There are really amazing things around us that keep us busy wondering about them. To some extent RESEARCH can give some clues!
The world of twins triggers lots of thoughts especially about: Are they really identical? If they were, how? Would they continue to be identical? Would they at stage become different? When and in which way?
If there not indentical, in this way this would be?
Follow the story here:
Water and nutrients are essentials for the evolution and sustainability of life on earth. The magic, secrets and drivers of life on earth are not human inventions. Human innovation is merely restricted to accelerating the natural metabolic processes on earth, e.g. production of food in agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries, beyond natural rates and limits. The growing global population and the underlying industrial and economic systems continue to fuel the so-called human innovation towards a never ending spiral for more and more unsustainable consumption of the natural resources.
Humans can not servive on earth without clean water, healthy environment and sustainable food production. However, these requirements can only be fulfilled through sustained production and consumption of energy and natural resources for supporting the basic needs for humans, e.g. housing, education, health, transport and communication. What originally started for the benefits of human developments turned out to major threats for human survival because of increasing waste and pollution from use and abuse of the natural resources.
Humans have interfered in the natural functioning and metabolism of all life forms on earth with negative impacts on essential and global biogeochemical cycles. Examples are: global warming as resulted from malfunctioning of the global carbon-cycle. Degradation in O-cycle (oxygen cycle) is also remarkable because of unfit and polluted air in urbanized living areas, in particular cities as result of expansion of traffic and transport systems and random industrial activities; poor access to oxygen in aquatic systems because of eutrophication in aquatic systems and excessive use of fertilizers on land; enhanced photo-reactions in the atmosphere with the associated negative impacts of tropospheric production of ozone.
Declining reserves of natural phosphorous, are among emerging threats, because of increasing production and use of this limited natural resource with irreversible impacts on P-cycle. Agricultural and industrial nitrogen inputs to the environment currently exceed inputs from natural N fixation. The impacts of anthropogenic N-inputs have significantly altered the global N-cycle over the past century. Global atmospheric N2O have increased from pre-industrial levels where most of which are due to the agricultural sector.
Human activities have major effects on the global S-cycle. The burning of coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels has greatly increased the amounts of sulphur in the atmosphere,?ocean and depleted the sedimentary rock sink, i.e. instead of being burned at steadily rates. Over most polluted areas there has been a 30-fold increase in sulfate deposition. The enhanced sulphur and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere is causing negative impacts through acidification of aquatic systems with global negative feedback effects on aquatic life and vegetation.
All in all quality of global land-water resources are under accelerating threats from pollution and waste.
http://www.flatheadwatershed.org/natural_history/natcycles.shtml
The emerging economies are like express trains, if you don’t catch one of these trains you will left behind with an old ticket worth nothing.
All of the so-called emerging economies suffer from increasing poverty. The fast developing economies in these countries and regions do not leave enough time for coordinating all the necessary instruments and tools to provide sustainable social-economic infra-structures.
http://www.poverties.org/urban-poverty-in-india.html#gallery[pageGallery]/2/
One out of every three children never sets foot in a classroom. Two major questions need to answered in this context:
(1) what shall we do with one third of the world population lacking education;
(2) can we naive enough that we will have global SECURITY under such conditions.
With what is happening around the world we can not run away from answering these two strategic questions. As a result of these two questions many other questions are currently facing us with merely no sustainable answers. “Sustain-earth.com” will continue to address the emerging global threats facing the future of our planet.
Education on all levels has been a major focus for attention and recognition around the world especially in the recent decades. It is without hesitation an enormous privilege for anyone of us to get the necessary time and resources required to join education at any level. University, higher education and professional training are becoming key instruments of increasing importance for joining not only the labor market but the global social community in large. Such evolution is a result of four major factors: (1) accelerating motivation and wishes to take part in global social-media and socio-economic debates where safety, security and peace are central components; (2) the emerging global transfer and adaptation to sustainable societies where environment and social issues are becoming major components in shaping and re-shaping world economy; (3) accelerating participation of the population, investors and expertise from the new emerging and growing economies and markets; (4) the growing public awareness of gender issues, the increasing pressures for erasing poverty, integration of marginalized groups and mitigation of increasing social- segregation resulted from religious and ethnic conflicts.
Education has enormous power to empower individuals in many aspects. This, also, creates huge pressures on political systems and policy-makers to respond promptly to the non-ending needs of more informed young generations facing a totally new different and demanding future.
However, we should not be naive and ignore the increaing threats, anti-actions and hostile behavior of conservative powers, interests and groups around the world. There are clear demonstrations and evidence for more and more threats from terrorist attacks against education on all levels especially in Africa and the MENA region. Unfortunately, these attacks started to becmore and more organized and coordinated thus making huge pressures for finding collective actions, policies and strategies for productive and sustainable solutions. Kenya, Mali, Nigeria and other countries in the MENA region as well as Pakistan, and even in Europe and the USA are some examples.
The most recent of these terrorist attacks is what happened at Garissa University College in Kenya on Thursday 2 April 2015 where 147 students were killed and at least 79 people were wounded. The European University Association invites and encourages all European universities to observe one minute’s silence today, Monday 27 April 2015, 12:00 CET, in remembrance of all those killed and affected by such barbaric attack. This is certainly not enough, sustainable and more effective long-term and large-scale solutions need to be found.
http://agenda.unamur.be/upevent.2015-04-23.4513461659 
Preparing yourself for higher studies and for embarking on new “Career-Development-Plans, e.g. at universities, requires careful planning and robust management plans to meet occasional, and probably frequent constrains of, tight “time and economy” budgets. In advance preparations of housing, local transportation, how to solve unexpected socially, economically and knowledge related obstacles are essential. To have quick strategies and solutions, of how, who and when, are essential for continuity in your studies and “Career-Development-Plans.
One of the major challenges in our lives is always the same for all of us and converges to making proper decisions in critical transitional periods. Some examples are changing schools in connection with ending one stage of education and embarking on a new and different one; changing destination to study in a new country with a different culture and language; or even moving into a new city and leaving behind your social network of friends and relatives. Major parts of your security and safety will be freely given up in exchange of new challenges and opportunities. This will mean new risks and threats but unlimited opportunities for major breakthroughs as well. In a society we are always surrounded with devils and engels, so the social game dictates to sort out which is which to survive the critical periods and to create new security and safety shelters.
“Student finance” is a major issue that you need to be prepared for and here are some facts about it (https://lnkd.in/bewFByd). It is also good to get a great deal of real advices from experienced international students, e.g. as the case described here at the University of Michigan. In this case, support and guidance from the International Center, and the Rackham Graduate School, were provided to ease the cultural transition that generally confornt all international students. Specially what regards adjusting to a new culture, expanding the network of friends and connecting with the international community in large (http://youtu.be/bmTawu5anH8).
Student’s live is an amazing experience full of continuous surprises every minute and every day. Select whatever you want, and prepared to, so as you can be able to shape the knowledge and experience to make something sustainable out of them. Also, to make the surprises you are about to get in your education to be positive ones associated with pleasure empowering and preparing you for the market in large. Of course, along the way there would be a mixed ups and downs. The day you enter the university heading for a degree you are indeed embarking on a discovery journey. This is, of course, providing that you did a reasonable choice of what you want to study and where. Sometimes, it is not that simple, or straightforward, to do the most appropriate decision about how to prepare yourself for a future which you know a little, or even nothing about. Indeed, it is no more than an intelligent guess and for some of us, if not many, can be based (in a way or another) on others advise or experience. But, be sure about this, whatever you select to study it must be your own decision based on what you like to fuel your mind, enrich your life with and something that can fill your time with joy as well. Study is a journey of pleasure, hard work adventure, filled with compromises, social know-how and talented communication where “YES I CAN” is a MUST. It is one-way direction; short or long; wide or narrow; to the future since you can not get the resources and time you spend back.
http://study-abroad-blog-prague-ces.ciee.org/2012/02/where-is-all-the-weinerschnitzel.html
Apart from the importance of light for visualization and making objectives and images of things to be seen. Light itself is involved in the very production of living organisms, plants and animals, through what is known as “photosynthesis” where water, carbon dioxide and nutrients are fundamental raw materials. This is in addition of being essential for the production of electricity by modern solar panels through what is known as the “photo-electric effect” originally explaied by Einstein.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illustration
The Internet and WWW provide enormous inspiration by being inevitable sources and indispensable visual-aided instruments for the transfer of knowledge. Modern ICT has unlimited and far unpredictable benefits not only what regards on-line education but also for more dynamic and effective application of science and technology. H2H “human-to-human” and M2M “machine-to-machine” communication are emerging more and more on their own and in combinations with an ever increasing flora of automation in industry, trade and household applications.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072572/A-little-drop-magic-One-woman-turns-drops-water-mushrooms-aliens–Spider-Man.html
Human perception of energy keeps changing with time and from place to place. Generally speaking in modern life our understanding of energy is very much emanating from real everyday life needs. Accelerating pressures and competition on the declining natural resources dictates new realities hardly existed in the twenty-century where progress in science and technology was enormous but far from being SUSTAINABLE.
In Einstien’s era energy, however, was merely focused on microscopic and laboratory scale, e.g. its physical meaning in particular the concept of “conservation of energy”. Little attention was given to the diverse realities and needs in everyday life. Even in education and research, what concerns the quality of energy and the consequences associated with its production and use. This unfortunately has caused severe and serious negative impacts in the society, e.g. industry and technology application. These negative impacts piled up and are now seen on the large-scale and everywhere with remarkable damage on the quality of all life forms. To divert the situation and to achieve sustainable socio-economic developments is not a simple matter and can not be done overnight. Science, politicians, professionals and policy-makers have a new mission to secure future generations and make the earth a safe and secure home for its inhabitants.
People around the well have insufficient access to clean water because they do not have the energy resources to get it up, to or at home and to have it clean!
Follow “sustain-earth.com” to be informed and inform on the importance of understanding what water-energy nexus means for giving life to humans.
To know the answer and much more follow “sustain-earth.com”
What makes researchers different than other professionals? Are they as much the same as football, sport players and other professionals. Science, and a researcher, is very much critical about falsification of results as the nature of science itself is to seek and uncover reality and to know what is unknown and changing the unknowns to knowns. Professionals are supposed to provide services to the society and their follow citizens as well. And, on the long run and in a free democratic society they have to do a good job that they can be proud of. This is also very important of running the society in terms of safety, security and long term stability and social coherency. Many many people hate corruptions, no-one likes to be cheated and societies have long struggles for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments. This is why we have referees, examinators, courts, judges, lawyers, etc. but are these instruments enough? As researchers are trained on checking each other and expected to react strongly on what may go wrong especially in high quality journals, the scientific community still has things to worry about. Falsification of data and misconduct in science is on the rise and we may expect additional instruments and resources to cope with the complex pattern of sophistication (http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/03/the-new-gatekeepers-reducing-research-misconduct.html).
Successful policies for coping with academic misconduct is a measure of the quality of the education and research. It is an important component of the management procedures and policies of academies and institutions (http://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/need-help/advocacy/misconduct/). Several new routines are now in place for making better decisions and appropriate selection of proposals and candidates for funding of strategic research projects, e.g. two-stage or cascade-steps of submission of applications, interviews, public debates, examination and evaluation committees, qualification lectures and oral discussions.
The culture of sport and football with referee teams, modern instrumentation and associated supporting control systems for the selection of the best may have increased our awareness about correct performance and uncovering the misconduct in professionalism (https://www.drblank.com/slaw12.htm).
In the ongoing process of globalization there are organized and coordinated webs and chains of worldwide gangs supported by instrumental legal and illegal interplay of misconduct forming a wide-range of global criminality, forced slavery and severe poverty. It is hard to find words to describe such accelerating trends that keep generating huge number of lost generation and victims. it is, indeed, far beyond what is known as human rights violation (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thomas_Pogge/publication/248818301_Severe_Poverty_as_a_Human_Rights_Violation/links/02e7e53435abc5ca8d000000.pdf).
Some examples of everyday products made with slave labor are chocolate, rubber, coffee, tobacco, electronics, diamonds, pornography, shrimps, carpets and palm oil. In the chain of processing these products forced slave labor often involves children (boys and girls) of ages down to four years with inhuman working conditions up to 18 hours a day, and more or less all the year around, with promised money that may never see. Such slave labor, adopted or sold, come from many countries in the so-called developing world, e.g. Ivory Cost, Liberia, Colombia, Dominican republic, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Uganda, Mexico, Thai, Philippine, Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, the Middle East and many others. Such slave labor, amounts to 250 000 000 individuals, i.e. quarter of a billion, are lost generations and victims associated with the modern globalization process for serving the export markets such as Europe and the USA. They can suffer hard, cruel conditions and treatments as soldiers, prostitutes, domestic services, agriculture, construction, textile or carpet production. They can be exposed to severe physical and mental violence, chronic and painful damages and diseases, and with guarded threat of death. Many sources claim severe unethical practices even by leading and famous companies such as Marlboro, Apple and Foxconn. (http://youtu.be/nNY2Vl8jUjU).
Research misconduct in science is merely a modern phenomena and an inseparable part in the real academic world today. It hardly existed in the early evolution of science, in particular the nineteen and twenty centuries, where science was not as what we know it today. Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Eistein, James Clerk Maxwell, …. and many many others gave us wealth of fundamental and robust knowledge that we still use today. They have also generated enormous trusts in science, this is however is not the case today.
Monday April 20, 2015 Suzanne Shale (Independent Ethics Consultant, Research Associate at Ethox, University of Oxford, UK) will give a talk at SciLifeLab, The Svedberg Lab, Uppsala University. The title is “Noble and Ignoble Science: The Long Fight Against Fraud and Fabrication”. In her abstract of the talk she says “In modern times research malpractice is more common than we might think”. She is also citing Sheehan’s 2007 study revealing that 40% of the US clinical scientists were aware of scientific misconduct they have not reported (Clev Clin J Med 74: S63-7). And even Nobel laureates have come under suspicion. She will take up three recent stories of malpractice in life science to consider the boundary between what is acceptable and unacceptable, and how good scientists get tempted into bad practice (https://www.dropbox.com/s/2hreoubav48udrd/suzanne%20shale%20april%2020.pdf?dl=0)
Leading scientific journals have, also, reported that misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications (http://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/17028.full.pdf).
This is, also, reflected in real life as reported by JAMA Internal Medicine. According to them, research misconduct identified by US Food and Drug Administration is described by being out of sight, out of mind and even out of the Peer-Reviewed Literature.
(http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/Mobile/article.aspx?articleid=2109855)
When all solutions of socio-economic developments everywhere, and at all times, are reduced to one word “SUSTAINABILITY” translated to one set of SUB-GOALS to be achieved by all and everyone one, many legitimate questions arise. They need to be addressed and answered.
The evolution, dynamics and complexity of global economy, environments and social structures forced a new era with needs for holistic formulas for putting together economy, environment and social structures in Operational Instruments. The Rio+20 Conference brought about an agreement to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the post 2015 development agenda.
When “Instruments” and Replaced by “Goals” the whole situation becomes less sustainable as the “Instruments” get adjusted for manageable short-term and local goals which in the long run leads to isolation and fragmantation.
At this stage we already see how the term “Sustainability” is increasingly used among NGOs, governments, public sector and civil society, but unfortunately with growing huge gaps beteen what is being said and what is being done. There are no general recipes about how “Sustainability” can be achieved as the three main components: economic; environmen; and social, are very much different on global and regional scales, and within and between sectors and stakeholders. As it seems now, the goals are rather short-term ones as compared to the most basic meaning of “Sustainability”, i.e. meeting the needs of the present without comprising the needs of future generations. The long-term success of people, companies and countries what regards the conservation of natural resources and environmental protection requires more social changes based on active forward-thinking and full-scale engagement. There is huge needs for the empowerment and active participation of all stakeholder based on not only “Top-Bottom” but also “Botton-Top” full-scale activities. In such operations both public and private sectors should establish stronger and trust-based and regulated total relations in the medium and long term. (http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog.html?tag=Post%202015%20Development%20Agenda).
In the emerging era of Sustainability that will shape the twenty first century there will be continuous needs for learning from past mistakes and preparing ourselves for reshaping our reality through education and puplic awareness as well as coupling science and technology (as well as other key sectors) to society, market and the population needs (http://sustain-earth.com/2015/04/sustain-earth-com-and-unesco-on-line-education-for-sustainable-development/).
“Sustain-Earth.Com” invites you to visit, share and contribute in: http://sustain-earth.com. It is a professional, multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral website and platform for supporting the implementation of Applied Sustainability in all sectors and on all levels with special focus on water and energy. An introduction to the BLOG is given at “ABOUT”.
Among other central aspects of the BLOG is coupling of education, science and technology to society, population and market needs. This involves essential functions and instruments for promoting wide-range of B2B activities and Career-Development-Plans trategies for helping young professionals and graduates to meet the emerging needs for conservation of natural resources and for joining the ongoing transformation to sustainable societies.
You are most welcome with any response, interactions and contributions, e.g. as Guest Blogger using “CONTRIBUTE”. “Sustain-earth.com” extends previous activities by the UNESCO to further promote implementation of sustainability.
Engagement in sustainability issues may also require access to other education channels. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization “UNESCO” has on-line free of charge material on what sustainability is. Sustainable Development, as explained by “UNESCO” allows every human-being to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future.
Shaping the future is for everyone’s interest and can be done by anyone, everyone in his or her circle of activity. Within education, Sustainable Development means including key sustainable development issues into teaching and learning; for example, climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, and sustainable consumption. It also requires promoting participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behaviour and take action for sustainable development. This promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way and requires far-reaching changes in the way education is often practised today. UNESCO has already completed the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Developments (2005-2014).
http://www.pearltrees.com/t/education-sustainability/id12778198#item126979889
Nano-technology is emerging more and more with many new technologies and products of diverse importance and impacts in daily life (http://www.nanoid.co.uk/nanofoods.html).
Among new technolgies and products are those related to nanofood. According to a definition in a recent report, emanated from “Nano-technology in Agriculture and Food”, food is “nanofood” when nanoparticles, nanotechnology techniques or tools are used during cultivation, production, processing, or packaging of the food and does not necessarily mean modified food or food produced by nanomachines. Nonofood is coming more and more in our fridges and food producers promise potential benefits where world largest food manufacturers are, already, blazing the trail of investment in food industries. However, the ongoing debate over nanofood safety and regulations has slowed the introduction of nanofood products. The needs for research and development will continue to increase and thrive. So far, most of the larger companies are keeping their research activities and news rather quite (http://nanowerk.blogspot.se/2009_01_01_archive.html?m=1).
Nano-food production is very much related to the management of natural water resources, by being the main factor for food production, though food-processing is also very important (http://sustain-earth.com/2015/03/small-is-beautiful-nanosystems-for-water-management-strategies/). Nano-technology is, also, equally important for water treatment (http://nanowerk.blogspot.se/2009/01/nanotechnology-in-water-treatment.html?m=1).
The nexuses water-energy-food is growing in complexity with enormous expansion of the global needs for sustainable socio-economic developments of our environmental systems http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781439829271).
Edible Insects as a Food Source
Nutrient food is what we need and in the era of sustainability where the global population keeps growing while the natural resources on the planet Earth are declining more and more it becomes IMPERATIVE to have accessible and affordable nutrient food. Edible insects are emerging more and more as a food sources adding more insects to the Menu.
The idea of eating insects is not new, in China, edible wasp collecting and cooking techniques were documented in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Also in Europe, Aristoteles (384-322BC) wrote about the best taste of a Cicada nymph and in early 20th century, the taste of chafer beetle soup (“Maikafersuppe”), was described as comparable to lobster soup, a highly appreciated dish in Germany and France. This culture expanded enormously, today about 1,900 edible insects are being consumed worldwide, mainly in Africa, Mexico and Asia, e.g. silk worm and crickets (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/06/will-eating-insects-ever-be-mainstream).
“Why not eat insects?” asked American pamphleteer Vincent Holt already in 1885, proof that selling the idea is nothing new. Two billion people worldwide routinely eat bugs an already appreciated food. Insects have also invaded foodie moments in the western world being a novelty in the European food scene as subversive garnishes for salads or cocktails, or on the menus of experimental pop-up (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/06/will-eating-insects-ever-be-mainstream).
Scientific American already supports high quality popular science. In this case describing the approach of biologists Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown by being unique to present biological concepts “fun, Informative and Extremely Successful”. They provide informative explanations, on topics people really want and need to know, in clear simple and colorful diagrams with pedagogic presentations (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2012/12/12/asap-science-fun-informative-and-extremely-successful/).
Here is how Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown use the scientific approach to inform on the relevance of insects in the exoanding food market (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iM8s1ch5TRw).
What is Poverty? Why do we have poverty or more importantly why poverty is much abundant in the so-called developing countries? Are the people there different, if yes how, why and since when? If no, why then they became poor and what are the reasons? What instruments do we have to monitor poverty? Since when we realized that we have poverty? Did poverty happen over-night? What are the differences between absolute poverty and relative poverty? Why economic models, including the ones that won the Nobel Prize were successful to solve poverty only in limited parts of the world? So, many questions to be asked and even with proper answers on these questions we will continue to have poverty unless we have sincere and serious sustainable solutions.
Though United Nations was founded 1945 (http://www.un.org/en/about-un/index.html) it was not until recently when UN observed that there is poverty and started to set ambitious goals in 2000 to reduce global poverty and inequality by 2015. Yet much of the poverty is still left and more seriously many impacts and threats from poverty are expanding and deepening on several scales. While the UN claims that it successfully cut extreme poverty in half, the multinational groups are conflicted about how much developing regions such as sub-Saharan Africa can improve by 2030 (http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/12/31/un-wants-to-end-poverty-hunger-by-2030).
GDP, which is used in economic models, by the World Bank and by politicians to monitor the economic growth around the world, fails enormously to bring about sustainable socio-economic developments around the world. It has even brought severe negative impacts in the developing countries and created new threats for the whole planet Earth and on the global scale. What regards the developing countries GDP can very well be used not as “Growth Domestic Product” but as “Growth Domestic Poverty”, as least for some if not for many developing countries. Major solutions need to be taken to switch over to more realistic indicators other than GDP that keeps pushing the developing world down hell the poverty spiral.
