Over the weekend, I watched a beautiful film called Meru. It’s about three of the most famous climbers, two of which are North Face photographers/filmmakers, and the story of how they were, eventually, the first people to ever summit Meru mountain in India. Some of the visuals, many of which are not at mount Meru, take your breath away because they are so gorgeous. The story, itself, is truly fascinating as well.

I bring up this film because I noticed that, after being in Cultures, I viewed it quite differently than I would have before this semester. I more deeply analyzed the cinematography (thanks, Andy) and was able to see how production decisions added to the meaning of the film. I could also put many of the dialogue and story in the broader context of how humans interact with nature. This movie features, almost exclusively, professional climbers who work with The North Face, National Geographic, Outside Mag, etc., so I did a lot of thinking about what these kinds of people can contribute to the dialogue about how humans should interact with nature.

Renan Ozturk, Jimmy Chin, & Conrad Anker are, no doubt, extreme thrill seekers with an inhuman ability to read their own bodies as well as their natural surroundings, which, in many circumstances, could kill them. It was incredibly interesting to see how these three men, an many others interviewed for the film, find the most meaning in their lives through extreme climbing, skiing, and other sports where one false move or bad luck could end your life. At one point, I felt like they were disrespecting nature by pushing those boundaries, but by the end of the film, I realized that their motivations were not to antagonize danger, but to risk it in order to experience nature at a level very few people ever will.

P.S. WATCH THIS MOVIE, IT’S SO GREAT!

P.S.S. If you have an instagram, follow these three men. You won’t be disappointed.

I’ve seen Cove before, but it is equally disturbing to watch a second time. As someone who often likes animals more than people, I’ve always been amazed at the intelligence and beauty of whales and dolphins. Seeing the useless bloodshed of the dolphins in Taji makes me rethink my place in the foods chain and my carnivorous dietary choices.

I recently came across this article about how scientists have discovered how dolphins “see” through what they hear.

NBC NEWS – “Researchers claim to have captured an image that shows how dolphins perceive the world around them using echolocation. Jack Kassewitz, founder of the Speak Dolphin research organization, created a complicated process to replicate the reflected pulses of sound.

“When a dolphin scans an object with its high-frequency sound beam, each short click captures a a still image, similar to a camera taking photographs,” Kassewitz said in a press release announcing the findings.

Related: Dolphin Brain Scan Reveals Surprising Similarity to Bats

Echolocation sounds from dolphins observing several objects were recorded and analyzed — a tricky process, since the sounds form not just a flat picture but one with depth information, perhaps almost holographic. The image above shows a 2-D representation of the view a dolphin had of a trainer nearby in a tank — but the original data, captured with a device called a CymaScope, was printed in 3-D as well.

“Seeing the 3-D print of a human being left us all speechless,” Kassewitz said. “For the first time ever, we may be holding in our hands a glimpse into what cetaceans see with sound.”

The researchers also suggest that these sound-based images might be intelligible to other dolphins, implying a “sono-pictorial language.” Work is underway to study this possibility. “

I came across this post during yet again– another internship search. This post talks about a group of elementary, middle school and high school students that were acting as citizen scientists as they visited the Carmans, Nissequogue, and Connetquot Rivers, as well as the Peconic Estuary to look the health of these aquatic ecosystems.

https://www.bnl.gov/education/news/news.asp?a=6042&t=today

I think that incorporating citizen science would have been a great experience when I was in high school. I think that I would have enjoyed science classes much more had I been given the opportunity to have hands on learning experience. I know that education reform is a complex problem but I think that incorporating citizen science into it would help with the STEM epidemic America is suffering from and would just help kids enjoy science. Do you think there is much hope to formally including citizen science in coursework on the federal and state level?

http://www.ctpost.com/news/medical/article/Beijing-issues-1st-smog-red-alert-urging-schools-6680760.php

A very interesting thing happened in Beijing this morning: They issues a red alert due to smog, and urged schools to close down so people could remain out of the congested air. Does this mean that there will be some sort of change in the future, especially on the heels of Cop21?

I stumbled across this article earlier today with the title “Scientists Seek Moratorium on Edits to Human Genome That Could Be Inherited.” The title immediately attracted my interest. The general idea behind the article is that scientists are meeting and discussing the ethics on altering genetic material that could potentially be passed on in the gene pool. Genes that could be altered include disease causing genes but also physical genes that could fall under the category that would create “designer babies.” The main concern seems to be that alteration of these genes could change the gene pool dramatically over the next few generations.

I personally am not a fan of gene alteration. I understand the hope to select for certain genes to help prevent disease, but my main concern with gene alteration is the notion that people are trying to “play god.” With modern medicine, we have more or less stopped evolution within our own species and while these changes may be a new way for our species to evolve, the idea of selecting for genes that have evolved over millions of years is daunting to me and there is no real way for us to tell what the effect of this will be. I think this is just another example of humans interfering with nature and natural process.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/science/crispr-cas9-human-genome-editing-moratorium.html?action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0