Ecosystems are both strong and fragile

Within an ecosystem everything is closely connected in an integrated system. An ecosystem can be both strong and fragile at the same time; everything is interdependent; one element feeds another element which keeps the system strong and balanced;

The intricate interconnection can also make an ecosystem fragile; if you take one element for example; phosphate out of the earth by mining, the whole system then has a lack of phosphate; so trees aren't being nourished and plants might not grow well in the area, because the earth is depleted.

If you reduce the water flow; the whole water quality can be affected, if you decrease certain plants; you could change the food source or habitat for creatures large and small.

The end goals of social ecology.

The end goals of social ecology are to find a balanced world where people live in harmony with their environments. The important question to ask is; "how do we balance out what we do in society and how much it impacts our environment."

Social ecology deals with political and societal institutions that people use in relationship to ecology. In the realm of law ; we might make laws that are in favour of natural products or animals.

Another question we should ask ourselves is; "is having only one child an infringement on my personal rights", and "who decides that."

Deep ecology platform

The well being of human and nonhuman life on earth have value in themselves; I agree; other life forms are important just because they exist and give rise to other life.

Richness and diversity of life forms are also values in themselves; diversity is necessary for survival. An example of why diversity is necessary for survival is ; crops as monocultures have devastating effects.

Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity; I think that's true; we can only exept that for vital reasons we need to reduce the diversity around us, but that's only in an emergency situation.

The present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening; that's right; this is what's happening unless we can agree that the situation has turned around.

The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality, rather than adhering to increasingly higher standards of living. I feel that that is something we need to do; we need to appreciate life quality, and reduce our standard of living; it will be worth doing that if we see that life around us starts to flourish more.

Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes; this is true in my eyes; if we believe this we have to find a way to implement it.

Comments about "The deal that saved the whale".

I think it is a very great endevour to protect the wales in a wildlife refuge in Mexico.Local fishermen, who work as ecotourist guides and bring tourists to watch the wales have a job opportunity. This project can create job opportunities for the local populations, and can be good for the local economy. It is also a good opportunity to study the wales. Because there is so much development and massive tourism in the area it is good to see a succesgfull ecotourism /wildlife conservation effort that is a longterm project.

Can TCM strenghten the immune system?

Absolutely!
TCM can make the immune system stronger. In TCM the spleen is very important for the immune system. The spleen organ is responsable for making blood (white blood cells included). When the spleen becomes deficient; the patients becomes fatigued and gets low appetite and digestive problems; loose stools included.
TCM can tonify the blood, which literally means that the body is stimulated to make new blood (and t helper cells in the blood and white blood cells) through acupuncture and TCM herbology.

Another important organ to tonify in HIV/AIDS would be the liver; the organ that stores blood.
TCM can also move blood (in case of blood stasis (pain) in AIDS patients), and clear toxic heat(the viral load).
Acupuncture and TCM have been thus proven to be very effective in helping HIV positive people, and uninfected people keep strong immune systems.

Feelings about Western appraoaches to HIV/AIDS.

The Western approach to HIV/AIDS exists of treatments that are based on understanding the viral life cycle. Reverse transcriptase inhibitors have been succesfull in preventing the spread of HIV from an infected mother to her newborn; if a pregnant woman is treated with AZT and delivers her child by caesarian, the chance of the baby being infected can be reduced to one percent.
Unfortunately it is difficult for HIV infected people to adhere too their strict schedule of medicines, due to their side effects; protease inhibitors, another major class of drugs that act later in the lifecycle of the virus, can have severe side effects like; nausea, diarrhea. Other nucleose reverse transcriptase inhibitors can cause red or white bloodcells to drop.

I'm wondering if it is safe to use TCM herbal medicinals in conjunction with these medicines, since TCM herbals can tonify the blood which may offset the drop in red or white bloodcells.

Painfull nerve damage and inflammation of the pancreas can also result. These sound like very serious side effects; I'm wondering if TCM if administered early can prevent or treat these side effects.
I think it is pretty amazing how much scientists have come to learn about the HIV virus, but I think further research is needed for treatment, and that includes research of herbal medicines, and not just the extraction of the active ingredients.

I feel that more effort should lie in prevention of the spread of HIV; by education on how the virus is spread, especially amongs high risk groups.I also feel that it is a good thing to distribute condoms to at risk populations/and make HIV medications more affordable to populations that need them.
I'm not suere how I feel about the development of a vaccine that protect against infection with HIV; I feel it is a very dangerous endevour. If a vaccine that is safe is made, I believe it should be made available to at risk populations first.

Are our genes still shaped by natural selection?

Yes our genes are still shaped by natural selection. A group of researchers have detected almost 700 regions of the human genome where the genes seem to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution in the last 5,000 to 15,000 years.
These genes, some responsable for the senses of taste and smell, bone structure , skin color, brain function and digestion show this evolutionary change.

Jonathan Pritchard, a population genecisist at the University of Chicago created a scan of the human genome. According to him the scan of the human genome is different from the previous two, through a statistical test that he created,he identified certain genes that started to spread through populations in recent millenia and have not yet become universal, as many advantageous genes usually do. The selected genes that he has detected fall into a handfull of functional categories, as might be expected if people were adapting to specific changes in their environment. Some are genes involved in digesting particular foods like the lactose-digesting enzyme gene common in most Europeans. Some are genes that mediate taste and smell as well as detoxify plant poisons, perhaps signaling a shift in diet from wild foods to domesticated plants and animals.

Dr Pritchard's team found that several genes associated with embryonic development of the bones had been under selection in East Asians and Europeans , and these could be another sign of the forager- to farmer transition. The relative handfull of selected genes that Dr Pritchard's study has pinpointed may be generally similar. Each gene has astory of some pressure that we as human beings adapted to.

How does the TCM approach to cancer differ?

1 Cancer is seen as a bio-psycho-social disease.
2. Cancer is a disease of the whole organism.

The relationship between function and structure of life is different in TCM thinking. A person has a functional structure, and also a physical structure.; this is basically an explanation in western terms of how yin and yang work together, or qi and blood. In order for blood to move it needs qi for example. In Chinese Medicine more emphasic is on prevention of cancer. Besides anti cancer herbs, a lot of emphasis is on strenghtening a person'ds immune system. TCM is very effective after chemotherapy , when the person'ds bloodcount is reduced to zero, and the body has to produce new blood; TCM herbs and acupuncture can then help to tonify blood, so the body starts to produce more blood. Blood storage can also be enhanced, by tonifying the liver.

Chinese Medicine holds kindness in high regard. In the treatment of cancer, kindness is very important. The person's ability to "fight cancer" will be stronger if their doctor is kind and considerate, and positive.

How sophisticated is our understanding of cancer?

Our fundamental understanding of what cancer is , is so profound that we can summarize it in a few sentences; cancer is the result of a series of genetic changes having to do with cell division and growth controll and genetic stability, mortality, the suicide mechanism in cells; the ability of cells to attract to them a blood supply.

The abnormalities in cancer cells usually result from mutations in protein encoding genes that regulate cell division. Over time genes become more mutated. This is often because the genes that make the proteins that normally repair DNA damage are themselves not functioning normally because they are also mutated. Mutations then begin to increase in the cell, causing further abnormalities in that cell and the daughter cells. Some of these mutated cells die, but alterations may give the abnormal cell a selective advantage that allows it to multiply much more readilythan normal cells. This enhanced growth describes most cancer cells, which have gained functions repressed i the normal, healthy cells.
As long as these cells remain in their original location, they are considered benign. If they become invasive, they are considered malignant. Cancer cells in malignant tumors can often metastasize , sending cancer cells to distant sites inm the body, where new tumors may form.

Angiogenesis; In a process called angiogenesis, tumor cells make growth factors which induce information of new cappilary bloodvessels.

However, when we look at the etiology of the disease cancer, and it's treatment, we might find that the person had a lot of grief in their life, that they might have kept inside their body for a long time, burried away, and we might find that this person's cancer cells are diminishing when he or she imagines their cells to be healthy, and the healthy cells start attacking the cancerous ones. Modern imaging studies may show that the cancer cells dissapear when self hypnosis becomes effective.

In my opinion a person with cancer should visit a primary care provider, and discuss treatment options. The best scenario would be for the person to have a healthcare team around them, and become very proactive in researching treatment options and making informed descisions for themselves.

Chinese medicine gaining respectability in the West

With more research widely available to the main stream, and many more people interested in trying alternatives to western medicine , after they havent found a succesfull or timely treatment in western medicine, Chinese Medicine is definately growing. When I was doing the research for my acupuncture business plan; I saw some interesting figures. A vast amount of the population in the Wets is becoming more interested in alternative froms of treatment, and biologically based therapies (acupuncture) are most popular. The herbal industry is also a very big sector. With major hospitals in the Bay Area becoming more open to acupuncture, and more programs opening up for acu-detox clinics and acupuncture for low income or people with cancer; I think there is a lot of work to do out there. We still need to do a lot of education and promotion in our profession, and that's something we all need to do, as acupuncturists. Our school tries to bring a good voice out there; "we need integration of Eastern and Western Medicine." I think we have a long way to go, before we see such an integration, but it's certainly an exiting time to enter the profession, and create a lot of change. Masja

Chimpansee use of language and tools

To me Chimpansees use language and tools to learn; they learn from their environment, they study it, they try things with tools; for example poking in a hole full of termites with a stick. They are very adept at learning, and apparently from the studies out of the text; they also learn from eachother; they also use their language to tell eachoter things; this apple is good; these carrots are not tasty.Human beings are , I think too arrogant, and think that they are better than everybody else; "because our brain is bigger". In the end Chimpansees and Gorilla's might be better at surviving than we are because it's dangerous to think that you know it all, and it keeps you from learning new thinks. I think it is good for us human being to study the animals; we might learn some valuable things.

Are you alive?

To determine if something is alive, I listen to the heart and lungs, feel the pulse, look at the chest to see if it rises, and poke it to see if it moves, or makes any sound. Looking at if something is alive I pose the queation; does it have the ability to change its environment." It's an interesting question, because if I'm going to look at for example; "are Chinese medicinals alive?" If I'm going to look at it like prof.Spears as; "does it respond to stimuli?, does it communicate?, with it's environment, and is it able to provide changes in it's environment,"and is it able to provide changes in it's environment, Chinese herbs, even after they are dried do all of these 3 things; they work together and profoundly change their environment (the human body), and change it so it can heal itself. Minerals are also part of the Chinese parmacopeia, and they are in my eyes alos alove by the same criteria.

Water ids a very important element for life. Dried herbs, when boiled together or taken as a draft have abetter ability to create changes in the human body, and when subjected to air for a long time, will become inable to create change an die; they will still be great fertilizer though, and this continues the cycle of life.