Articles
The Prolific Afterlife
- In 1987, oceanographers on a deep-sea expedition discovered a whale skeleton that was teeming with life
- Other investigators have found 400 species in and around sunken whale carcasses, 30 of which have never been seen before
- At any given moment, there may be around 690,000 whale carcasses rotting at the bottoms of Earth's oceans
- Sunken whale carcass communities are believed to have three stages: scavenger, opportunist, and sulfophilic
- Osedax worms attach themselves to and feed on the whale bones
- Not much fossil records of sunken whale communities have been unearthed, but the discoveries have prompted more and more investigations
SummaryWhale carcasses have proven to be a very unexpected harbor of life on the ocean floor. The first evidence of this was seen in 1854. These communities house a great degree of life. Over 400 species have been found living inside the carcasses of whales on the ocean floor. 30 of those species have never been seen anywhere else. Some areas have distinct stages known as scavenger, opportunist, and sulfophilic. These stages are not as apparent everywhere though, this is believed to be because the Osedax which is a worm that feeds on the whale bones causing the decomposition to occur quicker. This discover has lead to a rising interest in the research of whale carcasses and the life they harbor.
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OpinionI never would have guessed that whale carcasses would be responsible for so much life in the ocean. I find it very interesting how nature finds a way to use everything. Specific species evolve just to be able to make use of every little thing in the environment. The species in nature are all very codependent and work together to reach their goals. I believe that humanity could learn a lot from this, we should return more to our natural roots and learn how to live and work with nature rather than try to tame it and bend it to our will. This inner need humans have to be in control is proving very destructive for our environment and also the health of the human species as a whole.
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Human Population Grows Up
- Before the year 2000 young people always outnumbered the elderly
- This changed after 2000
- Before 2007 rural outnumbered urban, this changed after 2007
- Peak population growth of about 2.1% occurred in the years between 1965-1970
- Never before the 20th century had a change in growth rate been voluntary
- One billion people are expected to be added every 13-14 years
- By 2050 the world's population is projected to reach 9.1 billion, plus or minus two billion people
- Virtually all population growth in the next 45 years is expected to happen in today’s economically less developed regions
- At present, the average woman bears nearly twice as many children (2.9) in the poor countries as in the rich countries(1.6 children per woman)
- 51 countries or areas, most of them economically more developed, will lose population between now and 2050
- "the inhabited earth being 13,385 times larger than Holland yields . . . 13,385,000,000 human beings on the earth"
- If the amount of people living in rural area does not increase alongside the urban population, we will run into a food problem
Summary
The human population is reaching a cross roads soon, a point of no return. If we keep growing like we have been in the recent years than by 2050 we are expected to have doubled our current population of 7 billion. The question though is how much people can our Earth hold before we reach a carrying capacity. What is the limit for our planet before it all comes crashing down like another Easter Island. If we continue on the current trend of urban population getting bigger and bigger but the rural population getting smaller, than we may eventually reach a point where there is simply not enough food to support our cities. If we do not have more people to produce food for the people than we will eventually have food shortages which may cause a drop in the population.
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Opinion
I find this article to be very interesting as it talks about something that is an ignored aspect in everyday life. We hear about how the population is ever growing but we never really hear about what this may affect down the road to come. This ever expanding population that is adding a billion people every 13-14 years. Eventually we must hit a limit, there will be some point in which the Earth can simply not hold anymore people, and at that point we may become another Easter Island.
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Population, Poverty and the Local Environment
- Economists do not typically find population growth, poverty, and local environment to be connected
- Research shows that none of those elements are directly connected to each other
- The work has identified circumstances in which population growth, poverty and degradation of local resources often fuel one another
- So in a society where female life expectancy at birth is 50 years and the fertility rate is, say, seven, nearly half of a woman’s adult life is spent either carrying a child in her womb or breast-feeding it. And this calculation does not allow for unsuccessful pregnancies
- At a total fertility rate of seven or more, the chance that a woman entering her reproductive years will not live through them is about one in six
- The importance of gender inequality to overpopulation in poor nations is fortunately gaining international recognition
- Reasons for having children vary from person to person and culture to culture
- Policies aimed at increasing women's productivity at home and improving their earnings in the marketplace would directly empower them, especially within the family
- Third World countries are, for the most part, subsistence economies
- Children, then, are needed as workers even when their parents are in their prime. Small households are simply not viable; each one needs many hands
- Family planning services, especially when allied with health services, and measures that empower women are very helpful
Summary
There are many guesses as to why the population keeps growing at the rate it is. Many people attempt to make a connection between poverty, population growth, and the local environment but there is much disagreement in this as many people find varying evidence dependent on their study case. There is much question as to why populations who are still developing grow at such a fast rate, this is because those countries have such a higher fertility rate, some places see woman having an average of 7 kids each. With improvements in medicine this has lead to population boom as more and more babies survive but parents continue to have more kids based on the assumptions of their old lifestyle where the more kids meant more hands to work. This has lead to a massively increasing population around the world while some other countries have a dropping population. Many things are being done to try and alleviate some of this such as family planning and the education of woman which leads to empowerment which in turn leads to a drop in the fertility rate.
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Opinion
I find this article to be interesting as it covers a subject that we recently went over in our APES class talking about how poverty may be in tie in to population growth. The rate at which our population is growing is something that drastically needs to be talked about and found a solution to how we can slow it down. Humanity has never experienced such growth before and we are not sure on how it will not only affect society but also our world as a whole. As someone from the USA I will never truly understand the struggles that some can find in the developing countries around the world but as someone who is more well off than many I believe we should do something to help. I personally believe the best way to help is the education and empowerment of women which gives them more choices in what happens to their body and subsequently less kids as more woman seek professional lifestyles rather than more and more kids.
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Street Talk
- Communication is the key to comfortable future cities
- Cities must provide their citizens with faster internet speeds and the infrastructure for better internet
- More ways to create renewable and clean energy
- Way of producing organic foods and supplying the population
- Greater city planning for infrastructure
- Cleaner sanitation for all members of the city
- Housing for all the members of society
- Better ways to manage public and private transportation
SummaryThere are many ways that cities will have to evolve with the future for them to keep the people happy. For cities to be modernized in the future they will have to go above and beyond with the services they provide to their citizens. Cities will have to begin to provide better technological services and the infrastructure for improvement to keep the populace happy. The internet is the future of all communications, without it people will not be satisfied. Cities will also need to find ways to improve the standards of living for all people. Fresh foods, better sanitation, good housing, along with another plethora of things to keep the modern person happy.
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Opinion I found this article to be very interesting as a way of looking at the possible future of cities. With more population in cities than rural there will be some major changes to the style of living in cities and how people will come to expect their standards of living to be provided. Many people will not be satisfied unless their ever growing list of basic needs is met.
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Radioactive Smoke
- Cigarettes contain the radioactive chemical polonium 210
- Smoking a pack and a half a cigarettes a day for a year is the equivalent of 300 chest x-rays
- The tobacco industry has known for years of the polonium 210 in the cigarettes and even know how to remove it, but choose not to
- The radiation settle in 'hot spots' in the lungs where it concentrates
- The polonium 210 is leaked into the plant from the uranium rich fertilizers and breaks down for lead and radon
- There are several methods the tobacco industry could go about removing the risks of these radioactive isotopes in their product
SummaryFor a long time now people have known of the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes. It seems that the list just gets ever longer. With the discovery made available to the public about polonium 210, which is a radioactive isotope that begins as uranium and breaks down into radon and than again into polonium, we learn of another part of the list of the dangers of smoking. The big tobacco industry has known about this dangerous element being present in the smoke for a long time and have even devised plans on how to remove it, which is great, except they have done nothing about. Rather than attempt to fix it, the companies decided that they should just cover it up and hide it from the public so they are not aware of the consequences. Eventually this leaked and with the FDA control over tobacco products now could leave to heavy consequences with the industry.
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OpinionI find this article to be very interesting yet awful in the aspect of what it is about. I have always been anti cigarettes due to several members of my family smoking and losing family members in smoking related cancers and diseases. This article really hits home on the dangers of not only smoking but of what these large corporations are willing to do just for another buck. They are willing to throw their customers lives away simply because they get a little fatter wallet in the end. They care nothing about the consequences they bring and the families they can put holes in. I think it is completely disgusting what they have done and it deserves much more than a fine or a simple slap on the wrist. They are playing with peoples health here, and ultimately their lives.
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Excessive Product Packaging
- Excess packaging has become a problem for trash production
- Packaging not only protects the product but it represents the company
- More packaging leads to more resources, more costs, and more waste
- It will take governmental intervention to bring on a change in packaging
- Many developed countries already have laws around packaging
- Laws are critical in green consumerism as consumers and producers are most often motivated by cost
- Packaging is separated into 3 categories, primary, secondary, tertiary.
- Cost can be reduced with clever utilization and smart minimization
SummaryIn the world of consumers there is a lot of waste. Few are as wasteful as the excessive packaging found on some products. This excessive waste is proving to be a large issue do to the waste of resources and the amount of waste it produces that than has to be dealt with some way. Many countries in the developed world have generated laws around excessive packaging and require businesses to use a certain amount of packaging as to not be wasteful. There will not be much change in this field in the U.S. without some type of governmental intervention whether it be federal or state. Businesses need to think of ways to begin using less resources and using the resources they do have in a much more clever away allowing for more to be done with less.
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OpinionExcessive package has long been one thing that has always gotten on my nerves. I can buy a product the size of a quarter and yet it will have nearly 20x that much packaging for what, so they can advertise themselves out to people. This idea of wasteful packaging has only seemed to get worse over the past years with companies all vying for the consumers eye when purchasing products. They all attempt to make the bigger and flashier sign that screams look at me look at me. It is no longer about which product is better made and will do the job better but whatever one catches your eye. This is something that needs to change so that we can evolve as a society into a more eco friendly people so that we have an earth to take care of in the future.
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