Gumby

Apparently my memory was foggy... It isn't the actual E. coli bacteria, but a toxin that is produced by E. coli. Take a look: http://www.sickkids.on.ca/releases/bacterial.asp My idea behind the engineering them was coding them so that they target specific proteins on specific species of bacteria.

Just wait untill you get to college. You'll have more than enough crap that you're REQUIRED to learn in order to get your degree. A lot of it will be repetion. In my opinion, if you hate what the useless stuff you're learning now; avoid liberal arts schools at all costs. Liberal arts schools have the most BS required classes ever. At Emory I was a Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology major yet I was required to take an "Intro to Politics" class that entailed reading old greek plays, The Bible, The Koran, Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf etc. Most of which I've studied alread and the majority of the class was not related to politics in the least, it was more literary analysis. Although the class was called "Intro To Politics" it was really nothing more than a class in Western Civilization. On top of that the professor was this morbidly obese guy who had the most monotonous voice I've ever heard. Talk about an incredibly boring and unstimulating class.. My poli sci class was the worst ever. I've also been required to take several other classes of the same nature, for example: Public speaking. College is full of required BS classes that are horribly boring. I guess the summary is: get used to it, at least for the next couple of years. You're going to be required to take pointless classes untill you're in your Junior year of college. Sucks, but thats how it works =\

I used to work at a petstore near Country Club of The South and Sugarloaf Country Club, both places where a lot of celebrities in Atlanta live. Jeff Foxworthy was a regular customer there, he came to know me on a first basis. He's a really cool, down to earth, and funny(duh!) guy. One conversation I had with Jeff was about Larry The Cable Guy. He was talking about how they'd go out to bars after shows and he said "I tell ya, a night of hanging out with Larry will make you feel better about yourself" . I have also met several members of Atlanta sports teams. Lastly, I also met the guy who is one of the stars/hosts of Candid Camera because they filmed a show at the petstore. When I was about 12 or 13 I met all of the members of the band KoRn. Weird bunch of guys. All somewhat introverted with the exception of David, the drummer and Fieldy, the bass player. On a side note, my dad has met Bill Nye (the science guy) on several occasions.

This is quite the opposite of bacteriophages, but a while back I read that when E. coli bacteria were injected into brain tumors of mice, the size of the tumor reduced by 50%(not sure on that number) within a month. I think bacteriophage could be helpful in medicine with some genetic engineering. Take flesh eating bacteria for example. If someone could engineer a virus to target and destroy flesh eating bacteria, I bet a lot of lives could be saved.

I was perscribed Zoloft about 2 years ago after I suffered from PTSD when my dorms burnt down causing me to lose everything. I continued taking Zoloft for those 2 years. Last month I ran out of Zoloft and decided not to get it refilled to see what would happen. Surprisingly a lot of things changed, and for the better I might add. After coming off Zoloft I've noticed the following: - The intensity of my emotions has increased greatly. When I am happy, I actually FEEL happy. When I am sad, I'm truly sad. SSRI class drugs(I've been on a few) seem to make the world "grey." When using SSRI's there are no extreme ups and downs, every thing is kind of... blah. - The artistic portion of my personality died completely while on SSRI's. I prior to the PTSD and Zoloft, I was an avid photographer. Once I started them I rarely took photos. The ability to express what I truly wanted to say also disappeared, which mainfested itself in both conversation and my writing. Now that I am not on Zoloft, my artsy side has reappeared. - Strangely enough, Zoloft also killed my motivation. I gained some weight recently and have had the hardest time motivating myself to work out so that I could lose the weight. Now I have no problems with becoming motivated to work out. It's also helped me with my classes. I'm more motivated to study, due to this I'm in the top of each class. - This is a weird one... Before Zoloft I almost ALWAYS sang when listening to music. With Zoloft there was no singing at all. In fact, I rarely listened to music when on Zoloft. That is strange for me becuase my life typically revolved around music. - In a way, SSRI's seemed to make the depression worse. I would dwell on things while on Zoloft. For example: My girlfriend (of 3 years) and I have had some rocky times in the past, most of the time it led to me having moderate depression/anxiety issues. Recently our relationship went in the worst way and we've decided to take a break (which usually means a pending break up). This time I'm not worrying about it nearly as much. Coming off SSRI's has enabled me to become apatheic. It's a given that this post doesn't have much of a purpose other than to share my personal experience with SSRI's, but I hope it provided you with something to think about. Antidepressants are supposed to make life better for those who suffer from depression but in my case it really put a damper on my life. Have any of you had similar experiences? What are your opinions of SSRI's?