Mythology

Since I was a child, actually since I read the book "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, I love Mythology. 

J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter's author) was the one who showed me this amazing world of myths through the pages of her books. 

Other thing that lead me to know about the myths, was a child TV cartoon called "Mythic Warriors", in the channel Discovery Kids. This cartoon showed me the entire Greek Mythology in form of a cartoon. I learned a lot about Greek Mythology in this program. For me, the most remarkable episode was about the myth of "Eros", the god of love, and a mortal called "Psyche" with he married. 

The Mythology is very interesting, and if we can understand it we can comprehend the origin of many things of our quotidian. The Mythology always was used for teach the younger about the past, working like a vehicle bringing wisdom and never leaving the past die.

Someone can ask "Why these unbelievable histories are important for us?" I can imagine a thousand answers.  

The name of the days of the week, can be one excellent example, because in many languages the names are tributes for Nordic gods: Wednesday is a tribute for the god “Woden or Odin”, the king of Nordic gods; Thursday is because the god “Thor”; Friday is the day of goddess “Frigga”, wife of Odin. 

The name of the planets also came from Mythology, more precisely from Roman Mythology: Mercury is the messenger of gods and the guide of the souls to the underworld; Venus is the goddess of love and Neptune the god of the sea.

Other famous mythological legacy is the Olympic Games, that according to the myth started in the Ancient Greece with the hero Heracles and remains until nowadays. Actually, many of the modern sports came from Ancient Greece, like the athletics and swimming.

As I said, there are a thousand of examples, and is impossible for us live without interact with the mytlogical history. Deny the mythology is deny our past.

Agriculture, Agronomy and Agronomic Engeneering

Like a student of Agriculture, I heard thousands times questions like “What means agriculture?”, “What an agronomist does?”, "Which the difference between an Agronomist and an Agronomic Engineer?” These concepts are very confused to the people can understand. This occur because aren't well explained. I will explain below. 

The definition of Agriculture in Oxford Dictionary is “The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products”. So the Agriculture is the science or the field of expertise in which the professional called “Agronomist” or "Agronomic Engineer” works. Besides haven’t any difference between these two professionals. Actually the only difference is the title, because everyone undergraduate in Agronomic Engineer can be called “Engineer” too. The Agronomist can’t, but all the attributions and knowledge during the course are the same.

The agronomy is an amazing profession. We study all the environment conditions, like the soil, plant physiology, weather, agribusiness, genetics, always seeking the best techniques to maximize the quantity and the quality of the food production. 

Currently we can control, inside greenhouses, all the environmental conditions, even the quantity of nutrients that the plant will absorb or the luminosity. 

My field inside agronomy is Genetics. We study ways to improve the plant performance in different environmental situations to maximize the production, principally through increasing the resistance against pathogens and pests. Not necessarily using Genetically Modified Organisms. We can work only with the natural resistance of the plant lineage.

As I said in the last post, the little difference in our DNA allows extreme variations, like one live being with a genetic resistance against a terrible disease, while many die. Never a disease will kill all the living beings in the world, this is impossible. 

We can use the genetic variations to select new plant lineages and thus produce more food. 

Because this and more the Agronomy is more than a job, is a passion. 

DNA: Our Molecular Fingerprinting

                                                Font: http://www.cafepress.com/+dna_fingerprint_large_poster,696433522

We are basically the combination ''written" in our DNA molecule. 

Our DNA have billions of thousands combinations, and this combinations determine which characteristics will be expressed. Because this we are different even between us, despite we share 99% of our genetic code. This little difference, less than 1% is the reason of all of our variation, like size, eye color, weight, etc. 

What is very interesting is the fact of the scientist Alec Jeffreys, in 1984 at the University of Leicester, discovered that this little variation works like a fingerprinting. This occur because the variation, like a fingerprinting, is unique. In other words, means that the variation of you that is reading this text is different of mine. 

The theory of DNA Fingerprinting is amazing because allow us, for example, to track a person that committed a crime. 

It starts a new area of science, immediately lead to many applications, like crimes, paternity tests and DNA conservation. 

The paternity tests became common currently, and the DNA conservation proved be something very useful to maintain the DNA of stinciton species. Nevertheless, this technique used to caught criminals is considered for many people like a great modern problem, because they think this is a clear violation of Civil Liberties, once they store the profiles of millions citizens in databases.  

Before this situation we have to ask us if is right to use this technique in favor of what they called “Justice”. Obviously is an amazing way to caught criminals, but I guess that can be used with caution to respect the people. 

Avoiding the Ebola`s Pandemic

  Font: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/11/health/ebola-fast-facts/

The world should look seriously to the Ebola Outbreak in Africa and take measures immediately to stop this disease. Alexandra Sifferlin wrote in the article "Window to Stop Ebola outbreak Is 'Closing Quickly,' Official Warns," about this absurd situation.

The World Health Organization should send appropriate help to africans, because the simple isolation of the affected areas will not be enough to stop the outbreak.

“Getting supplies and people in is a big challenge,”once the areas are in isolate regions and the airlines stopped to fly there, is hard to send the volunteers and supplies to there.

The africans deserve all the help necessary, after all they are humans like us.