Earth Day

Well, Earth day was a week ago, so I figured I'd talk about the changes happening on and to the Earth.

Carbon is one of the most abundant elements on the planet.  It is found in everything including animals, plants, rocks, and gas, but it also plays a part in global climate change.  The carbon cycle is a naturally occurring cycle on Eart
h, but humans are throwing the carbon cycle off course by adding more carbon into the atmosphere than it is being removed, causing what is called the "Greenhouse effect".  Humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere because of deforestation, causing the carbon to stay in the air because it is not removed by the trees, and also burning fossil fuels adds tons of carbon into the air.  Humans alone add nearly 10 Pgs (1 Pg = 1 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with no natural cycle to remove it.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which is a gas that absorbs thermal radiation (heat from the Earth) and reflects the heat back to the Earth.  With an excess of carbon dioxide, there is more to reflect back to the Earth, which will heat it.  Through the centuries, there have been several natural fluctuations in the average temperature, but this is the first time it is occurring unnaturally, all because of humans.  Ever since the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's, the average temperature has slowly been climbing.

The Earth is changing because of the increase in temperature, which is causing a huge change in animal life, mainly in the poles because they are experiencing the greatest change.  Many native animals to the poles are becoming extinct, and ice bergs are slowly melting, causing a slight rise in sea level, which can eventually cause flooding.

All the changes happening on Earth seem minuscule to us now, but without changes in our lifestyle, there can be horrible consequences.

Deforestation

Deforestationhas been dramatically altering the Earth for years.  It is one of the leading causes of global climate change and it is drastically changing the natural course of evolution or all organisms.  Humans have all taken part, both directly and indirectly, in destroying forests all over the world. We use the wood from the trees for fuel and building materials and the cleared land can then be used for either agricultural or business purposes, such as constructing unneeded strip malls on all major roads.  Because of deforestation, hundreds on species of plants and animals have either become extinct or critically endangered.  The animals and plants that have neither become extinct nor endangered have been adapted to suit their new lives in there new habitat.  Without the trees and other plants of the forest, the Earth is slowly becoming depleted of much needed oxygen.

                There was once a bird in the family of parrots, the Carolina Parakeet that was native to the eastern coast of the United States, including New Jersey.  It became extinct in 1918 due to the mass deforestation to make room for farms for the new European immigrants.  Because of the loss of their forest habitat, the parakeets turned to eating the crops of farmers, who thought of them as pests and killed them, finishing off the last of the Carolina Parakeet.  

The Greatest Scientific Hoax of the Century.

A missing link to the human evolutionary tree has been discovered.  It was a revolutionary discovery that completely changed the way we look at our phylogenetic tree.  The new creature has been named and placed on the tree where scientists can agree where it belongs,  but it took years to complete because there was so much controversy over the new species discovered, like whether it was real or not.  The human ancestor has caused complete uproar because it was discovered in a highly religious age, creating tension between scientists and religious leaders.  The primitive creature has been determined to exist around 500,000 years ago, long before humans existed and was named Eoanthropus dawsoni, and was given the nickname “Piltdown man”.  It immediately became a worldwide phenomenon. 

Piltdown man was an extremely well thought out hoax, but the mastermind behind it is still unknown. In a quiet town in England in the early 1900s, Charles Dawson, an amateur naturalist, strolled by a quarry and discovered a skull.  He began his research and gained many followers in the scientific community because of this skull and also a few jaw bones and teeth discovered in a nearby area.  Many could not believe Piltdown man was real, so research was constantly being conducted to unveil the hoax, but Dawson became a rich and famous man from his discovery.  Eventually, long after Dawson's death, from the use of modern dating techniques, Piltdown man was named a hoax: the greatest scientific hoax of the century.  

Human Evolution

            The fact that humans once came from “lesser” and simpler animals has baffled many and caused uproar in the scientific and general community alike.  It was once thought that humans evolved in a linear fashion, starting with monkeys, then going to apes, and ending with humans.  But with much research among anthropologists, within the past few decades, it has been decided that we did not come to be so easily.  Humans came from a long line of hominid, or animals more related to humans than chimpanzees are, that struggled to survive and became extinct, leaving humans, one of the only animals to live and be able to flourish on every continent, to virtually take over the entire world.  Everything had to be perfect to create humans as we are today, as one of the only animals with complex social structures and the ability to speak.  

            Along with all these traits that evolved over many, many generations, came the ability to speak, a trait unique to only humans.  Nearly all animals communicate through different ways such as body language, snarling, and high frequency noises like dolphins and whales.  But the development and teaching others of language, and the ability to understand speech through symbols we call letters is extraordinary   

http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/intro-human-evolution

Piltdown Man

For the Book Review assignment I have been reading "Piltdown Man and Other Hoaxes" by Jonathan Maxwell.  The main hoax discussed is Piltdown man, which was once thought to be a missing link in the evolutionary lineage of humans.

A skull was found in the English county if Sussex in 1908.  It appeared to be closely related to a human's, but the jaw appeared to be very ape-like, and its discoverer, Charle Dawson, hurried home with his find and began some research.  Over the years, Dawson gained many followers who strongly believed Piltdown man was a missing ancestor of humans.  But of course with followers comes those who deny it.  The people against Dawson ranged from the religious community to his fellow scientists who believed this discovery was too good to be true.

Many of his followers were world renowned scientists, so the oppositions against  Piltdown man began to slim, except for the Americans.  American scientists refused to believe that there was the possibility of human ancestors in Europe, but none in America.  At the time, no one knew where humans actually originated (which was in Africa), so there was much dispute among different countries because they all wanted the origin of humans to be from their homeland.  Americans believed humans originated in America, so therefore Piltdown man had to have been a hoax.

Years later, in 1953, long after Charles Dawson passed away, Piltdown man was indeed discovered to be a fraud.  It turns out, the skull of the creature was a human skull and the jaw of an orangutan that were both artificially aged.  They were dropped near each other into a gravel pit left to be discovered.

To this day, the mastermind behind this hoax remains unknown, but many believe it was the discoverer of Piltdown man, Charles Dawson, that forged this "scientific breakthrough".

Hind Feathers and Flight of Early Birds

It is an extremely unknown fact that many dinosaurs and other reptiles possessed feathers to regulate their body temperature because they were all cold-blooded.  However, recent discoveries show that early birds had large legs similar to an ostrich, but their legs did not have tiny feathers, rather they were covered in long feathers that appeared to have been used for flight.  “A bizzare hind wing formed by a large pennaceous feathers (feathers with stiff vanes) along with the metasaurs is known in several non-avian dinosaurs and may have played an important role in the evolution of flight on the line to birds" (Zheng). 

 

Fossils of early birds with strange feathered hindlimbs were discovered and point to the fact that early birds may have had a similar body structure to a biplane, an airplane with two sets of wings, and upper and a lower.  Then, as evolution proceeded, the hindlimbs of birds shrank and lost their feathers.  And their forelimbs grew larder and grew longer and more efficient feathers.  Now the only feathers on the hindlimbs of modern birds are tiny and fluffy and used only for insulation purposes.  

The use of hindlimbs during flight was most likely much easier to accomplish than flying like today's birds.  Without the use of their hindlimbs, it it likely that birds never would have been able to leave the ground.  

            

http://www.sciencemag.org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/content/339/6125/1309.full

Origin of Venom

             Venom is a widely used trait among the animal kingdom.  It has gone through convergent evolution throughout the animal kingdom.  Convergent evolution is when the same trait evolves for the same reasons, but in completely different lineages.
             Many animals use venom either to hunt or to protect themselves from predators.  "Venom is the mark of a special club, a select subset of the animal kingdom. It includes vipers, jellyfish, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, bees, cone snails, newts, platypus, and even a primate" (Zimmer).  Venom is made up of molecules specifically designed to harm another animal.  There are two types of venom, neurotoxins and  hemotoxins.  A neurotoxin is designed to break down the nervous system and the brain, causing a swift death in many animals.  A hemotoxin is designed to break down blood cells and organs, causing a slow and painful death.

 

            All the animals containing venom evolved this unique trait completely separate, but only for two main reasons.  They all evolved venom to either hunt prey or defend from predators.  Snakes, scorpions, and spiders developed venom to both hunt and defend themselves.  The black widow spider has one of the most potent venoms in the animal kingdom, but it cannot inject larger animals (such as humans) with enough venom to cause immediate fatality.  Many other animals like poison dart frogs, puffer-fish, and even some mammals developed venom to protect themselves from predators.  The poison dart frog has a unique, bright colored pattern to warn predators that its skin is highly toxic.

            Venom is a highly unique trait, but it is extremely advantageous to many different animals all throughout the animal kingdom. 

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/09/on-the-origin-of-venom/

Fixed Behaviours and Migration in Parasitic Flatworms

     Parasites can have a detrimental effect on all animal and plant life.  They infest their host, and more often than not, causing extreme illness, or, very often, fatality.  By learning how parasites function and their different behaviors, it can become possible to prevent sicknesses and death because of parasites.  Dr. Suzanne Sukhdeo, a parasitologist at Rutgers University, is doing just that.  Dr. Sukhdeo primarily studies the behavioral and migration patterns of parasites that infest many plants and animals that are consumed by humans.  In Dr. Sukhdeo's research paper, published in the International Journal for Parisitology, "Fixed Behaviours and Migration in Parasitic Flatworms", she studies how parasites know which direction to travel and how to get to their designated area of the body.  As many already know, eating an organism with parasites will almost always allow the parasite into your own body, causing you to become extremely ill.  The study of parasite behavior is a relatively new field, because it was unknown for centuries that parasites had very distinct behaviors and migratory patterns.  How does a liver fluke almost always know which direction to travel in order to get to the liver?  How does a tapeworm know how to get to the intestines?  This study has the potential to prevent fatal sicknesses stemming from the infestation of parasites.  

Found DNA Can Create a 3-D Model of Strangers

   Heather Dewey-Hagborg, an information artist from Brooklyn, has found a way to create a portrait of a stranger using only DNA found on the ground or in the garbage.  You are leaving trails of DNA behind you everywhere you go, like chewing gum you spit out, a hair that falls off you while walking, or a cigarette butt you stomp out. 

Dewey-Hagborg collects bits of trash laced with strangers’ DNA and it is coded.  As of right now, the only traits she is capable of reading is eye color, gender, and maternal ethnicity.  She then searches through a database of possible faces and choses the most aesthetically pleasing face to be showed as a printed 3-D model in her most recent project, "Stranger Visions" in an art gallery.  Although they are only printed 3-D pictures that in no way fully resemble her ‘subject’ the pictures are still very life-like because she uses a high quality 3-D printer.

This project is still in its beginning stages, but it has loads of room for evolution and perfection.  This could be used to search for missing children or criminals after it is nearly perfected.  Just remember, any time you give spit your gum out, you are leaving your DNA behind for anyone who wants it.  

How Did The Dinosaurs Evolve?

     Dinosaurs are one of the most famous groups of living organism ever to inhabit the Earth, but an interesting question is, where did they come from?
     Dinosaurs arose from a family of prehistoric reptiles called the archosaurs, who evolved from a common ancestor between fish and reptiles, one of the first creatures to make the transition from water to land.  From that common ancestor, three branches formed, the pelycosaurs, the therapsids, and the archosaurs.  The therapsids gave rise to the first mammals, who existed somewhat in secrecy along with the dinosaurs, but were unable to flourish with them.
     The archosaurs rose up after the Permian/Triassic Extinction Event, which was a massive extinction that wiped out three quarters of the world's terrestrial animals. The archosaurs, who thrived for thousands of years evolved and gave rise to the dinosaurs, who thrived for millions of years.
     The dinosaurs 'ruled' the Earth for an extremely long time, up until the K/T Extinction , that wiped out 70% of Earth's land animals, including the dinosaurs.  The most accepted theory behind this extinction is that a massive meteorite struck the Earth, clouding the sky for years killing many plants and many animals.  Without any plants, the herbivores starved and died out, and without herbivores, the carnivores had nothing to eat and also died out.  Also, the impact caused earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, destroying much of Earth as it was known 65 million years ago.
     Very few animals survived, but the ones that did consisted of some avian-like dinosaurs, that gave rise to birds, many mammals, and tortoises. With the extinction of dinosaurs, animals such as mammals were able to rise and evolve.

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurevolution/a/dinevolution.htm