My Life on this planet.

Finally, there have been a few air strikes using drones by the Americans on Isis rebels while Europe, close by, looked and approved. As a result, thousands of people who were stuck on a mountain were saved . But, because of the strikes an American journalist was beheaded and thus we continue fighting Isis as we notice they are very extreme. And although Isis had to retreat in one region , around Baghdad they continue to advance . Iraqi's leaders replaced their weak and divisive PM Maliki as the West demanded (although it seems we first supported him so he could alienate a large proportion of his people and as a result they (Sunni) started to join the enemy) because we promised help ones the Iraqi would unite. But after they replaced their PM and beg us for help, we hesitate because we don't want to become involved again in another war in Iraq although helping one specific population may create even more tensions. But, we should realise the situation is differently as now Ir...

Syria I recently saw a reportage about Syria and the fighting that is going on there. How is happening that one day there will be a ruler in that country who is no longer accepted by many of his people and thus people will fight against him because he refuses to leave. In the end, he will only be remembered as the person who tried to remain in power for as long as possible and as a result the city Damascus (and cities across the country), thousands of years old and one of the oldest, if not the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world, may be completely destroyed , similarly to what happened before during the war in Lebanon. Indeed, already historical parts of cities are gone during attacks from the army while rebels are blowing up parts of the city to undermine the army. If only Assad would accept to leave the country, the destruction of the country could stop and some of his and his family's achievements may remain. Idle hope as he was again elected as president . On...

The future Do I think there are too many people on this planet as some people do? Just as the book " Adventures in the Anthropocene: A journey to the heart of the planet we made " by Gaia Vince, Chatto & Windus (I read the review in the article " Ode to humanity " in New Scientist, 28 June 2014, p. 46) seems to suggest that the earth may be able to maintain 10 billion people, I don't think there are too many people on condition we behave differently. E.g. we could stop eating fish so they can recover from our overfishing while those who claim we need omega-3 fats from fish: they are added in many butters. We could stop killing animals (for fun) so their numbers can recover in the wild while meat-eaters can eat laboratory-grown meat (in future). We could use cleaner and renewable energy so rivers, land and sky will be less polluted while we have cheaper energy. We could share more of our wealth over the planet so poor people don't need to join cri...

Gaia theory To me, the previous two articles already demonstrate that the Gaia theory may exist although there are still many sceptics (e.g. New Scientist 26 October 2013, " Gaia: the verdict is ... ", p. 30-31). The Earth, animals and plants interact with each other to try to reach an balance (we don't undergo the system passively while the system adjust to our changes) and when the equilibrium is disturbed then there are consequences. But we should also consider the age of the Earth, and thus not only what it does to individuals in a short period (from the perspective of Earth: what is a thousand years?). The system works as long as there is an equilibrium so that what comes replaces what goes. The dinosaurs may have become too powerful and this may have led to their collapse, helped with natural disasters while smaller animals and plants survived as they were better able to adapt to the new environment. Scientists (and many people) fear this may happen soon wi...

Determining our destiny by changing our planet The article " Life gave Earth its continents " (New Scientist, 23 November 2013, p. 10) goes even further and claims that even the first life shaped (unknowingly) the way our planet looks like and thus our destiny: bacteria eroded land and the sediments were then washed away and sunk elsewhere to the ocean floor and deeper in the earth by plate tectonics. As these sediments contained water and in contact with the heat of the inner Earth formed steam (lots of energy), the seafloor could rise so land and continents appeared while it seems if there was no life, our planet may have looked more like one giant water planet with a few volcanoes. Thus, it seems life even shapes unknowingly its own future because, as a result of the rising of land, land organisms such as plants could emerge from bacteria that were pushed above the sea and had to adapt to a life in dry conditions or die. Also plants and animals influence ...

Determining our destiny by changing our DNA An interesting article in New Scientist (12 October 2013, " Life's purpose ", p32-35) describes how organisms can drive their own evolution. It describes how living organisms can affect their own DNA to direct their destiny to some extend, and thus not only random changes in our DNA (mutations) direct the evolution of organisms. Indeed, living organisms need to adjust to their environment (e.g. certain animals become white during winter and thus in winter other genes are expressed than in summer) and if this only happens via random mutations then probably our ability to adapt to a changing environment is too slow. This doesn't mean animals and plants change knowingly their DNA but changes in appearance and behaviour ( phenotype ) may cause more likely changes in certain parts of the DNA ( genotype ), and the way how this may work is probably via epigenetics whereby the changes may follow some set rules that we s...