'Sailing away from the safe harbour' thoughts...

Pain has been classified into several types: prickling, burning, deep or referred pain. They are all characterised by the different perceptions of the person suffering. There is however one more type of pain, which frankly is quite unusual - it is the phantom pain. Is is chracterised by tactile and movement perceptions that remain after amputation of parts of the body! This really sounds quite interesting, doesn't it? Apparently, adults are more likely to experience such pain rather that children. Hmm...

I'm only writing to confirm that revising for exams is beneficial indeed. Apart from gaining the knowledge, we find out lots of interesting information! This might sound dull, but I've never heard of what happened to Bob Dylan in 1997... Well, from my little revision folder I found out that he suffered from acute pericardial fungal infection! Interesting...

In one of my biodiversity lectures, my lecturer showed a very easy way of remembering the order of taxa classification. I thought, I'd write about it here, so all of you who find it a bit hard to memorise the order, could make some use of this tip. Here it is:

K ing
P hilip
C ame
O ver
F rom
G lorious
S pain

K ingdom
P hylum
C lass
O rder
F amily
G enus
S pecies

It's good, isn't it?
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I'm not sure if many of you are familiar with the above term, but it applies to biodiversity, more specifically means that animals are capable of predicting the quality of a patch they occupy in terms of food resources. What happens is, species of animals occupying a certain area distribute themselves between the several patches. I really wanted to mention this to show that clearly animals are "sensible" and I find it quite amazing how ideal they are in predicting the patch quality!

("ideal" means that the animals are ideal in assessing the patch quality and "free" means that they are capable of moving from one patch to another)

J xx

Right, I'm only writing this because I find some of the methods of counting the species simply interesting. In 1982, the Erwin study took place - basically Erwin desperately wanted to find out how many species are there in the world. Of course it would be rather impossible to count every single organism, therefore he decided to focus on beetles only. He particularly studied them in Panama and then later on did some more research in Brazil. Now, here is the part I am excited about: he fogged 19 types of trees over 3 seasons (this of course was in the tropical forests, because that is the area of the most heterogeneity of insects, particularly beetles) and then collected all the dead insects that fell off the trees. I had to write about this, because in my opinion this is such an unique way of approaching the desire to count up loads of different species of insects. Apart from all the dead organisms he managed to collect, he also considered the rest of insects living in the forest floor and then added it all up together. In the end he came up with quite a controversial amount, namely 30 million insect species in the tropical forests themselves! There have been quite a lot criticism from other scientists and beetle experts in reaction to Erwin's study. One of the most important issues regarding his research is the fact that Erwin could have underestimated biodiversity simply due to the fact that he was not aware of what amount of diversity of beetles from the tress he was sampling. Oh well, I guess it's not a really easy task to do... Currently, it is predicted that there are between 5 to 50 mln of species on Earth (1.5 have been already described).

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The vast majority of population is well aware of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, which gained its recognition due to the disappearance of dinosaurs. It took place around 65 mln years ago and wiped out a huge part of the past flora and fauna. The suggested theory is commonly known too - the asteroid hitting the surface of the planet. The mentioned mass extinction however, was not the only one throughout the Earth's history. Interestingly, there are said to have been at least 5 mass extinctions throughout the planet's life. The other four include:

- End Triassic extinction - around 200 mln years ago, presumed to have been caused by lava eruptions and massive floods, 22% of life in the oceans vanished;

- Permian Triassic extinction - took place around 250 mln years ago, this was probably the most destroying one, it is estimated that 95% of all species existing back then disappeared from the surface of the planet, we need to bear in mind that life back then was not fully evolved and consisted mainly of organisms occupying waters, the causation is said to be a comet or asteroid striking the planet;

- Late Devonian extinction - happened around 370 mln years ago, cause is unknown also more details are hard to define;

- Ordovician - Silurian - around 450 mln years ago, caused by the drop in the sea levels and the forming of glaciers, followed by the melting of these and causing mass decrease in numbers of organisms;

Interestingly, some scientists argue that we are currently stepping onto the sixth mass extinction. Their argument is supported with various facts, such as the present biodiversity crisis. The action bioscience website lists the following reasons for the biological diversity loss:

- "human destruction of ecosystems
- overexploitation of species and natural resources
- human overpopulation
- the spread of agriculture
- pollution"
(http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html)

Let's hope the 6th extinction will be at least slowed down...
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Yes the exams are coming up, and frankly I have not got much time left to revise. Although I have been quite a good girl and did lots of revision. Revision is what I want to write about briefly. I find it very amazing how some people start revising literally the night before the exam! I personally need at least two weeks to prepare myself both academically and mentally. And don't get me wrong, it's not like I have to memorise everything... I do work during the year and generally would feel confident if didn't revise... But my point is that I would not be able to leave everything until the last minute, because I would simply FREAK OUT! I know someone who does all his assignments or revision right before the deadline or exam and gets amazing grades. And on top of that - nothing phases him, he just goes into the hall and writes the exam. I absolutely cannot work like this. It's quite interesting that people approach essay writing/revising differently...

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Well, this has not been confirmed yet, because costs a lot of money, but hopefully I will manage to do it this summer. What am I talking about? I am talking about the unbelievable opportunity of observing the amazing gorillas in the wilderness and spending some time with the Masai people in Masai Mara, all in Kenya! This will probably be the most exciting experience of my entire existence! Can you imagine? If I get to see the gorillas in their natural habitats, it will be like an anthropological dream coming true! It makes me shiver, even when I think about it! Right, let me calm down a bit... I originally was googling voluntary work in Africa, because one of my friends helped kids in Kenya with some basic things, such as sharpening pencils or teaching basic English. I wanted to do something similar and apart from all these institutions organizing voluntary work in Africa, I found a website of the Exodus, where they give people an opportunity of seeing the gorillas and visiting the Masai villages! I looked at it very briefly, and immediately felt it was my destiny!!! This is sooooo what I want to do, but I never expected I would be considering doing it during my undergraduate studies... Oh, please keep your fingers crossed! I hope I will cope financially and be able to go on this enbelievable trip!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.exodus.co.uk/

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I have always been interested in biology. Nature is the most amazing feature of my live and focusing on it is actually of paramount importance for me. Biological diversity or anthropology, anything that relates to what lives on the Earth, really intrigues me a lot. Having studied biological sciences for ages, it makes me wonder how far can humans' ability to learn reach? I could say, I know more less all important aspects of biology, there are still however so many areas that I have not covered, and every single day I discover new bits and pieces and I so desperately do not want them to escape from my tired (revising for the exams...)brain. How much knowledge is there? Is it all possible that human brain is able to memorise the entire information about a particular subject? I think, it definitely depends on what subject we're talking about, but as far as I know, science has become so advance and of course keeps developing, that it will never reach an end. Every single day, interesting discoveries are being made, and the exact same ideas are approached in different techniques very often giving results that do not match each other... surprisingly. This is what makes science so fascinating! The possibitlies of discovering, testing and challenging!
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