Alcohol Makes You Stupid?

Obviously alcohol will temporarily impair your judgment but what if this was permanent? Teens are a lot more susceptible to having bad side effects with drugs. For example drinking coffee can stunt their growth, so if caffeine a fairly mild drug can have that much of an effect, what can alcohol do?

`               Research done on teen animals suggests that drinking alcohol young can make you permanently stupid. Rats were taken and fed alcohol, but since rats don’t like alcohol, scientists had to infuse it with a tasty “gel matrix”. The animal’s decision making skills stayed well impaired well into adulthood. This was measured by their tendency to chase after rewards with associated high risk rather than taking a sure thing. Over all, tests show that drinking young can impair your decision making skills for life.

                I think that drinking at a young age is a really stupid decision because the part of your brain that controls decision making isn’t even fully developed yet so drinking makes it even worse.

Genetic Modification Controversies

Is it possible for rabits to glow? The answer is yes, by mixing jellyfish genes with a rabits DNA. To me genetic modification seems completely unnatural but there are some benefits. I think selective breeding is a better way to do things. Selective breeding has its downfalls though. Should we be geneticaly modifying plants and animals?

The difference between selective breeding and genetic modification is, selective breeding deals with breeding animals together to get the best result. Genetic modification is when you insert traits into an organisms DNA. Selective breeding has it's benefits. Animals can produce more eggs, milk and meat with selective breeding, but selective breeding has downfalls also. It can cause stress to the animals. Genetic modification has benefits to. you can make plants immune to pestacides, plants can be made to taste better and produce more, and animals can produce more. However, GM has its downfalls aswell. There are potential human health impacts, violation of natural organisms, and harm to the organsisms being used. I think GM should be of more concern to the public because it could lead to a lot of problems for humans. I think GM is completely unnatural and shouldn't be practiced for the saftey of humans, animals, and the enviroment. If Gregor Mendel saw what his discoveries caused I think he would be very amazed but also very sad. Look what selective breeding and GM are doing to animals. Chickens are suffering and dying because they are to heavy, and they grow to fast. I think GM is bad and shouldn't be practiced.

Should All Mosquitoes Die?

Do you hate mosquitoes? Because I really don’t like them at all. They’re nasty parasites that bite you, spread diseases, and make you itch in uncomfortable places. Mosquitoes don't fill an important roll other than spreading diseases and keeping various populations controlled, so why do we keep them around? Well, that’s a good question. 

In the article A World Without Mosquitoes, the author Janet Fang talks about the pros and cons of having mosquitoes eradicated. One point Janet Fang makes is that "If there were a benefit to having mosquitoes around, we would have found a way to exploit them. We haven't wanted anything from mosquitoes except for them to go away." (Dina Fonseca) This is a very valid point and is backed up by facts about how mosquitoes don't fill a roll that can't already be fulfilled by another species. However, she goes on to say "The ecological effect of eliminating harmful mosquitoes is that you have more people. That’s the consequence."(Strickman). I tend to agree more with Strickman because I think population control is a very important thing. I saw a National Geographic that talked about how the population is rising really fast. I think that is a very real problem that could lead to our impending doom. Mosquitoes help with that and eradicating them would only hurt us more in the long term. I believe that death is an important part of ecological health and that idea applies to humans as well. Over all I disagree with eradicating mosquitoes.

TED Talks: Viral Pandemics Nathan Wolfe

I never knew how or where HIV originated. In 1929 in Africa hunters contracted HIV. HIV was contracted by bush meat hunters. Primates are the most common type of bush meat and primate also have many viruses. Thus when you hunt an animal that has a deadly virus, you are likely to contract it. Nathan Wolfe traveled to Africa for ten years to catch viruses before they could be transferred to humans. When it comes to viruses humans are always reacting instead of preventing. If we could find a way to find and prevent viruses from spreading to humans then a lot of future lives could be saved.
There have been a lot of viruses that started out in animals then spread to humans. For example Rabies, Ebola, Yellow fever, Influenza, and HIV. If we would have found these viruses before they started spreading we could have saved a lot of lives. In my opinion this project should be a huge priority, viruses need to be given more attention because they are a big deal. Over all viruses should be caught and stopped.

Chimps' Fate Ignites Debate

"These animals have been used to an extensive degree," says John Gluck, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque."Is there a sense that we owe them something for that? I think we do."
I think we do too.
This article, Chimps' Fate Ignites Debate, talks about a group of chimps that are being called back into duty after an unofficial 10 year retirement. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has decided the chimps will be sent back into the lab by the end of 2011. I don't agree with this, I think the chimps should be able to stay at the sanctuary they are at and not have to go back to the labs. These chimps have been used already, they have served there time as our research pets and I think we do owe them something. I think that using animals for medical research is better than using humans, but this, this is cruel. These chimps have lived through a lot and deserve a peaceful life. The practice of using chimps for medical research was finally banned by the European Union, why haven't we banned it yet? They should find a better solution to finding vaccinations then using chimps. Over all I think that using animals for medical research is animal cruelty and should be stopped.

Cancer shouldn't be killed?

In Biology class we watched a video on this 19 year old girl talking about cancer. She talked about how our skeletol mucles don't get cancer very often or are even immune to it. She talked about how cancer should be manipulated not killed because it is a natural thing your body does to repair itself, it just gets out of control. This makes a lot of sense to me. It even seems like common sense now that she spelled it out. Though, was she the first one to start making connections like this? If so, medical doctors now seem a little bit more less intelegent to me. This is really interesting it could be the cure for cancer in the future. I never looked at cancer in this way before. It's not a virus or an invador, it's our bodies natural response to damage, so maybe killing it isn't the answer. Maybe we damage ourselves more by trying to kill it then if we tried to harness it. It's a really interesting idea and I enjoyed learning it in class.

Should Violent Felons Receive Organ Transplants?

"Now, I can imagine situations where denying basic medical care to a prisoner would indeed be cruel and unjust. We may not keep antibiotics or painkillers from prisoners and still call ourselves a compassionate, civilized society."

Watching someone die a slow death and doing nothing when something can be done is not compassionate, at all. However, there should be consequences to being a felon, they should not have the same rights as a contributing member of society. I'm torn on this issue because I feel every one has the same right to life but at the same time if my sister needed a liver and a convicted felon needed a liver then my sister should get the liver. She hasn't threatened the lives of innocent people, she's not in jail.