First Blog Post

Hello

My name is Christopher. I am a senior majoring in Anthropology and East Asian Languages and Cultures. Up until this point, I have mainly taken courses that are more socio-cultural based and am currently working on my senior undergraduate thesis. I have been meaning to take more biological anthropology courses, but due to time constraints, I have not been able to. I am taking this course to fulfill my biological anthropology course requirement, but among the courses offered, this course title seemed to be the most interesting. While I have not taken too much for biology/biological anthropology in years, I have always found evolution to be a really interesting subject.

I think that these blogs are related to our course:

http://anthropology.ua.edu/blogs/achsahdorsey/

http://somatosphere.net/

http://socmedanthro.wordpress.com/

I selected this blog post to write about:

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/evolution/Evolutionary-Medicine-Research-Shows-how-Vaccines-Might-Prompt-Evolution-of-More-Aggressive-Parasites.html

I have for some time had an interest in the evolution of viruses outside of what our current vaccines are able to combat. This has probably been stimulated by news stories or TV programs warning of the immanence of a "superbug." This article posits the rather alarming argument that vaccines may tend to kill off weaker strains of the viruses they are meant to combat, selecting for stronger and more resistant strains. These strains are not only potentially resistant to existing vaccines, but the selection of stronger and potentially more deadly strains, increases the threat to those who are unable to receive vaccines. This is very interesting as it is biological selection not only of viruses, but as well the selection for humans in socio-economic groups and areas of the world that are able to access the vaccines needed to combat increasingly deadly diseases.