Did you ever notice that apes, are just quadrupedal humans? Well a scientist by the name of Maurice K. Temerlin adopted an ape in the early stages of its life, and raised it like a human.
This was a science experiment of sorts, to see how close exactly apes are to humans, but after being attached to it (they named it Lucy) for so long, the ape began to act up. After a long, and heartbreaking story, it was most likely Lucy's humanization that brought her to her end.
I feel that this was a very beneficial experiment, but I also feel that it wasn't properly carried out. An ape is an ape, and we should keep it that way, and the way that Lucy died saddens me. And it was all because she was so used to being around humans so much. Lucy did teach us a LOT about how chimpanzes can be so much like humans, and it definitely proves that we came from a common ancestor, but it also taught us that animals like that, who are wild and free, can be socialized and civilized, the story that Maurice Temerlin told were incredible, and really gave me insight on how close we actually are to some animals.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
"Thinking Like A Mountain"
Thinking like a mountain. First of all mountains don't have brains, but their ecosystem does!
The story "Thinking like a mountain" was a story about how a hunter would hunt wolves near a mountain, but after the first one he shot, he felt like he had taken something away from the mountain and the area around. He wanted to give back and sort of avenge the wolf even though he killed it. Taking something away from an ecosystem is pretty serious, and we applied this to our field work at DNS.
This story also explained how I sort of felt about hunting animals for glory and pride, and not for useful things like its hide and its meat. I really enjoyed this story and I thought that it was really well thought out in how the hunter was acting.
The story "Thinking like a mountain" was a story about how a hunter would hunt wolves near a mountain, but after the first one he shot, he felt like he had taken something away from the mountain and the area around. He wanted to give back and sort of avenge the wolf even though he killed it. Taking something away from an ecosystem is pretty serious, and we applied this to our field work at DNS.
This story also explained how I sort of felt about hunting animals for glory and pride, and not for useful things like its hide and its meat. I really enjoyed this story and I thought that it was really well thought out in how the hunter was acting.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
TED Talk about transplant cells
Cells. Its what all our bodies are made up of. We have cells for our skin, organs and muscles but what happens when something goes wrong?
When the first organ transplant was completed, it started to become a go-to thing when something went wrong with one of your organs. Susan Lim, the first doctor to successfully complete a human liver transplant had the revolutionary idea of instead of replacing the whole organ, which takes a donor, lots of time, money and resources, to just replace the bad cells with good cells. Cells are things that can be stored for a lot longer than a fresh organ ready for a transplant, and they can also be duplicated and modified in ways that organs cant. This idea has been proven to work on many patients who had good cells implanted into the infected/dying organ, the good ones took over the dying ones and cured the organ. The cells that are implanted are modified stem cells that help work against organ failure, the stem cells can differentiate and are good at multiplying fast. Sort of like a tiny little organism. Lots of people today require bone meal transplants which is virtually the same thing as what Susan Lim devised. They can be injected via blood or transplant.
I think this idea is something that really could change the way that we are able to heal ourselves, but honestly. I think that the way that most people eat and treat their body is whats causing them to go wrong, but that is just my personal opinion. We wouldn't have as many doctors if we didn't have McDonalds.
When the first organ transplant was completed, it started to become a go-to thing when something went wrong with one of your organs. Susan Lim, the first doctor to successfully complete a human liver transplant had the revolutionary idea of instead of replacing the whole organ, which takes a donor, lots of time, money and resources, to just replace the bad cells with good cells. Cells are things that can be stored for a lot longer than a fresh organ ready for a transplant, and they can also be duplicated and modified in ways that organs cant. This idea has been proven to work on many patients who had good cells implanted into the infected/dying organ, the good ones took over the dying ones and cured the organ. The cells that are implanted are modified stem cells that help work against organ failure, the stem cells can differentiate and are good at multiplying fast. Sort of like a tiny little organism. Lots of people today require bone meal transplants which is virtually the same thing as what Susan Lim devised. They can be injected via blood or transplant.
I think this idea is something that really could change the way that we are able to heal ourselves, but honestly. I think that the way that most people eat and treat their body is whats causing them to go wrong, but that is just my personal opinion. We wouldn't have as many doctors if we didn't have McDonalds.
Credits:
TED.com Susan Lim (Transplanting cells)
Wikipedia (Susan Lim)
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