Alcohol Makes You Stupid?

Obviously alcohol will temporarily impair your judgment but what if this was permanent? Teens are a lot more susceptible to having bad side effects with drugs. For example drinking coffee can stunt their growth, so if caffeine a fairly mild drug can have that much of an effect, what can alcohol do?

`               Research done on teen animals suggests that drinking alcohol young can make you permanently stupid. Rats were taken and fed alcohol, but since rats don’t like alcohol, scientists had to infuse it with a tasty “gel matrix”. The animal’s decision making skills stayed well impaired well into adulthood. This was measured by their tendency to chase after rewards with associated high risk rather than taking a sure thing. Over all, tests show that drinking young can impair your decision making skills for life.

                I think that drinking at a young age is a really stupid decision because the part of your brain that controls decision making isn’t even fully developed yet so drinking makes it even worse.

Genetic Modification Controversies

Is it possible for rabits to glow? The answer is yes, by mixing jellyfish genes with a rabits DNA. To me genetic modification seems completely unnatural but there are some benefits. I think selective breeding is a better way to do things. Selective breeding has its downfalls though. Should we be geneticaly modifying plants and animals?

The difference between selective breeding and genetic modification is, selective breeding deals with breeding animals together to get the best result. Genetic modification is when you insert traits into an organisms DNA. Selective breeding has it's benefits. Animals can produce more eggs, milk and meat with selective breeding, but selective breeding has downfalls also. It can cause stress to the animals. Genetic modification has benefits to. you can make plants immune to pestacides, plants can be made to taste better and produce more, and animals can produce more. However, GM has its downfalls aswell. There are potential human health impacts, violation of natural organisms, and harm to the organsisms being used. I think GM should be of more concern to the public because it could lead to a lot of problems for humans. I think GM is completely unnatural and shouldn't be practiced for the saftey of humans, animals, and the enviroment. If Gregor Mendel saw what his discoveries caused I think he would be very amazed but also very sad. Look what selective breeding and GM are doing to animals. Chickens are suffering and dying because they are to heavy, and they grow to fast. I think GM is bad and shouldn't be practiced.

Should All Mosquitoes Die?

Do you hate mosquitoes? Because I really don’t like them at all. They’re nasty parasites that bite you, spread diseases, and make you itch in uncomfortable places. Mosquitoes don't fill an important roll other than spreading diseases and keeping various populations controlled, so why do we keep them around? Well, that’s a good question. 

In the article A World Without Mosquitoes, the author Janet Fang talks about the pros and cons of having mosquitoes eradicated. One point Janet Fang makes is that "If there were a benefit to having mosquitoes around, we would have found a way to exploit them. We haven't wanted anything from mosquitoes except for them to go away." (Dina Fonseca) This is a very valid point and is backed up by facts about how mosquitoes don't fill a roll that can't already be fulfilled by another species. However, she goes on to say "The ecological effect of eliminating harmful mosquitoes is that you have more people. That’s the consequence."(Strickman). I tend to agree more with Strickman because I think population control is a very important thing. I saw a National Geographic that talked about how the population is rising really fast. I think that is a very real problem that could lead to our impending doom. Mosquitoes help with that and eradicating them would only hurt us more in the long term. I believe that death is an important part of ecological health and that idea applies to humans as well. Over all I disagree with eradicating mosquitoes.