Graham Hill is a weekday vegetarian. For many reasons, he's decided to reserve meat to just two days a week. Why don't more people follow his lead?
Mass consumption of meat has incredibly detrimental effects to the environment, the consumers' own health, and the treatment of livestock. Eating meat, particularly red meat, increases people's risk for heart disease, making meat produces more emissions than all of transportation combined, and animals are subjected to unbelievably inhumane conditions in factory farms. But this shouldn't be news to anyone. We've all heard facts like this. So why does everyone still eat so much meat? Meat consumption in the United States has actually doubled since the 50's making it even harder for cleaner, more humane, family-owned farms to survive as the number of factory farms increases. Do we just turn a blind eye to it and ignore the reality of where our own food comes from so we don't feel guilty every time we eat? Or it is like Hill suggests; people only see a binary solution, either meat or no meat at all, and are unwilling to sacrifice meat completely? Why don't more people take advantage of this middle ground?
Speaking as someone who has been raised as a vegetarian and never eaten red meat, my perspective is that it's not at all difficult to find non-meat options. In fact it's become much easier in just the past several years. When my mom was following a vegetarian diet in college, her options were bread, pizza, potatoes, and pasta. Now, entire sections of college dining halls and restaurant menus are dedicated to vegan and vegetarian options. Cutting down on how much meat you eat is not a difficult thing to do, yet if we all ate even just half as much meat as we do now, the benefits to the environment and our health alone would be tremendous.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Graham Hill: http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian.html
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Bart Knols: Cheese, Dogs, and a Pill to Kill Mosquitoes and End Malaria
Bart Knols has done quite a bit of research to discover and create a few new methods that could potentially eliminate malaria.
One thing Bart does during this presentation is try to put the deadliness of malaria in perspective. Every 30 seconds, a child somewhere in the world dies because of malaria. In Africa alone, malaria is daily responsible for the same number of deaths as 7 jumbo 747 jets crashing into the ground. This is an incredible amount of death from one little parasite.
It's also interesting how different people smell more appealing to mosquitoes. When my family is sitting around a campfire, my mom and I are always attacked by mosquitoes while my dad and brother are left almost untouched. My mom always jokes about us smelling sweeter to mosquitoes, and it turns out there's some truth in it. What makes some people produce more of these "attractive" chemicals than others? Since people don't have a sensitive enough sense of smell to detect the differences, what are the evolutionary reasons for people secreting different chemicals? Wouldn't nature select for people who didn't attract deadly mosquitoes? So why does such a large population still produce these particular chemicals? As far as Knols being able to produce a synthetic chemical that attracts mosquitoes, how does he use this to people's advantage? Does he lace a trap with this chemical to draw the mosquitoes away from the people? But would having this ultra-attractive chemical in someone's bedroom end up pulling in more mosquitoes than normal, resulting in just as many human bites despite a greater number trapped? And considering it's based on the scent of strong cheese, would it be unpleasant for people to have it in their living spaces? Or are the people that this product apply to not overly concerned with a little Linberger aroma?
Other than scent attracting mosquitoes, mosquito larvae and people with the malarial parasite both have a distinct smell which dogs can be trained to detect. Between these sniffing dogs finding the larvae-infested pools to be doused with insecticide and finding the infected people early enough to be treated, the entire population of mosquitoes in an area and therefore malaria could eventually be eliminated.
The last method of mosquito-killing that Knols talks about is a pill that people ingest which causes mosquitoes to die after biting them. But what sort of long-term side effects could this pill cause? I can't help but think that taking a pill that causes your blood to become poison for another species might not be the best for us either. However, this is an interesting solution: let as many mosquitoes as possible bite you to save others from being bitten by the same mosquitoes later. It sounds almost chivalrous.
Clearly malaria is a tremendous problem, but what sort of impact could the elimination of an entire species have on the environment? Mosquitoes, as an insect at the bottom of the food chain, are the main food source for other species like bats. Without mosquitoes as a food source, many bats would die, and the same effect would move up the food chain. In addition, with the elimination of a huge source of human fatality, would an eventual influx of population cause other problems for people in these developing countries, like even more competition for already scarce resources? Getting rid of all of the pesky little biting bugs sounds like a nice plan, but could it create even bigger problems than it solves?
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Bart Knols: http://www.ted.com/talks/bart_knols_cheese_dogs_and_pills_to_end_malaria.html
One thing Bart does during this presentation is try to put the deadliness of malaria in perspective. Every 30 seconds, a child somewhere in the world dies because of malaria. In Africa alone, malaria is daily responsible for the same number of deaths as 7 jumbo 747 jets crashing into the ground. This is an incredible amount of death from one little parasite.
It's also interesting how different people smell more appealing to mosquitoes. When my family is sitting around a campfire, my mom and I are always attacked by mosquitoes while my dad and brother are left almost untouched. My mom always jokes about us smelling sweeter to mosquitoes, and it turns out there's some truth in it. What makes some people produce more of these "attractive" chemicals than others? Since people don't have a sensitive enough sense of smell to detect the differences, what are the evolutionary reasons for people secreting different chemicals? Wouldn't nature select for people who didn't attract deadly mosquitoes? So why does such a large population still produce these particular chemicals? As far as Knols being able to produce a synthetic chemical that attracts mosquitoes, how does he use this to people's advantage? Does he lace a trap with this chemical to draw the mosquitoes away from the people? But would having this ultra-attractive chemical in someone's bedroom end up pulling in more mosquitoes than normal, resulting in just as many human bites despite a greater number trapped? And considering it's based on the scent of strong cheese, would it be unpleasant for people to have it in their living spaces? Or are the people that this product apply to not overly concerned with a little Linberger aroma?
Other than scent attracting mosquitoes, mosquito larvae and people with the malarial parasite both have a distinct smell which dogs can be trained to detect. Between these sniffing dogs finding the larvae-infested pools to be doused with insecticide and finding the infected people early enough to be treated, the entire population of mosquitoes in an area and therefore malaria could eventually be eliminated.
The last method of mosquito-killing that Knols talks about is a pill that people ingest which causes mosquitoes to die after biting them. But what sort of long-term side effects could this pill cause? I can't help but think that taking a pill that causes your blood to become poison for another species might not be the best for us either. However, this is an interesting solution: let as many mosquitoes as possible bite you to save others from being bitten by the same mosquitoes later. It sounds almost chivalrous.
Clearly malaria is a tremendous problem, but what sort of impact could the elimination of an entire species have on the environment? Mosquitoes, as an insect at the bottom of the food chain, are the main food source for other species like bats. Without mosquitoes as a food source, many bats would die, and the same effect would move up the food chain. In addition, with the elimination of a huge source of human fatality, would an eventual influx of population cause other problems for people in these developing countries, like even more competition for already scarce resources? Getting rid of all of the pesky little biting bugs sounds like a nice plan, but could it create even bigger problems than it solves?
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Bart Knols: http://www.ted.com/talks/bart_knols_cheese_dogs_and_pills_to_end_malaria.html
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Rachel Armstrong: Architecture That Repairs Itself?
Rachel Armstrong and her team are designing living architecture. They've developed protocells that have the properties of a living system and can become the framework of any building. She wants to step away from the ancient Victorian technology of inert structures based on blueprints and move towards architecture that can repair itself, building from the bottom up rather than from the top down.
I simply can't get over the imagination of this woman. I don't think I could even imagine such a seemingly outlandish technology, nevermind actually develop DNA-less cells that can grow in accordance to their engineering. Depending on how they're engineered, they can grow towards light, away from light, grow different materials, etc. They metabolize carbon dioxide in order to grow, meaning these cells are both sustainable and help clean the atmosphere. This sounds like the things of dreams, not something we actually have microscopic pictures of.
Armstrong and her team hope to implement their new technology to save the sinking city of Venice by building a limestone reef around the wooden piles that currently support it. It would take years to fully develop, but once implemented, the limestone-building protocells would both sink carbon dioxide in the water and create an underwater ecosystem.
This talk is an eye-opener to what is achievable. It almost seems that whatever one can dream up is in some way possible. Architectural materials that can grow? It sounds like an almost laughable notion. But with the evidence of how much progress they've made, it becomes an incredible scientific feat. Isn't that the case with any great achievement? When someone thinks so far outside the box, they become a laughing stock until they do the "impossible" and shock the world.
So let's try to stretch our minds beyond the norm and reclaim some of our childhood imagination. Let's start imagining that anything's possible because more and more it seems that it is.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Rachel Armstrong: http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_armstrong_architecture_that_repairs_itself.html
I simply can't get over the imagination of this woman. I don't think I could even imagine such a seemingly outlandish technology, nevermind actually develop DNA-less cells that can grow in accordance to their engineering. Depending on how they're engineered, they can grow towards light, away from light, grow different materials, etc. They metabolize carbon dioxide in order to grow, meaning these cells are both sustainable and help clean the atmosphere. This sounds like the things of dreams, not something we actually have microscopic pictures of.
Armstrong and her team hope to implement their new technology to save the sinking city of Venice by building a limestone reef around the wooden piles that currently support it. It would take years to fully develop, but once implemented, the limestone-building protocells would both sink carbon dioxide in the water and create an underwater ecosystem.
This talk is an eye-opener to what is achievable. It almost seems that whatever one can dream up is in some way possible. Architectural materials that can grow? It sounds like an almost laughable notion. But with the evidence of how much progress they've made, it becomes an incredible scientific feat. Isn't that the case with any great achievement? When someone thinks so far outside the box, they become a laughing stock until they do the "impossible" and shock the world.
So let's try to stretch our minds beyond the norm and reclaim some of our childhood imagination. Let's start imagining that anything's possible because more and more it seems that it is.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Rachel Armstrong: http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_armstrong_architecture_that_repairs_itself.html
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Dan Ariely: Our Buggy Moral Code
Dan Ariely points out the irrationality of the human mind and the flaws in our moral code. Through a large set of experiments, he discovered some interesting trends in cheating:
1. There aren't a few people that cheat a lot; rather many people cheat just a little
2. Even when the amount of money per question claimed answered increases, people cheat the same amount
3. Reminding people of their morality makes them cheat less
4. When people are offered tokens instead of money, they cheat more (when the distance from money increases, cheating increases)
5. Obvious cheating by one person in a group increases cheating within that group
I found these trends to be interesting and surprising. Regarding Ariely's first discovery, there were no significant outliers of either extreme cheaters or particularly morally righteous people who affected the results. Pretty much everyone acted in the same way. Surely if people were aware of the experiment being conducted, they would act accordingly to how they wanted to be perceived. But without that influence, people acted without thought to how other people would react to their actions, and they all essentially responded the same way. No one wants to hear that they have the same morally flawed logic as everyone else, but it seems like the majority of us do. And why not? If we are all raised within the same or similar cultures and have the same basic chemical make-up, why wouldn't we act similarly? But no one likes to think of it this way; we would all rather prefer to believe we are tremendously unique.
I was most surprised by Ariely's second point: even when people were offered more money for each question they answered (on a range from $.05 to $10 each), the amount of cheating remained the same. I would have thought that people would cheat more when more money was at stake because I don't see the point in lying for the gain of $.10. The risk outweighs the potential benefit. On the other hand, $20 is a pretty significant amount of money. So why doesn't the amount of cheating change? Perhaps because as the amount of money increases, the fallout from getting caught increases, as do our feelings of guilt. Conversely, the less money there is at stake, the less of a fallout there is from getting caught, and the less guilt we feel for taking such a small amount (equally less risk and reward). So perhaps these factors even out to produce this result. Or perhaps humans are much more simple than we would like to think, and we just cheat the same amount regardless of how much money is offered because we don't actually care to weigh all of these factors. However, I believe it's a bit more complicated than that considering how much people over-think so many things and how much subconscious thought seems to go into all of our decisions.
I also thought it was rather heartening to learn that cheating was altogether nonexistent when people were reminded of their morality. Even when self-proclaimed atheists were asked to swear on a bible before taking their quiz, there were no instances of cheating. Just asking someone not to cheat most often results in them not cheating (at least according to Ariely's experiments). So then why is there so much cheating in school/college when we're constantly being told not to? Perhaps it's due to the fact that in Ariely's experiments, people were simply offered extra money for questions answered, while in school, it's often felt as a necessity to get a good grade. Since there is such a massive emphasis on the importance of a good grade, students feel that the moral violation of cheating and even feelings of guilt are well worth it. However, I believe this exposes a greater flaw in our education system than it does in the students.
The reaction to cheating within groups was also interesting. Within a group of Carnegie-Mellon students, if a paid actor was told to overtly cheat while wearing a Carnegie-Mellon sweatshirt, cheating increased, but if the actor wore a University of Pittsburgh sweatshirt, cheating among the CM students decreased. People have an innate sense of competition, and in this case they all felt the individual need to be on a morally higher ground than an individual outside of their group. But then when one of their own cheated, they viewed it as justification to cheat themselves. Even when thinking individually, this body of people acted in the same way.
Finally, Ariely brought up the point that people would greatly benefit from testing their own intuitions. Generally, people take their intuitions to be true without thinking about it, but this can result in unproductive and even harmful practices. I believe humans are a generally vain species, and it would do well of us to question ourselves every once in a while.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Dan Ariely: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html
1. There aren't a few people that cheat a lot; rather many people cheat just a little
2. Even when the amount of money per question claimed answered increases, people cheat the same amount
3. Reminding people of their morality makes them cheat less
4. When people are offered tokens instead of money, they cheat more (when the distance from money increases, cheating increases)
5. Obvious cheating by one person in a group increases cheating within that group
I found these trends to be interesting and surprising. Regarding Ariely's first discovery, there were no significant outliers of either extreme cheaters or particularly morally righteous people who affected the results. Pretty much everyone acted in the same way. Surely if people were aware of the experiment being conducted, they would act accordingly to how they wanted to be perceived. But without that influence, people acted without thought to how other people would react to their actions, and they all essentially responded the same way. No one wants to hear that they have the same morally flawed logic as everyone else, but it seems like the majority of us do. And why not? If we are all raised within the same or similar cultures and have the same basic chemical make-up, why wouldn't we act similarly? But no one likes to think of it this way; we would all rather prefer to believe we are tremendously unique.
I was most surprised by Ariely's second point: even when people were offered more money for each question they answered (on a range from $.05 to $10 each), the amount of cheating remained the same. I would have thought that people would cheat more when more money was at stake because I don't see the point in lying for the gain of $.10. The risk outweighs the potential benefit. On the other hand, $20 is a pretty significant amount of money. So why doesn't the amount of cheating change? Perhaps because as the amount of money increases, the fallout from getting caught increases, as do our feelings of guilt. Conversely, the less money there is at stake, the less of a fallout there is from getting caught, and the less guilt we feel for taking such a small amount (equally less risk and reward). So perhaps these factors even out to produce this result. Or perhaps humans are much more simple than we would like to think, and we just cheat the same amount regardless of how much money is offered because we don't actually care to weigh all of these factors. However, I believe it's a bit more complicated than that considering how much people over-think so many things and how much subconscious thought seems to go into all of our decisions.
I also thought it was rather heartening to learn that cheating was altogether nonexistent when people were reminded of their morality. Even when self-proclaimed atheists were asked to swear on a bible before taking their quiz, there were no instances of cheating. Just asking someone not to cheat most often results in them not cheating (at least according to Ariely's experiments). So then why is there so much cheating in school/college when we're constantly being told not to? Perhaps it's due to the fact that in Ariely's experiments, people were simply offered extra money for questions answered, while in school, it's often felt as a necessity to get a good grade. Since there is such a massive emphasis on the importance of a good grade, students feel that the moral violation of cheating and even feelings of guilt are well worth it. However, I believe this exposes a greater flaw in our education system than it does in the students.
The reaction to cheating within groups was also interesting. Within a group of Carnegie-Mellon students, if a paid actor was told to overtly cheat while wearing a Carnegie-Mellon sweatshirt, cheating increased, but if the actor wore a University of Pittsburgh sweatshirt, cheating among the CM students decreased. People have an innate sense of competition, and in this case they all felt the individual need to be on a morally higher ground than an individual outside of their group. But then when one of their own cheated, they viewed it as justification to cheat themselves. Even when thinking individually, this body of people acted in the same way.
Finally, Ariely brought up the point that people would greatly benefit from testing their own intuitions. Generally, people take their intuitions to be true without thinking about it, but this can result in unproductive and even harmful practices. I believe humans are a generally vain species, and it would do well of us to question ourselves every once in a while.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Dan Ariely: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html
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