Trusting people

Believe it or not every day you are trusting your life with probably hundreds of people. You might not realize but if you really think about it the guy driving the city bus or the air plane has your life in their hands. This first occurred to me when I was sitting under a crane that was dangling a steel beam directly over me. If, for some reason that beam dropped or the cable holding it snapped I along with about a dozen people would have been probably seriously injured or killed. You also have to consider that you have never met these people you are trusting your life with. This demonstrates how lucky you are every day trusting people.

Progress with War?

Satern V rocket

 

When you think of war you probably don't come up with very positive images. For almost everybody involved with war there are many negatives. Then again if you consider all aspects of a war there are some positives. When you look back in history you will find that without wars we would not have many of our greatest inventions. For example many of the technologies for aircraft  were invented for war by governments and are now in use today by commercial airliners. Also there are some inventions like the Jeep that would not have been even considered if it were not for WWII. The cold war has had the same effect, have a look at space exploration.  We would have been in space much later if it were not for the Space Race. Many things about war are bad and certainly out way the good thing. I think that the next time people consider how horrible the past wars have been they should also recognize everything that wars have done for us.

Why so many?

Lucy

It has been said the there are 50 million stray dogs in the USA alone. If you are getting a dog and want a purebred you might want to consider what your getting and where if came from. Remember that a mutt is referring to just another breed that has been mixed from 2 or more breeds.  This is how all dog breeds were created. Puppy mills only exist because people purchase dogs from non-reputable pet shops and private non-reputable pet dealers. If we as a society stop supporting these mills they will cease to exist. People should consider adoption, rescue centres and reputable breeders. If everybody would simply think before they get a dog than I believe many of the dog shelters in the world would not be needed.

No blue bins here

Fort San Felipe, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

How much of that would you recycle?

Like in many developing countries, the Dominican Republic faces a growing challenge with what to do with their garbage. Currently there is no apparent recycling. Sadly you have to throw all of the potentially recyclable material in to the trash or in some cases on the road and into the street. Recycling can be very profitable and provide jobs. People in developing countries all over the world tend to reuse many things that we would typically throw out and in many cases fix broken items and resell them. With recycling we could go one step further by creating programs that encourage recycling, creating jobs both on the collection side and in post collection manufacturing opportunities from the recycled materials. The recycling model suggests that in order to create a successful business model from recycling – in other words make money - you need to have large quantities of recyclable material available. If you could come up with some sort of system that would attract people to collect these materials (like paying money for bottles, cans, glass and paper) we would certainly see ample supply. Surely, there must be interest in this recycling business opportunity.

Consumerism

Consumerism is something that we all have in us. It is the everlasting drive to consume. This would have proven very useful to early man making us more competitive and keeping us alive. Now this is more so the urge to get “newer” or “better” things, in most cases these are things that we don’t need and will only use for a short time before we throw them away. This is more of a problem in North America. Next time you go to a large box store say around Christmas (now) or any big holiday if you take a moment to look at all of the small  and large things that are waiting to be bought used and thrown out in less than a week. This in my opinion is disgusting not to say that I haven’t done this myself. We can’t keep consuming at this rate. There is simply no way that any of these habits are sustainable for any period of time. We can't be in denial!

Life in Arsenic?

Mono Lake California

All life as of 2 days ago contained 6 fundamental elements; hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, carbon, oxygen, and phosphorus. Yesterday researchers at NASA found a microbe in Mono Lake which is located in northern California. Mono lake gets its water from the Sierra Nevada mountains.  These mountains have relatively high concentrations of arsenic so when the water comes from these mountains so does arsenic. 

Mono lake is where the arsenic concentrates to 700 times what the EPA considers safe.

These are no ordinary microbes. In fact in the DNA of these microbes, arsenic is taking the place of phosphorus something that nobody has ever seen. 

This opens a whole new suite of planets when you are searching for life on other worlds. This is just 1 of 6 elements that may be replaced by other elements we might not have discovered yet.

Space Elevator

A space elevator is something that was first thought of in the mid 1890’s. So, its not a new idea but its a good one. Having something to decrease the number of costly rockets would be a huge leap towards the future of space exploration. If we had an elevator bringing space ships or space station parts into orbit we would send a human crew up to assemble it.  We would still need to send the human team up in a rocket because of the Van Allen Radiation Belt, but less rockets would be needed.  An elevator would save us millions if not billions per year. The initial cost would be great but the overall savings would be worth it. Unfortunately we have not created a material strong and light enough to reach space from earth. If we became organized enough to pool money and knowledge it would be possible.