Safari Adventure

                A real African safari has to be one of the most surreal experiences out there. Seeing the most beautiful animals on earth be free in the wild is definitely on my bucket list. The lions, giraffes, and rhinos would be an amazing sight. The only thing stopping a lion from pouncing on you or an elephant from sitting on you is their laziness, and a jeep with no windows. The rush of being able to see these animals in the wild up close must feel great.

                Safaris could be harming our environment though. Just having a giant jeep follow you around all day could really hurt your hunting. Although wildlife has somewhat adapted to humans taking selfies with them, making movies out of them, and staring at them with binoculars, the wildlife still has to be effected by so much human presences. Regulations should be set and more strict in countries with these types of safaris. We cannot just let guides disturb these animals’ habitats and ways of living. Some animals are really being hurt read more here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/safariandwildlifeholidays/7220102/Safari-Are-too-many-tourists-killing-Africas-wildlife.html).

                Hard fines and expenses have been placed on companies who do safaris though. The government is trying to help keep their wildlife safe, to a certain extent. Harder actions do need to be taken though to keep these beautiful animals the way they are. I am all for safaris, they sound like an absolute blast, but this tourist attraction should not be hurting animals. I am fine with having my trip to Africa being a little more lack-luster because I can’t get right next to the lion pack while they are hunting.

                

The Reactions

                Life is an amazing thing. With the knowledge we have, we assume life is extremely rare. The perfect conditions over billions of years are what led us from tiny single celled organisms to the amazing diversity that is our animal kingdom and our small world of unique microorganisms. The odds of life occurring elsewhere seem impossible with so many chemical reactions and situations that had to occur in perfect order for life to form.

                The thing that makes life run is the microscopic world.  Every mechanism and decision we have is biased on chemical reactions and microorganisms. This month, scientist found that bacteria in our stomach can signal and control our brain to get what they want. They control our moods, our hunger patterns, and our cravings. Read more here (http://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-minds).  These tiny bacteria do everything they can to make us hate ourselves, whether it’s those donuts for breakfast or that entire bag of chips that you’re eating when you said you would have “just one”.  Getting us all fattened up and chubby is what these bacteria and microbes desire.  It’s amazing how such tiny microbes can have such a “huge” (pun-intended) effect on the person as a whole.

                From another perspective the world around us just seems so gigantic when you look at the stars, the galaxy and the universe. You feel like just a tiny speck when it comes to the world around you. But you should feel special.  We, the animals of the world are made up of millions of cells and mini ecosystems which in turn make us who we are. Some tiny microbes make us hungry, get us in a bad mood, it is not us, it is all controlled by small, nonexistent to the naked eye microbes and organisms.

                Another odd thing about us is that our consciousness, our image, our personality is probably made up of tiny reactions and microbes. Our “big” world is just a puppet of things going on at these microscopic levels. Our brain for example, based on current science, is made of neurons that are just electrocuted and sending signals throughout the brain. This is what makes us think.  It’s mindboggling to me that such a complicated thing as the mind and our thoughts are controlled by some ions shooting across a membrane. Our whole lives, everything we see and hear that is living is just controlled by some charged atoms.  It seems kind of shallow to me, like we haven’t gotten the whole story, which we probably haven’t.   I feel like something is missing and that our minds, consciousness and everyone else’s can’t just be made from an electrical charge. To me, it just defeats the purpose of life, if all we are is a bunch of chemical reactions. I want more to life than that. Why do we get emotional? Why do we have such strong feelings? Is it just giving us a better chance to survive and reproduce? I don’t want to just reproduce and die like everyone else. And although scientist are far from knowing everything, I still want to live with a purpose other than making little Adams and surviving to the best of my abilities. I want to express myself, share with others, and other cheesy things. Not just be another tool in the evolutionary and biological system, trying to keep our species the best and the fittest.     

The Key to the Prison

                Being trapped is one of the worst feelings a human can experience.  Our freedom and lives being taken and imprisoned is nothing short of torture. One of my personal worse fears is being trapped inside my own mind.  It’s something in this world that is not uncommon.  Alzheimer’s, comas, and strokes are just some of the things that can trap a person all alone in their own mind.

                This week, a scientific breakthrough was made for those who are trapped in their bodies. Doctors can now tell if a person in a vegetable state is conscious or not through their brain activity.  This is possible and you can read more here (http://sciencealert.com.au/news/20141710-26359.html).  

Hospitals do as much as they can to help these scary medical situations. Providing beds, vitamins and nutrients to keep them alive, and many other amenities to try and make the process as easy as humanly possible. They can’t do everything though.  Knowing what a makes a person comfortable and what they need when they can’t tell you makes accomplishing that goal hard, almost impossible. This is why I think being stuck in a situation where you can’t communicate, would be horrific. People sticking needles into me, bathing me, and monitoring me without asking me about it, must be the worst feeling ever.

This procedure cannot read a person’s mind. It cannot tell us what they want and need.  It can only tell us if they have some brain activity.  If they have some level of consciousness, they still cannot tell us what hurts. Being conscious would be so much worse being stuck in a situation like this. Hearing people might be great but not being able to communicate back to them must be torture. Doctors and families knowing the information of whether the patient is conscious when in a situation such as life support, etc., is extremely helpful in tough decisions. Knowing this information can make that decision of pulling the plug or not so much easier. Giving families more closure to such hard and difficult times is the most valuable thing about this. This breakthrough may not change anything, treatment wise, or even care-wise, but one thing that is for sure is that it will make this unbearable process a little bit easier.

The Kings

            Pollution and hunting has been a major problem over the last few decades. Garbage is multiplying as human population grows, chemicals disposal is not being regulated in so many regions throughout the world, and poaching/hunting is running rampant. Animals are suffering big time from their habitats and sources of food being depleted, hunted, and polluted by us.

            Big and majestic predators around the world are taking the largest punch from us. Without predators keeping populations at a healthy level, ecosystems could collapse easily, read more here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/science/when-predators-vanish-so-does-the-ecosystem.html). High-level predators are not monsters, as the wise Mufasa from Lion King says, “Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.”

            We cannot treat high-level predators as dangerous and scary animals that must be destroyed. They may be able to rip a humans face off, but they are beautiful, majestic, and important to nature. Humans have that mentality that “just because something is dangerous means it should be killed”. This might have helped ten thousand years ago when we were trying not to get killed daily by wild beasts. But today, we killed off so many species and creatures that we don’t need to be worried about being eaten alive. With this wrong attitude towards dangerous predators causes hunting of them “just for the thrills” and poaching for their rare and “exotic” hides and resources. These animals aren’t prizes to show off to your friends and they are not signs that you are tougher than nature.  They are magnificent creatures that should not be killed by humans, especially if their population is endangered.

            Pollution also hurts the big predators of the world. Biological magnification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnification) is one way major predators are in a decline. Sharks, tuna, and bald eagles are examples of creatures that have taken hits from this phenomenon. We need to stop chemical pollution because even small amounts of bad chemicals can turn into serious problems for top-tiered carnivores due to Bio-magnification.

            Carnivores who are king of the land are the ones we make movies for, not the boring herbivores that roam the valley. Without these types of animals, our ecosystems will crash out of control and our children’s movies will become so boring.

Deep Dark

Our oceans are gigantic with 70% of the world being covered in water. There are so many species, ecosystems, and fish living out in the big blue.

            Although it takes up most of earth, we barely know anything about the vast, open oceans. The reefs close to home and land are being destroyed, and the vast open ocean is a mystery to us. As humans, we are losing our water-life, reefs are dying off at massive rates due to tourist, pollution, etc. and these reefs are home to the most amazing and colorful organisms in the world.

            We know more about the moon than we do about most areas of our oceans. Once you get far, far way from land, the ocean becomes like a desolate wasteland of nothing but seawater for 20,000 feet. No animals, no plants, just ocean, it sounds like a nightmare to me. A few years ago, I went snorkeling in the ocean off the coast of Belize (a small Central American country on the gulf side) and the reefs and fish were beautiful. It was amazing that everywhere you looked, a different colored fish, or piece of coral would appear. Sometimes fish would just surround you.  They were interested and curious about you.  One thing that always intrigued me about that trip was that although you were basically in paradise, a little ways out beyond the reef was the Drop Off. The Drop Off is not like what you see in Finding Nemo.  Its not just a few feet drop into the club where all the dangerous and less attractive fish live.  It is an abyss. The heaven turns into blackness; there is no life, no light, nothing. It just drops straight off into miles and miles of nothingness. It’s really creepy and off-putting.  Plus once you get low enough you run into these (http://list25.com/25-most-terrifying-deep-sea-creatures/) guardians of hell, like the one from Finding Nemo.

            I am glad we don’t explore the open ocean that much. It seems like more of a waste of time to explore that much space, when there really isn’t much their but a few squids. It’s creepy, desolate, and sounds like the last place I want to be. I really don’t want to know what is going on out there in the deep and mysterious land of blue. The moon or Mars sounds like a much cooler place to explore. Hopefully, there aren’t any demons roaming mars like there are roaming the deep waters, miles below our world.

Save the Polar Bears?

            Everyone’s heard of the crisis that is occurring to our albino bears.  Humans are causing the earth to warm up due to greenhouse gases and damaging the ozone layer. Read more about here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming ). So much attention has been raised about stopping this environmental crisis. Millions of people have rallied and protested oil companies, government spending, and other things that could really destroy our environment. Problems really are starting to arise because of global warming. Ice caps are at an all time low and our overall average temperature is rising slowly. It could be us humans or it could just be earth going through cycles of hot and cold. No matter what the cause of these events is, slowing down the use of fossil fuels will save humans a lot of hassle in the long run.

The world is starting to now respond to this threat against our earth. The use of fossil fuels is starting to decline.  Electrical cars and reusable energy are reasons to look forward to a future where we no longer hurt our planet and its inhabitants. Our Coca-Cola bears might have hope yet with advancing technology and raised awareness of our environment.

            Understanding all of this I still believe we should not as a country, rush to go green. Fossil fuels are still extremely efficient and have low cost (for now). We cannot rush into green energy or we will use up too much of our time and resources to the green project and not see the big picture. Technology and innovation for better and more efficient clean energy should be funded and researched which we see our world doing. Tesla, an electrical car company, is creating efficient, clean, and cheap cars that could soon leave dirty gas powered cars in the dust.

            Wind energy for example here in Iowa is making huge gains. By filling cornfields with endless amounts of wind turbines, clean energy is produced and polar bears are not losing their little ice homes. Solar energy is filling the desert.  Slowly but surely, it’s becoming a more and more efficient method to create clean energy. Extremely efficient ways of using our energy will also help the cause of creating a world without harmful energy sources.

            The polar bears should be smiling; within the next decade we could see fossil fuels becoming the past and new clean energy methods taking their place. Hopefully, if we can stop damaging our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, our planet then should drop back down to a normal average temperature. The ice caps will multiply and the artic ocean will freeze, leaving the bears to party again with a glass of Coke and a home full of ice.

            

Zoos

            Seeing all those animals, the camels, the lions and the geckos just gets me ready for an adventure to see more of these beautiful animals in the wild. Zoos are amazing, it is the only place to see the world of animals and learn about them without paying thousands of dollars traveling all over the world. The best field trips as a kid were going to the zoo, to see all the magnificent animals.

            Zoos have always been the place to take the kids. It is a great place to go. You learn about animals and biology while having fun looking at big cats, laughing dogs (hyenas), rhinos and insects. Even as an adult, sometimes you might be in the mood to go see the giraffes or something like that. You may get creepy looks from parents, but a protective moms feeling does nothing to keep you from riding that camel by yourself. Children are just an excuse to go to the zoo.

            Over the years, zoos have improved drastically. They have gone from tiny little concrete cages for animals to giant habitat-filled enclosures.  These ultra-deluxe enclosures are safe havens for the creatures. Food, medicine, etc. all being provided for and all the animals have to do is sit there and look good. Most people don’t like the concept of zoos. It does make sense to not like them with the animals locked up and trapped without the freedom they deserve. If humans were stuck in some enclosure, we would go insane within a week, bored out of our minds. Other animals I think are different, freedom is a term that varies based on whom you ask. Freedom for one person could be totally different to another. Most creatures on earth are not like us when it comes to being caged up.  Most creatures would be super happy just to have a little bit of space, food, and someone to talk too. While if we were without our freedom and breathing space, caged up in an “enclosure”, we change. Shawshank Redemption shows this unbelievably well. It shows that after being locked up, people are not what they used to be when they get out, even with people around to talk to, being locked up with no rights hurts people. Brooks, a character from the film was locked up most his life with no freedom, he could not take the pressure and ended his life. Animals aren’t like us, it does not hurt them, but I can’t prove that.