Some of the problems of food security starts at the most basic levels, such as the lack of enriched food for children. In the following excerpt, a nice description of the main problems of food security in Haiti is being addressed. Apparently food fortification would lead to a partial solution to the food security problem. "Micronutrient malnutrition is one of the most debilitating issues facing the developing world and a serious issue in Haiti: only 2.7% of Haitian children under the age of five live in households that consume adequately iodized salt, only 55.9% of these children consume vitamin A rich foods with only 28.7% receiving vitamin A supplements in the past six months. Sixty one percent of these children are anemic " What this quote says is that most of the children in Haiti do not get enough vitamins from their food, if they do have any. This in fact is one of the greatest causes of malnutrition; to grew up without enough food and as result have physical deformations or lack of intelligence.

Sam plays in the orchestra, but none of "his classmates knew that he was undocumented." He wants to go to college, but colleges are too expensive. He cannot apply to financial aid as other people do. So it is very hard for him to go to college.

In this podcast, the author is actually advertising the Maharishi University of Management, but in the act he discusses consciousness and its importance in education. I found it especially interesting because it takes the perspective of a biological consciousness. It describes experience as "traces in the brain" and the distinctive "connection of neurons." In addition to this he brought up the point that the brain is constantly changing; "Over 70 percent of the brain changes everyday." However, this make me wonders where is the evidence to back up this assertion. Although somewhat unconvincing for me, this podcast raises a very important point: is consciousness physical? I hope I could answer this question but it is plausible that such a question would remain unanswered for a long time. Neuroscience and the biological perspectives on cognition are still young, but I am certainly that progress will come at any time.

Mapping Main Street, a collaborative program from WNYC Radio, contains many stories told from a personal viewpoint. Two of these stories involving Main Street in Flushing, Queens NY involves several of my classmates. I think that they are splendid Radio Rookies for they make a story that is both hilarious and informative. These personal connections to Main Street, which is familiar to anyone in the East West School of International Studies, enriches our own experiences in this particular place. Everyday, I have contact with Main Street but never thought of anything interesting from it. One of the things that my classmates mentioned in this podcast that I found very interesting is "steam bums are shaped like human heads." I found this to be funny and interesting because I have eaten so many of this stuff but never thought that it have any resemblance with the human head. Furthermore, Alexis, Melissa, and Hawa went on to discuss the healthiness of eating steam buns in comparison to other popular food. The narrative was indeed well mixed with a sarcastic approach and give taste to a topic that would be otherwise boring. They also investigated about something I had never heard before: The Flushing Pimp. It was very shocking when Dominique screamed "Disgusting!" in the middle of the podcast because I was expecting a nicer response. The Flushing Pimp podcast was at the beginning very funny with all the suspense build into it, but later became somewhat melodramatic when the story revealed schizophrenic basis. It is very sad that a person is driven by severe personal problems to develop such a serious mental illness. I was very surprised in fact that this was the "real" story behind the mysterious Flushing Pimp. In summary, I really liked my classmates' podcast in Mapping Main Street. Both podcast on "Steam Bums" and "The Flushing Pimp" were funny and well developed. A great variety of personal connections were used to facilitate the description and narrative of a particul

In this journal article, freewill and control are being the objects of an experiment. I found this very interesting because it proposes another perspective for looking at voluntary control. It also provides an objective hypothesis attempting to explain freewill physiologically and the underlying mechanics of such a conscious experience. "The conscious experience of free will is a central feature of human self-perception. We usually feel that our conscious intentions cause our actions, which in turn produce desired effects in the world. Although the subjective feeling of control is an essential aspect of our self-conceptualisation as intentional agents, the mechanisms underlying this experience are not well understood (e.g., [Haggard et al., 2002], [Jeannerod, 2003], Lau et al., 2004 H.C. Lau, R.D. Rogers, P. Haggard and R.E. Passingham, Attention to intention, Science 303 (2004), pp. 1208-1210. Full Text via CrossRef | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (100)[Lau et al., 2004], [Sebanz and Prinz, 2006] and [Sirigu et al., 2004]). Here, we argue that the conscious feeling of voluntary control is closely tied to our ability to represent future effects of our actions." This segment is the introduction of a long experiment. I found fascinating that what we call control can be just a representation of cognitive anticipation of future events. I am now digesting this article slowly, so for the time being, I am not able to provide a better explanation for I have not yet understood completely where does the conclusion comes from or how was the hypothesis made

I am learning more about Skinner's ideas on freewill, which were the inspirations for my research. In this blog, I found a very interesting quote that is supposed to summarize Skinner's ideas. Although, I do not believe Skinner's ideas were so simple as to be summarized in one sentence, this quote does make an interesting observation from Skinner: "With every lawful relationship I can prove in animal or human behavior, I am showing that the behavior of living organisms obeys laws just as other disciplines in science describes their subjects in a lawful way." This quote is practically saying that people's behavior or actions are not decided by the decision of that individual but rather are made to "obey laws" which are set by mature. This statement does point to his observation that freewill is an allusion.

This perspective of the universe is so remarkably different and interesting than most people conceptual understanding of the universe. It is just another form of seeing the universe, a point I want to make that the universe might be something very different from the outer space of the Earth where other planets exist.