What does the story of Henrietta Lacks contribute to our understanding of the relationship between health concepts and socioeconomic issues?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of the black woman with cervical cancer whose cells were the foundation of the HeLa cell line, which has been the foundation of much groundbreaking medical research in the past half century. Although the story was initially motivated by Skloot's interest in the history of the cell line, the narrative itself is a biography of Lacks herself and her extended family, and becomes a sort of case study on the interactions between a poor, uneducated black family and the wealthy, educated white medical establishment of her period.

The first thing we learn as we read the narrative is how health care is experienced by a poor rural black family as something essentially alien to their culture and experience. Travel to a hospital, medical care, and medications are almost beyond the financial means of the family, even with Medicaid. Health care bureaucracy and the hospital environment are alien and frightening. This combination of fear and expense means that poor families delay treatment. In Henrietta's case, this meant that by the time she sought treatment, her cancer was sufficiently advanced to be incurable, despite it being a type of cancer that now has a 91 percent 5-year survival rate if treated in a timely fashion. 

Next, lack of education led to major problems in doctor-patient communication, follow-on care, and treatment compliance, not only in the case of Henrietta but also in the management of her daughter's diabetes. 

Both of these elements of the story of Henrietta Lacks lead us to understand that medical advances can only benefit people if medical practitioners take into account socioeconomic obstacles to care. This may mean running community based clinics during the evenings offering free preventive care or scheduling longer appointments with patients from less well educated backgrounds to make sure that they understand their health situations and have access to and comprehension of follow-on treatment. 

How does Shakespeare use Lord Capulet and Paris to present the 16th century attitudes towards marriage? Include references to: Context ...

Although Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare in approximately 1594 or 1595, the story itself is set neither in England nor in the sixteenth century. The main source for the play was a long poem by Arthur Brooke, "The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet" published in 1562 that itself recapitulated later Italian versions of a story first published in Italian and set in fifteenth century Italy. 

The first and most obvious attitude that determines the plot is one that marriages should be arranged by families rather than by the preferences of the individuals being married. Lord Capulet is an extremely strong advocate of this viewpoint and feels that the head of the household deserves unquestioning obedience. He sees marriage arrangements for his daughter as an extension of his patriarchal power.

Paris is a polite, sensible, and conventional man who also sees marriage as a practical transaction, although he is decent and kind within the limits of his worldview. While he would agree with Capulet in principle, he is more flexible in his views.

Typically, women in this period were intended to be subordinate to men and obedient first to their fathers and then to their husbands. They were also expected to be chaste, and somewhat passive. Even Juliet recognizes that her decision to go against her father's will violates not only societal conventions but religious ones of her period when she says:

For I have need of many orisons

To move the heavens to smile upon my state,

Which, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin.

In Seedfolks, why did Amir retell the story of the Polish woman who had been in a concentration camp?

Amir, an Indian immigrant, moved to Clevland in 1980. He mentions that it's hard to meet people in America because most individuals go out of their way to avoid contact and keep to themselves. Amir says when he first moved to Clevland he had pre-conceived notions about Polish immigrants. He was familiar with the common stereotypes associated with the Poles but never got to actually know a Polish person individually. He says, "I'd always hear that the Polish men were tough steelworkers and that the women cooked lots of cabbage. But I'd never known one---until the garden" (Fleischman 76). Amir began planting his carrots next to an elderly Polish woman's plot, and they developed a friendship. He noticed that she didn't thin her carrot plants by removing the unhealthy-looking plants every few inches to give the other plants room to grow. When he asked her why, she told him that the task of thinning her carrot plants reminded her too much of the concentration camps where prisoners were divided into two lines. She says that the prisoners were inspected each morning, and the unhealthy prisoners were chosen to die. She goes on to tell Amir that her father was a violinist who spoke out against Germany. Amir says,

"When I heard her words, I realized how useless was all that I'd heard about Poles, how much richness it hid, like the worthless shell around an almond. I still do not know, or care, whether she cooks cabbage" (Fleischman  77).

The reason Amir retold the story about the Polish woman was to explain how generalizations and stereotypes do not take into account the unique, personal experiences of each individual. He essentially is encouraging the reader not to judge a person based on their nationality, race, or gender.

How can you find out the concentration of the given unknown solution using a spectrophotometer?

A spectrophotometer is a device that can measure the intensity of light at different wavelengths. A sample holder called a spectrophotometric cell is filled with the solution of interest and placed inside the machine. A beam of light will be shined through the sample and the intensity of the light at a particular wavelength that passes through the sample is measured. For this reason, spectrophotometric cells are made of very clear glass or plastic. Care should be taken to avoid scratching cells or smudging them with fingerprints, as both can absorb some of the light, leading to an erroneous result. The more concentrated the solution, the less light will pass through (more absorbance). 

If we are given a solution of unknown concentration, we will need a graph of absorption as a function of concentration for the solution in question. This graph might be available in a textbook or you can produce one yourself by preparing several known concentration solutions. Take a reading from each of the known concentration solutions using the spectrophotometer at the recommended wavelength. Plot your results using a logarithmic scale on the X-axis (concentration) and absorption on the y-axis. Then take a reading from the unknown solution and compare the measured absorbance to your graph to determine the concentration.

Using a social class lens, what are some examples of rich vs. poor in the novel The Kite Runner?

Analyzing literature by using a social class lens allows the reader to understand the differences between social classes, social status, and the occupations of various characters throughout the novel. Analyzing The Kite Runner through the social lens illuminates the socioeconomic disparity between certain groups of people living in Afghanistan and America. In Afghanistan, Baba and Rahim Khan are wealthy Pashtun businessmen, while Ali and Hassan are poor Hazara servants. In Afghanistan, the Hazaras are discriminated against because of their ethnicity and religious beliefs, which is why they occupy a lower social class. Later on in the novel, the Taliban take control of Afghanistan and occupy a higher social class. In Chapter 20, Amir meets a beggar who used to be a professor. The professor's current economic struggles depict his lower social status under Taliban rule. In America, Baba and Amir occupy a lower social class than they did in Afghanistan, but Amir is able to climb the social ladder after going to college and becoming a successful writer. Throughout the novel, characters who occupy lower social classes have relatively difficult jobs and are discriminated against, especially in Afghanistan. Individuals with less social status seem to be more religious and innocent, while characters who come from wealthy families tend to be immoral and selfish. Characters like Ali, Hassan, Wahid, and Farid are caring individuals who act selflessly. Wealthy individuals like Assef, and to a much lesser extent Amir, make selfish decisions which harm others.

What is the tone of Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian"?

Ray Bradbury's tone in "The Pedestrian" is cautionary and foreboding. He has taken the reader one hundred years into the future and shown a world in which the machines control the humans. The machines that do the controlling in "The Pedestrian" are the television sets in every home and the robot police car which patrols the residential neighborhoods mainly to make sure that everybody is safe inside. 

Ray Bradbury is more of a fantasy writer than a science-fiction writer or a prophet. He does not seem to take his imaginary picture of the world of 2053 entirely seriously. Some sci-fi writers try to visualize the future with accuracy as well as credibility. But Bradbury never seems too concerned about predicting the actual truth. His pictures of the future seem zany and exaggerated. He has a special horror of technology, which is similar to that expressed by E. B. White in his humorous/serious/horror/sci-fi short story "The Door."

In Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 he has a fire department that sets fires rather than putting them out. In his story "The Veldt," he has a fantastic futuristic house in which the children's playroom harbors real lions and other wild animals, or anything else the children want to imagine. And this technologically fantastic home could be purchased for $30,000! With all its accessories such a home should cost around a hundred-million dollars today, if such a house could ever be built. Bradbury is whimsical. He doesn't care about facts but about coming up with unusual and striking original ideas. He should not be taken too seriously. But he can always be read for pleasure and amusement.

What important events change Jem throughout Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird? What textual evidence shows these events changed Jem?

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, one event that changes Jem is the realization that Arthur (Boo) Radley is reaching out to the children in his own special way.

The first time Jem realizes Arthur is reaching out to the children is the night he and Dill decide to sneak onto the Radley property to try and get a glimpse of Arthur through the window, bringing an unwilling Scout along with them. When shots ring out, the three children flee in terror. During flight, Jem gets his pants caught on the barbed wire fence and must abandon them to escape. At two o'clock in the morning, Jem decides to go back to the Radley property to try to retrieve them. Later, he explains to Scout the surprising condition he found his pants in, which he left "all in a tangle":

When I went back, they were folded across the fence ... They'd been sewed up. Not like a lady sewed 'em, like somethin' I'd try to do. (Ch. 7)

These clues signify that Arthur had sewed up Jem's pants for him in an act of kindness.

During Scout's second grade year, Jem also begins to realize the items he and Scout are finding in the knothole of the oak tree on the Radley lot are actually gifts Arthur is intentionally leaving for the children. The biggest clue is when the children find bars of soap in the knothole that had been carved to look just like the children. Jem knows perfectly well that Arthur is the only one in the neighborhood reputed to have such excellent whittling skills.

As soon as Jem brings himself to realize that Arthur is silently reaching out to the children through gifts and kindness, he decides to leave Arthur a thank-you note in the knothole and is absolutely devastated to find that Arthur's older brother Nathan had filled in the hole with cement. Jem is so devastated he has no way to thank Arthur that it moves him to tears, as Scout notes at the end of Chapter 7.

But, Jem's tears are a sign that he is growing up and has been changed by the experience. His tears signify he feels guilty for having mocked Arthur through the game he and Dill invented and has come to see beyond the rumors and myths surrounding Arthur: Jem has come to see Arthur as a kind and caring person, albeit mysteriously reclusive for reasons of his own.