Understanding of literature and poetry based on the war Essay Example for Free

Understanding of literature and poetry based on the war Essay I will look at war in my improvisation and to help me gain an understanding of literature and poetry based on the war I will be looking at two poems and one piece of script writing. Both poems were written and set during the First World War. The Soldier was written shortly before the war and therefore its purpose was to be a piece of propaganda to make the war seem like a good thing to do for your country. Dulce EST Decorum EST is actually written by someone who was in the war and therefore its purpose is to show the atrocities of war and a true insight into the war. Blackadder was written in 1988 and set in 1918. The script has a laugh about the war and doesnt really give a serious impression of what the war was. Blackadder is also written in a very bitterly ironic sense. In this paragraph I will explore the themes and ideas behind the poems and script. The soldier is an idealistic poem that represents a sense of pride and the glamour of fighting for your country. The soldier also shows the glory to be had from serving in the British armed forces and what a hero you would be after youve served. Dulce shows the horrific side of the war and I think it shows what the war would have been like very accurately. Dulce is quite a shocking poem with its emotive choice of language. Blackadder shows the fear the soldiers had in World War 1 and the realistic side of it. Dulce and Blackadder both make a strong political comment about the war. Blackadder makes the war look like it run by mad people and that senior officers just sit miles from the front line nice and comfy. Dulce makes a comment also on the lies that children are told about the war to hide them from its brutality. Blackadder is a scripted piece of writing and has characters init that you can look at. Dulce is about a group soldiers. The soldier is one persons viewpoint. The characters in Blackadder have very different roles and personalities. Blackadder himself is a very sarcastic man; he uses dry humour and makes the most personal comment about the war. Baldrick is working class; he is worried and isnt really sure what to do in his situation; the war bemuses him and this is a scary thing for Baldrick. George is the sort of person who would write The Soldier. He is a patriotic, upper classed twit. Although he is patriotic he is very scared. Melchett just sits in his office commanding the men on the front line even though he has no great knowledge of the front line conditions. The Soldier gives a personal viewpoint on the war and has a sentimental message. Dulce uses shock to gets its point across and Blackadder uses humour and irony to present its view on war. At the end of Blackadder when they go over the top it has music and uses slow motion which gives it a depressing and sad feel and men went over the top all the time in the war so it shows what a depressing place it would have been. Studying Blackadder has interested me and I think my group will use humour in our performance to give the war a more laid back feel even though it wasnt like that at all. I think humour would be easier for people to understand.

A Defect in Nurturing in Mice Lacking the Immediate Early Gene FosB Ess

Background to the Project In early 1995, an M.D-Ph.D student, Jennifer Brown, was breeding mice with an inactivated form of the gene FosB. With the inactivation of the gene, healthy pups from the mutated mice died quickly. Observing this occurrance, Brown found that the mother mice ignored her offspring. From this discovery, Brown proposed that the inactivation of the immediate early gene FosB causes a defect in the nurturing behaviors of female mice. To prove this, Brown bred a series of knockout mice with the inactivated FosB gene. She then observed the nurturing behaviors of the knockout mice and compared them to those of the normal mice. The Test Results FosB Mutant Development and Abnormalities: FosB mutant homozygous females were born and developed as any normal mouse, but were ten percent smaller than wild type mice. When the fosB homozygous females were mated with fosB homozygous mutant males, the resulting pregnancies were normal and carried to term. However, twenty-four to fourty-eight hours after delivery, the mortality rate of the pups was in excess of fifty percent. The high occurrance of lethality could be attributed to either the mutant mothers, the mutant pups, or both. To isolate the cause of the high mutant pup mortality rate, heterozygous males were mated with homozygous females and vice versa. As a result, it was found that the number of surviving pups in any given pregnancy relied primarily upon the genotype of the mother, and was independent of father or pup genotype. This supports the idea that the survival relies heavily on the nurturing ability of the fosB mothers. Physical Trait Analysis: To isolate the defect in the mother that contributed to the death of her pups, a physical trait ana... ...aper think that this is involved with the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is located in the brain stem. The gene mutation did not effect any other functions of the mice. This indicates that FosB is exclusive to nurturing behavior. The discovery of the functions of the FosB gene in mice could lead to similar discoveries for the human genome. Ethical ramifications of such discoveries are a hot topic in current scientific society. What questions might be raised by such a discovery? If this gene does exist in humans, should people with mutated alleles not be allowed to raise their children? Should it be corrected in some way by science? Is having a mutated gene an excuse for child abuse? Is it a defense in court? The answers to these questions are not clearly defined, but there are several sources of information for the public to access before making up their minds.

Behavorial Traps

Behavioral Traps There are five behavioral traps. Those five behavioral traps are: time delay, investment, deterioration, ignorance and collective. We fall into some of these traps easily and on a daily bases, while some of us find that they are also easily avoided. The trap that you fall into really only depends on you. I would like to define and give an example of each of the behavioral traps, before I discuss which I think is the easiest to fall for and the easiest to avoid. Time delay is momentary gratification that clashes with long term consequences (short term vs. ong term). An example is finding it hard to diet or exercise regularly (Plous, 1993). The ignorance trap is the negative behavior which are not understood or seen at the outset. An example would be: People, who smoked in the 19th Century, they didn’t realize that smoking led to lung cancer and if the information would have been available, many would never have begun to smoke in the first place (Plous, 1993). T he collective trap involves more than one party. The example for this one is rush hour traffic. Here everyone prefers to drive at the same time, taking their own self interest into play and letting everyone suffer (Plous, 1993). The investment trap occurs when prior expenditures of time, money or other resources lead people to make choices they normally wouldn’t make. An example would be investing money on something to help out the community only to find out at 90% done that another company is doing the same thing but theirs is better, debating on whether to finish the other 10% or not (Plous, 1993). Deterioration trap is similar to the investment trap but the cost and affect occur over time. An example for this trap is a heroin addict. You do it to get that great feeling but then your body becomes tolerant to the drug and you then up the dose to get that same great feeling, and then you’d rather take the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms. So what started as a pleasurable feeling ends up in a nightmare of dependence (Plous, 1993). Those are the five behavioral traps, I studied and read because to a point they all are easy to fall into, but one that I know I have troubles with and that most people have fall easily to is the time delay trap. How many of us have tried diet after diet and exercise after exercise and end up not sticking to the plan. That’s what the time delay trap does to you. â€Å"Any situation in which short term consequences run counter to long term consequences can turn into a time delay trap† (Plous, 1993). Another example of the time delay trap could be the apples in the Garden of Eden, because the apple is regarded as bait and is the ultimate temptation with its entrapping consequences (Plous, 1993). As you look at the definitions in the earlier paragraph you might think that there really isn’t one that is easily avoided, but I believe that the deterioration is that one. I believe this because this trap takes time to occur/fall into, while with the other traps they seem more likely easier to fall for. The reason deterioration take more time than the others is because it produces behavior that may seem absurd or self-destructive to others whom haven’t seen the situation evolve. (Plous, 1993). Just like the heroin addiction, your body eventually gets use to all the things you are doing and you think you need more because you aren’t getting the same affect. So over time your body takes a beating and starts to be self destructive and so on. For the time delay trap the person wants to exercise and/or diet, but something keeps stopping you. The long term consequences for not exercising and/or dieting could result in health problems and obesity. I just happen to be one of those people. For months I have been planning to exercise more, but I always end up finding an excuse not to and then it only leads to me now being healthy or losing the weight that I have put on in the mean time. The thing that is striking about the time delay trap is that relative is that you end up with small pains and pleasures in the short run, will produce behavior that is devastating maybe even lethal in the long run. (Plous, 1993). Like for example smoking, it’s a short term pleasure but in the long run you can get cancer. We never really think that the things we do/ could be considered as a trap. We just go on day by day either eventually doing something about what we have been putting up with or just deal with the long term consequence. Which traps we find easy to fall for or to avoid really depend on you, we all have different weak points in our mind and bodies. We think about the things that we put into our bodies, but do we really think about the long term effects? References Plous, S. (1993). The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY.

The Peters Projection and Mercator Map

Proponents of the Peters projection map claim that their map is an accurate, fair, and unbiased depiction of the world when comparing theirs to the almost-defunct Mercator map, which features enlarged depictions of euro-centric countries and continents. Mercator map enthusiasts defend the ease of navigation of their map. So which projection is better? Unfortunately, geographers and cartographers agree that neither map projection is appropriate—the Mercator vs. Peters controversy is, therefore, a moot point. Both maps are rectangular projections that are poor representations of a spherical planet. But heres how each came to prominence and, in most cases, misuse. The Mercator Map The Mercator projection was developed in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator as a navigational tool. This maps grid is rectangular and lines of latitude and longitude are parallel throughout. The Mercator map was designed as an aid to navigators with straight lines, loxodromes or rhumb lines—representing lines of constant compass bearing—that are perfect for true direction. If a navigator wishes to sail from Spain to the West Indies using this map, all they have to do is draw a line between the two points. This tells them which compass direction to continually sail in until they reach their destination. But although this angular layout makes navigation easier, accuracy and bias are major disadvantages that cant be ignored. Namely, the Mercator projection minimizes non-European or American countries and continents while enlarging privileged world powers. Africa, for example, is depicted as smaller than North America when it is, in reality, three times larger. Many feel that these discrepancies reflect racism and prejudice against underprivileged and developing countries. Pro-Peters folks often argue that this projection merely advantages colonial powers while disadvantaging others. The Mercator map has always been inadequate as a world map due to its rectangular grid and shape, but geographically illiterate publishers once found it useful for designing wall, atlas, and book maps, even maps found in newspapers published by non-geographers. It became the standard map projection for most applications and is still cemented as the mental map of most westerners today. Mercator Falls From Use Fortunately, over the past few decades, the Mercator projection has fallen into disuse by most reliable sources. In a 1980s study, two British geographers discovered that the Mercator map did not exist among dozens of atlases examined. Though some major map companies with less than reputable credentials still produce some maps using the Mercator projection, these are widely dismissed. As Mercator maps were already spiraling into obsoletion, a historian attempted to speed up this process by presenting a new map. The Peters Projection German historian and journalist Arno Peters called a press conference in 1973 to announce his new map projection that treated each country fairly by representing their areas more accurately. The Peters projection map uses a rectangular coordinate system that shows parallel lines of latitude and longitude. In reality, the Mercator map was never intended to be used as a wall map and by the time Peters started complaining about it, the Mercator map was well on its way out of fashion anyway. In essence, the Peters projection was a response to a question that had already been answered. Skilled at marketing, Arno claimed that his map displayed third world countries more subjectively than the popular but highly distorted Mercator projection map.  While the Peters projection does (almost) represent land area accurately, all map projections distort the shape of the earth, a sphere.  However, the Peters projection came to be seen as the lesser of two evils. Peters Picks up Popularity New believers in the Peters map were vociferous in demanding the use of this newer, better map. They insisted that organizations switch to the fairer map immediately. Even the United Nations Development Programme began using the Peters projection in its maps. But the popularity of the Peters Projection was likely due to a lack of knowledge about basic cartography, as this projection is still quite flawed.   Today, relatively few use either the Peters or Mercator map, yet the evangelizing continues.   Trouble for Both Maps Peters only chose to compare his strange-looking map to the Mercator map because he knew that the latter was an inappropriate representation of the earth, but so was his. All claims made by advocates for the Peters projection about Mercator distortion are correct, though one map being less wrong than the other doesnt make either map right. In 1989, seven North American professional geographic organizations (including the American Cartographic Association, National Council for Geographic Education, Association of American Geographers, and the National Geographic Society) adopted a resolution that called for a ban on all rectangular coordinate maps, including the Mercator and Peters projections. But what to replace them with? Alternatives to Mercator and Peters Non-rectangular maps have been around for a long time. The National Geographic Society adopted the Van der Grinten projection, which encloses the world in a circle, in 1922. In 1988, they switched to the Robinson projection, on which high latitudes are less distorted in size than in shape in an attempt to more accurately capture the three-dimensional shape of the earth in a two-dimensional figure. Finally, in 1998, the Society began using the Winkel Tripel projection, which features an even better balance between size and shape than the Robinson projection. Compromise projections like the Robinson and Winkel Tripel are far superior to their predecessors because they present the world as globe-like, making them worthy of support from almost all geographers. These are the projections that you are most likely to see today.