Free Essays on The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is a science fiction book about the fictional 'first crisis' in the biological field. The book starts out by pointing out that technology is growing so rapidly, there is bound to be crises, like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and how the biological field of science has never had a major crisis. He also points out that biology is the youngest of all the fields, and a crisis has been long overdue. It begins with what is known as Project Scoop, a scientific mission to find life in the extreme outer limits of the atmosphere. Many satellites are put into orbit, and most are lost or come back with nothing. Then, with the seventh satellite, the get something. There is just one problem. The satellite lands in a very small town in northeast Arizona called Piedmont. Tracking crews are sent out to find the satellite and find it, and head into the town, but they find most of the inhabitants of Piedmont lying dead, clutching their chest, in the middle of the main street. When the get out of the vehicle to investigate, they die too, while being monitored by radio. The person in charge is back at base, listening to them. When, after the two find all the dead bodies in the town, everything goes silent, he knows something has gone very wrong, and calls in the problem. The systems that have been set up to take over in the event that something that like this happened start to take over, and certain people are contacted. Years before, a group of biologists proposed to the President that, in case of a unknown biological agent getting out into the country, an underground secret base should be set up to study the organism, and possibly try to find a cure. It would be five levels, each successive level more sterile than the other, from level 1 being non-sterile, to level 5 being as sterile as possible. The base also would have an automatic nuclear device placed at the bottom of it to prevent ... Free Essays on The Andromeda Strain Free Essays on The Andromeda Strain The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is a science fiction book about the fictional 'first crisis' in the biological field. The book starts out by pointing out that technology is growing so rapidly, there is bound to be crises, like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and how the biological field of science has never had a major crisis. He also points out that biology is the youngest of all the fields, and a crisis has been long overdue. It begins with what is known as Project Scoop, a scientific mission to find life in the extreme outer limits of the atmosphere. Many satellites are put into orbit, and most are lost or come back with nothing. Then, with the seventh satellite, the get something. There is just one problem. The satellite lands in a very small town in northeast Arizona called Piedmont. Tracking crews are sent out to find the satellite and find it, and head into the town, but they find most of the inhabitants of Piedmont lying dead, clutching their chest, in the middle of the main street. When the get out of the vehicle to investigate, they die too, while being monitored by radio. The person in charge is back at base, listening to them. When, after the two find all the dead bodies in the town, everything goes silent, he knows something has gone very wrong, and calls in the problem. The systems that have been set up to take over in the event that something that like this happened start to take over, and certain people are contacted. Years before, a group of biologists proposed to the President that, in case of a unknown biological agent getting out into the country, an underground secret base should be set up to study the organism, and possibly try to find a cure. It would be five levels, each successive level more sterile than the other, from level 1 being non-sterile, to level 5 being as sterile as possible. The base also would have an automatic nuclear device placed at the bottom of it to prevent ...

Discriminated Criminals Essays - Abuse, Social Inequality

Discriminated Criminals Essays - Abuse, Social Inequality Discriminated Criminals The Criminal Justice system has always had discrimination in it. Discrimination can come from the police, courts, or even from lawyers. For example, in the Gideon vs. Wainwright case the court ruled that the state must provide a public defender but it did not rule that the public defender must be good or competent. (Too Poor N.Pag.). In most cases where a public defender is provided the defendant loses the case because the lawyer is new or incompetent. Thus the criminal justice system needs reform. The Criminal Justice System discriminates against the economically challenged and minorities because of police discrimination, unbalanced sentencing and incompetent public defenders. Police discrimination is a major factor in the criminal justice system. Police can discriminate towards different people and in different places at anytime the officers want. White police discriminate in jails and on the streets, which can be called racial profiling. In jail a white officer could give a black man a harder time then he would a white man. On the streets a white officer will stop a black man for no reason, ask where the black man is going, and often the officer will search the black mans car of belongings (Cole 7.). White police will go through poor neighborhoods to stop and search anyone the white police want (Cole 7.). A black man has a chance of getting picked up by the police for a DWB, which is Driving While Black which is impossible for most white people to even comprehend (Cole 7.). Another form of discrimination is from the black police. Sometimes the black police can discriminate just like the white police. Black police will discriminate against all ethnic groups like whites, blacks and other minorities. The black police discriminate against other blacks because the police believe that the black criminals are keeping the rest of the black community down. Black police also discriminate against the other minorities, not just the black criminals. Some black police feel the same way about Mexicans as some white police feel about blacks, that the Mexicans are what make this country bad. Another reason why there is talk about discrimination in the criminal justice system is because of unbalanced sentencing. Black men are more often sentenced for a first offense and usually get a longer sentence for something that the white men would only be getting a fine for (One-Third 25.). A California study showed that one out of six of six hundred twenty-five thousand black men were arrested, black men make up three percent of the population but account for forty percent of the prison population (Miller N. pag.). Black men usually pay twice as much bail as whites and usually get jailed before trial (One-Third 25.). Twelve percent of the American population is black and thirteen percent of blacks have used drugs but blacks account for thirty-five percent of arrests for drugs possession, fifty-five percent of convictions and forty-four percent of prison sentences (One-Third 25.). Most crack users in the United States are white but most prosecuted are black (Carter 290+.). Only fou r of the first thirty-seven death penalty prosecutions from the Anti-Drug Abuse Act have been white (Carter 290+.). Unbalanced sentencing, besides affecting black people wrongly, can also effect poor people wrongly. Poor people can get harsher sentencing just because a judge does not like the person for not being able to keep a job or for not paying taxes. Poor people could get a harsher sentence because the poor person does not have the money to pay a fine of a mere fifty-dollars. The judge knows that the poor person could not pay the fine. Even though misdemeanors and fines are small to most people, to a poor person it could mean imprisonment. Judges can also be swayed by the appearance of a person and a poor person cannot show up to court battered or in a suit. Incompetent public defenders are the biggest form of discrimination in the entire Criminal Justice System. The biggest problem is the funding for the public defenders. Even though it is less than two percent of the total spending on law enforcement and only ten percent of spending on all judicial and legal sources, people can still

New Below Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

New Below - Essay Example uage was seen as a matter of knowing grammatical rules and vocabulary and could be measured by measuring the learner’s grammatical and lexical knowledge.’ (Manfred 219). Philosophers and Psychologists have often debated appropriate ways of conceptualizing the nature of language proficiency and its relationship to other constructs like intelligence. ‘Proficiency is a definite, if intuitively held, concept and not just a formal construct.’ (Manfred 219). The question of proficiency in language is central to the resolution of a variety of applied educational issues. Expertise in a language develops as a function of ‘different class rooms treatments different experiences in the environments and different social contexts.’ (Harley 7). To assess proficiency, tests have been designed that have descriptors for various levels of achievement and is usually expressed as a number on a scale. ‘The level of correlation between tests of formal knowledge and tests of practical proficiency seems to depend on the nature of the course or environment in which the language has been learned.’ (Manfred 219). According D E Ingram, Darwin Institute of Technology, Casuarina, Australia, ‘the term â€Å"test† – refers to any activity in evaluating or measuring some part or all of a learner’s language proficiency.’ (Manfred Introduction 215). A five point scale such as the International Second Language Proficiency Rating (ISLPR) formerly called Australian Second Language Proficiency Rating (ASLPR) used the + symbol to make distinctions between the fine points on the scale. There have been considerable developments in linguistic and second language teaching. The evaluation of the concept of proficiency changed the linguistic theory of Chomsky with competence in performance. Reactions against Psycholinguistic distinctions made by Chomsky made people think of competency as not only linguistic but also communicative i.e. use was considered as important as language usage.