It has been a long time

I want to keep blogging, so I'm sorry for leaving you hanging I promise I will bring more post :) stay tune :)

Canadian Federal Elections and Obama

Wow super amazed that NDP is now the oposition good for them I'm glad to see change for once ...and excited to see how is going to work with the conservatives .....In the other hand I am predicting re-election for Obama and a grumpy face for Donald Trump poor guy.

DNA fingerprinting to identify Osama

Hello Biology lovers

I think Biology always finds a way to be relevant in current news and here is the proof of this:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/984153--dna-fingerprinting-helped-identify-osama-bin-laden?bn=1

Fragmentation

check out my video :)

Improperly placed tubines and the endorsment by the government

On the eleventh lecture of the political biology series, Professor Scott Petrie talked about his research and the issues that wind turbines bring to many aspects of ecology, especially waterfowl. Petrie gave us various lists to consider, one is the top twelve concerns with onshore and offshore improperly placed wind turbines (IWTs), the second list pertains to the top tree recommendations that the Danish believe it is wise to place wind turbines (WTs) and the last list is the guidelines that the Ontario government uses to place WTs (Table 1).  In my opinion not a lot of people know about the negative effects of wind turbines, especially IWTs. This creates a problem because the government will make decisions without us knowing the consequences. That is when projects such as Prof. Petrie’s research is very important because, it informs the government, other scientist and the public that more thought should go into placing these WTs. The main point of the lecture is that a waterfowl, which is the focus of Petrie’s research, is being affected by these wind farms. One of the main problems is that these types of birds migrate in the fall and return in the spring, and their migrations paths are comprise due to these wind turbines. The other problem that Petrie mentions was that IWTs causes habitat loss and sound impacts to animals. This causes the waterfowl to displace to other areas or not being able to find resting areas.

One would say that the easiest way out for this problem is removing the IWTs but, this is not the case as removing these turbines costs up to a million dollars which the government is not willing to pay. When Prof. Petrie went to a Denmark conference, he learned that the guidelines that they have don’t even match the guidelines that Ontario uses. He found out that the areas of proposition for wind farms are the places that waterfowls use. A survey reveal that around 60% of the waterfowl hang out around the shoreline concluding that onshore wind turbines are more dangerous than offshore. There is not a lot of research in offshore turbines but, the Danish calculated that birds were able to avoid crashing with WTs that were offshore; this shows that offshore is better than onshore. Either way, if the turbines are offshore or onshore Petri blames the Ontario guidelines for all the problems they have caused.

Prof. Petri asks if this research will help prevent the construction of new IWT or at least make the government think where to place them. He sounds a bit skeptical as politicians want things or results as fast as possible and for researchers or ecologist their investigations take them a long time. In my opinion the government should be patient and wait for the research results, so they may know which areas are wildlife conservation areas and not place wind turbines blindly making our biodiversity to decrease. Even though Prof. Petrie seems skeptical about the government looking at his research, as Premier McGuinty seems to have an obsession with placing more and more WTs and using “a lack of science” to justify this practice. I’m positive that if we as scientist and students spread the word about this ongoing issue people will be willing to listen and perhaps vote for governments that are more concern with the well being of our ecosystem specially animals. Also instead of counting the number of animals killed due to wind turbines let’s calculate the number of animals already living in the area so that we can make better decisions of the placement of WTs. 

Table 1. Three lists presented by Professor Scott Petrie

Let's sweep it under the rug

On the tenth edition of the political biology series, Dr. Charlie Trick professor from the department of biology at UWO, talked about using our oceans for waste disposal. The overall point of the lecture is that we humans use the ocean as a place to put our garbage and chemicals without thinking what this could cause to the oceans’ health. For me this practice seems like an easy way out to get rid of all the garbage that we produce. We humans are lazy by nature and because we don’t know about other methods of cleaning or waste disposal, we use our oceans as a rug, shoving all the waste that we can find under it.

One of the main concepts that Trick talked about is how putting the waste on the ocean is decreasing the biodiversity, also CO₂ in oceans has increased and all these links back to what happens on land as lower biodiversity causes more problems in our overall health, also our water becomes more toxic to consume and the more we are exposed the more we get diseases as well.

Another concept mention was carbon sequestering which is the process of removing CO₂ form the atmosphere and placing it to a reservoir. He showed us graphs of how CO₂ was increasing exponentially in oceans. Trick told us that the way the CO₂ in the oceans is dealt with is by adding phytoplankton into the ocean. Phytoplankton is very much involved with the process of photosynthesis and people think that by adding this diatom or algae it will fix all the oceans problems. But they don’t count that it cannot be any type phytoplankton in the ocean as there are many different types depending on the environment. Dr Trick showed us a study where the phytoplankton didn’t do anything on the ocean and left the ocean with an opaque colour. The addition of this phytoplankton causes the production of a molecule called domoic acid and this molecule causes amnesic shellfish poisoning in our local water causing us to have disease such as diarrhea.

Finally, there is no degree of success in this practice, no benefit is shown, increases the stress on the surface of the water and worst of all you get neurotoxins are produced. In my opinion waste is a big problem in our world and we cannot make it disappear just like that, we need other ways to deal with this problem perhaps burning it or finding a chemical to disintegrate. We need to think about the animals that live in the ocean and us because we consume water and fish and by us dumping this waste we are not going anywhere. And lastly we need to be smart and recycle because it makes it easier for the waste handlers and eventually our biodiversity as it is easier to handle. And everyone will be better as no more toxicity in our environment and our oceans will be decreased. 

para ver en tu idioma, pour le voir en francais

saludos a los que hablan espanol, si desas ver este blog en espanol ve al google de tu pais o google en espanol escribe la palabra blobiology karianaperarg, cuando salgan los resultados en azul dira traducir la pagina haz click y podras ver mi blog en espanol puedes escribir comentarios y seguir me gracias

Salut a tous et toutes

si vous voulez voir cette blog en francais vous pouvez aller au google cherchez pour ma blog et faire click dans traduire cet page

je espere que vous aide