What goes down the drain...

As a human being it is required for us to eat, sleep and go to the washroom. These are the things we can't but do. What goes down the drain eventually reaches a water treatment facility and as the water gets treated biosolids are produced. “Biosolids” is another term for treated sludge which is made of the many things that go down our drains. Biosolids are the byproduct of domestic and commercial sewage and waste water treatment. Biosolids recycling, didn't exist until 1978, most treated biosolids were either wasted, dumped in the ocean, or sent to land fills.

If you didn't know, biosolids have a wide variety of use and it would be a waste if we we're to just throw it away. If treated properly biosolids could be used as compost for landscaping, as fertilizer which would save farmers thousands of dollars while increasing crop production and improving the quality of soil. Biosolids beneficial use can be an economically feasible form of recycling. So how are biosolids created?


How sewage water is processed

Biosolids are created through the treatment of domestic waste water generated from sewage treatment facilities. Waste water treatment facilities monitor incoming waste water streams to ensure their recyclability and compatibility with thee treatment plant process. Once the waste water reaches the plant, the sewage goes through physical, chemical and biological processes which clean the waste water and remove the solids. If necessary, the solids are then treated with lime to raise the pH level to eliminate objectionable odours. The waste water treatment processes sanitize waste water solids to control pathogens (disease-causing organisms, such as certain bacteria, viruses and parasites and other organisms capable of transporting disease. So are biosolids safe?

The National Academy of Sciences has reviewed current practices, public health concerns and regulator standards, and has concluded that “the use of these materials in the production of crops for human consumption when practiced in accordance with existing federal guidelines and regulations, presents negligible risk to the consumer, to crop production and to the environment. So what are the pros and cons of biosolids?



The pros of biosolids is that it create jobs, it is a cost effective method of disposal, recycles versus filling landfills, promotes farming, reduces emissions from transportation to landfills, good free fertilizer, good free fertilizer, and land reclamation. The cons of biosolids is the potential health hazard, effects irreversible, contamination resulting from accumulation of industrial waste, its true composition is unknown, may contain hazardous chemicals, possibly transferable to crops, decreases property value, not sufficiently regulated, and odor. The greatest concerns are heavy metal accumulation, long-term effects to land and to health of people and animals, is it transferable to food/water and once it is applied, it is irreversible. The alternatives to biosolids are to burn it and stick it in a landfill.

Despite all the pros, cons and alternatives. Humans are greatly influenced by the western view that biosolids are a nuisance, like we are easily influenced in believing many other things. Biosolids provide us a great alternative to burn many resources that can easily be utilize. Though it may seem disgusting... it is definitely more disgusting to burn or dump our waste wherever or whenever we want.

References:
http://www.biosolids.org/docs/source/uses.pdf
http://www.sencer.net/Outreach/pdfs/DCSymposium08/Posters/LUbiosolids.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosolids

The Things I do to get Healthy...

During this modern age of man it is very easy to get carried away with all our luxuries and indulge in things harmful to our body. Lack of exercise, constant digestion of oil foods, and inhalation of harmful substances. If we are what we eat and what we breathe and what we do, then what we are is only as good as our digestion and respiratory system and circulatory system. When goes into us and what we do affects our entire being and lifestyle. It could be mild nausea, asthma attack or obesity but either way it is impossible for us to ignore. What we feel on the outside does not show what is happening on the inside. If conditions persist it can eventually threaten our very lives. Society has made many scientific and technological strides related to our internal systems.

Eating food, there is no guarantee that there is no type of virus within it and eating so much oily foods our digestive system was never meant to handle will only make things worse. A digestive problem that has plagued humans for as long as we can remember, diarrhea, has never been something we could simply ignored. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and electrolyte imbalances. Although diarrhea normally subsides within 2-3 days, it is the common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The most common cause of acute diarrhea is infection; viral, bacterial, and parasitic. Only within the last 50 years have we been able to find some sort of treatment such as Oral rehydration salts and zinc tablets; saving over 50 million children. The importance of technology for a simple has saved the lives of over 5 million people.


How diarrhea can be contracted

Asthma rates among children in the world are substantially higher than they were 20 years ago. Many scientists link this cause between the pollutants and the disease of the airways. Carbon dioxide has been rising since the time of James Watt, inventor of the auto-controlled steam engine which helped jump-start the industrial revolution. Asthma affects a total of 300 million worldwide and society has done many things to develop more advanced treatments. An inhaler is a short-term treatment for asthma created, as it provides patients with an exact amount of medicine each puff.



Societies need to lead a healthy and active lifestyle has made many strides scientifically and technologically. With so many luxuries, sometimes we tend to get carried away and our body begins to diminish. Sometimes because of these luxuries new diseases are formed. In order to make our lifes more fit we have made many great strides to help us!

Bibliography...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asthma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea
http://www.medicinenet.com/diarrhea/article.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/01/27/asthma-report060127.html

Things that we're never meant to stick

"Artificial selection has resulted in plants that are more disease-resistant, cows that produce more milk, and racehorses that run faster. One must wonder what will come next. Under what circumstances should humans be artificially selecting plants or animals."

Artificial selection is the intentional breeding of certain traits, or a combination of traits. Unlike natural selection, artificial selection is for the reproduction of plants and animals with the most desirable traits. Why would anyone want to do this anyways? The first occurrences of selective breeding occurred in plants, the winters were very harsh in north America and the summers were too short to properly harvest the wheat, so they artificially created a wheat which was more cold-resistant. This sparked an idea to apply artificial selection to many more things... but as particular genes are being produced and reproduced doing much good, there are consequences...

Artificial selection also known as selective breeding is usually done by crossing two members of the same species which possess dominant alleles for certain genes, and is crossed with another member which has desirable dominant traits. Both of these members have dominate genes for the desirable characteristics, when they are crossed-bred they will produce some offspring that will show all of theses desirable characteristics. The world of today is in need of plants and animals which posses favourable traits, such as high crop yields, resistance to disease, high growth rate and many other phenotypical characteristics which will benefit the organism/species in the future. Our human population is increasing at an alarming rate, and the world is already incapable of feeding everyone. Inorder to try and sustain our already unsustainable population we look for a quick solution out of this mess..

An example of selective breeding to help accommodate our growing population is the Belgian Blue cattle. It is a heavily muscled cattle, known as "double-muscling". The Belgian blue cow has a natural mutation of a gene that codes mysotatin (a protein that counteracts muscle growth). It's nonfunctional mysotatin, results in accelerated lean muscle growth, which means more meeat to feed people. Double-muscled cows also experience dystocia, because of the narrowing of their birth canals and have to be caesareaned.

It definitely is an advantages to both the species and humans to recreate these traits that may benefit the organism. However, the continuous breeding of certain genes risks losing some of the other genes from the gene pool in the process, and it's irreversible. The specific word for this is called “in-breeding depression” where favorable advantageous genes mean that some other less desirable genes are phased out in the future, and it is more advantageous for organisms to remain heterozygous. The downside of in-breeding depression is the lack of genetic diversity. The lack of diversity in the gene pool which is prepared for wide range scenarios such as good shortage or an epidemic is lost, and there is a possibility of the species becoming extinct because of this.Humans realize the extinction of one species can also have a devastating effect, knocking the balance of an entire ecosystem. Is it right for us to risk losing an entire species because of our own needs?

In conclusion I think selective breeding can be seen as good or bad, and I don't know enough about it to state my opinion. So I just hope this article helped you in choosing a side.

Sources:

http://www.biology-online.org/2/12_selective_breeding.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue
http://www.messybeast.com/inbreed.htm

Design me baby

"Designer babies" is the term being used by the media to describe the future of modifying or selecting our children's genes for desirable characteristics (medical and cosmetic). Are things getting out of hand with our research into genetic processes? In this blog investigate social and ethical implications of this research and technologies that have been developed from it.

Like making our own puzzle, one piece at a time. Let's design a baby?

Genetic engineering isn't some newly developed technique of the 20th century. In fact, genetic engineering can be dated all the way back to the 1900's, before the creation of all the high-tech gadgets used in the genetic engineering today. When I first thought of genetic engineering what came into my mind was Frankenstein and a mad crazy scientist, and that cloned sheep Dolly. What I didn't know, was that genetic engineering involves a much wider range of categories. Did you know genetic engineering is made humans capable of treating many illnesses and conditions which we're almost 100% lethal. Illnesses such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and arthritis. Did you know over 60% of our food has biotechnology in it? In agriculture we are able to take traits from one organism and put it into a food, this can alter the food in many ways, making it last longer, taste better, and grow faster and larger. So many things can be enhanced, and even made better with the use of genetic modification! Now imagine applying this knowledge so that we are able to choose what kind of baby we want...

A new technique called In vitro fertilization which fertilizes egg cells with sperm outside the womb, outside of the mother's stomach, and in a test tube inside of a laboratory. This allows doctors and parents to choose what gender their child will be, by selectively choosing male and female sperm cells. another technique screens embryos for a genetic disease and only selected embryos are implanted in the mother's womb, this is called Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). Wonderful what we are capable of now isn't it? Imagine if we could even cure genetic disorders...

Wait, recently scientists have made major advances to the knowledge of our human genome, and we are able to modify and change genes. This will allow us to potentially cure genetic diseases, this is called germ line therapy, but is currently illegal in humans. Why? Though genetic modification has it's amazing benefits, it is not 100% safe and without flaws, some cases result in death of the baby... Yes, the death. This downside of "designer babies" has spurred many arguments world-wide about genetic modifications, and that it is inhumane to gamble any life.

My opinion on genetic modification a.k.a. "Designer babies" is that I personally would not consider it. Genetic modification can be used to alter anything from gender to diseases, and eventually we will be able to alter appearance, personality, and even IQ. So why wouldn't anyone want to design their own baby?

Designing our own baby does not have a 100% success rate, and if it were to succeed... They wouldn't need parents to guide and teach them, because they are designed to know what they will be like... So what's the point of being a parent? What's the point of having a child if you know what kind of person it's going to become? I thought a person wanted a child because they thought they could turn that child into an amazing person who is smart, athletic, sociable, and successful. Designing a baby is the easy way out, and takes the excitement and wisdom you will experience from raising a natural born child. So why consider making a baby if your not willing to overcome the hardships of raising it yourself?

Things getting out of hand with our research into genetic processes? If we further research into genetics so that we are able to alter appearance, personality, and IQ we are facing a controversy of an elite race of humans, that could possibly look down on natural born humans. In the future the might even oppress us. Is it right to take a chance on this possibility that could risk the 6 billion people living on this planet?

Hitler has also spoken about an elite race. What has he done to the world?
Let's design a baby?

With the risk of "designer babies" taking over the world, we are faced with the social implications that could occur. The world is currently is in a "dog-eat-dog" state. Female teenagers are already faced with the insecurities of looking like the women they see on the magazines. Constantly facing questions such as: Am I too fat? Is piece of cloth in "trend"? Will I be popular? And males faced with insecurities of not being "buff" enough. Now imagine if we were to incorporate perfect "designer babies" into our already insecure lifestyle. What would happen? I bet you can guess that people will feel even more insecure, and there would be a huge gap in society.

I'm filled with insecurities. All I need is just one more perfect human being to look up to...
Let's design a baby?

Would I design my own baby? No, I wouldn't. Why? I don't think it's right to gamble any life. I want to raise my child without knowing what it will become, and just pray that my guidance alone will be sufficient. I don't think society is able to handle such "perfect" people in our society yet. Are humans overstepping our boundaries? I don't know, but I think we are.

Sources:
http://library.thinkquest.org/04apr/00774/en/txt/uses.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designer_baby
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation
http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm

Stewards? No.

Many scientists consider humans as the most invasive species, as humans can greatly change an environment and impact living things that reside there. Are we being stewards of the world?

Many anmal habitats are being destroyed because of human urbanization.

The Earth is an essential environment for humans since it is our resource for good supply, our energy source, our source for recreation, our source of medicine, and our natural resources for industrial products. We Humans are so heavily reliant on the Earth for survival that I could say the Earth is our "steward." Since the dawn of man our human interactions with nature has always been disruptive. Today, humans amazingly have an astronomically greater affect on the Earth than it did before. The effect is so great that we are even able to threaten the lives of all the living creatures in the world. But... why?

The reason is because Human's are naturally greedy creatures we're never content with what we have and strive for better no matter the cost. The Earth is our steward and the Aborignals of Canada realized this and lived as a part of nature rather than it's steward. For example the Aboriginals we're nomadic people following the buffalo instead of capturing and harvesting animals as we do now, and they did their best not to waste anything. If we could rewind time and decide to adopt their principles instead of trying to colonize them like we had, the world would be far better off.

Living in a house, sleeping on a bed, facebooking, watching televion, driving cars, listening to our iPODs, getting food from our fridges, turning up our heaters during the winter, these are things we do thoughtlessly. It is these things in life that we do so carelessly that are the main reason for our Earth's current condition. We all live in some sort of house, but do we realize what it took to make the home? It would take harvested wood from a forest which destroyed the habitat of bugs, birds, and etc. Heavy machinery would require gasoline which would release CO2 into the atmosphere and eat away at our ozone layer increasing the Earth's tempurature. The food we buy is all so excessively packaged which we throw in the garbage which either gets preoprly disposed of or gets thrown into our ocean.

Scientists estimate that there is approximately 1.8 million named species in the world and an estimation of 2 million - 50 million species living today. However due to human's disruptive interactions with the Earth, species' extinction rate has approximately increased 100-1000 times than before. The main reasons for this are because of deforestation, urbanization, over fishing, mining, and the many little things we do everyday without a second thought. We Humans are rapidly increasing our population by the billions as the animal population declines.

Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately 20% of world greenhouse gas emissions.

According to new research led by a University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicist, a giant asteroid that hit the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago probably incinerated all the large dinosaurs that were alive at the time in only a few hours, and only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were left alive. 20,000 years ago ice covered the land wiping out almost all life on the eartth, this period is known as the ice age. All of these naturally occuring disasters have drsatically changed the surface and life on earth. Time and nature has changed the world in many significant ways, but humans have definitely changed it the most. Humans are able to survive throughout many hardships as the sands of time flowed through the hourglass, but now we have created a disaster we may possibly not survive. If humans were "stewards" of the world, we'd definitely be a terrible one.

A meteor hitting the earth could wipe out all live as we know it, but humans are capable of destroying the world over 7 times over. Are we good stewards?

Sources:

www.hobart.k12.in.us/jkousen/Biology/impact.html http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/22/top.10.new.species/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction