Should be be optimistic or pessimistic with the amazing advances in science and technology?
Are we opening Pandora's box?
If bugs which can mop up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere were realeased into the atmosphere would all our plants starve?
Yet I have to applaud the genius and thought behind radical ideas, pray that animals will not suffer vivisection and testing for scientists to prove the uses of their synethised life forms and hope the global partnerships can manage to encourage innovation but maintain a balance, keeping the lid on anything too way out.
Introduced naturally occuring species in the wrong environment can cause havoc, replacing one problem with another, (e.g. cane toads)
So just in case you have not already seen this scientific advance...pause for thought...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 131435.htmhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... rrer=yahooThe potential is huge - but so are the dangers. An artificial species, created in the lab, might not 'obey the rules' of the natural world - after all, every living being on Earth has evolved over three billion years, when a myriad of competing species have had to share the same increasingly crowded environment.
It is possible to imagine a synthetic microbe going on the rampage, perhaps wiping out all the world's crop plants or even humanity itself.
Synthetic biology also challenges our most cherished notions of what life itself actually is. Non-scientists might not realise that we have, as yet, no proper definition of life.
A diamond is not alive; a baboon clearly is. But what about a virus? Viruses, which are even simpler than bacteria, have a genetic code written in DNA (or its cousin RNA).
The stuff viruses are made from is the stuff of life - protein coats and so on - yet they cannot reproduce independently.
Like diamonds, they can be grown into crystals - and you certainly cannot crystallise baboons. Most biologists say viruses are not alive, and that true biology begins with bacteria.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0oW2TTUAGAnd a whole group of folk need to take turmeric daily, get some exercise and eat healthy in a manner which ensures calorific intake is lower than energy expended to future proof their later years, backing up previous findings since 2005.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 092940.htmAbdominal Fat at Middle Age Associated With Greater Risk of Dementia: Obesity Linked to Lower Total Brain Volume#
ScienceDaily (May 20, 2010) — Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine determined that excess abdominal fat places otherwise healthy, middle-aged people at risk for dementia later in life. Preliminary findings suggest a relationship between obesity and dementia that could lead to promising prevention strategies in the future.
and are you sitting comfortably?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008 ... health.htmThat's right -- the time you sit in your chair could be keeping your body's fat burning in park! More than 47 million adults in the United States have metabolic syndrome, which causes obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Biomedical researchers from the say the reason so many of us have the condition is because we sit too much!
"The existing data, by numerous studies, are starting to show that the rates of heart disease and diabetes and obesity are doubled or sometimes even tripled in people who sit a lot," Dr. Hamilton explains. One reason, he says, is an enzyme called lipase. When it's on, fat is absorbed into the muscles, but when we sit down, lipase virtually shuts off.
"Instead, the fat will recirculate in the blood stream and go and be stored as body fat or it can clog arteries and cause diseases," Dr. Hamilton says. And it's not a small amount of fat. Plasma samples were taken from the same person after eating the same meal. When they ate sitting down, the sample was cloudy, but when they ate while standing up, it was clear.
"If you can perform a behavior while sitting or standing, I would choose standing," Dr. Hamilton says. That's why he swapped his desk chair for a treadmill. Not ready for that step? "You can have just as much fun watching your kids play if you're standing by the fence, next to a friend who pulls out that aluminum lawn chair and is sitting there," Dr. Hamilton advises.
You can also limit chair time by taking frequent breaks at work to stand and walk around. Stand up while talking on the phone or even while watching TV.
Standing also helps shrink your waistline! The average person can burn an extra 60 calories an hour just by standing! "But just avoid the chair is the simple recommendation, as much as you can," Dr. Hamilton says. That's advice worth a standing ovation!
Another benefit to standing -- it improves your HDL or good cholesterol levels. People who sat reduced their good cholesterol levels by 22 percent!