Jordan Pope

I have no idea what I’m going to write about. None. I have been thinking about this off-and-on for the past couple of days and still have come to no conclusion. I would like to thank the professor for this unexpected time of self-reflection. I now am sure, more than ever, that my life is as boring as I thought it was.

The only thing I can think to write about is having an exotic animal as a pet. There is not that much information out there on them when you search the web, and some things I found weren’t the best advice(imagine that).

I also thought about doing something with space… Like when living on space stations would  become a reality or how they build things like that, etc.

I could do something more controversial like police hatred I suppose. My boyfriend is an officer in Austin so I hear a lot of him and his co-workers opinions which are usually very opposite of my friends’. I fins listening to their opinions very interesting.  Seems like every time you turn on the news  there is another issue with cops.

so yah… it’s either something here or i’m just going to talk about Orange is the New Black for 5 pages.

I believe the ‘Next Big Thing’ will be in the health and medicine field. Nanoparticles are now being tested on human subjects to detect diseases and even battle cancer. Research is being done to produce nanoparticles to enter in human cells and help the body’s immune system fight and even prevent cancer and other serious illnesses.

These nanoparticles have been used to detect potentially fatal infections when time is precious and test results will take too long. Sepsis, an infection of the blood, usually takes three days to get test results back to confirm or deny the bacteria present. In three days the patient, if they are infected, would be dead. Nanoparticles have been used to determine infection and report diagnostics identifying all the specific bacteria that are present in about TWO HOURS.

These nanoparticles are being applied to treat brain injury, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and to be used as a new broad-spectrum antibiotic.

Google has gotten involved in this R&D for the “cancer-detection pill”. I think that we will see this technology a lot sooner than imagined.

Web Sources Used:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/google-health-tech-enterprise-7-ventures-watch-entering-ocano

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/nanoparticles-and-the-future-of-medicine/

One of my favorite websites to troll on my daily browse is Buzzfeed.com . Not only is this website a good source of current events, it also has lots of interesting topics full of articles. From world news to DIY it’s kind of a one-stop place for anything.

One of the things I really like about the home page is that there are lots of pictures and graphics. The layout has the pictures in a sort of tile or mosaic fashion along the top half of the page before you scroll down. As you run your mouse over a picture that catches your eye a one sentence title pops up to tell you what the attached article is about. The more important stories about the hot topics have larger photos. Underneath the tiles are columns of articles separated into things like; trending topics, videos, and quizzes. I think this layout makes the usability of the website high. It also plays into the instant gratification of the user with visual aids, and higher priority stories larger and more visible. You don’t have to think a lot when using this site. Everything is very self-explanatory.

Just from first look of this homepage you, as the user, can also notice there is structure to this site. At the top there is  a navigation bar and a search button that provide short cuts if you are looking for something specific. The large pictures focus the users attention and the short headlines provide quick and fulfilling information, which is efficient for users wanting to browse a lot of information in a short glance.

Once you click on an article the same navigation bar and quick links are in the same place as the home page which is good for the user to see the consistency. There are lots of pictures and nice bold letters for important information as well as short paragraphs and sentences which makes for an easy read. Along the top of every page you view there is another bar full of buttons to post onto various social media sites. I like that Buzzfeed has this large and at the top of the page and along any photos as opposed to small and hidden like some news sites.

All in all I think Buzzfeed is a good site for news. I’ve never had a problem navigating through it or posting things onto social media, and I can find pretty much anything I need to.