Chemistry Week 2
Regarding the consumption of microplastics in the human diet, I feel like this is what we get for producing so much plastic and just then putting it in the trash with little concern for what's going to happen with it long term. We act like recycle is going to reduce the environmental impact of all the plastics we produce, but there are lots of plastics that are not recyclable. Styrofoam, for example is not. We need to find sustainable, non-toxic alternatives for plastic as soon as possible.
I also think of us consuming microplastics as part of the decomposition process. We are like little worms eating dead leaves and turning them into dirt, except we are decomposing plastics, probably absorb some of their toxicity, and then excreting the rest back into the environment, hopefully reducing the toxic effect for the environment and other creatures further down the road. The unfortunate part is that the people most likely to be negatively impacted are low-income people. Take the example of the people of Flint, Michigan. They have no choice but to drink package water because their tap water is highly toxic..
As Amanda stated during our breakout discussion, the Earth has a way of taking care of itself and resolving issues like this on its own, eventually. I agree with this. During our discussion, I was trying to relate this to relate this to atomic energy but failed to make my point clearly. I was trying to say that whatever terrible thing we do to the planet, most likely it will eventually recover. Even if all the nuclear power plants meltdown and the amount of radiation released kills almost everything on the planet, something will survive and life will go on. Maybe a new and improved form of intelligent life will evolve, and if not, its probably gonna be ok anyway..
My impressions of molecular modeling are that it seems to be a very neat tool for studying new materials and potential pharmaceuticals with out having to actually synthesize them. If we can modela new drug on a computer and then use a simulation to predict what effect it will have on a person or in the treatment of a disease, that will potentially save us a lot of time and resources, and minimize the need for testing on animals. If we can use this technology to work on a vaccine for the novel coronovirus (I'm sure we're already doing this) then maybe we can have an effective vaccine faster, and scientists won't feel compelled to test their experimental vaccines on vulnerable populations. The question I ask though is: do we really need to make more drugs and more materials? Or are we just skirting around the issues of needing to reduce consumption and understand why people are getting sick, instead of trying to fix problems once they have already started. What if we put as much time and energy into prevention as we do in trying to find new treatments?
I also think of us consuming microplastics as part of the decomposition process. We are like little worms eating dead leaves and turning them into dirt, except we are decomposing plastics, probably absorb some of their toxicity, and then excreting the rest back into the environment, hopefully reducing the toxic effect for the environment and other creatures further down the road. The unfortunate part is that the people most likely to be negatively impacted are low-income people. Take the example of the people of Flint, Michigan. They have no choice but to drink package water because their tap water is highly toxic..
As Amanda stated during our breakout discussion, the Earth has a way of taking care of itself and resolving issues like this on its own, eventually. I agree with this. During our discussion, I was trying to relate this to relate this to atomic energy but failed to make my point clearly. I was trying to say that whatever terrible thing we do to the planet, most likely it will eventually recover. Even if all the nuclear power plants meltdown and the amount of radiation released kills almost everything on the planet, something will survive and life will go on. Maybe a new and improved form of intelligent life will evolve, and if not, its probably gonna be ok anyway..
My impressions of molecular modeling are that it seems to be a very neat tool for studying new materials and potential pharmaceuticals with out having to actually synthesize them. If we can modela new drug on a computer and then use a simulation to predict what effect it will have on a person or in the treatment of a disease, that will potentially save us a lot of time and resources, and minimize the need for testing on animals. If we can use this technology to work on a vaccine for the novel coronovirus (I'm sure we're already doing this) then maybe we can have an effective vaccine faster, and scientists won't feel compelled to test their experimental vaccines on vulnerable populations. The question I ask though is: do we really need to make more drugs and more materials? Or are we just skirting around the issues of needing to reduce consumption and understand why people are getting sick, instead of trying to fix problems once they have already started. What if we put as much time and energy into prevention as we do in trying to find new treatments?
well put regarding to the folks at Flint. under the circumstances it was the bottle water help them through the crisis till water containment were brought under control. Also, in a lesser scale in both Europe and Asia, one has to drink bottle water which most of them are in plastic for obvious water quality issues.
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