A lot has been going on recently in life and the world. I've been thinking about what I am doing here and why I am here. Who am I? What is my purpose in life? What works me up into a passionate frenzy?
I am no philosopher, but I've been thinking about what it is that excites me. There are plenty of things that do. Cars do. Women do. Sadly, some of the servers I get to play with (I mean a 16-core SunFire box is awesome... but for what?) excite me, politics does, seemingly useless knowledge does. Food does. Learning does. Science does. When I was young, I wanted to fly jet aircraft. Many young boys dream of that I suppose. I saw MiGs and Mirages in action on a military airfield in North India when I was 9. That was one of the most awesome nights I have had. Me, twin-engined MiGs, single-engined Mirages, darkness, afterburners, the deafening noise of the engines on that deserted runway excited me. I still love the spectacle of a military airplane.
Biology excites me. I've had my own make-shift lab since I was a kid... when I tried putting a fish in a bottle and putting ice in the bottle. The fish stopped swimming. I switched it back to the normal tank it was from. It recovered. I put it in the icy water again. It slowed down. Probably not an ethical bit of research to do. Probably stressed the creature out. So, how did I end up giving up on biology? I don't know if that is a fair thing to say. I am still intimately involved in biology. I have mouldy bread lying about sometimes.
Today, I looked through the 2007 IUCN Red List. Sort of like a catalogue like you get from a department store or something. Except this one is full of sad stories. The Red List is a listing of endangered flora and fauna based on different scales going from least concern to extinct. Its amazing how many creatures are near extinction. I looked through the EW group (EW stands for Extinct in the Wild). There were some interesting creatures there. Many plants too. Like the single Hyophorbe amaricaulis that exists in Mauritius. Most people wouldn't think twice about extinct plants. But they do go extinct. Most people, if you mention extinction would probably say tiger or pandas or something to that effect. Who cares about some palm tree right? We should care though. Plants provide vast amounts of raw materials. For industry. For medicines. For life.
On the list was the Panthera leo leo. The somewhat mythical Barbary Lion. It went the way of the Atlas Bear. They both lived in Northern Africa. Many things are interesting in this. There are no more endemic bears in Africa. Geography and Biology have things in common. Many theories on the genetics of species come from Geography. An example? Well, how about Panthera leo persica and Panthera leo europa? One theory is that during the Cenozoic era, with Gondwanaland breaking up and heading toward Laurasia, evolving mammals on the super-continent went on both. Such a theory would support the presence of the Lion, Elephant, Rhino on two continents today. We could probably get better validation of the fact if lets say, there was mitochondrial DNA analysis done between two similar (though divergent) species of the common mammal and some conclusions were drawn. The only problem is... during the Pleistocene era, there were many genetic bottlenecks (for some species anyway; the big cats are a good example of that) and a lot of diversity is said to be lost...
Anyway, forgetting all that for a moment, and try and figure out what these lists serve? I know they serve for fringe environmental organisations to worry about nature and human impact on it. Really though, what chance is there for any change? I recall a couple of things from my childhood that made me wonder about this. Project Tiger was supposed to be India's way of saving the majestic cat. What happened? They inflated numbers, poaching still goes on and the population has grown by the size of Australia every year for the past twenty. Where do these people go? Well, they clear forests. They clear grassland. They kill/burn/eat whatever they need to survive. You can't really blame them for trying. And I think its hardly fair to blame the government for turning a blind eye... if they have to choose between tigers and people who vote, guess what? The voters win. Democracy is a beautiful thing.
Anyway, quite the rant so far. I'll quit while I am ahead.
I am no philosopher, but I've been thinking about what it is that excites me. There are plenty of things that do. Cars do. Women do. Sadly, some of the servers I get to play with (I mean a 16-core SunFire box is awesome... but for what?) excite me, politics does, seemingly useless knowledge does. Food does. Learning does. Science does. When I was young, I wanted to fly jet aircraft. Many young boys dream of that I suppose. I saw MiGs and Mirages in action on a military airfield in North India when I was 9. That was one of the most awesome nights I have had. Me, twin-engined MiGs, single-engined Mirages, darkness, afterburners, the deafening noise of the engines on that deserted runway excited me. I still love the spectacle of a military airplane.
Biology excites me. I've had my own make-shift lab since I was a kid... when I tried putting a fish in a bottle and putting ice in the bottle. The fish stopped swimming. I switched it back to the normal tank it was from. It recovered. I put it in the icy water again. It slowed down. Probably not an ethical bit of research to do. Probably stressed the creature out. So, how did I end up giving up on biology? I don't know if that is a fair thing to say. I am still intimately involved in biology. I have mouldy bread lying about sometimes.
Today, I looked through the 2007 IUCN Red List. Sort of like a catalogue like you get from a department store or something. Except this one is full of sad stories. The Red List is a listing of endangered flora and fauna based on different scales going from least concern to extinct. Its amazing how many creatures are near extinction. I looked through the EW group (EW stands for Extinct in the Wild). There were some interesting creatures there. Many plants too. Like the single Hyophorbe amaricaulis that exists in Mauritius. Most people wouldn't think twice about extinct plants. But they do go extinct. Most people, if you mention extinction would probably say tiger or pandas or something to that effect. Who cares about some palm tree right? We should care though. Plants provide vast amounts of raw materials. For industry. For medicines. For life.
On the list was the Panthera leo leo. The somewhat mythical Barbary Lion. It went the way of the Atlas Bear. They both lived in Northern Africa. Many things are interesting in this. There are no more endemic bears in Africa. Geography and Biology have things in common. Many theories on the genetics of species come from Geography. An example? Well, how about Panthera leo persica and Panthera leo europa? One theory is that during the Cenozoic era, with Gondwanaland breaking up and heading toward Laurasia, evolving mammals on the super-continent went on both. Such a theory would support the presence of the Lion, Elephant, Rhino on two continents today. We could probably get better validation of the fact if lets say, there was mitochondrial DNA analysis done between two similar (though divergent) species of the common mammal and some conclusions were drawn. The only problem is... during the Pleistocene era, there were many genetic bottlenecks (for some species anyway; the big cats are a good example of that) and a lot of diversity is said to be lost...
Anyway, forgetting all that for a moment, and try and figure out what these lists serve? I know they serve for fringe environmental organisations to worry about nature and human impact on it. Really though, what chance is there for any change? I recall a couple of things from my childhood that made me wonder about this. Project Tiger was supposed to be India's way of saving the majestic cat. What happened? They inflated numbers, poaching still goes on and the population has grown by the size of Australia every year for the past twenty. Where do these people go? Well, they clear forests. They clear grassland. They kill/burn/eat whatever they need to survive. You can't really blame them for trying. And I think its hardly fair to blame the government for turning a blind eye... if they have to choose between tigers and people who vote, guess what? The voters win. Democracy is a beautiful thing.
Anyway, quite the rant so far. I'll quit while I am ahead.
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