AbbyI liked the "Did you know" trivia today--it made the class rather interesting, and I learned some trivia that I can try to stump my husband with (which is hard to do because he knows a lot of weird stuff).
I learned more about computer technology, something that tends to elude me. An analogy for the computer was used that referred to the operating system as the guts of the body and the middleware software as the plumbing in the house. The individual analogies made sense, but I think it would make more sense if the same analogy was used for each part (just the human body or just a house).
During the "Next 5 in 5" section of class, one of the up-and-coming technologies was the idea of being able to have a 'crystal ball'-like view of one's health--being able to get a DNA mark-up for just $200 that allows you to know what to expect for your future health. I definitely have a difficult time with this. One of my daughters has an undiagnosed genetic syndrome, according to her geneticist. From the moment she was born, Abby has seen many doctors in numerous specialties because they are oh-so-careful to make sure they don't miss anything with her health since they don't know what she has. If her geneticist was able to identify what Abby has, there would be less ambiguity and her health care costs would be reduced (and we'd have more time) because we wouldn't have to have every test known to man done on her "just in case". I'm not sure if all of the tests are necessary--most of them are done to rule things out. But even the ones that I think aren't necessary we usually have them do, because I don't want them to miss anything either. I would be ecstatic if this 'crystal ball' came to be, I can see the benefits to it. But having experienced the wait (several times) to hear the results of a chromosome study only to find out that they are inconclusive, it's hard to imagine this coming to light in only a few years.
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