy microbes. Since children get most of the microbes before they are 3 years old it is extremely important for parents to know how to best set up their child. Not exposing your child can affect their whole life so I would like to figure out how to best set up children and give them healthy and diverse microbes. The second project I would like to focus on would be how microbes affect diseases like Alzheimer’s disease. I think brain degenerative diseases are some of the worst diseases you can get and there is no cure. I would hope that in researching this, we could come up with certain diet, behaviors, or something else to decrease the risk of the disease.

Diabetes, depression, insomnia, obesity, gastritis, Alzheimer’s, cancer, acne, pulmonary disease.

I had a lot of similar ones like cancer, and acne. I was unaware how much microbes can affect ones health before I took this class. The most important topic I will take away is the importance of having a healthy and diverse community of microbes in your stomach, intestines, skin, and other places. I will then use the information I have learned about diet, exposure, sleep, water intake and more to improve my health and the health of my loved ones.

• Can experiments detect differences that matter?
• Does the study show causation or correlation?
• What is the mechanism?
• How much do experiments reflect reality?
• Could anything else explain the results?

Can experiments detect differences that matter? Apparent similarities might cloak small differences. It is important to know whether your experiment is able to detect these differences. The good news is that technology is getting better and this discrepancy is being eliminated slowly.

Does the study show causation or correlation? This is a very important determination because it could skew the results of the study. It is important to show a 100% causation if you are making a statement. It is easy to make a correlation but harder to make determine a causation.

What is the mechanism? A mechanism is a plausible account of the process that causes a relationship between the 2 things. One must know this in an experiment when designing and looking over the results. Without it, you cannot accurately make a correlation.

How much do experiments reflect reality? This is also an important thing to determine to tell if you want to do the study and now important the results of the study are. This can also be determined by the reader.

Could anything else explain the results? This is the most important thing to consider in studies. It is also one of the hardest things to determine especially in advanced fields like biology. With so many moving parts, it is hard to determine for sure if another factor is causing something.

The gut has been described as the second brain. For example, neurotransmitters are produced by microbes. cytokine release by the gut. Some microbes produce steroids which can travel and affect the brain. Other small molecules made by microbes can have an effect on the brain. On the other hand the brain can have an effect on microbial health. We know depression can have a negative effect on your gut community. Other things like stress and anxiety can also have a negative effect. These can lead to IBD and ASD. Antibiotic treatment can have help autism symptoms.

It felt good to peer review some essays. It gave me some good ideas on length, content, and resources that i can use on my essay. I think the thing that helped me most was just the overall feel and the audience of the essays i read. I was not sure if my essay was geared towards the right audience but reading these 2 helped me get a better feel.