We depend on plastic for computers, food, health-care, and just about anything else you can think of. All of this plastic is created nearly exclusively using oil. You can’t watch a news program without hearing someone talk about about the need to invest in energy alternatives such as solar, wind, and nuclear power.

Yet, bioplastics are rarely mentioned. I think the reason politicians don’t talk about this, is because most people aren’t aware this is an issue. (72% of Americans don’t know plastic is made from oil) Scarce oil without a cheap bioplastic alternative means expensive plastic, and expensive plastic would drastically change society.

What is stopping us from switching over to bioplastic?

1. Bioplastic is more expensive than regular plastic.

2. Currently, for a product to legally be a bioplastic, it must meet high standards for biodegradability. For example, the European Union mandates that bioplastic undergo 90% degradation in 90 days(EN13432). The U.S. requires 60% degradation in 180 days(ASTM6400).

3. The belief that the components of bioplastic need to be used for feeding people, by both direct consumption and to aide in growing plants as compost.

4. Plastic is easier to recycle.

Overcoming these hurdles:

1. This hurdle will be overcome whether we like it or not. Oil based plastic will stop being cheap due to oil scarcity. At some point in the near future, the scarcity of oil will raise the price of plastic above the price of bioplastic. The price of producing bioplastic needs to be lowered through research before this happens, so that the negative effects of the transition are minimized.

2. Bioplastic production needs to be deregulated. Bioplastics could degrade 10 times slower than what the regulations require, and still be a significant improvement over regular plastic. It doesn’t make sense to have laws under the guise of being environmentally friendly, when these laws discourage research into creating long lasting plastic from renewable sources instead of nonrenewable sources.

3. We currently have the resources to feed everyone. If the starving had the ability to buy the food, the market would provide them with food. Evidence of this includes how wasteful rich countries are with food, the vast amount of relatively unused land that could be converted to farming, and the wide spread practice of growing plants for meat animals instead of feeding more people by directly growing the plants for people. The market could change to accommodate an increased demand for plants and food. In fact, since roughly 75% of malnourished people live in rural areas, an increased demand for argicultural development in poor countries probably would reduce starvation by creating jobs in these areas.

4. Having a variety of bioplastics with a wide range of degradation rates, would make directly converting old bioplastic into new bioplastic complicated. The solution is to turn all of the plastic into compost, and to use the compost to provide nutrients to new plastic producing plants. According to the EPA, less than 6 percent of plastic is recylced . Since current plastic is only recycled to a minor degree, and since bioplastic can be recycled as compost, I do not think the possible inability to directly reuse biolastic is a significant con.

Society has become dependent on plastic. And the problems hindering the development of bioplastic can be overcome. Widespread awareness of this issue will aid in overcoming it.

Sean A. Spence wrote an article in the Journal of British Psychiatry, about whether we should use drugs to make people behave ethically. Among other points, the paper gives a few examples of ways that drugs are already being used to make people behave ethically.

There are drugs that make you happy, drugs that help you pay attention, and even drugs that make you smarter. What about drugs that increase empathy? There are many potential applications for such a drug.

These drugs might be able to help sociopaths, who have no ability, or a significantly lessened ability to sympathize with other human beings. It could “cure” a sociopath in the same way that an anti-depressant can cure someone with clinical depression.

What if an entire group of people artificially upped their empathy? Would this group of people be happier or sadder, more productive or less productive?

I’m not even willing to guess. This is an area where much more research needs to be conducted. Vast amounts of money are spent on both promoting behavior enhancing drugs, and studying the effects of these drugs on individuals. But, little is being done to research the effects of wide use on a population

The current trend is towards it being okay for everyone to use drugs that “improve” behavior. Is this trend for better or worse?

It is interesting that it usually takes a tragedy to set people straight, and even then some don’t catch on. In October, 2007, 17-year-old Ashton Bonds showed up at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital in rural Virginia, complaining about pain in his side. Less than a week later he was pronounced dead. Ashton was infected with MRSA. MRSA, short for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a modern day superbug of our own creation. Spawned by the gross over perscription of antibiotics, this superbug is resistant to almost all of the commonly prescribed antibiotics (except vancomyocin).

The scary thing is that this is not the only bug of its kind, there are now several multiple, drug-resistant organisms that have been created. This is just the one we hear about in the news. Other genuses such as Enterococcus, Streptococcus, Neisseria, Salmonella and Mycobacterium tuberculosis all have shown multiple drug resistant strains. So the next time you go to the doctor with a cold, begging for antibiotics, think twice.

The responsibility is on us, not just the doctors, to utilize antibiotic drugs in a responsible way. Antibiotics are a wonderful thing when you really need them, lets hope that they can be as useful to us in the future as they have been in the past.

Chrisitianiy is the most popular religion in the world. In the U.S., over 80% of the population is christian. The majority of Christians
think the world is going to end soon. This poses a large hurdle when trying to make preparations for the future.

We are starting to run into potentially devastating problems, whose solutions require long term planning. Global warming, limited resources, foreign policy, and many if not all of our other needed improvements are adversely affected if you aren’t thinking ahead farther than 50 years.

We are struggling to have a serious discussion about our current problems. How are we going to plan for future dilemmas? One example is the effect of genetic engineering and cloning on our gene pool. Topics like these aren’t discussed enough, and when they are discussed, they usually aren’t taken seriously. This is despite the fact that these are near future problems whose solutions will shape society.

Christianity isn’t just harmful in terms of not thinking long term, it is harmful in shaping our present way of thinking. Many sects of Christianity are actively anti-science. It amazes me that we are still debating evolution. I worked in a lab for about a year, inserting genes into S. Aureus bacteria to figure out which of its proteins aid in uptaking heme. Heme uptake is vital for the survival of many types of bacteria, so stopping heme uptake could be an effective way of fighting infections. I’ve used the primers, ran the gels, and grown the petri dishes. I know that the building blocks of life can be manipulated. I also know that these blocks are inherited and change over time.

There is overwhelming evidence of evolution. Scientists have seen bacteria evolve significant mutations in the lab, and genetic drift is a commonly observed and indisputable phenomena. In fact the more we learn about genetics, the more we see how perfectly it backs up evolution. You would be hard pressed to find a geneticist, biologist, or even a reputable scientist who doesn’t believe in evolution. Our understanding that has stemmed from the theory of evolution is responsible for new medicines and genetic diseases being engineered away. Heck, most of the food we buy at the grocery store has been modified using our understanding of genetics. Yet, a large percent of the population happily reap the benefits of the science, while telling the scientists they are wrong.

The anti-evolution debate is reminiscent of the belief that earth is the center of the universe. In both situations, not accepting the truth is based on ego instead of logic. It makes the earth less special if it is not the center of the universe, even if it makes more sense mathematically. It also makes humans seem less special if we evolved from single-cell life, instead of being the supreme organism, instantaneously created to look the same as god.

I realize that many christians believe in evolution, and some do not believe the world will end soon. But it is the “faith” based thinking which christianity perpetuates that is keeping these beliefs alive. Lots of people are insulted by anti-christian talk. But, it’s time to leave the dark ages. I think tolerance towards christianity is part of the problem. Christian ideas should be weighed on the same scale as all other ideas. The evidence isn’t their, and the group-thinking and anti-science ideals are harmful. The world needs scientists coming up with solutions, not zealots waiting for the end of the world.

My neighbors are from Kazakhstan, they are touring the U.S. for about a year before returning to college in their country. They live in various locations for a couple of months at a time, find jobs, and learn about the area.

Janna(Zhanna) is majoring in political science in Kazakhstan. She said something very interesting the other day.

She said that the U.S. has all the oil that it needs underneath it’s feet, and that it exports large amount of oil. I thought she was wrong. However, after doing some research, I was suprised to find that the U.S. does export very large amounts of oil. In fact, we are one of the world largest exporters. According to cia.gov, we rank in the top 20.

We are playing a game. In this game we bully other countries into selling us their oil for cheap, and then we sell our oil for as much as we can. This results in massive profit for oil companies and crooked politicians.

Her explanation was that the U.S. is trying to be a “Super Country”. We are trying to control everything, and have the best and most of everything.

Next time you go to the gas pump, think about all the oil we are exporting. The price is going up because we are running out of oil. Remember? Which is why exporting what we have is a good idea.

We might not have enough oil to have no imports, but it would definitely lower the price if companies weren’t exporting our oil.

I know this isn’t scifi related, but I think it is important. I think it is something that most people don’t know. It’s certainly something that I didn’t know.

*Update*

I was asked to prove the claim that the U.S. is one of the top 20 exporters: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2176rank.html.

Unfortunately, the most recent data for the U.S. is from 2004.

Iraq only ranks four spots above the U.S., with 1,670,000 barrels exported per day instead of 1,048,000.