Aarany's BIO blog: 2009

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/

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 poten

tially 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, anima

ls 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