Biosolids

Blog Topic: In other parts of the world, biosolids (human waste) from sewage treatment plants are treated and used as sustainable agricultural 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 agricultural practices. Who are the potential stake holders in this issue? Are we influenced by the western view of human waste as an unsanitary and disgusting nuisance?

Biosolids are nutrient-rich organic materials resulting from the treatment of domestic sewage. Biosolids are sewage sludge that has been treated to reduce or eliminate health risks and suited to a range of beneficial uses in agriculture and other applications. They must be carefully treated and monitored. When treated and processed, these sewage sludge can be recycled and applied as fertilizer to improve and maintain productive soils and stimulate plant growth.


The high cost of fertilizer has people searching for alternatives. One of the solutions proposed are biosolids, as a result of the public waste water treatment process. Through regulation of these dumping, we are required to treat waste water and to make the decision whether to recycle biosolids as fertilizer, incinerate it, or bury it in a landfill. What do you think?

Let’s take a look at its advantages! By treating sewage sludge, the biosolids can be used as valuable fertilizer, instead of taking up room in a landfill or other disposal facility. Landfill areas were quite a concern ever since couple of years back. If we can reuse sewage sludge, doesn’t it already help us solve one problem? The application of biosolids reduces the need for chemical fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers have its drawbacks. In addition, biosolids reduces expenses for farmers and replenishes the organic matter that has been depleted over time. Although biosolids are a new project, as more waste water plants become capable of producing high quality biosolids, it increases the opportunity to use this resource in different fields. For instance, it can be used to make fuel, generate power and potentially create a new source of revenue for businesses. While odours may be nasty, they are not chronic! Landfills are pretty nasty smelling too!


The use of biosolids meets strict quality criteria and has been shown to produce noteworthy improvements in crop growth and yield. The nutrients found in biosolids include nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and trace elements such as copper, calcium iron, magnesium, manganese, sulphur and zinc, which are necessary for crop production and growth. The organic matter in biosolids improves soil structure by increasing the soil's ability to absorb and store moisture. The practice of using biosolids as fertilizers are harmless and if followed properly shows no significant risk to the environment or human health.

Although there are regulations for the land application of biosolids, there still exist concerns about its safety. There is no doubt that biosolids have beneficial characteristics, such as good ingredients of fertilizers. However, the controversy arises over the risks of what else is in these biosolids. How can anyone be positive what else could be in there? The sewage sludge is gathered from everything that’s poured down from drains and flushed down from toilets. The origin of this sludge varies from households and hospitals to industries and gas stations. After all, biosolids are known to contain pathogens and heavy metals and even other contaminants. Biosolids are applied as fertilizers to plants that we would eat and consume. Are we also eating heavy metals contaminants?

I personally believe that biosolids have its advantages and drawbacks. I think this applies to everything, no? The agriculture use of biosolids is greatly used in Europe and the United States. With strict production process, I think we can make sure that biosolids will be safe!

My own conclusion: Biosolids as fertilizer is killing two birds with one stone!






Sources:


http://www.biosolids.com.au/glossary-terms-biosolids.php

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

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

http://www.ucinthevalley.org/articles/2003/aug8art1.htm



Commented on:

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Importance of Technologies for the Internal Body Systems!

Topic: Evaluate the importance of various technologies, including Canadian contributions, to our understanding of internal body systems (digestive, circulatory or respiratory).

Technology is very important in our society, because technology can save many lives! With technology, scientists and doctors are able to access new areas of internal organs that have not previously been examined without open surgery. Technology can help health by just simply using your cell phone to call your doctor to complicated machines which helps cure patients.


Procedures that involve the heart are always dangerous for the patient and are very risky, but with the use of technology, it improves the visualization of the area and can increase the accuracy of the placements. Endoscopic Ultrasound can be used to visualize the heart and help guide interventions which help increase the success rate of the surgery. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is frequently performed with a scope to visualize and detect abnormalities in the digestive system.

The human vascular system is a very important system in which problems in the system can result serious health problems. Endoscopic ultrasonography is the practice of using an ultrasound transducer at the tip of an endoscope to visualize and offer therapeutic intervention to the gastrointestinal tract and its surrounding structures. Capsule endoscopy is when a patient swallows a small camera that records images of the intestinal tract. This can be used to observe and examine the intestines and other areas in the digestive system. Another way of examining the digestive system is with double balloon enteroscopy in which doctors use a scope fitted with two balloons to navigate the entire small bowel. When inflated with air, the balloons can expand sections of the small intestine to allow the camera a closer examination.
 Computer programs are still very important and useful in medical settings while researchers are looking for new ways to use technology to increase the effectiveness and accuracy of surgeries. Scientists monitor and deliver sedation during surgery with computer assisted personalized sedation (CAPS), which uses computer software to ease precise control of drug delivery.

Technology is surely growing with the amount of donations and investment given to medical research as stated in this article. (http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/597299) It seems to be the modernized way to handle health issues nowadays. Although, doctors still have to know how to treat patients without technology, many are relying on technology to help the surgeries have an increase in success. In my opinion, the money invested on technology for health care is worth it since, it saves many lives!





Sources:


http://carleton.ca/Capital_News/02112007/n6.shtml

http://www.vitallywell.net/images/digestive-system-diagram.jpg

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/aga-ngt051906.php

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/597299



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Artificial Selection

Blog Topic: Artificial selection has resulted in plants that are more disease-resistant, cows that produce more milk, and racehorses that run faster. One must wonder what will come next. In the blog entry answer the following question - under what circumstances should humans be artificially selecting plants or animals, if any?

The concept of artificial selection is becoming more and more common in today’s society. Artificial selection is the process of modifying a species by human intervention to ensure certain desirable qualities are represented in successive generations. By breeding the best with the best, it implies that the offspring will have superior desirable qualities. Breeders of animals and plants in the world are searching to produce organisms that process desirable characteristics, such as high growth rates, resistance to disease and other characteristics that will benefit the organism in the long run. The concept of natural selection refers to the process in nature, according to Darwin’s theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated. With artificial selection, we could ensure that these organisms will be able to adapt to their environment and survive. However, will this “artificial selection” disrupt the balance of nature?

For many centuries, we have been taking advantage of artificial selection. Our ancestors learned that saving seeds from the plants they wanted to continue growing would increase the chances of getting a plant similar to the original plant. They didn’t understand the process by which traits were changed or maintained, or the laws of heredity. Today, we learned much about plant reproduction and we are able to select plants for breeding with considerably more assurance of success. Many people believe that breeding new crops is important for ensuring food security by developing new varieties that are higher-yielding, resistant to pests and diseases, drought-resistant or regionally adapted to different environments and growing conditions. Many of the food that we consume are products of plant breeding. However, some people are concerned whether breeding can have a negative effect on nutrition value. There are scientific indications that, by favouring certain aspects of a plant's development, other aspects may be retarded. I personally have many questions about plant breeding, including how can we ensure that the product is edible? I don’t want to end up eating plants that I should not be eating! Most countries have regulatory processes in place to help ensure that new crop varieties entering the marketplace are both safe and meet farmers' needs.

Animal breeding requires selecting animals with superior abilities in growth rate, egg, meat, milk, wool production or have other desirable traits that will revolutionize agricultural livestock production. Some animal breeders believe in purebred, which is mating animals of the same bred for maintaining stable characteristics or traits that the parents will pass to the next generation. Does this still count towards helping animals better survive in their environment?

Through artificial selection, breeders have the ability change the characteristics of animals by selecting for reproduction those individuals with the most desirable qualities. Through artificial selection, we can produce healthier, stronger animals that can yield more milk, meat and eggs for example. In this case, we don’t have to worry about the abundance of food supply. For the animals, we understand that only species that have qualities better adjusted to the natural environment can live longer. These organisms will usually have better ability to find or store food, or are more able to escape their predators. Thus, these organisms have more chance to mate and give birth to more and healthier off-spring. We can produce animals that better suit to survive in poor climates or marginal conditions, thus preserving human food supplies and saving life. With artificial selection, we can also ensure the annihilation of hereditary sickness in some blood lines. Here is no doubt that artificial selection is very useful and has great advantages.


Artificial sounds like a great idea, but it still has its disadvantages. Some people argue that it is inhumane, can cause mutations or produce new problems. An example of the inhumane process is the new way of breeding chickens. A few years back, there was an experiment where chickens are produced without feathers. Feather-free chickens will suffer more than normal birds, for instance, males can’t mate because they cannot flap their wings or they become more vulnerable to sunburn and parasites. After all, we are producing plants and animas with the traits that we want. Is it ethically right to selective for what we want or are we affecting the natural ability of species being able to reproduce? What other problems may arise if we keep inbreeding these animals?


Breeding animals and plants to create new varieties and improve upon old ones has its advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion, I believe that artificial selection seems to be a good idea. In order to breed animals and plants successfully it is important to understand the principles of reproduction. Many problems might spring up during the process of artificial selection, but we can produce plants that are resistant to various environmental problems.


Sources:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0118084/Gene/Genetic_variation/artificialselection.htm
http://www.biology-online.org/2/12_selective_breeding.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569519/



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Designer Babies!

Blog Topic: “Designer babies” is the term being used by the media to describe the future of modifying or selecting our children’s genes for desirable characteristics (medical and cosmetic). Are things getting out of hand with our research into genetic processes? In this blog investigate social and ethnical implication of this research and technologies that have been developed from it.

In the past, making babies was pretty much a hit-or-miss issue. This is not the case anymore! Parents who have access to the latest testing technology can now predetermine their baby’s sex with great accuracy. In the future, it may be possible to screen kids almost before conception for a wide range of attributes, such as characteristic traits and personality. The term, 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. In the production of designer babies, there are two major concerns: Are the technologies of genetic modification and selection safe enough to be used on humans? Even if the technologies are safe, can they be morally defended?




The technology to make designer babies is only at its early stage. Advanced techniques involving in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to fertilise eggs with sperm in test tubes outside the mother's body in a laboratory reduces the chance that a child will be born with a genetic disorder. Presently, it is legally possible to carry out two types of advanced reproductive technologies on humans. The first involves choosing the type of sperm that will fertilise an egg (used to determine the sex and the genes of the baby). The second technique screens embryos for a genetic disease. This is called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Recently, scientists have made advanced research in human genome and in our ability to modify and change genes. In the future, we may be able to cure genetic diseases in embryos by replacing defective sections of DNA with healthy DNA. This is called germ line therapy and is carried out on an egg, sperm or a tiny fertilised embryo. This type of therapy has been successfully tested on animal embryos, but it is currently illegal to perform this function on humans. However, it is legal to modify the faulty genes in the cells of a grown child or an adult to cure diseases like cystic fibrosis. This is called body cell gene therapy. In the realm of science, there is a debate of whether genetic modification poses as a threat to the natural process of life.



This “design-your-own-baby” concept has been receiving objection and disapproval voices under moral and religious grounds. The idea that parents can just weed out undesirable traits and insert the genes they want is obscure. I am imaging more like a shopping centre, where parents are given a list of options with characteristic traits (like hair colour, etc) and TA-DA a baby with the specific features you want. Talk about authortarian parents! It’s the ultimate shopping experience!



A controversy facing the advancement of genetic modification technology is the cost of such procedures and the gap it creates in society. Creating designer babies is simply breeding a race of super humans with genetic enhancements. Assuming genetic enhancement becomes readily available, will it be expensive? Altering embryos is a fairly recent technology and it is still developing. Given the high cost, will the wealthy only be able to afford it? With only the wealthy being able to pay for the modification that will eliminate disease and disabilities for their children, it creates a misperception that they are “better people”. The technology is capable to design inviduals to suit social preferences such as above average intelligence, greater memory and communication skills. Not only is the prospect of future generations of "better people" a psychological concern, but concern also arises from the possibility that such groups of people might become prejudiced against one another due to a feeling of lost commonity. By agreeing to genetic modification, we are simply agreeing to heighten this existing gap between the wealthy and the poor in society.

Lastly, humans have never experienced the effects of genetic alteration. The results could have critical consequences and possibly damage the gene pool. Even if the first generation of deisgner babies remains safe, how would the children of designer babies look like? Would their genes be wrecked?



There is the other side of the debate, which argues that if nobody gets hurt and everyone has access, then genetic modification should be accepted into society. It’s simply a choice factor! If you think women have the right to control their own bodies, then they should be able to make this choice. It’s in the same category as abortion. There should be no law restricting the kind of kids people have. The parents who choose to have genetic modification are for the best interest of their children and create the best possible options for their lives. However, the concept of designer babies almost compels me to think these babies as robots rather than people.



The genetic modification of humans poses an ethical debate about the rights of the baby. On one side of this issue, people argue that the fetus should be free to not be genetically modified. Once the genetic modification of the fetus takes place then the baby is changed forever, what if the baby grows up disliking this decision? The opposing view is that the parents are own the rights to their unborn child, so they should have the option to alter their baby’s genetic code. I personally believe that genetic moderation is only accepted when the baby is genetically disordered or have health problems that were detected prior to his/her birth. I believe that parents should be only allowed preferences about health conditions that may harm the child’s life. It’s almost like dietary choices during pregnancy. There have been scientific discoveries that eating certain food will help nurture the baby’s health. In fact, this is much like the idea of genetic modification for unhealthy babies. In conclusion, I do not encourage designing babies in the sense of altering their genes for the likes of the parents.






Sources:


http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designer_baby
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/#ixzz0m9g68BwF
http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/regulate-designer-babies_1.jpg
http://quadri.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/dna.jpg 
http://caseclosed2.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/designer_babies.jpg 

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Humans the most invasive species?

Blog Topic: Many scientists consider humans as the most invasive species, as humans can greatly change an environment and impact living things that reside there. Are we being stewards of the world? Take a look at an issue in which human intervention has positively or negatively affected the biodiversity of our ecosystems.

Since I did not really understand what invasive species meant, I went to search up on Google, in which it gave me the answer! An invasive species is a species occurring, as a result of human activities, beyond its accepted normal distribution and which threatens valued environmental, agricultural or other social resources by the damage it causes according to the Australian department of the Environment. From seeing the first sentence of the topic, I was unhappy but this was expected. As there are many great people out there who care and do good, there are also many who don’t care. One of Norbert Wiener’s has said, “We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves to exist in this new environment.” Since, we are treating the environment bad; we are getting karma in which it may affect our later generations and even now. Even though many people know that they are harming our environment, they usually continue doing it because they are lazy or do not have the effort to do something good that they ‘think’ will not harm them until it happens.

We, Humans consume nearly a quarter of Earth’s natural productivity. There are many people who live differently in the environments, since there are around 6.6 billion people around the world we use up a lot of land. In some places, we increase the land’s productivity measured as the amount of plant life based on the food chain by adding water and fertilizer. However, as a whole we significantly decrease the Earth’s biological productivity. Many cities occupy large land in which had been a very fertile land. We usually try to boost our quality of life, we get more than we need and we consume around 2/3 of the biological productivity that would have been available. The other species would only get 1/3 of the natural productivity. As our population increases, it is bound to strain the ecosystems even worse. Even if we tried to increase agriculture and fertilizing the land, it would just add to strain by boosting erosion and the nutrients run off creating toxic effects into the ocean.

 What does it mean to be a steward of the world? According to the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, stewardship means the conducting, supervising, or managing of something also the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. God has given us the environment and the world we live on. Many people are just killing the environment instead of thanking it and giving back. People usually use the environment or change the environments for their own profits, not thinking what will happen to the environment afterwards. I believe that humans are not being stewards of the world. Since they were born, they use the environment and take most of their sources from the environment to use for themselves and not giving much back. However, we must believe that we can change even though we cannot control other’s we are not powerless. People can individually examine their lifestyle and change for the better. We all have to think about our future and our future generations, our actions will affect on the generations after us greatly. We must change our attitudes and actions to achieve environmental success. Even saying this and thinking about this doesn’t change, we must actually put our powers to use.

On the other hand, there are some people who do care and is taking action to our environment like the Steward of the Earth which is a non-profit organization. Their mission statement of Stewards of the Earth is to empower, educate, and motivate individuals toward integrating their spiritual beliefs with their efforts in creating a sustainable future for humanity and all of life. They believe it is their role as living beings to live responsible caretakers and stewards of God’s creation.

Uintah Mountains, this photo illustrates what humans could lose unless they act to preserve open spaces.

Humans usually do not think of the consequences to what might happen after their actions. We do usually do not think about human wastes and what global warming is doing to our plant and animal life. If something does not affect them directly they will give little or no attention to it until it happens. However, losing biodiversity due to our actions also has frightening affects on us. This does not benefit us or biodiversity; instead it gives a greatly negative impact on both of us. If biodiversity continues to decrease, less food will be available to sustain life. Everything in biological life is interconnected just like the food chain. Species contribute great medicines for humans which may be life saving, however less species means less life saving medicines. There are probably many more species out there that we have never seen so we must protect biodiversity. We also get most of our materials which we need from biological life. Biodiversity also helps us moderate carbon production. We are taking too much of everything from our environment without taking time to understand or know what we are even doing.

Sources:

http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2007/10/14/humans-invasive-species/


http://fastingandfeasting.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/becoming-a-good-steward-of-the-earth-or-how-i-stopped-sticking-my-head-in-the-sand-and-faced-the-reality-of-global-warming/


http://main.nc.us/stewardsoftheearth/


http://www.alive.com/5328a16a2.php?subject_bread_cramb=168


http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:zzNVuUMM0oYJ:planetsave.com/blog/2008/05/19/human-interaction-with-nature-benefits-of-biodiversity/+human+interactions+with+biodiversity&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk


By: Aristo Kwok

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