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