Sunday, October 14th 2018 Naya Said

Grade 11 CSO

Theory of Knowledge – Reflective Journal Entry #3:

Text 1:

“Scientists in China breed healthy mice

from two females”
By Joshua Berlinger, CNN
Updated 1647 GMT (0047 HKT) October 12, 2018

This image shows a healthy adult mouse born to two mothers with offspring of her
own.

(CNN)Researchers in China say they've bred healthy mice with two mothers using a
new type of gene editing technology, a significant feat that may help researchers
better understand mammalian reproduction but carries significant ethical and safety
questions. Commented [NS1]: Prediction
A total of 29 bimaternal mice were produced using 210 embryos in the study. They
all were "normal, lived to adulthood, and had babies of their own," though they
showed "some defective features," according to researchers at the Chinese Commented [NS2]: Observational claim
Academy of Sciences.
Sunday, October 14th 2018 Naya Said
Grade 11 CSO

This image shows a healthy adult bimaternal mouse who was born to two mothers
with offspring of her own.

But not all the mice pups survived the experiment. Mice produced from two fathers
only survived a couple of days after being born.
"This research shows us what's possible," Wei Li, one of the study's co-authors, said
in a news release.
"We saw that the defects in bimaternal mice can be eliminated and that bipaternal
reproduction barriers in mammals can also be crossed through imprinting
modification," said Wei Li. Commented [NS3]: Observational claims
"We also revealed some of the most important imprinted regions that hinder the
development of mice with same sex parents, which are also interesting for studying
genomic imprinting and animal cloning."
Sunday, October 14th 2018 Naya Said
Grade 11 CSO

This image shows a bipaternal mouse pup born to two fathers.

The scientists conducting the study, published in the journal Cell Stem
Cell Thursday, said they were interested in answering why some reptiles, fish and
amphibians can reproduce with one parent of the same sex, but others cannot.

The genes were removed using CRISPR Cas9, a tool that experts say has the
potential to save countless lives and billions of dollars but has raised serious ethical
questions about the future of genetic research.
The idea of "designer babies" -- in which parents can choose genetic traits -- is one
example, but some have warned that editing individual human genes could affect the
gene pool in future generations and carry unintended consequences. Commented [NS4]: Hypothetical statement

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/11/health/mice-unisex-reproduction-china-
intl/index.html

Text 2:

A fashion exhibit just

became the Met museum’s
most popular show ever.
Here’s why.
The Museum of Metropolitan Art’s Catholic fashion
exhibit, “Heavenly Bodies,” has broken every record.
By Eliza Brooke Oct 12, 2018, 10:10am EDT
Sunday, October 14th 2018 Naya Said
Grade 11 CSO

The back of a jacket on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Heavenly Bodies” exhibit, which
closed October 8.

At New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, fashion reigns supreme. In

early May, all eyes were on the opening of a new exhibit from the Met’s
Costume Institute, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Commented [NS5]: Observational claims
Imagination,” which showed potential to draw record crowds to the
museum and provide it with a major source of income at a moment of
financial uncertainty.

That’s exactly what it did. The show closed out its five-month run as the
museum’s most popular show of all time, beating out 1978’s “Treasures of
Tutankhamun” for the top spot. All told, 1,659,647 people turned out for the
Costume Institute’s dramatic depiction of Catholic fashion, according to a
release from the museum. This final figure cements fashion’s dominance at
the nation’s best-known art institution.

It wasn’t always this way. The First Monday in May, a documentary about
the making of the Met Gala, the Costume Institute’s annual fundraiser,
begins with Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton, Met trustee (and
Vogue editor) Anna Wintour, then-Met director Thomas Campbell, and Commented [NS6]: Definition
former Costume Institute curator Harold Koda all explaining why fashion
has historically been treated as a second-class discipline within the
museum: because it’s known as a decorative art and not a “real” art (like
painting, sculpture, or architecture), because it’s still considered women’s
Sunday, October 14th 2018 Naya Said
Grade 11 CSO

domain and therefore frivolous, because the department is literally located Commented [NS7]: Value judgement
in a basement.

On top of that, the overtly commercial nature of fashion — versus the less
acknowledged but very real commercialism of art — leads some people to
dismiss fashion as an art form. Commented [NS8]: Hypothetical judgement

But with the runaway success of “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”

in 2011, fashion exhibits started becoming reliable traffic drivers for the
Met. “Savage Beauty,” a theatrical, unearthly retrospective that took place
in the wake of McQueen dying by suicide in 2010, saw 661,509 visitors in a
little over three months, making it one of the 10 most popular Met exhibits
ever at the time. Since then, “Savage Beauty” has since been displaced by
the Costume Institute’s “China: Through The Looking Glass” (2015) and
“Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology” (2017), now the
museum’s sixth- and eighth-most-visited shows.

Visitors to the Met’s “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” exhibit in 2011. Andrew H. Walker/Getty
Images

Though museum collections have long housed clothing and accessories,

the appeal of specialized fashion exhibits has sharpened thanks to digital
media’s democratization of the fashion industry. Magazines and
newspapers used to relate what happened at fashion shows to consumers;
Sunday, October 14th 2018 Naya Said
Grade 11 CSO

now anyone can watch them by live stream, catch the photos on Instagram
minutes later, and tell the designer exactly what they think of his or her
work in the comments section.

“We get to have input and feelings and reactions to what’s on the runway,
so we’re involved in fashion in a greater way,” says Caroline Bellios, an Commented [NS9]: Value judgement
adjunct professor of fashion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“We take a greater ownership of it.”

Bellios also points out that as the public conversation about identity grows
louder, so does our fluency in fashion as a form of self-presentation,
furthering the accessibility of fashion in a museum context. Besides,
looking at art can feel intimidating — What does it mean? What am I
supposed to be getting out of this? — but with clothing, you can always
defer to the classic question: Would I wear this?