Brainstorm on GMOs

Hi readers!

Today I’m going to talk a little bit about GMOs, which stands for Genetically Modified Organisms, and I’m also going to explain my opinion on this subject. Before I start, I want to make clear that I’m going to focus on organisms meant for human feeding (mostly vegetables), mainly because covering the whole subject of GMOs would take massive explanation on topics I don’t even begin to comprehend. Having said this, let’s start.

First of all we have to know what GMOs are in the first place; according to wikipedia, "A genetically modified organism​  (​ GMO​ ) is any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques’’. And how can this be useful for us?

• They have given plants resistance to droughts, pests and diseases since 1996, and also increasing massively the average yields and its sustainability, decreasing the cost of production, and therefore, the general cost of products on this sector without decreasing its income to their producers.
• It can provide us with cheaper ways of obtaining bio chemicals, and hormones, like insulin, which can be now easily produced by genetically modified bacteria, instead of having to use full grown mammals, like pigs and cows, to extract the hormones from their livers.

There are thousands of uses more, but for the sake shortness of this post, you’ll have to research them by yourself.

Then, Why don’t we use this technology more often? The answer is ignorance. A great percentage of people think that GMOs are bad, mostly because people tend to smack gibberish about what they fear. There are rumours that say that GMOs can generate from economic crisis to cancer, but all of them are just nonsense, which may be originated from the misunderstanding of research articles to the association of nuclear power (which is the origin of cancer misconception) with any kind of genetic alteration. There are too many ‘’fiction tales’’ out there for me to explain them all, but I’ll try to give some basic ideas on this technology.

First of all, I have to say this, or I swear my head will explode: THERE IS NO NUCLEAR ACTIVITY INVOLVED. Having that out of the way, you can sit down, there’s a long path ahead:

• Opposite to popular belief, GMOs are exhaustively tested, and go through lots of laboratories and standards before it even reaches the soil (FDA,EPA,USDA,etc…), which means that you probably won’t have your ‘’tomaco’’ soon.
• Pesticides GMOs produce are much worse than ‘’old’’pesticides. Although it would be good news for farmers who unconsciously mix all the pesticides available like it was some kind of shampoo mix laboratory scientist we all played to be in the shower when we were kids, it’s not like that. Recent studies have shown how their pesticides only affect their targets, and don’t kill the bees or your children.

In conclusion, GMOs are too demonized, but if you research a little bit, you’ll discover they aren’t bad at all, and definitely not responsible of any dementors, wingardium leviosa or Illuminatis, just some ol’ regular veggies, that won’t kill people.

Hydrogen as fuel?

There is little hydrogen in the Earth. Most of it is in water mixed with oxigen, there is plenty of it there. However, there is a huge amount of hydrogen in other parts of our solar system, like the Sun or Jupiter, but there is a problem, we can´t reach it!

The only way we can reach it is by the electrolysis of water. It consists of separating hydrogen from oxygen using electricity. The problem of using electricity is that to make electricity we pollute. That’s why some scientists are trying to provoke this separation by using sunlight.

To make hydrogen efficient, we use fuel cells. There are machines developed by the NASA which combine hydrogen and oxygen to make heat, electricity and water. For instance, astronauts use fuel cells to obtain water and energy in the space. The technology is developing, but in the future fuel cells will be able to provide energy to whole cities.

Nowadays, there are already cars that use hydrogen as a fuel, it is fantastic! They don´t pollute! Cars manufacturers like Toyota, Honda and Lexus are working in the development of FCVs (fuel cell vehicles). These are hybrid vehicles which have an hydrogen fuel cell, which works with a battery to power an electric motor.

The only problem of having a FCV is that there are very few places where you can refill your car. However, if more people buy FCVs more fuel stations will have hydrogen to fuel our cars.

Contagious Yawning

Hello, what’s up guys? Today I'm going to talk you about something very curious and that probably most of you don’t know why it happens.

Yesterday, my father told me that on his way to Madrid by train he was talking with one friend when he started yawning; suddenly his friend started yawning too. Seconds later, one of the passengers from the seat in front of them, and another that was sitting next to my father, started yawning too. It was a contagious yawing!!! Does this situation ring a bell with you? Has that never happened to you? For example when you’re in a conversation with another person and he casually yawns. As you wonder whether he's bored with the discussion, you will find that you're yawning too. Also when a man;walking by, sees you yawning, and pretty soon he yawns; and it's carried on and on, passing from one person to another in a domino effect. It is pretty funny, but do you know why this happens?

Scientists are still investigating what makes us yawn, but there is a well-known fact: yawning is contagious. Scientists say that much of the yawning is due to suggestibility. You don't need to see a person yawn to involuntarily yawn yourself; hearing someone yawn or even reading about yawning can cause the same reaction.

Previous studies about yawing suggested that there is a connection between contagious yawning and empathy. However, then they discovered that contagious yawning decreases as people age and may not be associated with empathy. Now, a new study supports that it isn’t related to facts as empathy, tiredness or energy levels.

And that’s all folks! I hope that with this you have learned a little more about yawing and that you have enjoyed it.

Bodybuilding

I’m going to write about a sport that many people consider unhealthy, ugly and useless: bodybuilding. Many people see this sport only as muscular men lifting weights in a gym, but bodybuilding is much more than that.

As well as in other sports every athlete looks for an objective, for runners and swimmers it is to be the faster, for basketball and soccer players it is to win by collective work, by making good tactics... In weight lifting the thing is to be the strongest, but in bodybuilding the target is to get the best shape and the correct volume of your body.

It is a very tough sport because they have to follow a lot of rules, it involves methodical and very hard trainings and a lot of diets. Bodybuilders have to control every single food they eat. They have two kinds of diets: volume diet and definition diet. In the volume diet they have to eat a lot because they want to get more muscle volume. In this phase their training is much tougher because they have more energy. In the definition diet they eat much less because they want to lose weight and they want to reduce they body fat percentage, all of this because they want to get shredded to show off their muscles. Because of their eating less, their trainings must be moderated to avoid injuries.

Their trainings are based on exercising different muscles along the days of the week. In bodybuilding the best body is not the biggest, in this sport the most valued body is the one that is eesthetic and proportioned.

Bodybuilding is not only about lifting weight, I think that this sport is about sculpting a body by hard training and by following meticulous diets.

Coachella

I´m going to talk about Coachella and what it represents. It is an arts and music festival that is yearly held  at the Colorado Desert, in Indio, California. Actually, it is a very big festival that is celebrated over two consecutive weekends every April. Many people attend it, including celebrities like pop stars, movie stars, famous bands and sometimes even the famous angels of Victoria´s Secret.

The event has many types of music, like electronic, rock, indie, hip-hop and pop music. But, apart from the music, it also has visual art elements, like giant sculptures or figures all over the valley of Coachella and most of them are interactive.

There are several stages across the grounds that this festival has, and they host constant live music by many popular singers who perform on them. Coachella is one of the biggest and most popular music festival in the USA and all over the world. This festival is also well known for the tradition of people wearing hippie clothes from the 70´s.

The first time the festival was celebrated was in October of 1999, and it was founded by Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen; now it is organized by Goldenvoice. In 2000 they didn´t celebrate the festival, and finally in 2001 they celebrated it in April, and from then, it has been celebrated during those days.

Half a million people usually attend this festival, and you have to be quick if you want to get a ticket to go to it, because it usually takes only 1 day for all the tickets from both weekends to be sold out. Also, you´ll have to break your piggy bank, because it is expensive. But, is it worth it? Well, many people say it is, because it is very well decorated, all the staff and the people working there are super friendly and it is a great opportunity to meet really interesting people. Besides, there are many kinds of music that you can enjoy and some of the most famous music artists perform there. And last but not least, according to many people, it is one of the best experiences you can have to make irreplaceable memories.

Prejudice

We spend our life judging other people based on our ideas on how they look, what they did in the past, what they eat, how they speak, where they are from, or even what other people think about them, but in fact without having much idea about them. We usually think that these prejudices disappear when we know someone in a better way but although we may not notice it, the image that we have of someone after knowing him is still strongly influenced by things he cannot choose or that are not directly related to him. 

According to the dictionary a prejudice is a “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience”. They affect our society a lot and the way in which we see people. For example when we see someone who wears glasses, some people tend to think that that person is more intelligent than he wasn’t wearing them, and although it is an old stereotype, people frequently use glasses to have more chances in job interviews.

The origin of prejudices is stereotypes and they are caused because of generalization. Stereotypes can be defined as fixed general ideas established by a society towards certain types of people or certain characteristics in them. They are often used and strengthened by films, series or stories in which their use is very frequent. Sometimes they are used in a supposedly funny way or as a method to make the narratives of a story easier to follow, but the problem with them is that in many cases they can be offensive and lead to prejudices and discrimination, which is the worst consequence of them.

Maybe the clearer example of this is racism, which is the discrimination and contempt to people with physical or cultural characteristics that are different from your own. This discrimination is caused by anyone who only accepts people who are “like him” considering himself better than people from other racial groups.

Although nowadays we are more open minded and prejudices don’t influence us as much as in the past, they are still very present in people and society. In our everyday life many people suffer discrimination as a result of them. As Einstein said:  “What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice”.

People have usually more prejudices and are less open minded when they have less experience with people different from them, because they have false and general ideas as a consequence of stereotypes and the lack of a real contact with the ones that they tend to judge. This shows that when you open your mind you realize that in fact prejudices are most of the times false and that it’s not fair to judge anyone without really knowing him.

Hello folks!

Hello folks! This is What's Blogging On, our new blog. Wre are students from the High School Virgen del Espino in Soria (Spain). We study 4º ESO (10th grade) and we would love you to join us in this exciting adventure...

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