I have seen a series which I consider a strong candidate for the "Best Series Ever" award: "Dexter". I utterly enjoyed it, as it is a great mix of drama (in a higher percentage) and comedy.
Dexter Morgan
Dexter is a drama about a forensic (Dexter Morgan) who works for the Miami Police by day, and is a reckless serial-killer by night. All along its eight seasons, it shows how his life evolves and how his actions affect him and the ones he loves. It is an almost perfect combination between drama and comedy, very vividly portrayed by its great cast. It is really thrilling and it has various touching scenes. The only drawback I can find (to it) is that it is a bit clichéd in its last two seasons, as it seems that the screenwriters lost a bit of their imagination.
In conclusion, I strongly recommend it for everyone who likes a good drama, despite its bad things, which are almost none.
En la materia de Biología, buscamos alguna publicidad de la televisión que hablara sobre la evolución y, a partir de lo estudiado, analizamos si la idea que plantea sobre este proceso es correcta no.
La publicidad plantea una idea errónea de la evolución. Esto
es así porque, en la explicación que la nena da, esta dice que las bacterias
“cambian”, volviéndose mejores. Lo que en realidad sucede en el proceso de
evolución no es que las bacterias cambian, sino que se favorece un fenotipo
específico dentro de la población de bacterias, y así al genotipo que lo
genera. Esto hace que las bacterias portadoras del genotipo favorecido, que
puede ser la resistencia a algún antibacterial, sobrevivan, mientras que las
bacterias no portadoras de tal genotipo no pueden reproducirse
satisfactoriamente o mueren. Las bacterias no cambian, sino que sobreviven las
que se adaptan mejor al ambiente y logran reproducirse satisfactoriamente.
A. What was decided at the Potsdam conference?
The allied leaders arranged for July 1945 in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam, a conference. There weren’t taken any decision, due to the fact the distrust between Stalin and Truman, so they had different disagreements, over what to do with Germany, over reparations and also over Soviet policy in Eastern Europe.
B. Why did the wartime unity of the Allies break down between 1945 and 1947?
The wartime unity of the Allies broke down because there was tension and suspicion between the USA’s president, Truman, and the USSR leader, Stalin. Because of these, in the Potsdam Conference, they did not come to an agreement in some major aspects: what to do with Germany, reparations and Soviet policy in eastern Europe.
Furthermore, in the months after the Potsdam Conference Stalin achieved the control of eastern Europe. Poland, Hungary, Romania Bulgaria and Albania had all Communist governments that were loyal to Stalin. Churchill described the borders between them and the West as an “iron curtain”. With Communist governments in all eastern Europe, Stalin tightened his control, eliminating opposition. In 1947, he set up the Cominform to organize and control all the Communist Parties, replacing independent leaders with people who were loyal to him.
C. "The Truman Doctrine generated much more tension than the Berlin Blockade" How far is that statement true?
Different things increased the Cold War tension, such as the Truman Doctrine: giving money to countries that were going to turn into Communism, to stop that movement. Or the Berlin Blockade, with USSR taking control of Germany. But what event produced more tension?
On the one hand, the Truman Doctrine added tension to the Cold War because USA was sending equipment and advice to any country which was, in the American view, threatened by a Communist takeover. They did this as a way of containing Communism.
On the other hand, the Berlin Blockade added much more tension to the Cold War, because as people living in the Soviet zone wanted to leave that zone, and Stalin, who had the control of Germany´s capital, closed all the railways and any possible way of going away from that zone, and that hurted a lot of countries and people.
To conclude, I think the Berlin Blockade added more tension to the Cold War that the Truman Doctrine because that involved more countries.
1. Describe American involvement in South Vietnam between 1854 and 1963
In 1954 the US applied a different rule: it prevented elections from taking place because it feared that the Communists would win. The Americans thought that China and the USSR were planning to spread Communism, and if Vietnam fell, many other countries (Laos, Thailand, etc.) would fall with it, and Americans were determined to resist the spread. In 1955, US helped the extremely corrupt president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, to set up the Republic of South Vietnam (set up in December 1960), as he was anti-Communist and prepared to exile Communists. By 1962, President Kennedy was sending military personnel to fight the Viet Cong, arms and soldiers that were called “Advisers”. In 1963 and 1964, tension between North and South Vietnam increased and so did American involvement. However, Kennedy said he was determined that the US would not “blunder into war, unclear about aims or how to get out again”. On March 1965, America was at war in Vietnam.
2. Why was Cuba important to the USA?
Cuba was important to Usa since they were allies and negotiate together. Also Usa owned most of the businesses of Cuba and they had a huge naval base in the Cuba Island. Between 1959-61 Castro took over all this business and he wanted to run Cuba without interference, so Usa broke of diplomatic relations with Cuba. The invasion of USA in the Island suggest that the USA was unwilling to get directly involved in Cuba. The soviet leader, Krushchev was scroful of Kennedy’s pathetic attempt to remove Communism from Cuba. Soviets was helping Cuba and Americans watched all this with great alarm, so Kennedy asked himself what he could do (Invade, Do nothing, Surgial Air Attack, Blockade, Diplomatic pressures).
3. How far is it true that the USA left the Vietnam War because of military failure?
The US was involved in the Vietnam War from 1954 to 1973, when they retired all of their forces from the country. Many historians claim that this was due to military failure, but, how far is that true?
To begin with, the war was very different from how the Americans had imagined it. They thought their soldiers would win it easily, as they had largely superior technology and firepower, but the guerrilla tactics implemented by the Viet Cong fighters made this practically impossible. There were also other incidents, as the My Lay massacre and the Tet Offensive, that undermined the USA’s involvement in Vietnam. After the Tet offensive, President Johnson came to the conclusion that the war could not be won militarily.
There were also other factors that contributed to the end of the American involvement in Vietnam. A very important one of them were the huge peace demonstrations in universities and public spaces, in which people complained about the war in Vietnam. These were mainly because the USA was not only spending enormous amounts of money in the war, but also because they were sending hundreds of thousands of young men to fight a war that was not theirs. Moreover, many people were horrified when the My Lai massacre came to light. President Nixon (the one who pulled the USA out of Vietnam) was also involved in the Watergate Scandal.
In conclusion, military failure was an important cause for ending the USA involvement in Vietnam war, but there were also other reasons that made this happen. 4. Why did the unity of allies break down by 1945 and 1947?
The unit of allies between USA and USSR break down by 1945 and 1947, because they had different thoughts and wanted different things, Truman didn’t trust Stalin. Stalin was not respecting the agreement.
En el área de biología estuvimos trabajando con la evolución y luego vimos el ADN, una de las pruebas de la evolución. A partir de lo que leímos tuvimos que escribir un texto relacionando los conceptos genes, ADN, proteínas y evolución.
Todas las células tienen núcleo, dentro del cual hay moléculas de ADN, que están dentro de nuestros cromosomas. Los humanos, por ejemplo, tenemos 46 cromosomas, cada uno de ellos formado por una única molécula de ADN enrollada alrededor de proteínas. La estructura de la molécula de ADN es siempre la misma en cada persona. El ADN está formado por nucleótidos que a su vez están formados por un grupo fosfato, un azúcar y una base nitrogenada. Los genes son un segmento del ADN, ubicados en una parte específica de los cromosomas. La información genética permite relacionar a restos fósiles con individuos vivos actuales, ya que muestra cuán parecidos son a nivel molecular. Lo mismo sirve para encontrar la relación entre las especies (si provienen de un mismo antecesor), ya que las especies que son parecidas en sus genes están emparentadas entre sí, y la diferencia de cromosomas muestra que tan lejanas son, dando evidencia de la evolución. También muestra que lo que evoluciona son las poblaciones, y no los individuos, ya que los individuos de cada población tienen características parecidas entre sí. Esto es así porque la evolución es una propiedad de las poblaciones (grupo que incluye a todos los miembros de una especie que viven en una región específica). Los cambios evolutivos que sufre una población sí dependen de sus individuos, pero al estar todos expuestos a las mismas condiciones ambientales es más probable que reaccionen todos de una misma manera. Para que una población evolucione se tienen que dar las siguientes características:
Debe haber mutación.
Tiene que haber flujo de genes entre poblaciones (movimiento de alelos hacia dentro o fuera de una población).
La población debe ser pequeña.
Los apareamientos no tienen que ser aleatorios, sino con una tendencia hacia ciertos genotipos para aparearse con otros genotipos específicos.
Debe haber selección natural (todos los genotipos no se reproducen con el mismo éxito).
A partir del análisis del video de Space Oddity, de David Bowie, se nos propuso buscar algún otro video o película que esté relacionado con el viaje (al espacio) y analizar la idea del viaje que cada video da, comparándolos. En mi caso, elegí la película Zathura. La película, protagonizada por Josh Hutcherson (Los Juegos del Hambre) y con la participación de Kristen Stewart (saga Crepúsculo), cuenta la experiencia de dos chicos, Danny y su hermano mayor Walter. Los hermanos se llevan mal y, luego de un conflicto, Walter encierra a Danny en el sótano. Allí, Danny descubre un juego de mesa llamado Zathura y convence a Walter de jugar. Cuando el juego empieza, la casa es trasladada al espacio. Ahora, los chicos emprenden un viaje en el que deberán terminar el juego, pasando todos los obstáculos, para poder regresar a casa y que todo vuelva a la normalidad. La idea que ésta película da del viaje es que el viaje puede ser peligroso, pero termina siendo algo positivo. El trailer muestra la escena cuando se dan cuenta que la casa está viajando por el espacio (Danny abre la puerta y se encuentra con un: en ese momento, los chicos están preocupados y no saben que hacer, pero luego el viaje, a medida que avanza, se va convirtiendo en una aventura. El viaje es peligroso por todas las cosas y peligros por las que los hermanos deben pasar (meteoritos, extraterrestres, un robot, un agujero negro, etc.). Más allá de todos los peligros, termina siendo positivo porque les sirve para mejorar su relación como hermanos, aumentando la confianza entre ellos. En contraste, la idea que el video de Space Oddity da sobre el viaje es que este puede resultar adictivo. Es así porque Major Tom, a pesar de tener una esposa en la Tierra, decide quedarse en el espacio, con las estrellas, perdiendo el control de la nave y dejándola volar libremente. Él se quita el casco y el traje en el espacio (en esa escena las estrellas son representadas por mujeres que lo desvisten), probablemente muriendo allí y quedándose en el espacio para siempre. En lo personal, yo pienso que un viaje puede ser algo bueno si te hace conocer cosas nuevas (lugares, gente, etc.), o lo haces con gente con la que te llevas bien.
Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (two, one, liftoff)
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare
"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do
Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you "Here am I floating 'round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do"
