First Blog Post 8/27/2021

Hello! My name is Jenna Thompson, and I am a senior in human health biology also minoring in psychology. I am from Carl Junction, Missouri (a small town in SW Missouri) and eventually I hope to go to KU School of Medicine in Kansas City--I am currently applying, so we'll see where that goes! I am very passionate about the concept of mental health being just as important as physical health because I think it's often thought of as a secondary issue. As a provider you have to treat the whole patient, and that includes their mental state as well. Something that fascinates me about evolution is how so many people seem to think that just because we are the most developed version of our species that there is nothing our bodies could evolve to do better--there are actually a lot of thing our bodies could evolve to do better given many, many years! For example, for the most part human spines are not really constructed to withstand walking upright and are largely similar from our distant ancestors that walked on all fours. That is something our species could hugely improve on in generations down the line, and I think the idea that humans are still evolving is super interesting. One of the biggest ways I think evolution relates to our daily lives right now is antibiotic resistance in bacteria. This takes often many generations to cone about, but since bacteria regenerate so quickly, they are able to evolve antibiotic resistance much faster time-wise. These bacteria have evolved genes/physical characteristics that keep them from dying when exposed to antibiotics, so therefore they end up surviving and procreating more. In this class I hope to get a better sense of what evolution is and how/why it happens, and I am really looking forward to learning it in the modality of this class. I feel like lecture/memorization/test is a brutal way to actually try and LEARN evolutionary biology, and that these posts and projects are going to allow me to actually get a lot more out of the material. I am also nervous but excited to learn how to use a coding software as I don't consider myself to be extremely computer savvy. Definitely excited for this learning-centric class!

Comments

  1. Madison NAugust 30, 2021 at 1:31 PM

    Hi Jenna! Good luck in your application to KU! You've definitely got a good head on your shoulders - you've pointed out some key points in modern evolution! Humans /do/ have some less-than-perfect physiological parts. Why do you think we haven't evolved something better? People have been walking upright for thousands of years - surely that would give us enough time to change, right?

    No pressure to have an answer - I only have guesses! But that's what this class is all about. We're going to have a great time, and I'm pumped to see what thoughts you have!

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