Importnace of Technology in Understanding Internal Body Systems

Technology has benefited people in hospitals and healthcare in such a positive way. The technology used to understand the internal body systems is life changing and can help detect and diagnose any problems in the digestive, circulatory or respitory system. The medical world's technology has come a long way and without many of these medical devices, we would be unable to save the many lives that we do today. Some of the examples of medical technology we use are:

Ultrasound: produces sound waves that are beamed into the body causing return echoes that are recorded to "visualize" structures beneath the skin. The ability to measure different echoes reflected from a variety of tissues allows a shadow picture to be constructed.

Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB): technique that temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during surgery, maintaining the circulation of blood and the oxygen content of the body. The CPB pump itself is often referred to as a heart–lung machine or "the pump".

MRI machines: uses a powerful magnetic field, radio frequency pulses and a computer to produce detailed pictures of organs, soft tissues, bone and virtually all other internal body structures.

X-ray generator: is a device used to generate X-rays. These devices are commonly used by radiographers to acquire an x-ray image of the inside of an object, but they are also used in sterilization or fluorescence.






We know techonology makes all the difference in medical history and Canadians have given contrubutions also. John Hopps, an electrical engineer at the University of Manitoba, invented the first cardiac pacemaker in 1950. When joined the National Research Council in 1941, he was conducting research on hypothermia and while experimenting with radio frequency, he made an unexpected discovery: if a heart stopped beating due to cooling, it could be started again by artificial stimulation mechanically or electronically. The device was too large to be implanted into the human body, therefore was an external pacemaker. This Canadian invention benefited the medical technology in a huge way. This is because the heart’s natural pacemaker is responsible for regulating the heart’s beats at a certain pace. But sometimes the natural pacemaker fails in doing so, which is where artificial pacemakers step in to take over the role of the heart’s natural pacemaker. This Canadian invention saves many lives.

Work Cited
http://heartwellnessstore.com/how-do-pacemakers-work
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcardiac.htm
http://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/tests-treatment/mri.htm
http://www.medvet-cves.com/pdf/Cardiopulmonary_Bypass.pdf

Blogs I Commented On

http://ankerlovesbio.blogspot.com/2011/03/thank-you-for-technology.html?showComment=1306765585206#c9004569714302708051

http://sbi3u1carminachu.blogspot.com/2011/03/importance-of-technology-to-understand.html?showComment=1306765861105#c8749079263860955293

Feeding a Growing Population vs Conserving Biodiversity

Now a days, humans seem have a high demand of enormous amounts of crops and livestock in a short period of time. How are they able to do this you ask? Well, the natural way would be letting the animals grow at their own pace. But since the food industry needs to produce large quantities of meat, they find other ways to speed up the process. The way to do this is by injecting hormones into our meat, usually beef and poultry, and changing their diet.

Sustainable Agriculture are farms that produce all natural foods without any excessive use of pesticides or chemicals, produces organic crops and organic foods containing high levels of antioxidants. Industrial Agriculture are unsanitary industrial farms and slaughterhouses with high levels of meat contamination and produces crops with the heavy use of pesticides. They're crops also contain more nitrates and strive to increase production to make more money without the regard for human health.




This clip taken from, "Food Inc", shows how chickens are being re-designed to grow bigger and faster. Birds are now raised and slaughtered in half the time they were 50 years ago and still twice as big. They also re designed the chicken to have bigger breasts, because that's what people like to eat most.


With the global human population increasing just means there will be an even higher demand of food and land. More food means, taking over land to grow crops and food and to build more homes. Population growth every year means farmers must feed 78 million more people with 27 billion fewer tons of topsoil. Eight pounds of grain and 2,464 gallons of water is needed to produce just one pound of beef. Feeding more people means feeding more animals. Also more pesticides and herbicides will be needed to be able to produce more, which can have an effect of human health because of the exposure to pesticides in our foods.




In this video it shows a concentration feeding grounds for cattle. I mean, does this look at all natural to you? It looks pretty disgusting to me and knowing this is what we basically consume when we eat beef is even worse. Also, the way they treat animals makes me sick! Clearly there's no respect for them and the living conditions they're in are horrible. Humans seem pretty selfish and greedy, we change the natural ways of living of the animals and poison them just to satisfy our consuming needs. It's crazy to see how far people go to make more money and how humans can keep on eating and eating and eating, we just don't know how to stop!


It is because of industrial agriculture that now people are facing health issues and changing the way our livestock grow just to meet consumers around the world's massive demand of cheap food. Our population is rapidly growing and we seriously need to understand the consequences we face to selfishly meet human needs. I strongly believe that the risks of reducing genetic diversity outweighs the benefits of relying on few highly productive livestock breeds and crop varieties.

References
http://www.planetwire.org/files.fcgi/291_Agricult.pdf
http://www.sustainabletable.org/intro/comparison/

BLOGS I COMMENTED ON

http://sbi3u1carminachu.blogspot.com/2011/01/feeding-growing-population-vs.html?showComment=1294098461237_AIe9_BE_Ws0Us9Ae9CxtUS2TbqB2wFQp5xS7pYGYvawk9S4lP5sG84Cq89VPySeDHP2c4Z-ZiLlvYH9UK7D9N2r_1QG0wTpdRvQYmQXNZujvLMz59ZgQCWdQw2Eyxyz33mfTDRaLlysFoJnyB_4YKdwphJC4yocgeXRCgddpjBw-oAqExf-IqLI42spsugOVyY6Y7wPeF1januYrVWpkg0DGqxksu5-8B1tF8JwWFF6cgMD_LIQNo896xvoZDJtiAyutJdUfimjgf5EHxKGR7gExwLLiMpAz36KCXL8IMUNFAaX_JuYai1p3__-cK3bGBPkYbMdPOQQO8nS5yBUcze6CWwrt54qNAQvKQrdsvz0UMKHPRB-vDW0cTKMtCcVTWS8VOGjkW7eYSTfVsu2DMCBpAiSn5dqdSQ3iWzOE8JhYGGL8X7gJkx-awecJ2xFs4N13kax1n7o1Hf5Z8aBGvWCgtHWh4WB3H8DeL2WHJifT5A1CA7EhT5Lhy79DxmUmD-Y0fxpJvSRUKHRcU1bcKogHhDT-ljYT2gm0b2PfHQBUdA8AfQ0VFdse5_BFDy4iTNdvnCOGGVbYQS9n570ix613IrDsGaCMWtMWva_5wNLc49lFMQuPXTRBh5yottVASqIAn4EPkstuTvuojZZ2ox5nZtqY0riZCuqZIaKCRXttLlvyvEKAzG7i0JraCem0v9y1lfKOj1piltIGSEc3uZynEsoJzEIKrB-a7mBWtrrdgWaAR3udNIfIOT2IqzoBKrEbI_e3fkUAzbvwl-9uM7g2q8Ew-H1fWfF1n0xsXF_nua1v3lPEqIZL4OXLWZJLbVWTbP0qraI9fN1O0Tmg7d4-C0Ly24aGhWqycyXS_PnGg_U6b1YTZMEkhZMRVLaYWSP4E2CJKBVr#c5591208903990230914

http://melissasbioblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/differences-matter-sustainable-over.html?showComment=1298907699398#c321316396035219777

Designer Babies?!

What are designer babies? It's exactly what you think it is, healthy selected embryos to create the ideal baby you've always wanted. Parents of the future won't have to worry about what sex or disabilities their babies will have because they are able to choose all that along with their appearance and personality. This is the first time I've ever heard of this, and to me it sounds a bit creepy and so inhumane! Being able to design your babies sex, hair color, eye color, body type or even personality is so unnecessary. Whatever happened to originality? Who are we to take out our babies flaws and completely build them scientifically!? I understand some parents are worried about having a child with disabilities or illnesses, but choosing their traits and characteristics is so unnatural! Doing this, it makes your future child feel like a barbie or ken doll. They don't feel special, they're like all the other designer babies that didn't receive the gifts of God. Instead their genes were played around with and changed! We're always trying to change the nature of things by trying so hard to make everything so perfect. We need to learn to accept everything in life and stop letting all these advanced technology take over our lives!

PROS & CONS
The pros of having a designer baby is that their chances of getting an illness or disease is very small. Also parents can get the gender they want and are able to choose how they'd like their child to look. Obviously there are not as many pros than cons but what more did you expect from designing your own baby.

There are a bunch of downfalls when it comes to having a designer baby. One example is that your baby loses genetic variability and may even increase the chance for their own kids to get some kind of genetic diseases. If they had a choice, they'd probably choose to have a natural birth over playing around with their genes. Designing your child may cause them have high and unrealistic expectations for themselves because they want to fit the parents "perfect" image. Another thing is that you totally just changed what they were going to originally be put on earth to become. It just does not seem right at all, kind of like building a toy more then having a beautiful child.





This picture shows a mom returning her baby because she says "it's no longer fashionable." It's so true! What if having designer babies aren't trendy and are frowned upon by society? Would you just abandon your child just like that and try to "return" it? Also, what if the dream child you had in your head didn't actually come out the way you wanted. You are then responsible for it and have it your whole life. It's so unfair that the child doesn't get to be born with natural beauty, instead they were scientifically modified. Having designer babies seems more like producing than giving birth! Like having everyone look the same being so called perfect. There's a quote by Edward Young saying, "We are all born originals-why is it so many of us die copies?" But to me, having a designer baby changes this whole saying! It's more that the babies are already being born as copies because their personal traits were not natural. God gave us the gift of being original and unique and now science is even playing around with that?

References
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pros-and-cons-of-designer-babies.html
http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm

BLOGS I COMMENTED ON
http://itsbiotime.blogspot.com/2010/11/build-baby.html#comments
http://yay4bio.blogspot.com/2010/12/designer-babies.html#comments

Greenpeace Helps Preserve African Forests

I agree with the statement that humans are the most invasive species towards the environment. This is because humans harm the earth in so many ways. Polluting and over use of resources are only some things we do that make us the most invasive species. Although this is very much true, there are still many organizations out there that help out the biodiversity of our ecosystems.

For example, the popular organization Greenpeace is out there trying to protect the rain forests in the Congo. It is the second largest rain forest on earth and is losing much of it’s forestry due to the amount of illegal logging that goes on. This forest is very important to millions of people! It is the way they get their food, water, shelter, and livelihood from fishing and farming. To the Democratic Republic of the Congo the culture depends fully on this forest. Hearing this I would think people would obviously want to end the logging. But no, they have granted the logging industries 15 million hectares of land for them! In return they get bags of salt and sugar and beer worth less than $100. Also the logging industries promise to build more schools and hospitals but that rarely even occurs and it’s reported in people protests intimidation tactics are used by the industries. Wow, I was so shocked and annoyed hearing this. Do you know how many animals, such as gorillas and chimpanzees and humans suffer from this? The people of DRC must feel it is good for them right now receiving all the goodies, but in the long run the whole environment will suffer from this.


This is the second most important forest in the world next to the Amazon. Yet we're still taking so much from it.


At this rate, the UN predicts that by 2040 two-thirds of the forest will be demolished.


Over 10,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds, and 400 species of mammals.


Short video that sums up the consequences of logging in the Congo from the Greenpeace website.

Luckily there are organizations like Greenpeace who take the time and effort to try and stop this from happening. They are campaigning for appropriate protection of intact forests and earn rights for the people and animals that depend on the forests. Their campaign pushes for stricter regulations to kick out illegal loggers from the forests in the Congo. This is such a good thing they are doing because illegal loggers take so much from the land excessively. Kicking them out will prevent even more logging to occur to the further 15 million hectares of land. Maintaining the existing number of logging activity is also vital, to keep the loggers from taking too much. What Greenpeace is doing is so important to the whole earth! Imagine 15 million hectares of land becoming extinct, how much damage it would do to the environment. This is an example of how Greenpeace was a positive human intervention was used on the biodiversity of out ecosystem, helping eliminate illegal logging in the Congo!


Picture of Greenpeace protesting against logging in the forests of Congo.

References
Greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/forests/africa
www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/what-a-carve-up-the-con-in-the-congo-logging-industry
Pictures from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2008/jun/17/forests.conservation#/?picture=335086924&index=4

BLOGS I COMMENTED ON

http://claudia-d-123.blogspot.com/2010/09/green-quest-green-diagnostics.html#comments

http://nicolesbioblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/greenpeace-activists-occupy-arctic-oil.html#comments