...Argument for Animal Rights Ever since the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in England in 1824 was formed, there have been long running debates on the topic of animal rights. The first societies were formed to protect and maintain humane treatment of work animals, such as horses, cattle, and house hold pets. Towards the end of the nineteenth century more organizations were formed, this time to protest the use of animals in scientific experimentation. Today groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have continued these traditional fights as well as adding new agendas. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; The Declaration of Independence holds these rights to be self evident and unalienable. In the eighteenth century when these words were written they were called natural rights, today we call them human rights" (McShea, 34). The issue of whether or not to grant animals rights such as those humans retain, is a greatly disputed issue. Animal right is an extremely intricate issue that involves the question of animal farming, animal experimentation, and animal activists. There are not many happy farmers milking their cows on the farm anymore; this is the food industry; it is dirty; it is unsafe, and it is a massacre of innocent animals. Cows, chickens, pigs, and other animals processed into food are not kept on a farm; they are crowded into pens and cages that are too small to even allow the animal to turn around (Krizmanic,...
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...increase in concern over obesity in companion animals, with three in four dogs (77% of dog population in the UK) to be obese. A clear understanding to how and why pet obesity in the UK is now a major risk factor is caused primarily by the relationship between humans and animals. A result of lack of client education of their dietary needs with the leading cause is from feeding leftovers off the plate and insufficient exercise (Sandøe et al., 2014). Obesity in dogs and cats increases the risk of health problems such as; diabetes mellitus, cardiorespiratory disease and anaesthetic...
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...Is there ethical treatment for animals in captivity? The term “ethical” implies the moral basis of treatment towards animals while “captivity” denotes confinement or lack of freedom. The unmistakable contrast in these two words itself creates the argument whether ethical treatment is possible for animals in captivity. Humans had often been overly considerate about moral principles while dealing with its own kind. Whenever ethics were encroached upon, man stood up against it, questioned it and regained it. But unfortunately, lacking advanced communication like humans, animals are unable to. Human intervention in wildlife has bereaved animals of total control over their own lives. Man may reason out his intrusion, yet, the animals in captivity, being deprived of their natural habitats and having bred in man-made enclosures for generations, tend to misperceive their animality. It is indispensable to have an insight into what causes the bereavement of animals and how it is caused, before looking into its moral principles. Among the contrastive places that I came across in which animal captivity is proceeded, wildlife preservation zoos are the most popular, and least considered as a confinement of animal freedom. Thousands of people visit zoos daily but rarely give a thought to the miserable lives that animals have to spend stagnating and sleeping, due to the less spacious and artificial residences provided. Some present enclosures in zoos have been changed to natural barriers...
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...perform or not. Do we need to do anything though? They are intelligent and amazing, but are not they just animals? Some have given too much credit to orcas’ intelligence, such as one of the scientists, Marino. In Blackfish, she states, “The orca brain screams out intelligence awareness. We took this tremendous brain and put it in a magnetic resonance scanner. What we found is just astounding.” They found enlarged areas in the brain that are associated with high emotional capacity. SeaWorld, however, reports differently: “This is misleading. The most recent scientific research demonstrates that cetacean behaviors used to argue that high levels of intelligence are found commonly across mammals and vertebrates, and that cetacean intelligence is qualitatively no different than other vertebrates” (“Truth About Blackfish”...
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...argue the same cycle is happening today. While the Earth did heat up in the past, it has never reached this kind of global temperature. According to NASA’s climate change graph that shows the Earth’s temperature before fossil fuels and after fossil fuels, the temperature after fossil fuels were used is much higher than before, so this proves CO2 emissions rise global temperature and cause global warming. This creates big problems for the environment. CO2 emissions heat up the Antarctic ice caps causing them to melt. The Antarctic ice caps has been on a slow decline ever since 1992. According John Cook, “Between 1992 and 2011, the Antarctic Ice Sheets overall lost 1350 giga-tonnes (Gt) or 1,350,000,000,000 tonnes into the oceans, at an average rate of 70 Gt per year (Gt/yr).” Even though the Antarctic ice cap gained some of the lost ice from 2011 to 2014, it has lost so much ice due to a rise in CO2 emissions, and the Antarctic ice cap is currently on another decline. The wildlife in both land and sea are having trouble with the shrinking ice cap. Polar bears and Orca whales are slowly declining due to rising CO2 emissions. Shrinking ice caps also affect scientific research, and research is hindered due to CO2 emissions. In addition,...
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...Wanda Brewington Professor Maria Zaccaria Introduction to Ethics April 27, 2015 Outline THESIS: Is the use of stem cells favorable for healing and or curing human diseases more favorable for healing and or curing diseases more significant than the ethical concerns and arguments? I. What are stem cells? A) An unspecialized cell that can generate to one or more different types of specialized cells regenerated as blood or nerve cells. B) Stem cells are present in embryos and in tissues of adult organisms. II. How are stem cells used? A) Scientific Research B) Potential disease and treatment and or cures C) In vitro fertilization D) Cloning and Genetic Engineering III. Ethical concerns regarding stems cells. A) Scientific research perspective B) Political/Moral Ethics perspective C) Religious/Utilitarianism perspective IV. Conclusion | Stem Cells Risk or Benefit Since the introduction of DNA, scientists have researched many ways to treat and extinguish disease. One interesting way is through the use of stem cells. To get better understanding of stem cells, they are defined as non-specific biological cells capable of differentiating into specialized cells. Stems cells have a unique quality of developing and duplicating cells through the process of cell division. The distinctiveness of stem cells is that they are unspecialized, meaning...
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...The Nutritional Value, Health, and Environmental Implications of Organic Foods QBT1 Research Paper Organic food has grown in popularity over the past 24 years. This is evident in the rapid growth of the organic foods industry, growing by 20% every year since 1990. As of 2005, sales realized within this industry amounted to over 13 billion. The organic food industry is a complex industry that is characterized by fluctuations in consumer preferences which stem from the fact that there is varying scientific information on the safety and benefits of organic foods. Research shows that consumers perceive organic food to be more nutritional, improve general health, and safe for the environment. However, are these general perceptions valid? Do organic foods lead to improved health? And are they truly safe for the environment. Over the past two decades, there has been increasing consumer concern over the health and environmental implications of consuming conventionally grown products and the techniques used by conventional farmers. This largely stems from rigorous consumer awareness programs that have been conducted by a number of environmental groups. Anxiety by consumers over the health and nutritional implications of consuming conventional foods as compared to organic foods led to the increased need for the debate on the environment by marketers of food for consumption by the public masses (Paul & Rana, 2012, p. 412). This increased awareness and anxiety on the part of the...
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...Introduction Since the indefinite commercial whaling moratorium was introduced in 1986, the whaling nations have killed around 15,000 whales between them. At the time of writing, the Japanese whaling fleet has just returned from Antarctic waters where a further 300 or so minke whales have been killed for so called ‘research’, in open defiance of world public opinion and the IWC which has never validated the Japanese programme. The meat from those dead whales will end up on sale in Japanese restaurants and on supermarket shelves. Japan is not only defying the global moratorium on commercial whaling, it is killing whales in a sanctuary agreed by the IWC in 1994. Japan has ‘recruited’ many countries to the IWC to support the resumption of commercial whaling using foreign aid packages. If the ban is lost it will be a disaster for whale conservation efforts. This report presents the many reasons why the ban on commercial whaling must be maintained and properly enforced. We cannot wipe away the tragic history of commercial whaling, but we can, and must, prevent its repetition. The Natural History of Whales Whales belong to the order of mammals known as Cetacea. There are about 80 species of cetaceans, including all the dolphins and porpoises, as well as the ten so-called ‘great’ whale species, which have borne the brunt of commercial whaling. Cetaceans are believed to have evolved from land mammals, which adapted to an aquatic existence about 50 million years ago. They are superbly...
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...GMOs. They are often seen in the context of globalization and of privatization and even as “antidemocratic” or “meddling with evolution”. There are as yet few perceived advantages for the public, because GMO applications to date have concentrated on reducing costs for producers without direct consumer benefits. In particular, it has been a tactical error of the industry to concentrate on pesticide-resistance as one of the earliest applications, as this has stimulated environmental concerns. The public often confuses the industry with the science. And consumers worry about risk, not about scientific freedom.Scientists in both the private and public sectors clearly see genetic modification as a major new set of tools. They are also participants and spectators in a major shift of research from the public to the private sector, which will undoubtedly influence the future direction ofresearch and research investment. As shareholders in the GMO debate, scientists must recognize that...
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...They are found in waters of about 900 feet in depth. They spend most of the day closer to shore and move into deeper waters at night in search of prey. Adults live either alone, in pairs or in very small schools. While, young scalloped hammerheads live in large schools. To adapt to their surroundings these sharks can feel electrical fields using special organs called the ampullae of lorenzini. They are located in the snout of the shark. This adaptation allows them to feel the electricity that is released from other animals, making it easier for them to find prey. These sharks are also nocturnal, making it easier to sneak up on fish, however it makes it harder to see and that is where their ability to feel the electricity comes into play. Also they do form large schools in their youth to protect each other. Reproduction only occurs once a year for these sharks. The males will bite the females until she agrees to mate. The males will then transfer sperm into the female using claspers. Claspers are the male reproductive organ in cartilaginous fish. The scalloped hammerhead give a live birth and have an egg yolk placenta. Their gestation period is between 9 and 10 months, similar in time to human beings. The adult females move to the shallower waters of the...
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...of human breast milk and body fat have confirmed the extent of our exposure. Human beings in such remote locations as Canada’s far northern Baffin Island now carry traces of persistent chemicals in their bodies, including notorious compounds as PCBs, DDT and dioxin. Even worse, in the womb and through breast milk, mothers pass this chemical legacy on to the next generation. “Our Stolen Future”, the scientific discovery of Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers, takes up where Carson left off and reviews a large and growing body of scientific evidence, linking synthetic chemicals to aberrant sexual development and behavioral and reproductive problems, such as low sperm counts, infertility, genital deformities, hormonally triggered human cancers, like those of breast and prostate gland, neurological disorders in children such as hyperactivity and deficits in attention. The quality of men's sperm declined steadily in the early years of the 21st century until hardly anyone could reproduce in the normal way. Meanwhile, the countryside was virtually emptied of animals as natural populations crashed. The first signs of the impending catastrophe were noted in the 1990's, but few people then believed that a cocktail of pollutants that mimic human hormones could have such profound effects. So nothing was done until it was too late. Over the last few years, an increasing number of...
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...infinitely important. We will discuss why genetic diversity is so important. We will explain why population management and diversity is necessary to the successful survival of every population. Lastly, we will compare and contrast the ex situ and in situ methods of conservation. It is extremely important for humanity to take responsibility for the failings of some ecosystems and this paper allows us to see the ways that we, as humanity, can help to reverse that damage. Genetic Diversity in Populations Genetic diversity also known as the level of biodiversity simply measures the number of genetic characteristics that the genetic makeup of a particular species consists of. It is different from the term genetic variability as they are many times used alternatively but in reality they are different. So why is genetic diversity so important? It is the basis for the populations of various living species to adapt themselves as the surrounding environment changes. If there is no genetic diversity many of the species will vanish off the face of earth. The environment on the earth changes rapidly and hence with the help of genetic diversity the species possess variations of the alleles that help them to adapt to the changing environment around them. Then, they can produce an offspring that contains the same variation of the alleles (Laverty, 2004). Thus, as the populations keep on growing the genetic changes happen so as to help the species survive. Genetic diversity is...
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...faltered when it developed an immunity to the pesticides. Moreover, the only drugs available to treat the parasite in humans have been so expensive, have such severe side effects, and require such lenghty hospital stays that the treatments are impractical for the destitute victims who live in isolated villages. In many countries people have fled the areas along the rivers, abandoning large tracts of rich fertile land. Many of them, however, eventually return because distant lands prove difficult to farm.Most villagers along the rivers come to accept the nodules, the torturous itching, and eventual blindness as an inescapable part of life. In 1979, Dr. William Campbell, a research scientist working for Merck and Company, an American drug company, discovered evidence that one of the company's best-selling animal drugs,...
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...Can culling be used to eradicate bovine TB? Bovine TB is an infectious disease of cattle but can also be present in other mammals which are caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis). This disease is also zoonotic which means it can be transmitted from animals to people and cause a similar disease to human TB but is not very common. Bovine TB takes place over a prolonged period of time and the clinical signs of the disease are: weakness, loss of appetite, weight loss, fluctuating fever, intermittent hacking cough, diarrhoea, large prominent lymph nodes. The disease is more prevalent in most of Africa, parts of Asia however other countries such as the UK still have significant pockets of infection despite reducing Bovine TB. Areas of England that have high incidences of Bovine TB in cattle also tend to have high number of badgers. The disease is spread by contact between infected animals and non-affected animals. The usual route of infection is by inhaling infected droplets which are expelled from the lungs by coughing which makes it mainly a respiratory disease. Calves and humans can also become infected by ingesting raw milk from infected cows. As the course of the disease is slow it can take up to months or years before the animal dies but in that time the disease can pass to other herd mates before it begins to manifest the clinical signs. The standard method for detection of TB is the tuberculin test, where a small amount of antigen is injected into the skin...
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...Anytime society starts to think about an epidemic it freaks out. We try to find reasons why it is happening. Natural selection, the end of days, whatever but it’s never just a scientific reason. It’s never just something in the air. Knowledge is the key to our own fear of these diseases. Knowing how this are caused and better yet how to protect ourselves from it is how we will beat diseases from the past present and future. Monkeypox virus is an rare disease that is caused by infection with monkeypox virus. The virus belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus in the family Poxviridae. The Orthopoxvirus genus also includes variola virus (the cause of smallpox), vaccinia virus (used in the smallpox vaccine), and cowpox virus. Two outbreaks of a pox-like disease started in 1958 in a monkey colony which was kept for research. But the first human case of the disease wasn’t until 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And the only time there has been an outbreak in the US was in 2003. Transmission of monkeypox virus occurs when a person comes into contact with the virus from an animal, human, or materials contaminated with the virus. The virus has to enter the body through broken skin even if the break is too small for the eye to see, the respiratory system, or the mucus membrane, like your eyes, nose or mouth. Animal to human contact can happen due to a scratch or bite, or from contaminated meat. Human to human transmissions all though less common is still very popular, and come from large...
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