Session 7 - Genetically Modified Food or not?

Once again, stress level becomes higher as deadlines for projects and assignments draw nearer. Mid-terms soon too! Kinda on the verge of going bonkers but still trying to hang in there!

So today's session on Biotechnology - mainly Genetically Modified (GM) Food- was rather interesting. In fact, all 5 presentations were on the same topic, with each classmate covering different aspects of it.

With regards to the heading of this post, would YOU prefer GM food or not? What are the pros and cons of consuming them? Just in case you don't know, everyone have already unconsciously consumed GM food. The first question to probe into would be, What exactly is GM food?

Take a look at the picture above. Obviously, it has been genetically modified. What else? I only found out today that tomato ketchup is considered as one too. As much as i don't wish to consume GM food, I've been tearing at least six packets of ketchup each time I buy a burger from McDonalds. (However, I don't think I'll want to eat a blue or purple corn if there is..) Somehow the first thought that came to my mind when unnatural colored corn was mentioned during class was, "Are you sure that's edible? Looks poisonous to me." (Oh well, food dye could have been injected, isn't it?)

And then we also talked about organic food. This topic got me thinking, are organic food GM food? It depends. The seeds of these crops could have been genetically modified right from the start but grown the organic/natural way. Whatever the case, if it comes from a lab --> GM. The next question would then be the ethics. I would very much like to know, why people in the US are not allowed to know the origins of the food they consume? Don't they have the rights? What happens if someone ate something really toxic/harmful to the human body, then they won't even know how they died. oO. Personally,  if the reason given was to have trust in the government in which they will not harm their people, I feel that it's not valid in any sense. One needs to know what he/she is consuming, just as how one needs to know what you are doing and not just follow blindly. Therefore, labels are extremely important, at least to me.

Moving on, we also covered scarcity of land. Take Bangladesh for instance, where land owned by people will be passed down from generation to generation. And this particular land will only become smaller each time it is being inherited by the younger generation. Why so? The land will continuously be divided which makes farming by each household within the whole generation tougher.

Should land be used to grow food or energy resources?

Many students chose the option to grow food, and so do I. In my opinion, although we have to strike a balance between these two options, but food is a greater necessity than energy resources. Without food, we cannot survive.

"There's enough on this planet for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed." 

- Mahatma Gandhi -

I like this quote very much because I agree with the message that Gandhi was trying to bring across. While it is true that we actually do have enough resources , food, etc, but look! So much food going to waste! People using up the planet's resources like no one else's business! If this continues, what would happen to the future generations? Really wonder how it will be like to have all resources depleted. Completely. Because of the previous' generations' inconsiderate way of using resources.. Things aren't that simple; There's more to it than just these examples. As mentioned in one of my previous post, if U.S. could just make an effort to reduce as much consumption as they can, the future would probably be brighter. Otherwise, I guess we'll just have to hope for a new planet to appear from somewhere that it allows life on it. Meanwhile, in order to bring about sustainability, farmers / people would have to enrich the soils on their land with chemical fertilizers, to replenish all the nutrients lost. That way, it will not go to waste and people can reuse it over and over again for good purposes.

Talking about food going to waste, I believe everyone knows the amount of waste (in general) that the world have. Let's not look at the world as a big picture; Zooming in to just Singapore alone, how many incinerators/landfill sites do we need to have before all of our waste can be cleared? Are we going to have to reclaim more land for our rubbish? I remembered having an excursion to the incinerator when I was still studying in primary school. (Oh yeah, amazingly I can still recall because it was such a good experience.) Standing in an enclosed "office" with glass that allowed viewing of the dumping ground, I saw how much waste was in it! According to the staff there, that was considered little (on the surface) because we didn't know how deep it was. But I can't recall if he said it was 100m deep or something. Looking at the machines doing their work to scoop up the junk we contributed and releasing all into this chimney-like hole for burning, I seriously think we contributed far too much, in a negative sense. However, the sad fact is that, I don't know how else we can improve. Raising awareness or getting one person alone to work on this isn't going to help. And we have to accept the fact that this is just Singapore ONLY. How many countries do we have.. Just a random thought which came to my mind: How many percent of the Earth contains our waste? Food for thought.

Just to keep some info. here, some interesting facts which I've learnt during class:

Biotechnology have different colors representing different sectors!

White: Industrial

Blue: Marine

Green: Agriculture

Red: Human

And finally, we touched on the last topic for the session: Food Security.

What's that? Some might ask. Here's the definition:

It refers to the condition where all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Basically, it means that there's no period where there's not enough food; That is, famine.

And how do you go about having food security? Notice that pests consume much of our food. This meant that a finite percentage of them had actually gone wasted due to the negligence of humans. Imagine that amount of food could have been used to feed the poorer rural areas. (Then a smaller fraction of the population would have to starve now!) Other than pests, food left to rot away. If we consider carefully, all these actually impacts us greatly without us knowing. We have been taking food for granted, always assuming that there's food somewhere out there for us but we ignored the fact that people are in fact, taking care of all these for us.

So, coming to the end, we went through 7 readings; and a question was raised:

How much land do we need to feed one person? On-the-spot research said 0.07 hectares - for vegetarians, and 0.5 hectares if we consume like how U.S. does, including meat consumption. The main aim of these figures was just to show the comparison. Therefore, conclusion: U.S. really really REALLY needs to reflect on themselves!

With that said, here's the end of my blog post. Rating for this session: 8.5/10 as we could have discussed more on environmental issues as well. But it's still good! As usual, looking forward to the next session in Week9.

Session 6 - Right Application of Healthcare?

Time flies! Week 6 now, and this means.. MID TERM IS COMING! I can feel the stress level increasing day by day, workload increasing minute by minute :/ Argh!

Anyway, today's session seems quite short, probably due to the many presentations during class. Basically, we covered the revolution of BioBusiness, in terms of healthcare and Biomedical Sciences. Prof showed us statistical figures of the market size of BioBusiness - Main focus on Global, South Asia, East Asia and USA figures.

If he had not mentioned about USA's spending on healthcare, I wouldn't have noticed that the number actually constitutes to more than half of the global spending on it! (Specifically 54%). And what's the reason for such a huge amount? Simply because, USA's spending the wrong way. While other countries would rather focus on investing in the younger generation to see how/ what more can be done to raise the life expectancy, USA actually invested large sums of money into life-saving measures for the aged.

Personally, I feel that it's a very big mistake to this move. It is similar to the case where someone is trying to salvage a never-ending situation instead of trying to prevent more from happening. How would it help to be able to prolong someone's (who had probably lived on Earth for say, 80 years) life by a little as compared to implementing some methods/ precautionary measures which could possibly enable the young.individual to live for over 80 years? You know that someone who has lived for 80 years would in a way, mean that their life journey should be nearing a full stop. And only when you just realized it that you start taking measures. Wouldn't that be a little too late?

But of course, I didn't mean that we should just neglect all the aged people. Rather, USA should change their perception or way of doing things.(I guess that it would feel as though trying desperately to save these group of people would be never ending too, as people are always dying and no matter how you try to save them, when they reach the end of their lives, it means the end. So why not, take a look at things from a different point of view. Start from the younger people.)

Next, we moved on to talk about the opportunity areas of BioBusiness. There are so many ways in which this industry can advance into. 4 main categories:
1. Biomedical BioBusiness
2. Environmental and Industrial BioBusiness
3. Agri-Veterinary and Food BioBusiness
4. Other BioBusiness Activities (which includes sub-categories such as Bioengineering, Bio-IT, Nanotech and Life Sciences).

Another point which caught my attention was the discussion on spiderwebs. An inch-thick of spiderweb has the ability to lift up a jet or something? oO. That's really amazing. Will probably do some research on it for general knowledge as it seems really interesting.

The last part of the session before all the presentations were the readings. We mentioned about the vicious cycle that escalates cost. For example, someone bought a healthcare insurance policy and due to some reasons, he/she fell ill; hospitalized. In order to grab the opportunity to make a worthy claim from the insurance company, this person tries to go for all sorts of treatment (be it full body screening or any important but unnecessary ones), staying over at Class A ward.. and then charge everything to the company. While the doctors are very willing to grant this patient his/her requests, it becomes really unfair to this poor insurance company. - and that's Moral Hazard.

The second point we discussed about was that, with the rising cost of healthcare, poor people are unable to afford treatment which could save their lives. As such, they are left to die. How cruel can this get?! Well, I feel that every individual should be entitled the rights to live on and hence, get treatment (some way or other even if they can't afford it). And an alternative where these people could turn to would be WHO. They should actually implement a policy where products, help and treatments should go to where they are needed.. and not be left neglected just because they couldn't afford any of such things.. :( I believe that there are still, many rural areas being left unconcerned for; fighting for own survival..

The last point was, approximately 40 million people in USA are not covered by insurance and these people without these policies are not entitled to treatment UNLESS they face life and death issues. Another unfair situation.. which I believe many would agree that healthcare isn't supposed to be run or provided for this way. Almost everyone who seeks treatment meant that they needed such services. So, how could they be turned away? I couldn't imagine a seriously injured person, fighting for his dear life and being admitted through A&E, be left on the stretcher and unattended to, just because he doesn't hold an insurance policy.. Hmmm. I could be exaggerating this situation (LOL) but just some pure thoughts - one of the worst case scenarios.

PS: With regards to the vicious cycle, just out of curiosity: Prof, since you studied medicine and also mentioned about dermatology during class, do you know of any special medicines or VERY effective cures for super acne face? Hahah. My brother who is one year younger than i am, has been visiting the skincare specialist for a long time (no idea how long, but very long). Somehow his face just doesn't get cured. Wonder if it is really due to super late nights or the doctor is trying to prolong treatment? lol.

Session 5 - Technology is so magical!

As usual, new blog posting after a new session! And currently we're in Week 5.

The lesson was started off by viewing an interesting video, and I really mean INTERESTING.It was about a virtual character named Milo, who has his own personality and real human can actually interact with him. Talking to him will make humans like the demonstrator (Claire) and us feel so immersed into his world, that she would even bend down to catch the "goggles" which he threw to her! Oh my, I really have to post it here to bookmark it.

Really wonder how people create it. (This seems more than just normal Kinect or Wii)

Well, this is, the amazing part about technology. Things which we perceived as impossible to be done, can actually be done! Now, even interacting with a screen; a virtual character is possible, how about a time turner? Hahah. Have always been hoping to own one because I believe I need it badly! Probably, everything about Harry Potter will come true to Earth. Seems too far-fetched but who knows. As said, make the impossible possible!

With all these new technologies, ideas, creations, it makes me look forward to the future, and welcoming all these which will make our lives more pleasant.

So much about the video, let's move to the theory part of the session. Prof went through examples on the areas of interest with regards to Information and Communication Technology (ICT). For instance, mass media. Looking at the past and at present, I see a great deal of change. How did people mass communicate in the past? Prof mentioned about drums to catch the attention of villages, etc. Present? There has been so much improvements made. Through internet, television, newspapers, videos / films, radio..

Likewise, Internet has also improved from Web 1.0 to 2.0 and moving to 3.0 where we can type complex questions in the search engines and the browser will analyze our responses, search the net for possible answers and organize results for us. How cool, isn't it?

We also went on to discuss about gaming, wireless technologies, cloud computing and even knowledge management. Talking about the last point (Knowledge Management), it is actually an important to have a Chief Knowledge Officer in companies or organizations. Their main role is to capture or tap into the minds of experts who have the knowledge; to exploit their intangible assets (i.e. know-how; CRM) and make it available to everyone. Chief Information Officer alone isn't enough because they merely ensure that the systems work.

Moving on, we also discussed about revolution. From hunters/gatherers societies where every individual hunt for food to ensure survival, we moved to agriculture and domestication of animals where people will hunt/grow food for us while we focus on developing other values. Then comes the industrial revolution where drastic changes were made to agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and technologies. It marked a turning point in human history. Years and decades passed. We are currently in the stage of ICT/ Knowledge Revolution where efficiency is expected to increase even more.

Technologies may be extremely advanced these days. But the danger and threats will always exist. Take for example, security concerns. Invasion of privacy. Identity theft. Exposure to corrupted influences. All these risks, as mentioned during class, causes crimes to take place and the damage done could be very significant. I'm not going to imagine what would happen if some hackers break into any infrastructures or systems. How much data would be lost. Everything is going to just shut down that way. They will just be destroying all hard work and pain that people took to build up. Once again, starting from scratch which will be even more challenging then.

And the theory part of the session ended. Moved on to 4 individual presentations.I felt that this week's topic seems much more interesting than the past few weeks. Presenters get to imagine how the future will be like with what kind of technologies or inventions. I liked the idea about the future TV and probably it will really be in the market some time in the future. Time for inventors/creators to let their imaginations run wild again!

Another presentation which caught my attention was by Shaak.

Free VS Freemium concept
Examples:
Getting free or cheap razor blades, but paying much more for the blades itself.
Googling on search engines for free, but subscribers to it will pay money to make up for the loss of the "free" searches. Same goes for Youtube.
Playing online games for free, but you have to buy game credits.
Downloading the Lite version of apps on Iphone, but you have to pay to get the full version.

Overall, I'll rate this session 9/10. It was great!

Individual Topical Review Paper Outline

Preamble:

1.      Specific Innovation of Interest

My topic would be on Artificial Intelligence, with the focus on Singularity.

Coupled with the recent advances in technology, artificial intelligence will eventually lead to the future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence. In no time, artificial intelligence will be everywhere. Dangerous tasks will no longer be performed by us; perhaps cancer might even be a thing of the past but all of these come at a price. From my point of view, these advancements would cause revolutionary disruptions to the lives of every living being in terms of over reliance on technology and the wipeout of culture. 

Extra Info:

http://singularityhub.com/singularity/

2.     Rationale for selecting this innovation

Comparing the world from the past and at present, development of such intelligence (e.g. machines, gadgets, etc) has resulted in a drastic change to human lives. With rapid advancement of technology and the anticipated “intelligence explosion”, it is unknown as to what the future might hold. Therefore, I am looking forward to explore the potentially large scale impacts on humans as well as the social/ethical issues of Singularity.

3.    Proposed approach to development of paper

a.       Executive Summary

The focus on Singularity and the potential impacts for the future; Evaluation on social/ethical issues

b.      Background and Introduction

What is Singularity? / Concept of Singularity

c.       Historical Perspective

History of the idea; R&D?

Issues raised

d.      Current Situation

Where we are today

Perspective of others?

Positive/ Negative impacts

e.      Future Considerations

Probability of success by researchers?

Future impacts on the world as a whole

Future of Artificial Intelligence

4.       Applications

5.       Conclusion

6.       References

Session 4 - Change Management = Change Leadership? No.

Alright! Monday was one of the happiest day in the 4 weeks of Uni! I'm done with my individual oral presentation for this module. Few more assignments to go! But before i start my personal reflection on my own presentation, I shall blog about discussions during class first.

So, session 4 covered the topics on Drivers of World Change and Change Management VS Change Leadership.

During the first half of the session, Prof brought up the issue of Evolutionary Change VS Revolutionary Change. The former refers to small incremental changes over time while the latter is more disruptive; leading to irreversible change. It calls for a radical way of thinking. One good example would be banning of fossil fuels. If this really happens, it cuts off our sources and we can only crack our heads to find other alternatives to replace fossil fuels - Disruptive. Because it would then change our lives and way of doing things. Another example would be germs or epidemics. I believe this would definitely affect our lives greatly. (Thankfully, SARS outbreak and H1N1 weren't too serious, as compared to other countries.. hmmm.)

How about competitions between individuals, among organizations or countries? Well, that is, too, a driver of world change. It forces them to brainstorm for new ideas/processes/products to keep up or be the first to lead the change, which partly explains the incredible speed that change is taking place.

I love the quotes which Prof put up on the slides, especially the below:

"Man's mind, once stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Basically, it means that, once you have expanded your horizon, you start to think about the world and/or technology differently. And you won't revert back to the old way of thinking or processing things. :) Hope to see nice quotes as such in the coming sessions!

As for Change Management VS Change Leadership, I did not come across the diagram which Prof put on the slide even after much research done on articles. Here it is:

I felt that it has a good concept but not sure if the following example works since Relationship issue was brought up during discussion:

Uninformed opinion: When a couple first met, they don't forsee any disagreements or problems with each other. Therefore, developing good impression/opinion of the other party.

Informed Pessimism: Over time, things may start to change (negatively) when one/both of them know more about each other's habits.

Informed Realism: Couple then tries to resolve any arising disputes.(Assuming it was successful?)

Completion: Live happily ever after. Hahaha.

Interesting, isn't it?

Then, i also read up on Reading 3 for this half of the session - What is the difference between Management and Leadership? - By Alan Murray. A little different from the article I used during my presentation but still, it's good because it differentiates a Leader from a Manager, in terms of characteristics. But just to note, here's the definition from my research:

Management - Planning, budgeting, controlling, organizing, problem-solving; associated with small changes to minimize disruptions.

Leadership - Driving forces, creating a vision for the future, communication, creating an environment to motivate and inspire people to make the vision a reality. Associated with large scale transformation.

After all these discussions, it was time for PRESENTATIONS! Again. Truthfully speaking, even after 3 years of presentations in Poly, i still feel that I'm not good at it. And each time I know I have to stand in front of the whole class/panel of judges, I get very nervous (but still trying my best to overcome it!) Well, I don't remember doing individual presentations in Poly.. (Or maybe i did but forgotten) but i attempted to make many changes this time - Did not memorize my script word for word, having SO FEW WORDS on my slides and elaborating the rest all on my own and using an Apple product to do my presentation. LOL. Kinda shocked when the slides shown on my computer screen was different than using Windows. Overall, I tried my best to slow down in my "speech" as I was known to be a bullet train by peers and lecturers in Poly. I gained a sense of achievement this time round as I think I did well, as compared to the past. HURRAY!

Inspired by Steve Jobs's style of presentation, I hope to present my work the same way as he did, in the future.

I rate this session a 9/10! Great session this week, and always looking forward to the next! :)