Silkwood

            Karen Silkwood was a pioneer for the environmentalist movement. There is no protocol to deal with disaster. The movie Silkwood is the story of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear environmental plant worker at Kerr-McGee, who witnessed the mistreatment of her fellow co-workers, and decided to take a stand. The plant was not using proper protocol in ensuring the workers personal health, and the plant also had workers falsifying documents. Karen Silkwood is a person that acted on her humanity. When wrongdoings occur in society, there are so many times where individuals just continue as if the discretions did not occur. Change is only enacted when individuals take a stance, and unfortunately, Karen paid the ultimate price. She died under circumstances that are still undetermined. Society should take from her story that it is necessary to do what is right despite those who wish to silence the truth.

Hitchiti Experiment Forest

Tree hugging and sticking hands in unknown holes 

Wild ginger is a plant indigenous to North America. It grows in moist, rich soils in shady woodlands. The leaves are shaped like a large heart or kidney, and they are hairy, dark green, and deeply indented at the stem.

　
　
　

Leaf litter decomposition is a source of nutrients in a forest ecosystem. Leaves are broken down by decomposers and organic material is released in the soil.
　
　
　

The southern pine beetle is one of the most destructive insects to the pine tree, especially in the southern United States, Mexico, and Central America. These insects multiply in outbreak proportions and kill large numbers of trees. The warning signs are: leaf discoloration, yellow needles becoming red, and groups of trees being effected over several hundred acres.

Fav Aquatic Creatures

Photoplankton are tiny free-floating photosynthetic plants that support the marine food web like trees and grasses on land.

Zooplankton are microscopic animals that eat other plankton. They range from single-cell organisms to tiny crustaceans.

Aquatic macrophyte are aquatic plants that are large enough to be apparent to the naked eye. They are larger than most algae.

Found in the Amazon region of South America, angelfish are laterally compressed or look like a disc on edge with long fins coming out of the top and bottom and have 2 feelers in front of the anal or bottom fin. The tail is vertically oriented and may be scoop shovel shape to long and relatively narrow depending on the variety.








　

Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum. The group includes familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. Most crustaceans are free-living aquatic animals, but some are terrestrial.
　

Mammals are any of the various warm-blooded vertebrate animals of the class Mammalia. This includes humans, characterized by a covering of hair on the skin and, in the female, milk-producing mammary glands for nourishing the young.

My Opinnion on Animal Testing

I am not that fond of animals in general, but I do believe that animals have rights.  Animals do not deserve to be exploited by humans for profit or exploited for any means that specifically harm the animal. I know that there are advantages to using animal testing, but it seems unethical to me to exploit another living creature no matter the end results.

Favorite Biome

          Deserts can be hot or cold, but they are always dry. Around 1/5 of the Earth’s surface is covered in deserts. Deserts most commonly occur when there are unpredictable patterns of rainfall in an area, and the area usually has less than 30 cm of rain per year. In reaction to the extreme heat or the extreme cold, plants and animals make many adaptations. Plants have water-storing leaves or stems that reduce water loss and improve salt tolerance. Many animals learn to survive and get a lot of their moisture from these plants.
          Deserts can also be fragile. There is a lot of slow-growing vegetation, and interference from vehicles disrupts the environment. Some tracts of vehicles from the past can still be seen in some areas today.

Ecological Niche of my Favorite Organism

         
          The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is one of the worlds most loved and most endangered species. The pandas live in 6 regions in southwest China, in the Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanzi provinces. They are found in dense bamboo and coniferous mountains in China. The mountains are covered in heavy rains with torrential rains and a mist all year around.
          The panda is in the bear family. The panda is known for its bear like shape and its large, distinctive black patches or spots around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. The panda has limited enemies. The panda bear is a herbivore, and its diet consists largely of bamboo. They help to distribute bamboo seeds over areas. As the number of pandas decrease, the amount of bamboo decreases without pandas to distribute bamboo seeds.
          Pandas are becoming extinct because people are disrupting their territory and demolishing their natural habitat. This causes pandas to loose their habitat and food supply. Poachers also aid in their extinction.


          

Mitochondria Eve

The human race is a very diverse species according to the number of races, yet homo sapiens have not undergone the process of speciation. Since all males and females can reproduce together despite their race, it has been theorized that all of the human race can be traced back to a common ancestor most commonly called Mitochondrial Eve. She is believed to have a medium brown complexion, dark hair, and strong features resembling the Native American female. Mitochondrial Eve is suspected to have been in the region of East Africa. The theory states that as groups began to radiate off form the original group with Mitochondrial Eve, these different groups became isolated from each other . As they became isolated, the genetic make up of the groups began to change according to the areas that they were located and the ecological niches that the different groups developed.

Igbo  

  Maasai

          These are two examples of two African tribes the Maasai and Igbo. The Maasai tribe is a semi-nomadic tribe found around Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Their niche is in hunting and gathering, so because of the niche the people are taller and more slender in order to hunt cattle and other animals. The Igbo tribe is found in Nigeria. The people are of medium stature with skin that is of darker pigment due to the excessive amount of sun. Their niche is in agriculture, therefore they are not as tall as some tribes like the Maasai.

Native American                             Korean



      Even more groups became more isolated as a result of radiation. Hawaiian people had to become accustomed to dealing with tropical climates. They have more of a complexion somewhat resembling that of the Native Americans and Mitochondrial Eve. Hawaiian people have more melanin production because of more exposure to the sun. They also lived off the land like many other of the isolated groups and had to be adapt in hunting and learning the land. The Alaskan Inuit had little exposure to the sun and developed a vary fair complexion with darker hair. They had to become accustomed to living in freezing temperatures and fishing and hunting whatever game that could be captured because of the rough terrain.



Hawaiian Alaskan Inuit



          As groups began to radiate further than the continent of Africa, many more features and niches began to change. Take for instance the individuals that migrated to America, specifically the Native Americans. They encountered a climate much less intimidating than that of Africa, so there skin produced less melanin. To adapt to the terrain though the Native American developed distinct predominant features to withstand the environment and acquired more height. They attained a living from hunting, gathering, and learning how to use the land. Now, look at a group that radiated to Korea. Even less melanin was produced because the people had to deal with more of a humid climate with heavy rains. The people were of an average height, and there niche evolved over thousands of years to be geared towards industrialization.

Even today humans are still moving throughout the world and reproducing. There is the possibility for more and more different types of people to emerge according to their environments, interests, and niches.There are infinite possibilities.

Woods Hole Marine Biology Labratory

     The Marine Biological Labratory is an international center for research. It was founded in 1888, and it is the oldest, private labratory in the country. The labratory offers services in researching, educating, and training in the field of biology.

http://www.mbl.edu/index.html

The Butterfly Effect

     Is it possible for one butterfly to change the entire course of future events?  The butterfly effect is very similar to the the chaos theory. It states that one seamingly insignificant event like a butterfly flapping its's wings can change the outcome of significant future events.

http://www.stsci.edu/~lbradley/seminar/butterfly.html