B_I_O_S_O_L_I_D_S

In other parts of the world, biosolids for sewage treatment plants are treated and used as sustainable agriculture fertilizer. Research the pros and cons of this method and take a stand as to whether this can be a realistic alternative to our current agriculture practices. Who are the potential stakeholders in this issue? Are we influenced by the western view of human waste as an unsanitary and disgusting nuisance?



Biosolids also know as treated sludge, is a tern used by the wastewater industry to denote the by-product of domestic and commercial sewage and waste water treatment. Toxic chemicals such as PCBs, dioxin and brominated flame-retardants, may remain in treated sludge. Depending on their level of treatment and resultant pollutant content, biosolids can be used in regulated applications for non-food agriculture, food agriculture, or distribution for unlimited use.



PROS
· Creates jobs
· It is a cost effective method of disposal
· Recycles versus filling landfills
· Promotes farming
· Reduces emission form transportation to landfills
· Good free fertiliser
· Land Reclamation
· It’s regulated according to EPA law 503



CONS
· Potential health hazard
· Effects irreversible
· Contamination resulting from accumulation of industrial waste
· Its true composition is unknown
· May contain hazardous chemicals
· Possibly transferable crops
· Decreases property value
· Not sufficiently regulated
· Odour



Biosolids are regulated at both the federal and state level. Biosolids must first meet several quality standards and policies in order for them to be applied to land. These standards contain limits for metals that may exist in biosolids, site rule and regulations, pathogen standards, record keeping rules and soil monitoring requirements.

National Academy of Science has said that the use of these materials in the production of crops for human utilization when practiced in agreement with existing federal guidelines and regulations, presents negligible risk to the consumer, to crop production and to the environment.



About 95% of the nitrogen in biosolids exists in an organic form that has a slow release rate, which makes it much less likely to run off into streams.



The pro of biosolids in Canada is that Halifax Regional Municipality can get rid of its solid waste problem by giving it away. However the cost to treat waste and make it into biosolids is $175/ton. This means that we are subsidizing this process with out taxes. Farmers are being asked by major retailer if they are growing their food with biosolids, the intent being that the retailer are not happy with a yes. Insurance companies are informing farmers that they consider biosolids to be in breach of existing policies. Human waste isn’t really a good fertilizer substitute because of our diets.



I think that Biosolids have both positive and negative effects on the earth and people. I also don’t believe that biosolids as know as human waste is a good fertilizer because of all of the artificially selected foods we eat. Biosolids is a sort of pollution, which will affect the air around us and the oxygen we take in. They should conduct more experiments and research more before they go ahead and use human waste as fertilizers in farms and other lands. While biosolids certainly provide valuable nutrients to agricultures, advocates of biosolids have not adequately addressed concerns raised but those oppose to the practise. Biosolids are believed to be linked with declining sperm counts and reproductive failure. Therefore we need more research on this topic before biosolids can be used as fertilizers.



http://youtube.ca/watch?v=QpiZReZG4_A

WORKCITED

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18023841

http://www.antijen.org/transadvocate/id22.html

http://southeastfarmpress.com/grains/fertilizer-alternatives-0604/

http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1176241.html

http://www.schwingbioset.com/news/bid/34089/Natural-Fertilizer-from-Biosolids-reuse-to-the-Nth-degree-Part-I

http://www.cwwa.ca/faqbiosolids_e.asp

http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/qa/105-1focus/focusbeauty.html

Importance of TECHNOLOGIES...

EVALUATE THE IMPORTANCE OF VARIOUS TECHNOLOGIES, INCLUDING CANADIAN CONTRIBUTIONS, TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE INTERNAL BODY SYSTEMS (DIGESTIVE, CIRCULATORY OR RESPIRATORY) Medicine in Canada debatably began centuries before the French settled in the shores of North America, but because the native people passed on their traditions orally, the only written accounts of their practices and beliefs were recorded but the white explorers and settlers. Most aspects of native medicine were fundamental to a religious system. Native people treated illness with highly effective plant remedies, such as oil of wintergreen, bloodroot, high bush cranberries, as well as physical procedures such as massages. European medicine at the time of settlement was involving into a scientific discipline, even though theories and knowledge about disease developed very slowly. The use of technology in medical practise did not start until the 19th century. For a long time, the practise of medicine was based on the patient’s descriptions of symptoms and not based on hands on experience. Not until the 18th century did physicians start to use manual techniques to diagnose patients and to study dead bodies. One of the first technologies is a Hutchinson’s device for measuring the vital capacity of the lungs. Another device discovered in the 19 century was Herisson’s sphygmomanometer for blood pressure measurement. In the first half of the 20th century, medicine was transformed with the use of medical technology. Medical technologies invented in the 20th century were the thermometer, stethoscope, microscope, ophthalmoscope, laryngoscope, and x-ray. With such medical devices, doctors were able to see and hear patient’s body such as heart and lungs. Medical technology increased the amount of data required to diagnose and treat patients. Medical records became essential document for retaining patient’s information. Technology also created a less face to face relationship between doctors and their patients. Imaging is crucial to diagnose illness, diseases, and assess treatment. Recent techniques have been replaced with technology. CT scanning sometimes called CAT scanning is a non-invasive medical test that helps physicians diagnose treat medical conditions. CT scanning combine with special x-ray and computers to produce multiple images of the inside body. CT scans internal organs, bone, soft tissue and blood vessels providing greater view and exposes more details than normal x-ray testing’s. Such scanning makes it easy to diagnose problems such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, infection disease, trauma and musculoskeletal disorders. CAT is one of the best and fastest tools for studying the chest and abdomen and pelvis because it provides detailed view of all types of tissues. Doctors often prefer this method for diagnosing many different cancer, including lung, liver and pancreatic cancer, given that it allows physicians to confirm the presence of a tumour and the measure it size. Physicians often use the CT assessment to quickly identify injuries, to the lungs, heart and vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, bowel or other inertial organs, measure bone mineral density for the detection of osteoporosis, plan for assess the result of surgery and properly administer radiation treatments for tumour. Canada is a huge contributor to the medical world. A number of the world’s most proficient inventions and discoveries were made by Canadians. Medical doctors came to Canada alongside with other French settlers. David Parker, who worked in Halifax in the 18th century, was the first to operate with anestheia. At the same time W.R Beaumont became a prolific inventor of surgical interments. In the 20th century, Canada was presented with some of the world vest scientists. The two major contributions to the medical world were done during the 20th century. First, the improvement of anesthesia by W.E brown in 1923 and Dr. Harold Griffith in 1942. Dr. Harold advanced the science of anesthesia by utilizing the curare plant. Secondly, the discovery that recovery rates of patients could be significantly improved if the wounds were disinfected. Insulin was a great discovery done by Frederick Banting in Canada. Sir Frederick Grant Banting was a Canadian medical scientist, doctor and Nobel Laureate not as one of the co discoverers of insulin. In 1922 Banting and John James Rickard Macleod received the noble prize in Medicine. The discovery did not only help us learn about new hormone that effect the metabolism in the body, but also helped develop vaccines and medicine for diabetes patients, whose bodies failed to control insulin levels. Theses major contributions to the medical world lead us to where we are at the moment. The advanced technology allows us to understand the human body in detail. With the technology we have today we are able to gain knowledge of the digestive, circulatory and respiratory system in detail. Because of the new technology we have, doctors are able to visually see the problem and learn about the situation of the patients with detail, which allows them to successfully cure their patient. In the future more and more machines will be invented to cure illness, which cannot be cured at the moment.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROQlHtjSuaU

SOURCES
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=bodyct http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005203. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=bodyct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Banting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(Canada)
http://www.canadacaremedical.com/

ARTIFICIAL SELECTION!?!

Under what circumstances should humans be artificially selecting plants or animals, if any?

Artificial selection describes intentional breeding for certain traits, or combination of traits. “Charles Darwin used the term in contrast to natural selection, in which the differential reproduction of organisms with certain traits is attributed to improve survival or reproductive ability.”

Imagine your self-enjoying a nice salad at a restaurant and later discovering that all the “healthy” vegetable that you have just consumed were artificially selected. Everyone tells you that a salad is a good choice and that it’s good for you, but in this case is it really? On daily basics we consume many artificially selected products with out us realizing and we never take a second to think about it and we can simply blame units. This topic is related directly to the pervious topic of designer babies. I had agreed that designing a baby was wrong but some how when I thinking of artificially selected plants or animals it seems different. Even though I know its wrong something in the back of my mind tells me that this is a different situation. But when thinking a baby is a living thing and so are plants and animals. And we should be cloning them or artificially selecting them. There are many advantages to artificial selection like disease. Which could be prevented by perceiving people/ animals/ plants that are genetically prone to certain hereditart diseases, and preparing for the inevitable. Implanting genes that code for antiviral as well can treat infection diseases. Animals and plants can be altered to show desirable characteristics. Genes could also be manipulated in trees for example, to absorb more CO2 and reduce the threat of global warming. Genetic engineering could also increase diversity and produce more variant alleles, which could also be crossed over and implanted into other species. It is possible to modify the genetics of wheat plants to grow insulin for example.

There are also disadvantages to artificial selection. Nature is a tremendously complex inter- related chain consisting of many species linked in the food chain. Some scientist’s believe that introducing genetically customized genes may have an irreversible effect with consequences yet unknown. Genetic engineering borderline on many moral issues, particularly involving religion, which question whether man has the right to influence the laws and path of nature.

The plants with desirable characteristics are grown by man and their numbers increase. But, plants without theses characteristics are less likely to survive, as they are not provided with the fertilisers and pesticides by man. Eventually, the species of the plant will vanish.

Many will say that artificially selecting or modifying the genes of animals and plants similar would save time, money and resources. But I don’t think that taking shortcuts is the better way to do anything. Yes, shortcuts take less time and energy. But at the end that by taking the shortcut that you have missed some steps and that it will affect the product. Then you realize that if you had done everything step by step there would have been no problem. Even at Mary ward for example, if you take the shortcut to complete units there will be consequences at the end. Whether it’s a zero because you copied someone’s unit or a low mark because you didn’t give your best. In my opinion I believe that artificial selection is wrong just like designer babies. Animals, plants and humans are all living things and we don’t have the right to clone or artificially select and believe that its against our religious belief and God. God has created everything and we are slowly changing things around us to benefit us and are also slowly killing plants and animals. Every one will have different opinions on this topic but all I can say is that I am going stick with natural products as best as I can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_selection http://www.biology-online.org/2/12_selective_breeding.htm http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/0012-9658(2003)084%5B1650:ASAPTF%5D2.0.CO%3B2 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569519/ http://campus.lakeforest.edu/~ragland/JHrsto/webquest.htm http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/a-z/Artificial_selection.asp

Would you like Fries with That?….

The fear is that in the future we may be able to use genetic technologies to amend embryos and choose desirable cosmetic characters. A designer baby refers to a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilisation to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics. This very term is derived form “designer clothing”. In order to do this, an embryo is created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) then a single cell is removed from that embryo with in the first 5 days of its creation. The cell is then genetically tested, the parents decide whether to discard the embryo or implant it in the mother’s womb. This genetic selection of the embryos is called pre implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD can be offered for three major groups of disease, which are, sex linked disorders, single gene defects or chromosomal disorders. PGD is also used for screening sex selection. The embryos resulting form IVF can as well be genetically tested for “X” and “Y” chromosomes.


There are number of reasons parents may choose to select an embryo through PGD:

* It could be used to screen for diseases such as Huntingdon’s disease and cystic fibrosis or genetic conditions such as Down’s syndrome

* To create a health baby to treat a sick sibling

* To select the sex of a future child


Even though currently, selecting children’s genes has been mostly for medical purpose, in the future it could be used for cosmetic purposes. As motioned before PGD is already being used for sex selection, it is possible that soon PGD can be used to decide on your Childs hair colour, eye colour, intelligence and many more. Do you think that science is getting out of hand?



Number of reasons why many people go against Designer babies because genetically engineering babies might create ethical issues. It would probably create an “arms race”, where parents are continually trying to design better and better babies, with more skills. This will for sure interfere with nature, because all the children will be equally talented in one major area. By designing our own babies, we are taking the role of God and misusing it. When creating a baby it’s supposed to resemble you and you’re partner. But human don’t think like that, instead the look at what society want and what they believe is perfect for their baby, but technically it’s not their baby. Cause it doesn’t resemble them at all. This has gone too FAR!

http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designer_baby

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html

http://www.docshop.com/2007/10/01/designer-babies-a-new-era-approaches/

Villians of the Earth

For almost more than three decades, economic activities have taken a serious toll on the natural environment. Which include animal welfare and endangered species. We humans, have constantly been abusing our environment on a daily bases. The life on earth has been a struggle for many animals that have shared their habitats and surrounded us. Even though we try to reduce our global warming we cannot change the damage that we already have created. Global warming which is the increase in the average temperature of the earth’s near surface air and oceans since the mid 20th century and its projected continuation. The temperature of the global surface has increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the last century. The climate model has indicated that the global surface temperature will probably rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C during the 21 century. The constant increase of green house gas concentration is due to human activity such as fossil fuels burning and deforestation caused by temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century. Global warming Blazes disasters like the melting of the ice caps in the Northern and Southern poles, changing the earth’s temperatures, destruction of the ozone layer, extinction of species, endangered species are all problems affected by the biodiversity of the planet as all species are connect together.

Water is an ubiquitous chemical substance that is composed of hydrogen and oxygen and is essential for all known forms of life. Water covers 71% of the earths surface, mostly in oceans and other large bodies of water, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor. Oceans hold 97% of sure face water as glaciers and polar ice caps hold 2.4%. Other land surface water such as rivers, lakes and ponds hold 0.6%. Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies such as lakes, rivers, oceans and ground water. All water pollution affects organisms and plants that live in theses bodies water which leads to the cause of damaging the individuals or species of a population. This occurs when pollutants are discharges into the water directly without treatment to remove harmful constituents. Water pollution has been suggested the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases. It accounts for the deaths of more than 14,000 people daily. Natural phenomena such as volcanoes, algae blooms, storms and earthquakes also cause major changes in water quality and the ecological status of water. Human actions can change the quality of the water and the amount that flows in a stream or underground. Water pollution has many causes and characteristics.

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range form decades to millions of years. There can be a change in the average weather or change in the distribution of weather events around the world. The basic climate change which is due to global warming will and is affecting the ecosystems and the animals around us constantly. In most ecosystems the animals are either too cold or too warm because of us humans causing global warming. When it’s too cold or warm for the animals, they become endangered and they slowly decrease and soon they will reach extinction level, where there’s no more of the species left. For example in a food chain, all the animals are constantly interacting and are connected. Therefore when one animal is affected in the food chain it means that all are affected, because they rely on each other for food. Therefore this causes a disturbance to the balance of the earth and challenges the biodiversity of the earth. Even though all this has happened and is still happening around us, we still don’t realized that we have to at least decrease our human activities which are causing global warming.

The ozone layer is a layer in earth’s atmosphere which contains relatively high concentrations of ozone (O3). This layer absorbs 93-99% of the sun’s ultraviolet light, which is potentially a threat to life on earth. About 91% of the ozone layer is present on earth. It is located approximately 10km to 50km above earth in the stratosphere. The ozone layers thickness depends form season to season. The ozone layer protects us form the direct hit of the suns high raise light. Because of Global warming creates higher risks of skin cancer for the people on earth. The animals are also affected by the Ultra violet rays. Frogs who survived the ice age are affected by the toxic chemicals in the water and air as well as UV radiation. This is causing a negative effect on the Biodiversity of the earth because many more animals are entering into the endangered list.
In Atlantic Canada sea levels have been rising for thousands for years because the earth’s crust in that area is sinking. Climate warming is expected to cause warming of the oceans and the melting of glaciers ad ice caps, which results in sea levels to rise. By the end of this century the global mean sea level rise could amount to 0.09 to 0.88 meters. In Canada where the total coast line exceeds 203 000 km, sea level is a significant issue. The coast lines may experience physical changes such as flooding, erosion, beach migration and costal dune destabilization. This doesn’t only affect us humans but also animals. Because when the glacier melt climate change is occurring and the temperature gets warmer, for animals such as polar bears, seals and certain whales cannot survive in such warm temperatures. Therefore they die and the species becomes endangered. Because those animals are already endangered animals there don’t have much of a chance to survive, in which cause they will soon become extinct. Unless we humans step up and reduce our activities which are causing this and save the animals.

We humans are supposes to act as the stewards of the earth, instead we take the role as destroyers of the earth. Many individuals haven’t realized what a beautiful planet god has blessed us with. Instead we have taken everything to our advantage and if we don’t change our action in the future, our future generations will have to pay. Humans need to understand that we cannot change the past but we can change the future by buying and using eco friendly products, which will benefit us, animals and our future generations. By changing some of our activities we can make a difference, by simply not using plastic, recycling, walking or taking the bus to school, using non chemical products for cleaning, using less electricity everywhere and planting trees. There are many ways to be eco friendly, but we must start now to safe our planet and reduce global warming as much as possibl

My bibliography

http://www.ecology.org/biod/population/human pop1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/global warming

http://en.wikipedia.org/water

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/water polution

http://valsanbioblg.blogspot.com/2009/09/global-warming-and-biodiversity.html#comments

http://www.ec.gc.ca/posters/ac/ac 11 e.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ozone layer

http://adaptation.nrcan.gc.ca/posters/ac/ac 11 e.php

http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/climatechange/potentialimpacts/coastal senstivitysealeclrise/1