Drink Now. Pay Later

Everyone likes to have a few drinks now and then. Have a great time and talk with friends. Never thinking they will go too far, next thing you now it’s the next morning, You can’t find your wallet or purse, Your pregnant, or you got some one pregnant. And the worst part is, you don’t remember a thing. This is the better sweet curse of alcohol.

Karen Hopkin says that research on animals shows that if children start drinking early and it clouds their judgment. It will ruin their judgment from then on and they will always make poor choices. They used rats for this research. But because rats don’t drink they had to mix it with tasty jello. So they were feeding teenage rats alcohol shots. They said the rats had a tendency to chase after rewards with high risks instead of being cautious as they got older. Even when they weren’t intoxicated.

I think it’s true that alcohol ruins one’s judgment, and that children often misuse it. Alcohol is a drug I believe and I think it should be band just like many other drugs that have bad influences on people. Or my other opinion is that we switch its age with driving. That way teenagers can be trained by parents how to drink and what is appropriate for one’s body weight to drink. Also make children go through classes just like drivers education. But there should also be limits. Like only aloud to by with parent there. This would one help with drunk driving, but also with inappropriate use of alcohol.

What are Genetically Modified (GM) Foods?

When going to the grocery store or supper market you sometimes see a label that says GM Free or GM food? You would often see it on Tomatoes or Corn just to name few. I’m sure it often makes some people wonder what it means if you already know maybe little about the process. Well I recently read an article telling me a little about.

Upon reading this article I found that GM means Genetically Modified. This is where they combine genes with plants or animals to give that species a new trait. Perhaps you want to make corn so it creates its own pesticides but does not harm people when they consume it. Or maybe a tree that bears fruit earlier than it normally does. Well this has already begun. They soon hope to GM things so they will be resistant to diseases. It is all in the Gene coding. Now in some ways this may be good. Getting better plants out of a harvest or maybe making an animal have better fur to survive cold. But there are people who think this is wrong. That this is messing with nature and playing god. Other say it could also be used for bad such as creating something so an animal or person would get sick or die from it.

Now I would have to agree that Genetic Modifying could be used for bad things and that it is messing with nature to much. I’m sure there could probably be some really cool species that come out of it but do we really have that right to mess with nature? I don’t mind the plants so much but I do the animals. I prefer that animal testing stay on just trying to make sure a product does kill people and trying to find cures for diseases, not making bunnies glow (an experiment I saw).

The Growing Pains of a Selectively Bred Chicken

Thinking of the good old chicken we love to eat, has anyone bought a chicken breast? I have been around home grown chickens. From little Road Island Reds to California giants and I have never seen a chicken, male or female with Breast meat that large. It makes one wonder what they are doing to those poor chickens they raise for the people to eat. Is it genetic modifying or Selective breeding?

Well in the article I read recreantly it said selective breeding for the chickens raise in Britain. This is where they will breed the chickens with most muscle mass and breed them together. That way their offspring should have more muscle mass than other chicks who were bred from normal chickens, and that means more meat. Now selective breeding isn’t just for chickens. It is done with many animals. Goats and dairy cows will often be bred so they will have a higher milk production or maybe butterfat content(cream often used for butter, cheese and often other dairy products).Animals that we like to eat, chickens, cows, pigs ect... will often be bred to have better muscles. Scientist even go as far artificial insemination so they can pick the best of sperm to get the modification they want. Some people believe that this process is wrong. That nature would never naturally breed like this or at least not over such a short period of time. Another concern people have is that many time it is over done. These chickens are a good examples that I read about. They weigh so much at 6 weeks it would be like a child who weighs 286lb at the age of six. The chickens have growing pains and even heart problems. Many people think this is wrong that these chickens are kept in a dark cage their whole life suffering and then get slaughtered. Now a few chickens die before they are harvested do to the problem they have but not too many. There are now companies advocating for these chickens say it is wrong and trying to get help.

Now I think it is wrong to, but there are allot of people who eat chicken. I would rather eat a home raised chicken myself though. That way I know what they have been fed and if they are healthy or not I also think that these factories would do better breeding more instead of just making one bigger or let them reach full maturity so they have grown all the way. Either way what they are doing now I believe is animal cruelty.

Why Ecosystem Services Matter

Ecosystem services are many of the little things in nature and ecosystems that human cant fully create on their own or replace. Such as pollination and clean water. these are both needed for an ecosystem to work. It seems like they are the thing that many people take for granted and never think about what would happen without them.

A podcast I was listening to talks about why these services matter and how they are not being considered when turning things into dollar. This is because it is hard to measure clean water or air in a budget so they are hardly ever brought to the table. This is a podcast that is two minutes long by David Biello. he says when we do start valuing these services in dollar they will never be completely accurate because they can never be measured correctly in dollar amount.

 I find he is probably right. We do need to start taking these thing in to consideration. Because when thinking about these small services, they really are a big part of living. without pollinators there would be many plants and without plant no animals, and then there would be no humans. the same with clean water too. Many people don't about this stuff because they say to themselves "I'm just one person. What difference would I make." well if we all decided to do something anyways like recycle and such we would be able to change this world for the best.

A World Without Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes can be a real pain when they bite or bother us when we are trying to have a good time outside in nature. Whether you are swimming in a lake or hiking a mountain you will always find a swarm of mosquitoes ready to attack you if you get close, which can sometimes ruin your day and occasionally sleep because you itch to bad. Well I'm sure we have all asked ourselves if mosquitoes even have a purpose other than to annoy you and spread diseases. Well there are actually a few good reasons to keep them

A article I have Recently ready talks about some of the hazards and benefits of the mosquito. the article is written by Janet Fang and has quotes from many entomologists trying to figure out whether or not it would be ok to eradicate the mosquitoes. One fact said there are 3,500 named species of Mosquito and only a couple hundred bite or bother people. One Hazard that many of us know about is their ability to spread  diseases and viruses, a few being West Nile Virus, Malaria and Yellow Fever. This alone gives many people the want to kill them, but they also pollinator plants. Not necessarily plants that many people use (other than cacao which you make chocolate from). But plants that other animals use in their diet. Mosquitoes can even kill a Caribou in the Arctic valleys by swarming them and suffocating to death the animal. One Scientist says its not just the adult mosquitoes but the larva too. They are often in pools and lakes which can make some people not want to swim in them. But many creatures feed off of them such as fish and some of these fish could die out if they couldn't eat mosquitoes larva. By the end of the article many people still want to get rid of Mosquitoes.

I don't. I understand that they were put here for a reason, even if we don't like it. These creatures feed other animals if not by their own body by killing another. They pollinate plants that are useful to other animals to eat. The viruses and diseases could be a problem but they aren't the only thing that carries stuff like that. Plus they probably keep some populations in control, maybe not a lot but some, contributing what they can, So therefor I think we cant get rid of them unless we could do their jog which we cant.

Ted Talks: Viral Pandemics Nathan Wolfe

The show Ted talks has many interesting subjects that they talk about for people to have a better understanding of, one of being the Viral Pandemics on mostly HIV.

When people go hunting in the woods or the jungle and are trying to hunt anything that will feed their family it is often called bush meat. The most often killed animal is the primate. Now it was said that how HIV transferred to humans was when people went out to hunt bush meat they may of had an open cut that might of gotten a primates blood in it that had HIV. HIV was transferred from primate to human but not all viruses that animals have can be transferred from animal to human, some your immune system just kills it off and it doesn't affect you. Some that have been transferred are Rabies, Yellow Fever, Ebola and Influenza.
Nathan Wolfe has created a program that lets locals take the blood of all animals that they kills so it can be tested to see what kind of viruses it has. he hopes that this program will someday hope to prevent many other diseases from transferring to humans

I think that this was a good show to watch and it helped to get rid of some myths about how HIV came to humans. I like the man's idea to help prevent future diseases. I feel that one of the ways to stop there being more viruses from animals would to be to stop bush hunting but one would have to stop poverty in the world to do that, so it may take decades for this to happen.

Cimpanzee testing

Chimpanzees have been studied on for years and have had several tests done on them for human discovery. I recently read an article in biology class about retired chimpanzees that were going to be brought back into labs to be treated one again. The article stated different peoples opines on the subject and how they think it should be taken care of. One stated that the chimpanzees should be be left in retirement for they have already given their services once. Though after many years of debate and arguing they were finally put back into retirement.
I found this a horrible thing to do to these creatures. They had already been tested on once and they were retired. I find animal testing cruel anyways yet its hard to not do that to make discoveries on human health. I also think that if one does do this they shouldn't keep them in small cages and not let them outside. It seems cruel to me.