3.2 Millimeters: A Troubling Rise in Sea Level

ScrAPES#13: 3.2 Millimeters: A Troubling Rise in Sea Level

by Nicholas Bakalar

November 30, 2015

The latest report from the intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change stated that sea levels accelerated an average of 1.7 millimeters a year during the 20th century. The rise are unpredictable in some places because some of them had higher sea level increase than others. Scientists use tidal gauges and satellite altimeter data to take the amount of these changes. Ever since 1993 the average rate of increase has approximately doubled to 3.2 millimeters a year. Global warming and melting of ice and snow took part of this increase.

This is interesting to me because I have always wondered if scientists can measure the amount of ocean water earth has as a whole. I guess measuring the amount of increase sea level is very close enough. Also this takes interest to me because every time I hear global warming, climate change, or even this, it makes me wonder about the end of the world. I do believe in the end of the world (religiously). What would earth be like from 100 years from now? Will it still be alive and technology increased and so did the rich? Or will it have died out because of the apocalypse? Knowing the fact that sea levels increase rapidly makes me cringe because it is like dying from drowning.

This relates to the environment because if the sea level keeps rapidly increasing over time, soon homes will be flooded because it will surround the grounds of the earth. We cannot just throw away water because water is liquid and I cannot be "held". Soon in the future people animals will have no home or food because it will be extremely difficult to grow crops, if we do not change our ways. This is human's fault as well as mother nature because we cause global warming by greenhouse gases and the unhealthy living we took upon on.

What Climate Change Looks Like: Dissolving Shells

ScrAPES#12: What Climate Change Looks Like: Dissolving Shells

by Michael Boston

November 30, 2015

What do you see when you hear the word climate change? I bet you see erosion, increase of heat temperature, ice separating increasingly, etc. Am I right? Well researches and scientists discovered that the pteropods' shells are dissolving due to climate change or global warming. These tiny pteropods are eaten by salmons, whales, and others. Their shells contain calcium carbonate, which are sensitive to changes in the ocean's pH levels. Human activities which concerns carbon dioxide effects the ocean's pH levels which also effects the pteropods.

This is interesting to me because I have never heard of a pteropods in my life. I am also surprised that if climate change will effect the tiny living things in the ocean it will take a big part in our lives as well, because I believe that if something happens to one thing it effects everything else as a whole. Personally I am not a fan of climate change or global warming because when I was seven years old, ten years ago, I recalled that summer was perfect, winter was perfect. Everything was steady and time was slow. Now the seasons are not steady at all because winter arrives late and ends up to be severe blizzards. While summer are very hot like the tropics. 

This relates to the environment because I noticed that when people hear climate change they mostly think of it as a threat to human kind. Instead why do we not also consider it as a threat to animals and plants? They too are living. When climate change occurs because of global warming it effects plants and animals and the food web. If the pteropods' shells dissolve because of high pH level in the ocean then most likely the animals that consider it its meals will die as well. It will effect the ecosystem and the food chain and food web.

Resources:

• What Climate Change Looks Like: Dissolving Shells

India Is Caught in a Climate Change Quandary

ScrAPES#11: India Is Caught in a Climate Change Quandary

by Eduardo Porter

November 10, 2015

 India has 30% of the world's poorest. Majority of them, approximately 304 million people do not have electricity. While 92 million people do not have fresh drinking water. India will encounter a severe monsoon between August and September, with about 70% of India's rainfall. While also having to pay more for the consequences of the emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from richer and developed countries. The United Nations believed that India's population would increasingly maximize to 1.5 billion by 2030, much more than China.   Majority of countries in the world are deciding to decrease greenhouse gases but there are also some who oppose.

This is interesting to me is one of the most populated country in the world with over 1.25 billion people, also being such a little country (compared to China). I am not also surprised that majority of Indians do not have electricity nor fresh drinking water because it is a third world country. What interests me is that India's population will assumingly increase so much that it will be much more than China's population. 



This relates to the environment because first the living style of the approximately 80-90% of the Indian's in India are very poor; do not have electricity, fresh water, money, or even a job. With very poor lifestyle people would most likely die from starvation or give up, which means the Crude Death Rate (CDR) will increase and it will be unbalance. Secondly, India's population is a problem because it also effects the overall human population. We cannot afford to have tons and tons of people living in earth when earth can only hold a certain capacity. As our population increase the more we are basically killing our planet. People think it's a joke but it really is not. 


Resource:

• India Is Caught in a Climate Change Quandary

Scientist Injects Himself with 3.5 Million Year old Bacteria

ScrAPES#10: Scientist Injects Himself with 3.5 Million Year Old Bacteria

by Mark Prigg

September 30, 2015

Anatoli Brouchkov is a Russian scientist at Moscow State University. Recently he found a bacteria in Mammoth Mountain in Sahka Republic or Yakutia in Serbia. The bacteria is named Bacillus F, and has been alive for millions of years being embedded on permafrost. Scientist tested it on experimental animals, but Dr. Brouchkov wanted to test it upon himself as well. His feedback to the bacteria was that he felt stronger and healthier. Elderly mices became more active and began to produce offspring. Scientists say that the bacteria may improve human health. 

This outstanding article or news is interesting to me because I think it is pretty awesome that there has been a bacteria out there for millions of years, untouched, and still living. I wonder what the bacteria feels being alive for years and years and years. What surprised me actually was that the bacteria survived in a sovereign climate. Serbia's world record coldest temperature was -31.9 degrees in 1985, and it could go up to 112.8 degrees boiling hot. The bacteria most likely has a very good adaptability to be able to survive these temperatures.

This relates to the environment because if this bacteria was literally true fact then it could save the human kind. We could cure cancer, diseases, sickness, etc. Also the bacteria could cure genetic mutations or diseases like progeria or the "tree man", with a rare condition of Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis. We may also be able to cure mental illness (if we actually can). This would most likely also save us from tragic disasters and prevent us from death. Humans will be healthier and the healthier we are, the better we feel, and the less likely we go to the doctors. But this would also effect our Crude Death Rate (CDR) because with people healthy and very less likely to die, the Crude Death Rate would decrease. Our population of seven billion will soon blossom even more.

Resources:

• 3.5 MILLION year old bacteria
• Scientist Injects Himself with 3.5 Million Year old Bacteria

Mummification Practiced in Bronze Age Britain

ScrAPES#9: Mummification Practiced in Bronze Age Britain

by Sindya N. Bhanoo

October 5, 2015

Ever heard of Ancient Egypt and their beliefs and superstitions? Egypt believed in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Recently, Dr. Tom Booth, an archaeologist at the Natural History Museum in London, discovered ancient mummification in the bronze age of Britain; expanding from 2200 B.C. to 750 B.C. He assumed that Ancient Britons' might have buried their dead in peat bogs (A bog is a mire that accumulates peat, a deposit of dead plant material), and extracted human organs after death through evisceration. Dr. Booth also assumed that people probably displayed the dead mummies in the living society; to make a claim that they "owned" something, either a land or property. 

 This article is extremely interesting to me because my family and I are superstitious, sometimes my mom goes overboard with it. Our superstitions are not the typical American one's where; if you walk under a ladder you will get bad luck, opening an umbrella in a house is bad luck, knock on wood, wishbones, or simply Friday the 13th. Personally, I believe and SOME superstitions but mostly I do not because some people depend on it. I the contrary, I believe in God, depend him, not beliefs. This article also interest me because the afterlife is a very mysterious yet dangerous place. You do not know where you are going to end up. There might not even be a heaven or earth, MIGHT. Sometimes I overthink to myself if there is, but I try not to. I make claims that maybe after we die we would just be stuck in a dream that we cannot get out of. Or resurrection. I question Ancient Egypt, Ancient Briton, and other places that have practiced mummification, whether or not they do it because they believe that their loved ones will be with them. Is it safe for the body and soul to be mummified?

Mummification effects the environment because it is one of the many "beliefs" or non-beliefs that relates to the nonliving. For example, nowadays people bury the dead or cremate them. People think that the "proper" way to handle the dead is by burying them in a cemetery (yes that may be true). And some assume that cremation is the devil's work. No it is not because in ancient or pass times the dead used to be burned, in the belief of setting the soul free. If the practice of mummification became an epidemic around the world including the United States? What would happen? 

Resources:

• Mummification Practiced in Bronze Age Britain 
• Ancient Egyptian Civilization

"What's Your Number?" Reflection

"What's Your Number?" Reflection

                Today in class Iearned more about population. One of the things that I have learned about it was that if the Crude Death Rate (CDR) decreases but the Crude Birth Rate (CBR) increases, it has a negative impact. It has a negative impact because it would increase the population of a country rapidly and the carrying capacity will not be sufficient. Also I learned that replacement-level fertility is when the amount of offsprings a couple has, is to replace one of them when they die. 

                 In my own honest opinion I do truly believe that we are TOO overpopulated overall. But I do not believe that we should have an "only one child" policy or similarly to that like what China did because it is the own people's rights whether or not they should have as many as sixteen (kind of over exaggerating now even though it is accurately true) children or to have one or none. I also do not agree, if ever, someone created an idea where we should basically just kill elders. I do not agree with this because if YOU were an elder, you would not want to die just because the world is overpopulated. You would want to see your grandchildren and bond with them. So in total I am more on the side where birth rates should decrease. If we do not decrease our population then resources like food would perish slowly. 

My number: 

When I was born I was the 5,968,509,397th person alive on earth.

81,453,757,294th person to have lived since history began.

What a Compelling Blood Pressure Finding Means for Patients

ScrAPES#8: What a Compelling Blood Pressure Finding Means for Patients

by Gina Kolata

September 11, 2015

In What a Compelling Blood Pressure Finding Means for Patients, scientists and doctors researched about large blood pressure and developed that participants with systolic blood pressure below 120 had a lower death rate and a minor amount of heart attacks and strokes in the contrary of those with a blood pressure of 140. Participants attained drugs that were mainly classified in 4 categories; diuretics which shorten blood volume, calcium which expands blood vessels through blockers, angiotensin receptor blockers that sections hormones that create blood vessels constrict and beta blockers that passively slow the heart. This study from scientists and doctors ended abruptly more than year from the standard schedule due to compelling data.

This article interests me so much because in my own experience my pediatric doctor announced that I have a blood pressure of 120/90. So unassumingly I speculated that it was a normal blood pressure. But when I searched on the internet about the blood pressure chart it states that blood pressure that is 120-139/80-89 is considered prehypertension. Finding this information astonished me because my mother has high blood pressure and I have heard of family members who had prehypertension, and honestly I am not surprised. I do not know if it effects me or if it is a blood pressure chart for adults. If it were true I wonder why my doctor has not told me that I have hypertension. Is it because I am too sickly? 

Blood pressure effects the environment because people with high blood pressure most likely has it due to smoking, overweight or obesity, too much alcohol and salt, and stress. Almost everyone in the world has either been stressed plenty of times, smokes, or loves salty food. Approximately thirty-six percent of adults are considered to be obese in the United States and that more than 2 billion people worldwide are considered overweight or obese. These all cause high blood pressure; which is now the world's leading cause of premature death. Blood pressure can lead to diabetes and diabetes can cause death. My mother always tell me to cut down on sugary foods or beverages because it is a cause of diabetes. In my personal opinion I expect that the world will not stop the causes of high blood pressure or diabetes. 

Resources: 

• What a Compelling Blood Pressure Finding Means for Patients 
• Hypertension/High Blood Pressure Health Center
• Pictures