Post by Sunday at midnight.
This is my editorial about U.S. beef that I discussed in class:
06-17-2008
Test Every Cow to Ensure Safety
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2010/05/198_26015.html
This was my video interview about it on Arirang TV:
06-14-2008
"Candlelight of Malcontent",
http://www.arirang.co.kr/Tv2/InFocus_Archive.asp?PROG_CODE=TVCR0104&view_seq=510&Page=9&sys_lang=Eng
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1.Hyo Jin, CHO
ReplyDelete2.Fabricated environment
3. There are advantages that Cheongae-cheon has brought such as lowering temperature of those areas near stream and being hot spot for people to visit not only for domestic people but also lots of foreigner. However, in my point of view I always did not much satisfied with Cheongae-cheon. Whenever I visit the water smells bad, which clearly verifies it is artificial stream that is not naturally healthy and water seems not clean. What even shocked me was, although I guessed Seoul government restore Cheongae-cheon as it was, it was not. It was totally artificially constructed; the bottom of the stream is covered with cement and fishes living in Cheongae-cheon looked rather poor. And actually the article is verifying what I had felt about Cheongae-choen.
What is worrying is that even environment is being fabricated that normal people hardly what is truth unless the media reveal the truth. With the over exaggeration made Seoul city on Cheongae-cheon, the inconvenient environmental truth is being more and more hidden and encroached. It seems clear that for the political intention that conservative party GNP (Grand National Party) that both ex-mayor MB and current mayor Oh, Sae hun are belonged, Seoul city kept exaggerating environmental restoration of Cheongae-cheon although it is not real and true restoration. Environment is being exploited by political greed! If the environment is fabricated that who can take responsible for its bad result? Once the environment is fabricated, the cost would be seriously huge as no any preservation efforts or can precaution be made. Then environmental problem’s burden goes to next generation.
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4. The article is criticizing Seoul government’s exaggeration on Cheongae-cheon(Cheongae stream). Reconstruction of Cheongae-cheon(Cheongae stream) is regarded as a achievement when MB(Lee Myung Bak, current president of Korea) was Seoul mayor. Seoul city has addressed that 25 kinds of fishes live in Cheongae-cheon and government boosts that this well shows Cheongae-cheon's habitat environment for species has improved enough with clean water and abundant feed. People also can easily find fishes in Cheongae-cheon. I also have seen ducks and fishes in Cheongae-cheon. However, currently a doubt that the Seoul city government had intentionally discharged fishes into Cheongae-cheon so that they can show off current government's achievement is uprising. The controversy over ‘Cheongae-cheon’s restoration of environment’ is becoming issue. The journal where this article comes from revealed that Seoul city has searched for fishes from other area and discharged it. Environmental movement organizations has investigated and found that some fishes living in Cheongae-cheon have problems with their reproduction and many fishes are weak, too slim and got injured a lot. Kim, Ik Soo, biological science professor said it is because cheongae-cheon is not good environmental habitat for feeds; water beetles since Cheongae-cheon, its hydrometry is too fast for water beetles to live and habitat is too plain and it is lack of water weeds. Therefore fishes cannot eat well, which results in lower immunity. These days there are lots of green algae which produce harmful oxygen.
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http://www.sisainlive.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=7493
1. Wonmi Nam
ReplyDelete2. Finding out about your potential illnesses through a simple DNA test
3. A company in the US came up with a simple over-the-counter DNA test that can tell you potential illnesses you could have in the future with just $250 and your saliva. There is controversy over whether this test should be allowed for sale or not. Main reasons against sale is that since it's probablistic and for some illnesses we don't exactly know what causes it, incorrect information might only give consumers confusion and depression. But my personal opinion is that as long as it is warned, and the company only allows testings for the more probablistic illnesses, I think it's right to leave the choice to consumers. After all, if we have the technology to find out about the potential of our illnesses, I think we have the right to know if we want to.
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home DNA tests may be more trouble than they're worth
BY FRANK GLUCK
June 6, 2010
Cathy Reynolds' mother suffered from bad eyesight and respiratory problems. Her father died from liver failure. She had thyroid cancer.
Reynolds, a 65-year-old Lee County retiree, also hates hospitals. So news that over-the-counter DNA testing kits may soon be available intrigues her.
"I'd like to find out if I'm going to get macular degeneration - my mother had that - strokes or lung disease," she said. "I'd like to know because I'd do something about it."
Many in the medical community worry such
unsupervised testing could lead to, at best,
confusion. At worst, they say, viewing a negative report alone at home could lead many to depression.
Companies hoping to cash in on new research into the human genome and worries such as Reynolds' want to make such testing -now largely the purview of medical institutions - as easy as buying cough syrup.
The issue gained attention last month when chain pharmacies Walgreens and CVS halted the pending sales of a home saliva test offered by San Diego-based Pathway Genomics Corp. when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked questions about it.
Genomics defended its kits in a statement and said it is cooperating with federal authorities.
"We are confident that our services are both safe and of the highest quality," it read.
A casual Internet search turns up a long list of DNA kit offerings - everything from testing for dating compatibility to the more sober disease testing Genomics Corp. claims to offer.
But DNA testing remains a young science. It can tell you some things, such as predispositions in some to, say, breast cancer or Huntington's disease.
For other diseases, the results can be more fuzzy. More often than not, their causes are unknown or a result of unhealthy lifestyles.
Take Alzheimer's disease. There is a genetic
component in about 8 percent of the population, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. The rest come like a bolt out of the blue, he said.
"This isn't like a pregnancy test," Caplan said. "It's very complicated because the information is almost always probabilistic."
While most cancers happen by chance, some, like breast and ovarian cancer, can be inherited.
If there is a mutation in what are known as the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, for example, the risk of female breast cancer by age 70 is 56 percent to 87 percent. Those without the mutation have an 8 percent risk.
In the case of ovarian cancer, a BRCA mutation increases the risk to 27 percent to 44 percent, compared with less than 1 percent for the general population.
Lee Memorial Health System's Regional Cancer
Center in Fort Myers tests for BRCA mutations and offers counseling for patients throughout the testing process, which can take up to two weeks.
...
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[http://www.news-press.com/article/20100606/HEALTH/6060399/1075/At-home-DNA-tests-may-be-more-trouble-than-they-re-worth]
1. Hye Jung, Choi
ReplyDelete2. Shocking facts of milk
3.
I remember what one of my high school teachers said to me, “milk is dangerous, not healthy.” At that time, I was shocked but I ignored it because every child including me knew ‘milk is a perfect food!’ Thus, I believe, all schools from elementary school to high school provide milk meals. However, knowing the surprising facts about what I had considered a material as good (for example, fluoride) through this class, I have a doubt about milk.
Finding some information, I got confused because someone argues that milk is the best food to supply calcium but the others says that people may have osteoporosis due to milk. According to researches, milk increases the risk of cancer, especially prostate cancer, on the other, some scientists insists that the protein in milk fight with cancer. Moreover, there are many antibiotic in the milk and it is hazardous to people who take milk. Lastly, since people can obtain enough calcium through green vegetables, we do not need to drink milk. There are controversial studies’ results about milk. If all these frightening facts are true, why do many people believe that milk is good? And why the government lets this situation be and it allows schools to provide milk meals? Is there any some kind of dealing between the government and milk industry? I can not find the connection, but the new fact is very shocking to me.
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4.
1) …
Although the committee dropped its counterattack when the United States Department of Agriculture decided to add soy milk as a ''dairy'' option in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the milk wars continue to rage. Hardly a month passes without another accusation hurdled at milk as less than an ideal food. Among recent claims: milk can cause juvenile diabetes, heart disease, cancer, digestive disorders, ear infections, mucus in the throat and, in infants, allergies, colic and iron deficiency anemia. The Physicians Committee has even accused calcium-rich milk of increasing, rather than decreasing, the risk of osteoporosis.
The popular claim that ''cows' milk is for calves,'' not people, begs an intriguing dietary question: on what grounds can it be said that any cultivated food -- be it wheat, rice, potatoes, broccoli, carrots, chicken or pork -- was meant to be eaten by people? Humans began as hunter-gatherers, eating whatever they could find that grew naturally. No edible specifically evolved to feed people. Rather, people learned to cultivate edible plant and animal foods to assure a more constant food supply.
…
2)
A long-term study of male doctors raises the possibility that heavy consumption of milk and other dairy products may modestly raise the risk of prostate cancer.
Researchers said changes in diet would be premature.
Dr. June M. Chan of the Harvard School of Public Health, said men who ate at least two and a half servings of dairy food daily were 30 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than those who averaged less than half a serving a day.
3) And please click the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYpafipJyDE
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1st article: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/26/health/personal-health-debate-over-milk-time-to-look-at-facts.html
2nd article: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/05/us/national-news-briefs-cancer-study-suggests-link-to-dairy-products.html
1. Sung Yeon Lee
ReplyDelete2. Is being a vegetarian worth it?
3. I have been reminded time to time that to be green, we must also eat green. We should eat more vegetables and being a vegetarian will reduce the green house gas, emitted by livestock. It is still quite shocking to know that a big percentage of greenhouse gas comes from the methane from the cows. But there is also the health factor. In one of the diet books I read on how to be healthy, I read that because meat are raised now in such a non-hygenic way, that cow meat is not healthy to humans. This also relates to the mad cow-diseases and the U.S. beef issues. Cows are usually injected with a lot of hormones to grow fast and gain weight fast. Most of them are raised in a cubicle just big enough for them to fit them and they hardly can move two inches back and forth and sideways. This creates a lot of stress in them which is stored in the meat as hormones. The other thing is that many of the livestock are slaughtered irresponsibly and often done in front of the other cows, which also raises the stress levels of the other animals. It is said that they know when they are going to die. After reading this and seeing articles that being a vegetarian can help the environment, I have tried to become one, however I find it hard to be one, especially in Korea where there is not much vegetarians or vegetarian menus and meat is practically in all our foods. On the other hand, I have heard that going completely vegetarian is not necessarily all good for the environment. I heard that the excessive use of soy to substitute for all the usual meat products to make soy milk, tofu, meat-substitutes etc, has caused many landscapes to be destroyed to make way for soy fields and corn fields. So maybe another set of problems may emerge. There is also talk that the UN overestimated the actual impact of livestock on global warming, like in this article. I suppose that becoming vegetarian is beneficial to the environment in one way. But unless vegetables engage in environmentally friendly methods and stop using mass killing pesticides, the vegetarian boom might bring with it a different environmental problem.
4. Eat less meat to save the planet – UN
The world needs to change to a more vegetarian diet to stand a chance of tackling climate change, according to a major new United Nations report.
…
As the world population increases it is feared that the production of food will become the main cause of climate change and environmental degradation.
…
The report, that will be presented to world governments, said the only way to feed the world while reducing climate change is to switch to more a more vegetarian diet. Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, said ordinary consumers can help fight climate change by eating less meat.
"The Panel have reviewed all the available science and conclude that two broad areas are currently having a disproportionately high impact on people and the planet's life support systems—these are energy in the form of fossil fuels and agriculture, especially the raising of livestock for meat and dairy products," he said.
Mr Steiner said governments could encourage people to eat less meat by reforming the system of taxes and subsidies so vegetarian food is cheaper
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7797594/Eat-less-meat-to-save-the-planet-UN.html
1.Dingyuan Hou
ReplyDelete2.Has CITES had its day?
3.CITES is the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora. So is CITES still an effective force for species conservation? But we seeon the conference in Doha, Qatar is that countries with vested interest send large delegations and high-ranking politicians and officials in order to persuade other parties to side with them on crucial votes. It turned CITES into a platform which has more to do with protecting commercial interests than protecting wildlife. In the decision-making process, parties choose scientific data that are on their side or either call it uneducated when the data rebut them. Once again, we see the similar contention between states and science in raw material regime. However, how can an organization that is supposed to restrain the economic power get manipulated by them the other way around to legitimate the trade in endangered species? There is a feeling among many conservationists that Doha may have been our last chance to give real, meaningful protection for some species - and that we missed it. However, for all its faults, CITES is the one international convention specifically targeted at controlling trade in endangered species, so it is the international legal framework with which we have to work. But if there’s a problem with the framework, perhaps it is time to think outside the box.
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4.CITES is mandated to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants, or products derived from them, does not threaten their survival.
An impressive-sounding 175 parties (member countries) are committed to implementing various protection measures for some 5,000 species of animal and 28,000 plants.
Yet at times on the floor of conference in Doha, Qatar, one had the impression that the arguments and outcomes had more to do with protecting commercial interests than protecting wildlife.
The process of decision making has become intensely political. Parties choose to use scientific evidence to support their positions when it suits them, and refute the validity of the science when it doesn't.
Parties also use procedural technicalities to their political advantage. At times, during a heated debate, the conference resembles the bearpit of a national parliament.
Countries with vested interests in particular issues often send large delegations and high-ranking politicians and officials in order to persuade other parties to side with them on crucial votes.
Faced with proposals to protect beleaguered stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna and several species of shark, Japan sent around 50 delegates to coerce island states and developing nations into supporting their opposition.
It used claims of cultural bias, veiled threats, trade incentives and aid packages. Serving sushi derived from Atlantic bluefin tuna at a lavish reception for delegates the night before the vote was a particularly cynical move.
The Zambian delegation rolled out Chieftainess Chiawa, head of a prominent indigenous group, to play the "poverty card" in support of their efforts to secure permission from the conference to downlist their elephant population and sell off their stockpiled ivory; her pleas not to let her people starve when considering the fate of Zambia's valuable ivory stocks were impassioned, if somewhat lacking in logic.
The European Union, whose 27 votes are a powerful force, votes as a bloc despite wide differences of opinion between EU member states on some issues.
Surely if a party firmly believes that science and evidence supports a particular view, it should be obliged to vote accordingly, and not be forced to vote differently by political arrangement?
The UK broke ranks by voting in favour of Atlantic bluefin tuna protection, incurring the wrath (and no doubt further sanctions down the line) of its EU partners.
These and other factors had a major bearing on the voting on a number of important proposals.
*continued*
*continued*
ReplyDeleteAttempts to gain CITES listings for marine species threatened with extinction because of overfishing, including bluefin tuna and hammerhead sharks, failed to gain the necessary support, in spite of UN Food and Agriculture Organization endorsement.
As a consequence, these species - like so many other overfished marine stocks - remain at the mercy of Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), the very organisations that have presided over their near demise.
Delegates in favour of maintaining trade in certain threatened species often claim that limiting trade will harm the economies of poor communities, or reduce the opportunity for people to obtain essential resources.
However, most shark fishing is carried out in international waters by large commercial vessels to serve the tastes of the growing middle classes in East Asia for shark fin soup, and 80% of Atlantic bluefin tuna ends up as sushi in Japanese restaurants.
Red and pink corals are disappearing fast in order to supply nothing more essential than markets for jewellery and trinkets.
Yet they all failed to gain protection.
In any event, there is nothing that will devastate a poor coastal community more than the complete collapse of a stock of fish, removing a potential resource for the generations to come.
Satanic salvation
Some of the decisions and resolutions adopted by the conference, though, will have important conservation benefits.
Several species of Madagascan plants, Latin American amphibians, and reptiles have received CITES listings restricting international trade.
The unsung Satanic beetle from Bolivia gained an Appendix 2 listing to protect it from unscrupulous collectors.
Protection for many other species has been strengthened, including antelopes, rhinos, tigers, snakes and freshwater turtles; and the conference eventually rejected proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to be allowed to sell off their elephant ivory stockpiles.
CITES seems to be most successful when dealing with species for which international trade poses a significant threat but where financial or economic considerations are limited.
It gets into difficulty when it tries to deal with species of high commercial value.
The international trade value of timber and fish products dwarfs that of all other species put together. Yet despite demand for many tree and fish species driving them towards extinction in the wild, the vast majority of attempts to introduce or strengthen protection for them failed at this conference.
As we go forward, it is vital that the conference exercises its mandate to regulate trade in these species.
Exploitation of, and trade in, wildlife and wildlife products is driven by demand.
In an ideal world, we would control trade in endangered species by reducing the demand, by educating people in consumer states.
However, in the face of criticism concerning "interference with national sovereign rights", "cultural traditions" and "ignorance of poverty", such efforts are unlikely to succeed - certainly not in time to save many of the species this conference discussed.
So, while continuing with demand reduction efforts, the focus is on controlling the supply through national and international regulation, effective enforcement and severe penalties for offenders who try to obtain, ship or trade in wildlife products illegally.
The growing involvement of sophisticated, well-funded and increasingly armed criminal organisations in the illegal wildlife trade was recognised at the conference, along with the need for enforcement efforts to match this level of sophistication if it is to be effective.
Wildlife crime, long seen as "soft", is now up there with the trade in drugs, weapons and people in terms of its significance and the way it operates.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8606011.stm
1. Franziska Mittelstädt
ReplyDelete2. Noisy Offshore Wind Park Scares Off Porpoises
3. This article deals with the potential problems of the new build offshore windparks in the Northsea.
It is told that dolphins, which are really sensitive to noises, could be harmed by the new noises and that they would leave this original environment.
I think it is a resonable action to test new inventions to all possible harm to nature. In that way you can reduce the impact of human action. But inspite of this, I am somehow unsatisfied with this article.
Where does this ecofriendly "perfectionalizm" come from? Had been there any test before setting new types of cargo boats? Tests for the ICE in Germany or KTX in Korea? What about the four-river project in Korea? May this things have even bigger impact in environment.
What I am happy about is, that people start to investigate in a serious manner how we can reduce the humnan impact to the environment.
What I am angry about is that it is only concentrated to fields of our global economy - a overall adjusting action would be better for us all.
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4.They might produce renewable energy, but offshore wind farms are a scourge for porpoises. Researchers have found that construction noise at a turbine site off the German coast has scared away the marine mammals, who depend on their acute hearing. A "bubble curtain" could protect the sensitive cetaceans from future stress.
The offshore wind farm Alpha Ventus is a project of imposing dimensions. A total of 12 wind turbines rise from the North Sea in an area of about 4 square kilometers (1.5 square miles). Each one stands about 150 meters (490 feet) high and weighs 1,000 tons. The farm is designed to provide electricity for about 55,000 households.
Now the environmental impact of the massive project, which lies some 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the German island of Borkum, is becoming clear. Germany's Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has completed its first study of the impact of the wind farm -- and found that the racket made by the construction of the site had scared off porpoises living in the area.
Speaking at a conference on the marine environment in Hamburg Wednesday, Klaus Lucke of the Büsum-based Research and Technology Centre Westcoast (FTZ) said that construction noise can damage the hearing of porpoises, which are "dependent on healthy hearing" for finding food, orientation and communication. Population counts carried out by plane over the southern North Sea showed that, during the construction phase, porpoises avoided an area with a radius of over 20 kilometers around the wind turbine site, the researcher said. It is unclear if the creatures will return to their former habitat now the site is up and running.
Protected by Bubbles
Lucke called for measures to protect the vulnerable mammals from the piercing noise of future underwater construction. "We must do everything possible to avoid such an impact," said Lucke. One feasible plan would be a so-called "bubble curtain," a kind of protective layer of artificially generated bubbles in the water which would reduce the propagation of sound waves.
Another side effect of the wind turbine construction site is likely to be the creation of artificial reefs, said BSH scientist Karoline Weber-Streidt, speaking at the same conference. She explained that the site of a research platform near the wind turbines was already coated with a dense growth of mussels, sea anemones and even oysters.
Researchers are studying the impact of Alpha Ventus on various aspects of the marine environment, including fish, marine mammals, seabed organisms and migratory birds. The wind farm officially went into operation in April, and around 70 other offshore wind farms have already been approved or are soon to get the green light.
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,698468,00.html
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ReplyDelete