MSBT98

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Saad

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MSBT98 › New article
8 years ago

The Asian Elephants, native to Southeast Asia (including Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and some parts of Africa) face threats of extinction every day due to increasing human population. Out in the wild, destruction of indigenous Asian Elephants’ habitats and hunting only satisfy humans, but does it keep elephants contented? These miraculous and some clever mammals contribute to the joys of ours when we visit zoos, however have humans ever contemplated these largely beautiful organism’s feelings?

The Asian elephants have lost vast majority of their natural habitat. “Humans have become their direct competitors for living space”. Due to the quick increase in population of humans, the need for food and space has risen; forests and living spaces for elephants, i.e. savannah habitats, have been used for growing crops, turning them into pastureland for livestock and since humans require of daily usage of vehicles or warmth, timbers are used for the fuel. In effect, the homes for elephants are being destroyed. This leads to human and elephant conflicts.

In addition, competition for food between humans and elephants intensifies. For example, in Kunene in Africa, elephants seem to be a threat for people – they cause damage to the crops, break infrastructures that are vital for the civilians, e.g. water pipes, and these become costly for the public.

The loss of elephant population results as humans begin to retaliate. On recent news, “a 57-year-old woman was slightly injured when she and a husband encountered an adult elephant (Asian) on Thursday in the east coast Telupid district in the latest human-elephant conflict”. A school of thought is that elephants may never actually come out of their homeland (i.e. jungle) and enter a city, however that is quite common now. It is mainly down to the fact that elephants are losing their habitat, which makes them ‘homeless’, and the only possible place to look for food and a place to live is to enter the city.

Not only human and elephants conflict lead to reduction in population of elephants, there has been a genetic threat too. Male Asian elephants carry tusks, therefore a target for illegal hunting would allow for poaching aimed at the tusks mainly. Tusks are used for ivory, which greatly reduces the number of male elephants. Having less male elephants would cause consequences, mainly due to the fact that poachers find it easier to kill the immature elephants as they would be a simple target, resulting in species unevenness. Moreover, this would lead to inbreeding and gradually lead to low breeding success as it would be widespread. Mortality rate would go up and genetic variation with larger gene pool will not be possible. Not only juvenile elephants would affect the breeding rate, killing larger elephants for tusks would also contribute a larger share since they will not exchange genetic material with another female species, thus the biodiversity would become less.

Humans stand up for each other, why can't we stand up for animals - in the end looking at classification, humans are defined as animals - so what's the difference. Stop this animal poaching for money sake, let's give them the rights they need!

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8 years

HappyLady › Such a shame such wonderful animals have such a struggle to survive.

8 years

6 years

Shavkat › Nice article.

6 years

MSBT98 › New article
8 years ago

In this fast-evolving world, technologies are being updated and modern techniques are vast in many fields. What’s more pertinent here is the fact that should robots with artificial intelligence be utilised in the medical field.

I am going to give a brief overview of what roles are played in a typical hospital. In a clinic environment, consultants would most often be interacting with patients. They will understand their emotions at that present time and enhance their knowledge on their history. Any new information, any new symptoms or any new disease that patients may have encountered would be noted down in the doctor’s clinic notes. Conclusions are created regarding should they be prescribed a particular medicine or referred to a tertiary team, i.e. surgeon. So that’s the general overview of a role of a doctor in a clinic. Now, in a surgery environment, of course there would be a surgeon performing operations. They are also involved in the clinic side of work, similar to a consultant in a clinic.

However, the question is, “Can robots do the same?” There is a mixture of answers. To start off, it is possible for robots to do the same. Doctors in a clinic communicate with their patients and just like you can ask Siri a question, humanoids can do the job. Humanoids are robots with AI and they have a resemblance with a human for example Bina48. Bina48 is on one of the newly invented robot that can have a good conversation with a human. Although, it won’t be an elaborate discussion, in about 20 years or so, it will be a promising news. I purely think having robots would simply make the NHS system work better, for example in a new University Glasgow Hospital which was opened on the 27 April 2015, £1.3 million were spent on robots that will move medical supplies, linen, food and waster around; it will only save time for some NHS workers and make the system a lot more efficient.

On the other hand, we can perceive robots as an inaccurate technology. Although they can be programmed to do certain procedure, still accidents occur. For example, recent news on a 22-year-old man who was crushed by a robot in a Volkswagen factory; although it is not in a hospital environment, we can see the types of damage that are possible that can be done by robots.

When a new technology gets introduced, it has to go through a series of trials, just like drugs go through clinical phases. So I am quite sure that all these stories and any risks will be taken into account when robots and hospitals are put together in the near future.

To finish off I am going to present some advantages and disadvantages of robots for medical usage. Robots can be exceptionally useful in surgeries as they can provide better control, better precision and enhance dexterity. The number of robotic surgical procedures that take place increases year by year; 500,000 surgeries occurred using robots in 2012, so it is definitely an aspect for the future.

Nonetheless, robots can cost more, do require a lot more training than training a doctor. They aren’t always reliable for example the robot that crushed the man. More important, there will be no human feeling towards the patient if robots replace doctors which is a huge factor.

All in all, I totally believe that the way forward to making hospital work better is by introducing robots. It is really the case of whether should we ignore the ‘rare’ accidents that happen and only look at the positives, and would it be morally and ethically right to have robots to do surgical procedures when we know that they are not very reliable?

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8 years

ze2000 › What a question! Robots don't give you lollipops after a vaccine!

No, seriously. Robot will be more effective to performs delicate operations, but robots don't have the capacity to do research on their own (yet).

8 years

MSBT98 › Haha love the punch line at the start!

Yes that is very true that they don't have capacity to do research on their own yet, but I am sure just how Siri can identify and do a few calculations, for example "Siri what's 2+2?", and it will perform it's algorithms to find the answer for the question, that is all independent research. I am sure one day, there will be robots in the future that can perform more advanced algorithms, for example "Robot take the heart out!" - ouch!

8 years

ze2000 › What I do see in a close future is fully functional human parts for people with amputations.

8 years

MSBT98 › Yes I think it has started already...have you heard of the prosthetic arms? They look pretty cool...

8 years

ze2000 › Yes, only problem they're ridiculously expensive.

8 years

bee › Someday machine will take over the world

8 years

Bilston › I thing there will be robots around us to help humans to do specific jobs, like some kind of surgery. The question is: will humans know where to stop and not go to far giving them artificial intelligence?

8 years

MSBT98 › Yh very true...we don't want to overload them with artificial intelligence in case like I have seen in movies, robots begin to invade the world and turn against humans? I saw this scene in iRobots by Will Smith - quite a nice film!

8 years