Parasitic Wasp Swarm Unleashed to Fight Pests

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/07/100719-parasites-wasps-bugs-cassava-thailand-science-environment/

This article was written about a species of bug called mealybugs. These were in Thailand and were killing cassava plants by sucking out the plant's sap and reproducing at an exceedingly fast pace because their native enemies weren't in the same environment. During the summer of 2010, a certain species of wasp was released into the cassava fields called Anagyrus Iopezi. This wasp species injects their eggs directly into mealybugs' bodies; when the larvae hatch, they eat their way out of their host, killing them in the process. The wasps just happened to be the native enemy of the mealybug, thus being "biological controls".

But don't be convinced, scientists only imported the wasps to Thailand because the mealybugs were killing the cassava plants in Africa during the 1980s as well. These wasps are unique though, they only attack a few species unlike most predators. Tony Bellotti, an entomologist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, said the wasps and mealybugs would reach an equilibrium in Thailand eventually. He continued to say,

"The parasite can't eliminate the pest [completely] because it would eliminate itself, but you hope that the equilibrium will be at a low enough level that it's no longer damaging to the crops."

Bellotti said later that scientists would figure out if releasing the wasps was a good idea when Thailand's dry season as mealybugs are primarily dry-season pests (this was in 2010). If the release of the wasps was a good idea, it would be carried through and the technique of this pesticide would be used in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries.

I think the scientists did the right thing in releasing the wasps, given an equilibrium will be reached soon. Furthermore, if the results shown from the Thailand experiment are positive, the wasps should be definitely used in other countries where the cassava crop is being destroyed by more mealybugs.

Some questions in relation to the article:
What would some affects on the environment if the wasps and mealybugs didn't reach an equilibrium? (either the wasps over populate or the mealybugs re-over populate)
Should the scientists continue to use the wasps as parasites if it doesn't decrease the mealybug problems? Why or why not?
How would you protect the cassava crop if importing wasps wasn't an option and you didn't know the wasps and mealybugs were native enemies?

Healing Through Parasites

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/12/09/worms.health/index.html

In the article listed above, the story surrounds a man of 28 years old, who up until a few years ago, was having terrible, terrible bowel movements. About 10-15 times a day it would happen, usually with a lot of blood accompanying the movement. Having tried various treatments recommended by his doctor at the time, the man still continued to suffer. He tried steroids, which had negative side effects, and other kinds of treatments, none of which seemed to work. When his doctor gave him a choice of a specialized kind of surgery for his condition, you would think the man would be ecstatic. However, that wasn't the case. If he did have the surgery, there would only be a 50% chance of it working, and evening more so, he would be more at risk for cancer later on in life. If it happened the surgery didn't work, he would have to have his colon removed, and would basically being going to the bathroom in a bag for the rest of his life.

Of course, these options were far from appealing and healing the poor man's health condition. So he looked into other possible ways to heal himself. He found an article online in a medical journal about a person with colon problems as well, who had resolved his conflicts through the consumption of trichuris suis worm, a parasite that lives in the intestines of pigs. He tried to persuade a variety of different doctors to inject these parasites into him, which all of them refused, as there was no scientific back up behind the study, and according to them, would probably only worsen his already bad condition. He was stubborn though, and was adamant about not going under the knife with what could be terribly disastrous results.

So he traveled from USA to Thailand all on his own, where he came into contact with an 11 year old girl who had the parasites living inside of her. After having used the bathroom, he collected the parasite's eggs from her feces, cleansed them, then some how managed to raise them over time in an environment, which he referred to as "embryonation." The worms did grow over time, and once reaching their full form, he ingested the great number of 1,000 parasitic worms. While at first they didn't do much, quickly over time his bloody bowel movements began to lower, then disappeared all together. He didn't feel much pain otherwise, and when faced with having a bloody bowel movement again, he just resolved to consuming more of the warms.

After having a positive experience from the worms, he found a man named Loke to report his experience. Though at first reluctant, Loke became fascinated by what drove this man to do what he did, and reported about the man and his worms eventually. Though there was an outcry from the medical community, believing the man was promoting unsafe means to healing through parasitic worms, the man quickly defended himself by claiming he didn't wish for others to do as he did as much as he just wanted to report his bizarre yet positive experience. Perhaps in the future more scientific study will be done on parasitic worms and what they could do to benefit human medical conditions.

I definitely think more research should be done before people should start trying out parasitic worms as a treatment. Though this man's experience was positive, what if others is not? It's important to keep in mind all options though, like this man did. Hopefully in the future we'll find out more about the benefits, risks and negatives to how parasites can influence humans in the medical field.

So my questions are:

If you were faced with the option of surgery (with only the 50% of it working and a higher risk for cancer, or if it didn't work you would have to go to the bathroom in a bag for the rest of your life) or eating parasitic worms, which would you choose?

Do you think the man was promoting the use of parasitic worms, why or why not?

What could be the potential results of people reading/hearing about healing through parasitic worms?

Do you think more should be done on parasitic worm research before it is embraced as a future medical treatment?

Tigers Need Conservation, Not Conversation

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/opinion/22iht-edgalster.html?ref=endangeredandextinctspeciesThe article I read stated that the poaching of tigers in Asia has got to be cut down. The poachers have cut the population of the tigers in Asia down to only 3,200, halving the origingal number. All the talk has brought people from twelve different countries to a metting of conversation about conservation. This metting later brought in the "St. Petersburg Declaration." The article goes on to say that this will need doners to chip in a lot of money. The author says that this doesn't need to happen because in the 90's, the anti-paoching brigade, "Inspection Tiger," only costed a little bit more than $7,000. The article then goes on to say that the help they could get would be a tremendous help if only people would do something and not just talk about it. The article ends on a note stating, "If tigers could speak, they would roar for action, not more words. Let the St. Petersburg Declaration be the last, and let's start to put our money where our fangs are."
I believe that the money should definitely be put into helping the tigers and stop the poaching. If the people who poached them were really desperate for money that they would hurt a harmless animal that never did any bad to them, then that person needs to turn their life around. I believe tigers are a very important part of our environment that keep the total food chain in balance. The people of the St. Petersburg Declaration should stop talking about ways they can consevate the tigers. They should take the ideas they have and put them to a good use. The tigers aren't going to magically start doubling in population, so the money has to help the conservation of them.
Questions:
1. If the money was raised, how would you spend it to save the tigers?
2. How would you be able to protect the tigers? Explain.
3. If the tigers kept getting poached, what would your plan b be?

Drilling for gas in Mediterranean Sea will threaten valuable marine life, says WWF by Gemma Parkes

SummaryIn the Eastern Mediterranean's Levant Sea, a deep-sea gas field was thought to be found and immediatly people wanted to start drilling. In that very same area there was a very biodiverse ecosystem of animals. If there is drilling then it WILL have harmful effects on the rare and interesting marine life living there. The gas field that was found was the biggest one discovered in over 10 years. This particular sea is protected by a law that says there should be no destructive trawl fishing over 1000 meters in depth. This law is being ignored. The argument is definatly serious because drilling in this area can wipe out species that are thousands of years old.
Opinion
I chose this artical not only because we were talking about the bidiversity factor of an area and how important it is to be biodiverse, but also because i strongly believe that this is wrong. Clearly the people who want to drill in this sea are only hungry for money but not smart enough to realize that the planet should come first. These types of animals balance out the biosphere and are a neccesity in keeping our planet a great place to live, so by drilling in this gas field would only be hurting ourselves.
Questions
Would you drill for gas? why or why not?
Do you agree that biodiversity is an important part of keeping our world in balance? Why?
How would you go about stopping people from drilling?

Greens slam Hong Kong theme park for importing endangered species

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/364326,park-importing-endangered-species.html

Summary

So what happened in the article was that Ocean Park had started to take endangered animals into there aquarium which is there most popular event. The people at Green Sense ,which is the group saying they have endangered animals, want them to have better protection for endangered species. The aquarium attracts the most people and apparently they have 5000 fish from 400 different species. Some of the fish in the aquarium are bluefin tuna which are critically endangered species. Now some of these fish have already died so now more people are wondering about Ocean's Park conservation role even though they don't really have a good one. Although at the same time this place was already criticized for funding a study into bottle nose dolphins and importing them into new aquariums.

Opinion

My stance on this is that you really shouldn't be taking endangered species for use. I think that may be why they call them Endangered Species but that could be just a guess. Also even though this is a really popular aquarium it needs to get rid of its endangered species and stop funding bad activities.

Questions

If you knew about this place and were in Hong Kong would you go to it?

What would you be doing if you were in charge of this aquarium?

If this place imported more endangered species and still be the most popular theme park, Do you think it would be worthwhile to be shut down?

How would you handle this if you were a worker at this place and cared about animals?