As you have probably found out from the early essays, I usually introduced a new topic in my biology classes with a question like “what is science?” In this case I asked the question “In its simplest form, what does evolution mean?” Upon hearing no answers I would suggest a three word answer “change through …
Monthly Archives: August 2020
Part XXI Water: What Makes it so Unique and so Important
Part XX Water: What Makes it so Unique and so Important “Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink, Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink” Those words learned so long ago from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Coleridge still ring in my ears like the day I memorized them …
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Part XX: DNA or Protein; The Great Debate
The story of the true carrier of genetic information from generation to generation is an interesting tale which followed a winding path from the late 1800’s up to 1953 and even that historic discovery, while one of the most sought after and important discoveries of human kind, was really just a new chapter in the …
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Part XIX: A Summary and Opinion
As promised in Essay XII. I am now ready to offer my opinion concerning climate change, commonly called global warming and the effects of the human imprint on the environment. The first part of this essay consists of another letter to the Rockford Register Star now called “My View” A few years ago I wrote a “Letter …
Part XVIII A serious matter for now and the future
As promised in Essay XII. I am now ready to offer my opinion concerning climate change, commonly called global warming and the effects of the human imprint on the environment. The first part of this essay consists of another letter to the Rockford Register Star now called “My View” A few years ago I wrote a “Letter …
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Part XVII: Effects on Health
Let me throw a few more terms at you. • Biodiversity – usually defined as the variety of living organisms in a given area or in a particular habitat ecosystem. That area can be as small as a drop of water or as larger as the world. • Habitat – the place where an organism lives. It …
Part XVI: Polar Bears Coral Reefs and Tropical Rainforest
n a recent essay (XIV) we looked at the effects of global warming on glaciers and ice sheets and the resulting effect on ocean levels and coastal cities. Now let’s broaden our scope and include the ripple effect of climate warming on the inhabitants of not only frigid climates but also warmer areas as well. …
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Part XV: the Milankovich Cycles
I now include a little known but conflicting argument for (temporary at least) global cooling. Everyone knows that there have been several ice ages in our planet’s past. The earth is now on the brink of entering another ice age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence that could last for the next …
Part XIV: Climate Change and Glacial Melt
Scientists have been concerned about climate change for decades. As early as 1965 a science advisory panel to then President Johnson warned that “increasing atmospheric CO2 could lead to marked changes in climate by the year 2000.” The United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 which relies on input from hundreds of …
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Part XIII: Global Climate Change
Al Gore in his book “an inconvenient truth” begins his book with this picture and the statement “This is the first picture most of us ever saw of the Earth from space. It was taken on Christmas Eve, 1968 by one of the astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft.” Thus, this is the way I begin …