Exoneration

     An innocent man can never go to jail right? Our system has no flaws and the people that are arrested are all guilty right?  Wrong.  Innocent men are regularly arrested and convicted either through misidentification, or police misconduct.  However hope for these innocents is not lost and groups like The Innocence Project are working to free these wrongly convicted people.  One such case was the rape and murder of Lori Rosetti.
     In this case four innocent teenagers, were arrested and convicted by a corrupt police system.  They used beatings, and trickery to force these teens to falsely confess to a crime that they did not commit.  But this was not the end of the corruption.  This system also attempted to use false witnesses.  In fact, the police even knew that at least one of the four was innocent, his only "crime" had been refusing to be a false witness.  All of these circumstances led to life sentences for all but one of the teens had agreed to testimony against his friends for a reduced sentence. They served 15 years before they were able to prove their innocence through DNA evidence.
     Advances in DNA evidence have allowed exonerations like these to take place.  They have also provided new evidence on old, unsolved cases.  However one of the larger changes was caused indirectly by DNA evidence.  Realizing how many innocent men have been wrongfully convicted cause a re-evaluation and revision of police practices.  New techniques like blind lineups have been implemented to help make sure that the witnesses aren't influenced by the police officers giving the instructions.  DNA evidence has caused police reform and has improved and repaired a damaged system.

Can we eat to starve cancer?

     What do strawberries, red wine, yogurt, and maple syrup all have in common?  They can all combat cancer.  According to William Lee these and many other anti-angiogenic foods can defeat deadly cancerous tumors.
    Angiogenesis is the process by which the body produces new blood vessels.  It is required for only a few specific tasks.  For example, when you get a cut, the body produces more blood vessels to heal it.  However, cancer uses angiogenesis against us.  A cancer only becomes dangerous or deadly when it is able to recruit its own blood vessels through angiogenesis, but when it does these new blood vessels are weak and chaotic, which makes them more susceptible to anti-angiogenic therapy.  So by eating these foods and medicines, cancer can be starved and death by cancer delayed or avoided altogether.  This treatment can also be used preventatively either by those who are at risk from cancer or have already beaten it once or twice and want to keep it from coming back.
     In my opinion, this is the best possible way to defeat cancer.  Unlike other treatments there are few to no drawbacks of this treatment, as many of these foods are extremely healthy in ways other than simply stopping the spread of cancer.  While radiation treatments, surgery, other cancer fighting methods can come at a cost to the patient, anti-angiogenic treatments and foods help the body in more ways than one.  I believe that this is the healthiest way to fight cancer.