It's like ..everything's artificial nowadays.

Each and every day, people are finding ways in making their everyday life something perfect along with perfect surroundings too; which include products for perfection (make-up) or even the food that we consume. It may be hard to believe, but alike to the earlier blog entry about "Designer Babies", this is the exact typical way farmers, and scientists use in making the perfect, fresh plants, fruits and vegetables or even injecting hormones into animals like pigs and cows for more meat. People have been artificially selecting domesticated plants and animals for thousands of years. These activities have amounted to large, long-term, practical experiments that clearly demonstrate that species can change dramatically through selective breeding.

Artificial selection is the process of changing the characteristics of animals by artificial means. For example, like animal breeders, they are often able to change the characteristics of domestic animals by selecting for reproduction those individuals with the most desirable qualities such as speed in racehorses, milk production in cows, trail scenting in dogs. Even for the food we eat, they are genetically enhanced with hormones which make the cows, pigs, chickens and other produces to be bigger, meatier, and to produce more.
The results of artificial selection are very easy to see. The domestication cycle of canines being bred by their owners in order to emphasize less-aggressive traits has gone on for thousands of years. It has resulted in many different breeds that look almost nothing like their gray wolf ancestors. For examples:

1. The dairy cattle, who are bred in hopes of producing more milk, but some lines now suffer from increased infections and fertility problems.
2. Persian cats, that are bred for extremely flat faces often develop many respiratory problems and may have trouble eating. All of the listed traits that are bred for do not help the animals survive in the wild, but do make them more desirable to their owners.

Now moving along, let's talk about artificial selection in plants. Over the many years, the plants with desirable characteristics are grown by farmers; with the coming years approaching the numbers of farmers are increasing more and more. Meanwhile, plants without these characteristics are less likely to survive as they are not provided with the fertilizers and pesticides by farmers. Eventually, the species of the plant will evolute. In agriculture, superior strains of corn, wheat, and soybeans have resulted from careful breeding. For example:

1. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collards, and kale are all members of the same species, Brassica oleracea.
2. Gardeners have cultivated flowers such as roses and orchids, carefully manipulating heredity to produce the “perfect” hybrid.
3. Teosinte and its modern descendant, corn, which is a product of artificial selection.

Now lastly, in my opinion, I found that artificial selection isn't as ridiculous as "designer babies". I mean, there are the reasons in which that scientists and farmers may be pushing their limits or even reaching their limits in how much they are using/building up on this. I truly love the fact that they can make an hybrid of some sort of plant into making another plant, but I just found that the animal artificial selection is slightly cruel. I just wanted to finish this blog entry, by stating how unfair it is for us humans to enhance or even think of giving more hormones to animals in fulfilling our needs.

sources
- http://library.thinkquest.org/C0118084/Gene/Genetic_variation/artificialselection.htm
- http://www.biology-online.org/2/12_selective_breeding.htm
- http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/lines/IVAartselection.shtml
- http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-artificial-selection.htm
- http://www.learner.org/courses/essential/life/session5/closer1.html

Design - a - baby ?

"Hello there! So what brand would you like your baby to have? Chanel, Gucci, Prada?"

First off, I never knew anything about this topic until i read the many articles on it. Does everyone know what this is? Well for those of you who are alike to me, and did not know anything about this topic, "Designer babies" is the term being used by the media to describe the future of modifying or selecting our children genes for desirable characteristics (medical and cosmetic). They are referred to a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilisation to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics. Having this; it allows us in choosing which genes we would want our children to obtain during the birth process. As we slowly grow up and get older, we start to realize more flaws; we try to cover up with make up like concealer, blush, foundation, eye liner etc. Not knowing that scientists have come up with a new found investment "Designer Babies". I found this really shocking for the fact that this is something really magical. Don't get me wrong, but designing your own baby to look like what you prefer it to look like? WOW, talk about amazing.

I would want my child to:
- have the most gorgeous eyes ever,
- have luscious, shiny hair
- be tall
- nice teeth, nice smile
- have amazing talents artistically and creatively
- be good looking, smart with all the great personalities

To be honest, I'm probably only saying this now because I'm so amazed, but in my opinions, when i do have my own children. I would not even think about this, never ever think about this. I don't think that I'd really want the PERFECT child. I would really want children who have flaws and ones that can help each and everyone of us grow a stronger relationship.

Moving along with this topic, it's basically been the hit talk of 2009. All around the world, there are people talking about it and actually considering to get it done for their own children. I mean, there are of course the pros and cons to it which people go through before deciding with the exact features they want their children to carry. It's obvious that when parents-to-be consider the fact that they would never know how their children would turn out; some may lean towards the side of actually considering designer babies. Reasons of why people may chose this is because, you can never know how your children will turn out. I'm personally not talking about physically but I'm talking about the fact that some children develop disorders during the process of reproduction. Disorders like Down Syndrome and Klinfelter syndrome are possible during the processes which many parents are worried about when having children. It was said that this technology has already been used to avoid 200 different kinds of diseases that are known and specified during these processes.



In conclusion to all the articles I've read, I strongly disagree with this technological process of changing and deciding on your own of how your children will be. I mean for cosmetic reasons, it's pathetic. Being a parent, you're supposed to accept the fact that you'll love your children no matter what they do, how they look like and everything about them. By looking over the pros and cons, you can say that some people may go through this expensive process of "designing" their own babies to avoid certain disorders and illnesses. I'll strongly approve of that, but anything else is obviously a big no no. Like picking its gender, personality, physical appearances and even IQ ? I find that just pathetic, and inconsiderate for the reasons of why we should love our future children for who they really are, not some robot or dolls or some sort that we've chose.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989987-1,00.html
http://www.bionetonline.org/English/content/db_cont1.htm
http://www.gender-selection.com/?gclid=CIDwq4LIjZ8CFdA65QodnV5BRQ
http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2001/09/designer_babies.html
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/bio/great-designer-baby-controversy-%E2%80%9909
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123439771603075099.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/30/designer.babies/

are we REALLY stewards ? ...

Over the years, have you noticed how rapidly the numbers of human beings increased? Well, this is obviously something good, but at the same time .. we're taking over the world. As the population increases, we tend to take over more and more space; the more people we have, the more buildings we need. So being "stewards" like us, we decide to take over the animals' and plants' habitats, instead of trying to protect them.

In my opinion, as we are doing this, I don't think it ever comes to our minds that this may affect the habits of these species. If animals start to become extincted, they will lose all biodiversity. For everyone who does not know what biodiversity is, it is defined as the sum of an area's genes, species, and ecosystems. The better an area's biodiversity, the tougher their immune system. Since biodiversity includes not only one type of species, this specie will contain all the inherent genetic variations; which will *for example* make an army to defend the different types of diseases.

Now imagine this, you're dehydrated and you feel like you're bodies shrinking, your skin's puckering, your eyes are receded into orbits and your tongue starts to swell up and crack. As time goes by, your brain cells start to shrivel up and your muscles are seize. Then your kidneys shut down. Your blood volume drops, triggering a hypovolemic shock, you cannot breath anymore and suddenly you go into cardiac arrest. Shockingly this may seem, this is what happens when everything in your body starts to fail, in other words, this is what happens when you die. According to a United Nations report on the state of the global environment, they have estimated that there are more than 11,000 endangered animal and plant species - including more than 1,000 mammals which is almost a quarter of the world's total. Do you realize how terrible this is?

For example, the other day, i came along an article that said:

"Siberian tigers may vanish within three decades" - Corinne Podger.

Three decades is actually a really short time period. Would you like to know why Siberian tigers are becoming extincted? This is because we, human beings chose the wrong choice into being poachers. This is mainly a big problem in Suklaphanta, which is situated close to Mahendranagr on the Indian border. The current political and economic situation has resulted in an accelerated exploitation of resources in the region, among which poaching currently represents the most immediate threat to wildlife. There are rapid increasing numbers of tigers that are killed for their pelt and tiger parts, especially bones. (which are then sold for USD 3,000-5,000+ as attractive items) Thanks to poaching, habitat loss, and population fragmentation, the population of the Siberian tiger has vastly decreased. In fact, there are only about 450 of them left in the wild. As the population of tigers decrease, the less variation the cubs will obtain due to biodiversity. Since the cubs do not obtain various types of genetics which are immune to some sickness, these cubs may die easily due to lack of food in the foodchain, diseases and other causes.

With many different types of species becoming extincted day by day, our food chain will eventually end and we will eventually die too.. If we really want to be stewards of of the world, we should stop being so selfish, and actually consider helping out and trying to fix the problems we have caused in this world.



http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-extinction--the-greatest-threat-to-mankind-397939.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2000325.stm

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Siberian-Tiger-Populations-Drop-89150.shtml

http://www.panda.org/who_we_are/wwf_offices/russia/projects/?uProjectID=RU0005

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/siberian-tiger.html