quarta-feira, 16 de dezembro de 2009

GM FOOD


Actually, people hear talk about genetic manipulation but really we don´t know a lot about that.
Questions have been created if we need genetically modified food and where it is used. It is used in agriculture to make the products more resistent to weeds, pests and other insects that may eat fruits.
The chemical products turn the vegetables in a better texture, better aspect and gives them longer life.
Through the genetic engineering we developed genetically food and we have created new forms to preserve a better and longer life in food.


written by: Ana Serrano

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

GM FOOD


Benefits of GM FOOD:
• Better quality food (foods higher in vitamins and minerals)
• Higher nutritional levels
• Inexpensive and nutrious food , like carrots with more antioxidants ex: (Production of tomatoes wich taste better and last longer)


The risks of GM FOOD:
• Resistence to herbicids and pesticids encourages farmers to use excessive quanties;
• Possible toxity people;
• Possible tendency to provoke allergic reactions;
• Doubt about whether thereis any nutritional defecit or harmful change in the GM Foo;


written by: Ana Serrano

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Cloning- Pros and Cons


Pros:
• Cloning organs allow organ transplant at any time (no need to find donors;
• Cloning specific organy or tissues allow us study their function without experiment on a live person;
• Techniques of cloning can be applied other areas of biological areas;
• Scientists hope that on day therapeutic cloning can be used to generate tissues and organs for transplants.
• Many challenges must be overcome before “cloned organ” transplants became reality.
• The cloning is a scientific option worth exploring;



Cons:

• Cloning could be go wrong – danger of mutations;
• Cloning makes usall less special;
• Compromise our individuality;
• Cloning is “playing God”;
• Mass produced;
• Reproductive cloning also could be used to populate endangered animals or animals that difficult to breed;
• Cloning extinct animals presents in different habitats;
• Reproductive cloning is expensive and highly inefficient;
• Religion problem;
• The cloning should be in any civil society;
• Each other so well that some times they finish each other;
• Cloning violated the right to be unic;
• We can´t clone a soul;

written by: Ana Serrano

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Can Anyone Explain the Glow of Christmas?



Can anyone explain the glow of
Christmas?

Holidays are candles in the night.

Rebirth comes from family and friends

In one bright blur of food and talk that ends

Still burning as a peaceful inner light.

There is no way to substitute for Christmas.

Miss it and no circumstance feels right.

All my heart's with you, yet I must miss this

Season thick with love and rich
delight.

Ana Serrano

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Christmas Poems


Christmas is a time for love and fun,

A time to reshape souls and roots and skies,

A time to give your heart to
everyone

Freely, like a rich and lavish sun,

Like a burning star to those whose lonely sighs

Show need of such a time for love and fun.

For children first, whose pain is never done,

Whose bright white fire of anguish never dies,

It's time to give your heart to every one,

That not one angel fall, to hatred won

For lack of ears to listen to her cries,

Or arms to carry him towards love and fun,

Or friends to care what happens on the run

To adult life, where joy or sadness lies.

It's time to give your heart to everyone,

For God loves all, and turns His back on none,

Good or twisted, ignorant or wise.
Christmas is a time for love and fun,

A time to give your heart to everyone.


Ana Serrano

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

G. M. Food


G. M. Food – Food that is molecularly modifies so it can be produced with less corts and the companies that make G. M. Food can have more profit

Benefits of G. M. Food
 Better quality food (foods higher in vitamins and minerals)
 Higher nutritional levels
 Inexpensive and nutritions food, like carrot’s with more antioxidants
 Example: productions of tomatoes which taste better and last longer

The risks of G.M.Food
 Resistant to herbicides and pesticides encourages farmers to use excessive quantities
 Possible toxity to people
 Tendency to provoke allergic reactions
 Doubt about whether there is any nutritional deficit or harmful change in the G. M. Food


written by: Joana Pereira

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

terça-feira, 15 de dezembro de 2009

Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You


I don't want a lot for Christmas
There's just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is...
You

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There's just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I don't need to hang my stocking
There upon the fireplace
Santa Claus won't make me happy
With a toy on Christmas day
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you
You baby

I won't ask for much this Christmas
I don't even wish for snow
I'm just gonna keep on waiting
Underneath the mistletoe
I won't make a list and send it
To the North Pole for Saint Nick
I won't even stay awake to
Hear those magic reindeers click
'Cause I just want you here tonight
Holding on to me so tight
What more can I do
Baby all I want for Christmas is you
Ooh baby
All the lights are shining
So brightly everywhere
And the sound of children's
Laughter fills the air
And everyone is singing
I hear those sleigh bells ringing
Santa won't you bring me the one I really need
Won't you please bring my baby to me...

Oh I don't want a lot for Christmas
This is all I'm asking for
I just want to see my baby
Standing right outside my door
Oh I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
Baby all I want for Christmas is...
You

All I want for Christmas is you... baby (repeat and fade)


Joana Pereira

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

segunda-feira, 14 de dezembro de 2009

Futurama videos

We couldn't present our videos in the oral evaluation. And that is because we decided to put them in the blog to everibody see them. We hope you like them:D

An Inconvenient Truth from Futurama:


Global Warming or: NONE LIKE IT HOT!:


Ângela Martins e Paulo Talhinhas

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

G.M.F.


Genetically modified food is food that is molecularly modified, so it can be produced with less money and time, so the companies’ productions of GM Foods can have more profit of it.
GM Food is regulated and controlled in labs to develop quality and turn them resistant to herbicides…
But… a great number of people don’t understand what it is about what they eat that food knowing almost anything about it.
On one e side this kind of food nay contain higher nutritional levels but maybe it has a high level of toxicity too.
G M F is harmful because we don’t know the real problems it con provoke in the human being.
On the other hand, it can also provoke allergic no reactions because it is unnatural. G MF may be the future food but the traditional food has a better quality and is healthier to Human race.

writte by: Ana Cachucho

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Environmental problems


We are in the 21st century that’s a different century because we have discovered the solution for global warming. If we found or not the cure, it’s going to be decided the future of Human Kind.
There are more and more environmental problems all around the world air pollution, water pollution, total or partial destruction of important ecosystems, global warming, greenhouse effect, ozone layers’s destruction.
In, a short period of time catastrophes become, more frequent because they are more dangerous sun influences and changes climate patterns. All these problems lead to the extinction of many animal and plant species.
Now, we have to save and protect our planet. We are the future; we are the hope, we are the world.

written by: Ana Cachucho

posted by; Isabel Brito da Luz

sexta-feira, 11 de dezembro de 2009

cloning


Cloning, has advantages and disadvantages, as in everything else.
I will appoint some benefits of cloning:
• Cloning human organs allows organ transplants at any time (no need to find donors);
• Cloning technology can replace damaged cells in the degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s;
• Techniques of cloning can be applied to other areas of biological items.
And now I'll name some risks of cloning:
• Clones have a very short period of life;
• Cloning extinct animals is dangerous because they would need to create the DNA itself;
• It may occurs programming errors in the genetic experiences.
I think the Institute Merrick had no ethical behavior, because they are cloning living organisms just to a take out some organs and then kill, this is not ethical!
In my point of view, cloning is an invasion of individuality. Each person has the right to be unique! Because each person has his qualities, his faults, his face...His soul!
The great interest of the institute was, in fact, a question of money. Unfortunately, greed can always win all over values.
I have learned about some aspects of cloning, so I concluded that I am not an adept of cloning, unless it is just done to clone organs in order to cure a disease. Otherwise, I do not agree with cloning! I think it is wrong to clone someone if you don’t have a very strong excuse to do it . Otherwise the world would turn itself in a very monotonous place to live..


written by:
Carolina Maio

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Global Temperature Warming



Introduction

The thaw is the period when the ice melts, because of the hot weather.
Thaw occurs in some parts of the world.
According to some experts opinion, the most affected area is near the Arctic.
In last years, the surrounded ice became 40% weaker and the area reduced itself 14%. All because the temperature’s average in Alaska Northern Canada and Siberia increased much more than the global average.
In about thirty years it increased 2.75°C.

Causes:

Thaw is a consequence of the undercurrents of the Antarctic.
Experts believe that there are geometrical sources in Arctic depths, where there were active volcanoes, 2000 years ago.

Atmosphere’s results

Ice reflects suns light and, because we are almost without ice, the sea is turning itself darker. Because of that it’s going to absorb sun radiations, which is going to increase the temperature’s levels – climate changes.
Seasons of the years are going to disappear.

Geosphere’s results

Land might become underwater, and that will cause alarming results to some islands, like the Azores.
The lost of all the ice matter.
Fusion between the ice and the sub soil has been provoked unsteadiness in airports and roads.

Biosphere’s results

It’s affecting millions of people.
It may provoke the extinction of several animal species, like polar bears.

Hydrosphere’s results

The increase of the level’s average of sea.
Stops undercurrents.

Curiosities

The most worrying is the glacier, named “Pine Island”, that moves 3.5 km each year.

written by:
Carolina Maio e Joana Pereira

posted by:
Isabel Brito da Luz

domingo, 6 de dezembro de 2009

Christmas is coming... Just smile :D








Ângela Martins

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

quarta-feira, 2 de dezembro de 2009

Do they know it's christmas

It's Christmas time
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmas time

But say a prayer

Pray for the other ones
At Christmas time it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging
chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
(Oooh) Where nothing ever grows
No rain nor rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

(Here's to you) raise a glass for everyone
(Here's to them) underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

Feed the world
Feed the world

Feed the world

Let them know it's Christmas time again

Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmas time again




Posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Disney Christmas Song - jingle bells

Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way
Bells on bob tails ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to laugh and sing
A sleighing song tonight

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh

A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
We got into a drifted bank
And then we got upsot

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh yeah

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh



Posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Christmas Joys


Evergreen boughs that fill our homes
With fragrant Christmas scents,
Hearts filled with the loving glow
That Christmas represents;


Christmas cookies, turkeys stuffed,
Festive holly berry,
Little faces bright with joy,
Loved ones being merry;


Parties, songs, beribboned gifts,
Silver bells that tinkle,
Christmas trees and ornaments,
Colorful lights that twinkle;


Relatives waiting with open arms
To smile and hug and kiss us;
These are some of the special joys
That come along with Christmas.

Poste by: Isabel Brito da Luz

The Nicest Present


Under the tree the gifts enthrall,
But the nicest present of them all
Is filling our thoughts with those who care,
Wanting our Christmas joy to share.



To you, whom we're often thinking of,
We send our holiday joy and love.

Posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

What Do We Love About Christmas?


What do we love about Christmas;
Does our delight reside in things?
Or are the feelings in our hearts
The real gift that Christmas brings.


It's seeing those we love,
And sending Christmas cards, too,
Appreciating people who bring us joy
Special people just like you.

Posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly Utopian but contained facility in the year 2019. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the "The Island" - reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie. He and all of the other inhabitants of the facility are actually human clones. Lincoln makes a daring escape with a beautiful fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta. Relentlessly pursued by the forces of the sinister institute that once housed them, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers.



Written and Posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Dolly sheep


Dolly (05-07-1996 - 14-02-2003), a Finn Dorsett ewe, was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell, though the first vertebrate to be cloned was a tadpole in 1952 . She was cloned at the Roslin Institute in Scotland and lived there until her death when she was six. On 2003-04-09 her stuffed remains were placed at Edinburgh's Royal Museum, part of the National Museums of Scotland.
Dolly was publicly significant because the effort showed that the genetic material from a specific adult cell, programmed to express only a distinct subset of its genes, can be reprogrammed to grow an entire new organism. Before this demonstration, there was no proof for the widely spread hypothesis that differentiated animal cells can give rise to entire new organisms.
Cloning Dolly the sheep had a low success rate per fertilized egg; she was born after 237 eggs were used to create 29 embryos, which only produced three lambs at birth, only one of which lived. Seventy calves have been created from 9,000 attempts and one third of them died young; Prometea took 328 attempts. Notably, although the first clones were frogs, no adult cloned frog has yet been produced from a somatic adult nucleus donor cell.
There were early claims that Dolly the Sheep had pathologies resembling accelerated aging. Scientists speculated that Dolly's death in 2003 was related to the shortening of telomeres, DNA-protein complexes that protect the end of linear chromosomes. However, other researchers, including Ian Wilmut who led the team that successfully cloned Dolly, argue that Dolly's early death due to respiratory infection was unrelated to deficiencies with the cloning process.


written by: Luís Montijo

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

Erin Brockovich


Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) was an unemployed single mother of three children who, after losing a personal injury lawsuit against a doctor in a car accident she was in, asks her lawyer, Edward L. Masry (Albert Finney), if he can find her a job in compensation for the loss. Ed gives her work as a file clerk in his office, and she runs across some files on a pro bono case involving medical records in real-estate files and PG&E offering to purchase the home of Hinkley, California resident Donna Jensen.
Erin begins digging into the particulars of the case, convinced that the facts simply do not add up, and persuades Ed to allow her further research. After investigation, she discovers a systematic cover-up of the industrial poisoning (hexavalent chromium) of the town of Hinkley's water supply that threatens the health of an entire community. She finds that PG&E is responsible for the extensive illnesses that the residents of Hinkley have been diagnosed with and fights to bring the company to justice.
Erin meets a mysterious man in a bar that claimed to Erin to have destroyed documents at PG&E, and discovers a 1966 document that ties a conversation of a corporate executive in the San Francisco PG&E headquarters to the Hinkley station that knew the water was contaminated but didn't do anything about it and advised to keep it a secret from the Hinkley neighbourhood. The evidence was examined by a judge without a jury and PG&E was court ordered to pay a settlement amount of $333 million that was divided among the 634 plaintiffs.


written by: Luís Montijo

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

The Island


It is 2019, and for the last three years, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) has lived in a colony of uncontaminated humans, each awaiting their chance to go to the last habitable place on Earth, known as "the Island." Lincoln is discontent and although he works and socializes well, he is known for being an outsider. During a meeting with Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the leader of the area where he lives, Lincoln seems helpless to explain his feelings. He is frustrated by the plain white clothes everyone is given and the strict control over everyone's activities and habits. Concerned, Merrick asks to run tests on Lincoln, and inserts some robot probes into his eye sockets to monitor his activities for 24 hours. Lincoln learns that his best friend, Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson), will soon be leaving for "the Island." Through an illicit visit to a construction area, Lincoln Six surreptitiously discovers that two former colonists, who were recently thought gone to the Island, are instead being subjected to brutal, ultimately fatal medical procedures and organ harvesting. He returns to the colony to rescue Jordan Two from a similar fate, but not before company chief Dr. Merrick discovers that Lincoln Six now knows the truth.
Through their escape, Lincoln Six and Jordan Two discover that the outside world is completely habitable and uncontaminated, and that each of them is a clone of a wealthy "sponsor" who paid five million dollars to be cloned as "insurance" to prolong the sponsor's life. Though they appear human, clones are in fact incubated to adulthood in as little as a year and thought of only as a product. While cloning itself is legal, allowing the clones to attain consciousness is not, and is contrary to what clients are told. However, without consciousness, Merrick confides, the product is not viable - the clones die and no use can be made of them. Thus, for financial and legal motivations, Merrick hires aparamilitary force, commanded by Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou), to use any means necessary to take out the two escaped clones. Merrick also discovers that Lincoln Six has some of the memories and skills inherited from his sponsor, therefore instead of having a mind designed equivalent of a fifteen year old, he is as intelligent as an adult.
The two clones escape to Los Angeles in hope of finding their sponsors. During these times, they begin to explore their feelings they have toward each other since before their escape, eventually becomes romantic. Jordan learns she is the clone of a famous model, Sarah Jordan, who has recently suffered a debilitating accident and is in a coma in New York City. They find Lincoln Six's sponsor at his L.A. home. He is Tom Lincoln, who is in imminent risk of liver failure. While sponsor and clone become acquainted, Lincoln Six recruits his sponsor to appear together on T.V. in order to expose the corporation and reveal the truth. On the way to the T.V. studio, however, Tom Lincoln attempts to preserve his "insurance" by turning against his clone. Lincoln Six turns the tables on his sponsor, tricks Laurent into killing Tom, and assumes Tom's identity.
Though Merrick is much relieved to hear Lincoln Six is dead, he has discovered that three entire product lines share the same "flaw" (clones exhibiting similar neural patterns as Lincoln Six before birth) and subsequently orders a "recall" — the destruction of scores of clones. Meanwhile, having assumed the identity of his sponsor, Lincoln Six finds a way to turn the tables on Merrick's corporation, and with help from Jordan and an unexpected alliance with Laurent, kills Merrick and rescues the colonists. The film ends with Lincoln and Jordan together riding the powerboat Renovatio to an unknown destination, which translates from Latin to mean the verb "Rebirth".


written by: Luís Montijo

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz

species in extinction


In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point). Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "re-appears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence.
Through evolution, new species arise through the process of speciation—where new varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche—and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition. A typical species becomes extinct within 10 million years of its first appearance, although some species, called living fossils, survive virtually unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. Extinction, though, is usually a natural phenomenon; it is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct.
Mass extinctions are relatively rare events, however, isolated extinctions are not rare. Starting approximately 100,000 years ago, and coinciding with an increase in the numbers and range of humans, species extinctions have increased to a rate estimated at 100—1000 times that in the recent fossil record. This is known as the Holocene extinction and is at least the sixth such extinction event. Some experts have estimated that up to half of presently existing species may become extinct by 2100.

written by: Luís Montijo

posted by: Isabel Brito da Luz