Drafts

In ecology I am interested in a deeper perspective into the different levels of ecology. I would like to further investigate individual organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biospheres and the relationships between each one. Ecology focuses on the relationships between organisms and their environments, so I look forward to studying topics such as mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, as well as looking at a single organism’s role within its environment. Similarly, I want to investigate further predation and competition between organisms and how these affect their niches within the ecosystem. Within the topic of populations, I believe it would be interesting to see how populations change and adapt overtime and how they are able to respond to different environmental pressures. It would also be interesting to look at how different types of ecosystems function systematically, and their abiotic and biotic factors, as well as specifically how humans have impacted these ecosystems. In a more broad spectrum, I am interested in the many levels of ecology because in order to reduce the problems the earth faces as a direct result of humans, we need to better understand the relationship between our ecosystems and the impact that certain human actions (deforestation, species endangerment, pollution, etc) have in causing our ecosystems to decline rapidly today.

    Obviously the loss of jobs due to automation is an inevitable problem, yet it makes me wonder why fast food chains like McDonald's or Dunkin Donuts don’t utilize automation to its maximum potential.
    For example, today I was in line at a Dunkin Donuts and all I had wanted to order was a donut with a coffee. If instead of people behind the counter we had machines instead, would that make the process go faster? Would it be cheaper for the business to have multiple machines (long term) make the orders and serve it instead?
    There is that cliche scene in movies and TV commercials of a rube goldberg machine performing tasks that would normally be done by a regular person, like washing the dishes or getting the kids dressed. Would it be possible to make that a reality in fast food places?
    Chains like McDonalds are already slowly getting rid of cashiers by having people order what they want on their own at a machine. Could it be possible to make a machine make the orders as well? Something simple like a burger or french fries are very simple to make. Why not make a machine that makes the order instead?
    In downtown Boston, there’s a place called Spyce where machines make the food, and there are no cooks in the place. Instead, the people behind the counter are people who are there to answer questions, and reload the machines in case they run low on a specific ingredient. From its reviews online, the place looks like it’s doing quite well and is a success. Why are more places not following suit?
    One of the reasons that come to mind, is the stigma that lies behind the idea of your food being made by a machine. I personally am a cook at a fine dining place, and I could never imagine a robot doing what we do at the restaurant. The food that comes out is imperfectly perfect every time, and it’s not picture perfect which could make the food seem almost unnatural. But something like fast food, I don’t see the problem with a robot making the food because it’s all very simple. It’s just a bun with meat and veggies with cheese, with some condiments and a bun on top. If anything, it’s possible that the food will come out looking even nicer than it usually does, because at least in American fast food chains, the food never comes out as nicely as it looks in advertisements.

The reason behavioral ecology interests me the most because there are so many different things that factor into it, and the wide range of things you can study. From environmental factors, to learned behaviors, the genetic variances, there are so many things that can determine why a certain organism lives and behaves the way it does. It would be interesting for me to see what the driving force behind certain behaviors are, and why it is better for the organism to live the way it does. It would be interesting to find out if certain ways of doing things are better evolutionarily as a whole. The only way to tell this would be by studying the success rate of different organisms in similar environments that act differently in the same situation. The behavior of organisms is, to me, that most interesting and variable part about ecology.

Our findings show that as concentrations increase that does not mean that growth will increase. (Table 3) Also, it does not seem to correlate to how many flies are in the adult stage. (Graph 1) The life stages of the offspring do not seem to be accelerated by the growth hormone. This can be easily seen in graph 2 and 3. Graph 3 shows that only the one with the most hormone had larvae which doesn’t make sense with our hypothesis. Also, Table two shows that more pupae were in the tubes at the higher concentration levels. Inn graph 5 it shows that pupae made up a large amount of each fly grouping. It does seem however that reproduction rate increases when our group added 10 uM. This can be seen in table 1, there are much more flies overall than any of the other concentrations. Overall, more males than females were produced. (Graph 4)

My class that focuses primarily on epidemiology is using a cool ap that is run by the cdc. It essentially is an app that gives you data on an outbreak and you have to work through where the outbreak originated and how it originated. The one that I just completed was really interesting and a little tricky to figure out. It involved an anthrax outbreak, which with the facts presented looks to be a bioterror attack. The facts are very misleading though, it is a total accidental release of the anthrax bacterium into the air. A drum instructor took a trip to Africa and bought goat skins for making his drums. The drums weren’t properly cleaned off the anthrax that they had been exposed to. You later find out that he also failed to check the skins in at customs, so no one ensured that the proper cleaning process was completed in order to make sure the skins safe for travel. And just because someone didn’t register their possessions with customs no one checked to make sure there was nothing harmful on the skins. I think the point of the simulation is to show you that an outbreak can happen for any reason and outbreaks don’t know border limits. But most importantly the people working to find where an outbreak started don’t have an easy job and have to comb through thousands of pieces of data to ensure they know what pathogenic agent they are dealing with.

As early as the mid-1800’s the theory that birds had descended from dinosaurs had been proposed but was widely unaccepted for some time. It was the discovery of feathered theropod dinosaurs like Archaeopteryx that pushed the idea into the spotlight and allowed it to gain traction. Now the idea is widely accepted and new fossil finds are providing insight into how small flightless feathered raptors became the incredibly diverse array of birds that share the Earth with us.

    Earlier today there was a video posted by this Youtuber I follow named Domics, called “Hypotheticals: The Wagyu Problem”.  The video basically describes how Dom (Domics’ nickname) went out to try A5 Wagyu for the first time, and how the cattle lived a luxurious life of 3 years before it was slaughtered for its meat.
    So then this hypothetical question popped up. “What if you were able to live a grandeur life for x amount of time, knowing that by the end of that time you would be killed humanely for your meat to be served for other people (assuming cannibalism is legal and a regular occurrence in this hypothetical)”.
    Some questions obviously popped up, like how many years can you live in this wealthy lifestyle, what’s the spending limit (if there is any?), could you spread the wealth, and how could they keep you from running away once the time limit is up?
    One question I personally had was would they be able to pick anybody for that kind of lifestyle program, or would it have to be a select group of people who get the option to live like that? If it is a select group of people, then how do they determine who goes and who doesn’t? I think there are lots of moral complications and issues with the hypothetical, but I think it’s an interesting question nonetheless.
    The video was basically just Dom and two of his friends talking about the hypothetical, and it was really interesting to hear the other perspectives. One of them said they would most likely subject to that lifestyle if their friends did it, while the other two (including Dom) said they would still abstain from it.     Personally I pondered about the hypothetical, and I have to admit I think I would not want to live that kind of lifestyle. In my opinion, I think you would need to feel very strongly about finding fulfilment from materialistic value, and I personally don’t have that. Even if all of my friends were to do such a thing, I still think I would abstain from that kind of lifestyle since the people I believe I would end up becoming friends with, would all abstain from that lifestyle as well.

Viruses demonstrate properties of life and properties of non-life, which makes them difficult to categorize as living or nonliving. However, they fall into both categories that ultimately puts them in a category of their own. Living properties of viruses include having genetic material (DNA, RNA), ability to reproduce with a host cell, and being able to evolve through mutations. On the other hand, viruses belong in the nonliving group because they do not have a metabolism or organelles, cannot maintain homeostasis, and do not grow and develop, which all living cells can accomplish. The most important aspect of viruses is that they are not able to multiply without host cells. These cells are crucial for viruses because they reproduce by attaching themselves to a specific host cell and injects its genetic material into it. Soon after, the host cell lyses and the replicated viruses are released to proceed the same cycle, resulting in greater viral genetic material in its environment.

My opinion on the matter is that there is nothing the human race can do to permanently win this theoretical arms race. The precautions that we already take is really the best that we can possibly do. If there was a way for us to cut out all diseases and have a clean world then we would have done it already. Unfortunately, whatever we do the disease will evolve to be immune to that certain treatment. With the numerous amount of ways diseases can spread to different hosts and with us not fully understanding the process of their evolution we have a tall hill to climb when it comes to eradicating diseases. Even in a place that we would think would be the cleanest such as hospitals diseases are still found and can easily spread. (“Hospitals installed more sinks to stop infections. The sinks can make the problem worse”) These are facilities that are cleaned every day and we still cannot control the pathogens there. Unfortunately, it looks like this is a war that will wage on forever.

The study of human eugenics is a field that can change the human race for good. It seems that the studies being done can make the human race be able to have less disease and live for a longer period of time. Scientists in the “pros and cons of genetic engineering in humans” article have said that we are in some ways playing god. This is a valid claim because we are essentially trying to keep certain traits and get rid of others. Years ago, we did not have the technology to do this and weren’t even thinking about it. Some may say that natural selection is being cheated in this situation. In the coming years you may be able to give your child the ideal features you want him to have, or the ability to be immune to certain diseases. (You're only human, but your kids could be so much more) Would I want my child to have the best features possible? Of course. This would go as a steep price though because everyone else wants the same thing. Being able to design every human how you wanted them may lead to even more competition than before. Would this be a good thing for the human race as a whole? Or would this slowly lead to our demise?