Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Designer Babies; Are they really necessary?

First of all, you should know what exactly what a designer baby is before you can properly form an opinion. Basically it's what the media calls the future of having people choose what type of genes they want the baby to have.
In my opinion, gene therapy is good technique that scientists have discovered but should only be used for emergency and not for your own selfishness. If you know diabetes has been running in your family for a while, I think it's reasonable to maybe get a doctor to replace the gene that cause it with a normal one. That's exactly what gene therapy is. But I don't think you try and add genes that can make your child good looking. I find that to be very shallow and it makes it look like you think your child is ugly.

Currently, I wouldn't say that things are getting out of hand but I would say that we should slow down a bit before they actually do. If it gets to the point where we can choose every detail of what our child will be, then I will say that things are getting out of hand. That would just ruin the moment of having your first child. But this won't happen since it's legal to only to two type of gene therapy procedures.

The first thing that is legal to do is choosing what sperm will fertilize the egg which can help determine what sex the child will be. The other legal thing to do is scanning the embryo looking for any genetic diseases and replacing them with normal ones. This is called Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis. This is one technique that I think can be very good for humanity in general. It lowers the percentage of kids with genetic disorders and may even save some children's lives. Your not using the technique for anything selfish but your doing it for the good of your child. So in my opinion, Gene Therapy is only necessary if you know you have a genetic disorder that runs in the family that you would you like to prevent occurring in your child.

Sources: What is a Designer Baby(Information)

Blogs I commented on: Justin Li's&Kyle Tran's

Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Positive Side of Human Intervention in our Ecosystems

Usually when people think about human intervention in our ecosystems, they often think of negative things like deforestation, pollution, etc. Although this may be true, there is a whole other side of positive things that different organization do by interference.

One of those Organizations is Green Peace.









Green Peace focuses on reducing pollution, stop humans from destroying the habitats of animals and basically just keeping our world Green. They use non-violent ways to show the problems of our ecosystems and what they cause. Green Peace's main goals are to protect Biodiversity in our Ecosytems,and to stop pollution, in forests, oceans, etc. They do this by gathering people who want to help out and working together as a team to do what it takes to stop the help our Biodiversity.



That video is an example of the kind of things the members of Green Peace do. This was in the UK where a couple of Green Peace swimmers stop a massive oil drilling ship from heading to it's drill site. There interference may have stopped the occurrence of another oil spill which would end up polluting the ocean, killing hundreds of animals.

Green Peace also deals with preventing the extinction of animals. In February 2010, Green Peace was able to work with Loblaws and convince them to stop selling sharks, skates, Orange Roughy
, and Patagonian tooth fish. Reason being was being these animals were at risk of being extinct later in the years.

Green Peace is an Organization that we should all admire because there doing all this hard work to protect our species for no pro-fit at all. It's up to us to help them in succeeding in their goals because without us, they wouldn't be doing anything at all and we would see many habitats get destroyed by human pollution and destruction. So, i hope that you realize the type of human intervention that Green Peace does has a positive affect.



Sources: Green Peace's Mission(Information)
Green Peace Successes(Information)
Green Peace Logo(Picture)
Green Peace Swimmers(Video)

Blogs commented Kimberley Villaluz&Kyle Tran