Vitamin D How it Effects the Human Body
Everyone needs vitamin D in their life. This is because it helps the human body absorb calcium and phosphorus. Both these minerals help bones grow and keep them strong and healthy. Without vitamin D everyones bones would become weaker and softer, this would then lead to bone deformities and can lead to diseases such as Rickets or Osteomalacia. Rickets is bone deformities in children where as Osteomalacia is soft bones and deformities in adults. This suggests that without sunlight the human body would not be able to get enough vitamin D thus causing bone deformities and perhaps changing the human form altogether. Even though you mainly get vitamin D from sunlight mainly there are a few other ways of finding vitamin D, for example, Eggs, Meat and oily fish. If there was no sunlight in the future the human body would have to adapt in order to be able to live without vitamin D or with minimal Vitamin D as with no light, fish and other animals would struggle to survive this would then create more and more difficulties for the human species to consume vitamin D.
Further research suggests that the life span of the human race may be reduced majorly as people over the age of 65 naturally have less vitamin D in their system and struggle to consume as much vitamin D as a younger person would. Other groups of the human population that would be more likely to struggle with limited vitamin D is pregnant women and children from the age of six months right up until 5 years old. Humans would have to evolve in order to have children and reproduce safely without the whole race being wiped out.
Tobin
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www.NHS.uk/vitamindandsunlight
Rickets and the complications
Rickets can cause major skeletal deformities. Bowed legs is one of the main symptoms, this could possibly mean that our "future human" would not walk the same way as we do as it would struggle to stand properly and use its legs. Rickets also causes thicker ankles, wrists, and knees. This would also affect the way our future human walks. The breastbone would also stick out, this is also known as Pigeon chest. This suggests that our sculpture and virtual model would need to have quite a big chest as well as thick ankles, wrists and knees, it would also be slightly slouched as all the bones would become softer and weaker.
Rickets stops the body growing as well as ruining teeth and causing seizures.
This would suggest that as humans started evolving the first thing to happen would be for their bones to become weak and brittle. This could then lead to a form of epilepsy. Because there would be no light, photosensitive epilepsy would no longer exist. This is when a seizure is triggered by flashing or flickering lights. However this does not mean that seizures will stop altogether because they can also be caused by things like stress, sleep deprivation, diet, alcohol consumption and missed medication. Although alcohol consumption would probably be ruled out.
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Rickets stops the body growing as well as ruining teeth and causing seizures.
This would suggest that as humans started evolving the first thing to happen would be for their bones to become weak and brittle. This could then lead to a form of epilepsy. Because there would be no light, photosensitive epilepsy would no longer exist. This is when a seizure is triggered by flashing or flickering lights. However this does not mean that seizures will stop altogether because they can also be caused by things like stress, sleep deprivation, diet, alcohol consumption and missed medication. Although alcohol consumption would probably be ruled out.
Tobin
What would happen to all the humans that depend on medication
Eventually the world would run out of medication. Although the world probably has a major backlog of medication and will still be able to manufacture it for thousands of years after all natural light has gone. Once the fossil fuels run out there will only be so much longer that the medication could last. Considering that the human race has evolved to depend on this medication it would have a catastrophic effect on the world. This could relate to the dinosaur ages in which all the vegetarians died out before the carnivores. All the plantation died out so this meant that the vegetarians no longer had anything to survive on and eat. This suggests that anyone that required medication in order to keep their normal life going is likely to die out. This is such a massive part of the human population so it gives us the idea that there would probably only be a small percentage of the human race left. The human race would therefore have to evolve to survive without any medication whatsoever or work out natural remedies that can be made without light.
Tobin
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Vitamin D deficiency it appears – leads to stiffening of the blood vessels
An interesting fact about vitamin D deficiency.
The two primary authors, molecular biologist Olena Andrukhova and medical doctor Svetlana Slavic, of the Institute of Physiology, Pathophysiology and Biophysics at the Vetmeduni Vienna, found that prolonged vitamin D deficiency can stiffen blood vessels. Examining the aorta, an elastic blood vessel that expands with each pulse of blood and then constricts again, the researchers showed that vitamin D deficiency makes the vessel less flexible.
Andrukhova explains in detail:
“Vitamin D enhances the production of the enzyme eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase) in the inner layer of blood vessels, the endothelium. This is critical for the regulation of blood pressure. The enzyme produces a molecule called nitric oxide (NO), an important factor for the relaxation of smooth muscles in the blood vessels. When too little NO is formed, the vessels become less flexible. This ultimately leads to higher blood pressure which can give rise to other circulatory diseases. So indirectly, vitamin D controls blood pressure.”
Co-author Slavic continues: “Stiffness of the blood vessels generally increases with age. Blood pressure amplitude thus tends to increase with age and leads to structural changes in the aorta. Elasticity deteriorates, and prolonged vitamin D deficiency can accelerate this process.”
http://www.nleducation.co.uk/news/here-comes-the-sun-how-vitamin-d-relaxes-blood-vessels/
Thulangana Ganeshan
The two primary authors, molecular biologist Olena Andrukhova and medical doctor Svetlana Slavic, of the Institute of Physiology, Pathophysiology and Biophysics at the Vetmeduni Vienna, found that prolonged vitamin D deficiency can stiffen blood vessels. Examining the aorta, an elastic blood vessel that expands with each pulse of blood and then constricts again, the researchers showed that vitamin D deficiency makes the vessel less flexible.
Andrukhova explains in detail:
“Vitamin D enhances the production of the enzyme eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase) in the inner layer of blood vessels, the endothelium. This is critical for the regulation of blood pressure. The enzyme produces a molecule called nitric oxide (NO), an important factor for the relaxation of smooth muscles in the blood vessels. When too little NO is formed, the vessels become less flexible. This ultimately leads to higher blood pressure which can give rise to other circulatory diseases. So indirectly, vitamin D controls blood pressure.”
Co-author Slavic continues: “Stiffness of the blood vessels generally increases with age. Blood pressure amplitude thus tends to increase with age and leads to structural changes in the aorta. Elasticity deteriorates, and prolonged vitamin D deficiency can accelerate this process.”
http://www.nleducation.co.uk/news/here-comes-the-sun-how-vitamin-d-relaxes-blood-vessels/
Thulangana Ganeshan
The Extinction of the Dinosaurs
As we are looking at a no light future for our project, our initial idea was that the sun has burnt out. However when thinking about this more carefully, we decided this was unrealistic as the sun burning out would cause a solar explosion which would destroy not only the earth but our whole solar system. So with this in mind I decided to look at the different possible ways the sun wouldn’t reach the earth. To start I went back to the dinosaurs and looked at some of the theories as to how these creatures where wiped out.
One theory is a series of volcanic eruptions caused the dinosaurs to die out. The theory is that volcanic eruptions cover the sky with dust. Ash then falls from the sky from the eruption.
The thick cloud of ash covers the continent around 1600km away from the initial eruptions. In the time of the dinosaurs there was only one super continent known as Pangea. The ash burns, suffocates and kills animals around the world. The eruptions cause the atmosphere to fill with sulphur dioxide, when it rains the gas turns to sulphuric acid and burns everything it falls on. The carbon dioxide level increases causing the atmosphere to get hotter.
Water begins to evaporate and the vegetation dies. Oceans begin to turn pink as due to the high temperature pink algae covers the surface of the ocean. Due to the increased atmosphere temperature the water temperature also increases, causing methane that was once frozen beneath the surface of the ocean floor to melt, this is then released into the atmosphere, which causes the atmosphere’s temperature to increase further. This causes a mass extinction.
Another theory is that a asteroid measuring around 10km across traveling 170km an hour collided with the earth. The asteroid hit the earth with such force that everything in the impact zone is instantly destroyed including the asteroid itself. It is believed that the impact released the energy of millions of nuclear weapons. The blast wave races from the impact zone, closely followed by boulders as big as city blocks, minuets after the impact boulders rain down thousands of km’s away, earthquakes shake the ground and tsunamis hammer the coasts. The sky begins to act like a sun lamp causing the earths surface to heath up to 275°, vegetation ignites, months after the impact smoke and ash still block out the sun, with less sunlight plants begin to die and the animals that eat them starve. Another mass extinction.
Dinosaurs dominated the earth for 160 million years. As there is evidence that dinosaurs died out over period of thousands of years I feel that perhaps both these theories are true and both caused extinction but over a period of time and I also feel that these events happened at different times a few million years apart. Other evidence that not one event completely wiped out the dinosaurs is that although the dinosaurs died other animals didn’t, for example alligators where around when the dinosaurs were yet they are still hear today I believe that the dinosaurs weren’t able to adapt to the ever changing climate.
I have included a video, which are based on theories as there is no actual evidence to prove what happened exactly, however I still feel it was valuable to my research as it gave some very interesting ideas which I feel will benefit our project.
-Holly
As we are looking at a no light future for our project, our initial idea was that the sun has burnt out. However when thinking about this more carefully, we decided this was unrealistic as the sun burning out would cause a solar explosion which would destroy not only the earth but our whole solar system. So with this in mind I decided to look at the different possible ways the sun wouldn’t reach the earth. To start I went back to the dinosaurs and looked at some of the theories as to how these creatures where wiped out.
One theory is a series of volcanic eruptions caused the dinosaurs to die out. The theory is that volcanic eruptions cover the sky with dust. Ash then falls from the sky from the eruption.
The thick cloud of ash covers the continent around 1600km away from the initial eruptions. In the time of the dinosaurs there was only one super continent known as Pangea. The ash burns, suffocates and kills animals around the world. The eruptions cause the atmosphere to fill with sulphur dioxide, when it rains the gas turns to sulphuric acid and burns everything it falls on. The carbon dioxide level increases causing the atmosphere to get hotter.
Water begins to evaporate and the vegetation dies. Oceans begin to turn pink as due to the high temperature pink algae covers the surface of the ocean. Due to the increased atmosphere temperature the water temperature also increases, causing methane that was once frozen beneath the surface of the ocean floor to melt, this is then released into the atmosphere, which causes the atmosphere’s temperature to increase further. This causes a mass extinction.
Another theory is that a asteroid measuring around 10km across traveling 170km an hour collided with the earth. The asteroid hit the earth with such force that everything in the impact zone is instantly destroyed including the asteroid itself. It is believed that the impact released the energy of millions of nuclear weapons. The blast wave races from the impact zone, closely followed by boulders as big as city blocks, minuets after the impact boulders rain down thousands of km’s away, earthquakes shake the ground and tsunamis hammer the coasts. The sky begins to act like a sun lamp causing the earths surface to heath up to 275°, vegetation ignites, months after the impact smoke and ash still block out the sun, with less sunlight plants begin to die and the animals that eat them starve. Another mass extinction.
Dinosaurs dominated the earth for 160 million years. As there is evidence that dinosaurs died out over period of thousands of years I feel that perhaps both these theories are true and both caused extinction but over a period of time and I also feel that these events happened at different times a few million years apart. Other evidence that not one event completely wiped out the dinosaurs is that although the dinosaurs died other animals didn’t, for example alligators where around when the dinosaurs were yet they are still hear today I believe that the dinosaurs weren’t able to adapt to the ever changing climate.
I have included a video, which are based on theories as there is no actual evidence to prove what happened exactly, however I still feel it was valuable to my research as it gave some very interesting ideas which I feel will benefit our project.
-Holly
Blackout
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/blackout/4od
'Feature-length 'What-If' drama exploring the effects of a devastating cyber-attack on Britain's national electricity grid.
Based on expert advice and meticulous research, Blackout combines real user-generated footage, alongside fictional scenes, CCTV archive and news reports to build a terrifyingly realistic account of Britain being plunged into darkness.
The film plots the days following a nationwide power cut, as experienced by a cast of ordinary characters struggling to feed and protect themselves and their families. These eyewitness accounts reveal the disastrous impact of a prolonged blackout on hospitals, law and order, transport, and our food and water supplies.
The programme casts members of the public from user-generated footage, weaving real-life archive with scripted drama to tell the story of how Britain could descend into chaos and anarchy without power.'
This relates to our project idea as it gives people an idea of what just one country (the UK) would do when the electricity started running out, it shows people facts about how much emergency and backup power we as a nation have. It also gives a very realistic idea of how humans would survive with a shortage of electricity. Although this does not show how humans would work without light it does show what would happen once all the fossil fuels have ran out. It also shows that perhaps the human race would be able to carry on living normal lives for a while without natural light as we would be able to survive using fossil fuels and electricity.
Tobin
'Feature-length 'What-If' drama exploring the effects of a devastating cyber-attack on Britain's national electricity grid.
Based on expert advice and meticulous research, Blackout combines real user-generated footage, alongside fictional scenes, CCTV archive and news reports to build a terrifyingly realistic account of Britain being plunged into darkness.
The film plots the days following a nationwide power cut, as experienced by a cast of ordinary characters struggling to feed and protect themselves and their families. These eyewitness accounts reveal the disastrous impact of a prolonged blackout on hospitals, law and order, transport, and our food and water supplies.
The programme casts members of the public from user-generated footage, weaving real-life archive with scripted drama to tell the story of how Britain could descend into chaos and anarchy without power.'
This relates to our project idea as it gives people an idea of what just one country (the UK) would do when the electricity started running out, it shows people facts about how much emergency and backup power we as a nation have. It also gives a very realistic idea of how humans would survive with a shortage of electricity. Although this does not show how humans would work without light it does show what would happen once all the fossil fuels have ran out. It also shows that perhaps the human race would be able to carry on living normal lives for a while without natural light as we would be able to survive using fossil fuels and electricity.
Tobin
What if the earth stops spinning?
This is a theoretical film of what might happen if the earth stopped spinning on its axis. According to this video the earth at the equator is spinning at more than 1600 km an hour and the earth is slowing down about 2 seconds every 100,000 years. For the purposes of this film this is sped up so that the earth stops spinning within 5 years. What effect would this have on us? And what effect would it have on the planet, oceans, air and continents?
At first the change in the earth speed would be practically unnoticeable less than 1 km an hour, yet this in theory had dramatic effects. Commercial aircraft rely on GPS. GPS relies on a series of satellites, which tells an aircraft where it is. The ground bases that the satellites communicate with aren’t where they expect them to be, as the satellites don’t expect the earths spin to change so dramatically. The slowing earth causing frailer in the carefully calibrated system causing catastrophic effects planes are directed to land far from airports and the navigation systems no longer work.
Once earth slows by 15km an hour the oceans are affected, the earth’s spin is one of the forces which keeps the water on top of the equator in place, as the force weakens, the oceans begin to move. More than 1 billion cubic km’s of water begin to move away from the equator towards the poles. As the sea levels change the air we breathe changes too. Our atmosphere is evenly spread across the planet and moves in sync with the earth; with the earth slowing the atmosphere follows the oceans towards the earths poles. Cities in the tropics are the first to be hit, becoming increasingly difficult to breathe; cities at high elevation also struggle. Breathing at 1500 meters becomes like breathing at 4500 meters. Humans get altitude sickness at less than 2500 meters and just over 5000 meters is the outer limit of survival.
Now spinning 225km slower with days lasting 28 hours long. Earthquakes occur where they’ve never occurred before. The earth has 3 layers a molten core, a solid insulating mantel and a hard outer crust which all rotate together, but as the earth’s spin decreases they all slow at a different rate causing massive friction. The earth begins to literally rip apart from the inside out. Deep cracks in the ocean floor release heat, fish killed by the blast float to shore. Arctic oceans used to be little more than 4500 meters deep, its now more than 13,000 meters deep. Due to the movement of the oceans north England becomes part of mainland Europe and Ireland connects to England. A invisible magnetic field called the magnetosphere maintained by the earths spin normally protects the earth, rapid rotation of the earths iron core generates it, this protective layer deflects blasts of solar radiation, but now as the spin slows the layer weakens and breaks down.
Now spinning 340 km slower with days lasting 30 hours, most of Europe floods due to the still moving oceans.
Spinning 1200 km slower with days lasting 124 hours. Humans struggle with lack of sleep. Fatigue causing blurred vision and lack of muscle control, animal migration is effected killing of animals such as birds, butterflies and zebras.
With the earth spinning just over 60km an hour with days lasting 624 hours there are no longer seasons, it’s either bright and hot or dark and cold. Temperatures plummet to -55°c at night, humans struggle to adapt and most other species cant adapt. Rain forests freeze beyond repair and weather becomes unpredictable.
Earth stops spinning meaning days lasting a year. This means 6 months in the sun and 6 months in darkness. You still get day and night as the earth still rotates the sun.
I found this video extremely interesting as during one of our group meeting we discussed the possibility of the earths spin coming to a halt. However what we though would happen was slightly different however there were also some similarities such as the days obviously becoming longer, problems with plant growth and animals dying out.
-Holly
This is a theoretical film of what might happen if the earth stopped spinning on its axis. According to this video the earth at the equator is spinning at more than 1600 km an hour and the earth is slowing down about 2 seconds every 100,000 years. For the purposes of this film this is sped up so that the earth stops spinning within 5 years. What effect would this have on us? And what effect would it have on the planet, oceans, air and continents?
At first the change in the earth speed would be practically unnoticeable less than 1 km an hour, yet this in theory had dramatic effects. Commercial aircraft rely on GPS. GPS relies on a series of satellites, which tells an aircraft where it is. The ground bases that the satellites communicate with aren’t where they expect them to be, as the satellites don’t expect the earths spin to change so dramatically. The slowing earth causing frailer in the carefully calibrated system causing catastrophic effects planes are directed to land far from airports and the navigation systems no longer work.
Once earth slows by 15km an hour the oceans are affected, the earth’s spin is one of the forces which keeps the water on top of the equator in place, as the force weakens, the oceans begin to move. More than 1 billion cubic km’s of water begin to move away from the equator towards the poles. As the sea levels change the air we breathe changes too. Our atmosphere is evenly spread across the planet and moves in sync with the earth; with the earth slowing the atmosphere follows the oceans towards the earths poles. Cities in the tropics are the first to be hit, becoming increasingly difficult to breathe; cities at high elevation also struggle. Breathing at 1500 meters becomes like breathing at 4500 meters. Humans get altitude sickness at less than 2500 meters and just over 5000 meters is the outer limit of survival.
Now spinning 225km slower with days lasting 28 hours long. Earthquakes occur where they’ve never occurred before. The earth has 3 layers a molten core, a solid insulating mantel and a hard outer crust which all rotate together, but as the earth’s spin decreases they all slow at a different rate causing massive friction. The earth begins to literally rip apart from the inside out. Deep cracks in the ocean floor release heat, fish killed by the blast float to shore. Arctic oceans used to be little more than 4500 meters deep, its now more than 13,000 meters deep. Due to the movement of the oceans north England becomes part of mainland Europe and Ireland connects to England. A invisible magnetic field called the magnetosphere maintained by the earths spin normally protects the earth, rapid rotation of the earths iron core generates it, this protective layer deflects blasts of solar radiation, but now as the spin slows the layer weakens and breaks down.
Now spinning 340 km slower with days lasting 30 hours, most of Europe floods due to the still moving oceans.
Spinning 1200 km slower with days lasting 124 hours. Humans struggle with lack of sleep. Fatigue causing blurred vision and lack of muscle control, animal migration is effected killing of animals such as birds, butterflies and zebras.
With the earth spinning just over 60km an hour with days lasting 624 hours there are no longer seasons, it’s either bright and hot or dark and cold. Temperatures plummet to -55°c at night, humans struggle to adapt and most other species cant adapt. Rain forests freeze beyond repair and weather becomes unpredictable.
Earth stops spinning meaning days lasting a year. This means 6 months in the sun and 6 months in darkness. You still get day and night as the earth still rotates the sun.
I found this video extremely interesting as during one of our group meeting we discussed the possibility of the earths spin coming to a halt. However what we though would happen was slightly different however there were also some similarities such as the days obviously becoming longer, problems with plant growth and animals dying out.
-Holly
How Long Would Earth Survive, If The Sun Burt Out?
If the sun “turned off” which is actually physically impossible the earth would stay warm compared to the space surrounding for a few million years. However humans and other living organisms would feel the chill much sooner than that.
Within a week the average global temperatures would drop bellow 0° F and within a year it would dip to -100°.
The oceans would freeze over however ironically the ice would insulate the deep-water bellow and prevent the oceans from freezing solid for hundreds of thousands of years.
Although some microorganisms living on the earths crust would survive the large majority of life would die out. Chemical reactions such as photosynthesis would stop immediately and most plant life would die out within a week. However larger trees may survive for several decades due to their slow metabolism and sugar stores. With most plant life having sided out most animals would die off quickly, scavengers picking on dead remains may last until the cold killed them.
On another note: A panel of scientist at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002, stated that they believe the sun will burn up all of it’s hydrogen fuel supply sometime in the next 5 billion to 7 billion years.
They believe that as it does gravity will force the sun to collapse in on itself, which will intensify the heat on the remaining hydrogen causing the sun to expand into a red giant, and at this point the sun will consume the earth.
Once earth is consumed by the sun it will vaporize and its material will blend with the material of the sun, then that part blows off into space.
By this point the sun will be hot enough to burn all its stored helium and the sun will fluctuate in size.
Our sun isn’t big enough to cause a supernova explosion; it will most likely collapse into a white dwarf.
As the sun builds up to its red giant phase (it gets about 10% brighter every billion years) it is estimated that all the earths’ water will evaporate in the next billion years or so.
(http://www.livescience.com/32879-what-happens-to-earth-when-sun-dies.html)
-Holly
If the sun “turned off” which is actually physically impossible the earth would stay warm compared to the space surrounding for a few million years. However humans and other living organisms would feel the chill much sooner than that.
Within a week the average global temperatures would drop bellow 0° F and within a year it would dip to -100°.
The oceans would freeze over however ironically the ice would insulate the deep-water bellow and prevent the oceans from freezing solid for hundreds of thousands of years.
Although some microorganisms living on the earths crust would survive the large majority of life would die out. Chemical reactions such as photosynthesis would stop immediately and most plant life would die out within a week. However larger trees may survive for several decades due to their slow metabolism and sugar stores. With most plant life having sided out most animals would die off quickly, scavengers picking on dead remains may last until the cold killed them.
On another note: A panel of scientist at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002, stated that they believe the sun will burn up all of it’s hydrogen fuel supply sometime in the next 5 billion to 7 billion years.
They believe that as it does gravity will force the sun to collapse in on itself, which will intensify the heat on the remaining hydrogen causing the sun to expand into a red giant, and at this point the sun will consume the earth.
Once earth is consumed by the sun it will vaporize and its material will blend with the material of the sun, then that part blows off into space.
By this point the sun will be hot enough to burn all its stored helium and the sun will fluctuate in size.
Our sun isn’t big enough to cause a supernova explosion; it will most likely collapse into a white dwarf.
As the sun builds up to its red giant phase (it gets about 10% brighter every billion years) it is estimated that all the earths’ water will evaporate in the next billion years or so.
(http://www.livescience.com/32879-what-happens-to-earth-when-sun-dies.html)
-Holly
Food source
As the energy source from the sun dies out, the availability of food becomes difficult. Plants die out at the beginning because there is no sunlight for them to carry out photosynthesis. Food chain becomes disrupted and thereby, there could be huge competition for the resources available. Alternatives for the food source would be “eating out of pills”. Vitamin A and D would be synthesised artificially into pills which would in turn prevent developing fragile bones and rickets. Also minerals are greatly important for body metabolic functions. It can be obtained even without effect of light!
Minerals are another group of nutrients (along with vitamins) needed by the body. They have two general body functions: to regulate body processes, and to give the body structure.
Their regulating functions include a wide variety of systems, such as:
Even though they make up only a small percentage of your body—about 4 percent of your body weight – minerals are essential to life. Minerals are very stable. They cannot be destroyed by light, water, heat or food handling processes. In fact, the little bit of ash that remains when a food is completely burned is the mineral content.
Minerals can be divided into two main categories, based on the amount that is needed by the body.
Additionally the idea of cannibalism approaches into the topic. Perhaps, this could happen for carnivores if the scarcity of food is inevitable. Competition for survival may arise through this issue, thereby endangering the future human kind.
Thulangana Ganeshan.
Minerals are another group of nutrients (along with vitamins) needed by the body. They have two general body functions: to regulate body processes, and to give the body structure.
Their regulating functions include a wide variety of systems, such as:
- heartbeat
- blood clotting
- maintenance of the internal pressure of body fluids
- nerve responses
- the transport of oxygen from the lungs to the tissues.
Even though they make up only a small percentage of your body—about 4 percent of your body weight – minerals are essential to life. Minerals are very stable. They cannot be destroyed by light, water, heat or food handling processes. In fact, the little bit of ash that remains when a food is completely burned is the mineral content.
Minerals can be divided into two main categories, based on the amount that is needed by the body.
- The major minerals (or macrominerals) are present in relatively large amounts in the body and are required in fairly large amounts in the diet —more that 250 milligrams daily. Calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium fall into this category as well as the electrolytes sodium, chloride, sulfur, and potassium. The electrolytes are grouped together because their work is so interrelated. They help regulate cellular fluid and transmit nerve impulses.
- The trace minerals (or trace elements) are needed in much smaller quantities—less than 20 milligrams daily. Most trace minerals do not occur in the body in their free form, but are bound to organic compounds on which they depend for transport, storage, and functioning. Such minerals include copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, molybdenum, selenium, and zinc.
Additionally the idea of cannibalism approaches into the topic. Perhaps, this could happen for carnivores if the scarcity of food is inevitable. Competition for survival may arise through this issue, thereby endangering the future human kind.
Thulangana Ganeshan.
Relating the sleep cycle pattern in blind people to that of future human
As we believe this future human “creature” does not evolve with
eyes over time, there is a possibility of having an impaired sleep cycle.
Without light it is impossible to know if its day or night and that hugely
impacts on the brain, in order to regulate the sleep pattern and replenishing substances required for the body metabolic functions (ex: enzymes).
By looking into the management of the sleep cycle pattern in
blind people, we could relate it to the future human, as both kinds are unable
to visualize. The majority of blind people suffer from non-24-hour
sleep-wake disorder (non 24). The chronic and little-known sleep condition is
characterized by a body clock that is not aligned with a 24-hour day. Though
non-24 can affect those with normal vision, it is especially prevalent among
blind people who cannot sense light, the strongest environmental signal that
synchronizes the brain’s internal sleep-wake pattern to the 24-hour cycle of the
Earth day.
The human body clock consists of an intricate
network of chemical and electrical signals controlled by two rice-grain-size
structures deep in the brain. Most people’s internal clock runs slightly longer
than 24 hours. However, among sighted people, the clock is reset each day by
light-sensing cells in the eyes that signal to the brain that it is
daytime.
For the blind, this reset mechanism fails. The resulting symptoms are similar to those experienced by sighted people who chronically disrupt their light cycle by shift work or travel across time zones.
Therefore to overcome this problem, people had used drugs which can mimic and effect the brain to signal when to sleep.
“Some who suffer from non-24 have found limited relief through treatment with synthetic versions of the hormone melatonin, which works to drag forward the body clock’s reset time by providing a chemical pulse to the brain that signals
nighttime.”
Eventually, as we relate this phenomenon with future human, we could predict the similar changes to them when comparing with the blind people. However, is there a possibility to develop drugs in the form of pills which contain melatonin to mimic the brain to regulate the sleep cycle pattern? In the future with no light can this be the ultimate source and help to find sleep?
Thulangana Ganeshan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/blind-people-often-find-it-hard-to-align-their-sleep-wake-cycle-with-24-hour-day/2012/08/06/5578f090-bb0d-11e1-abd4-aecc81b4466d_story.html
eyes over time, there is a possibility of having an impaired sleep cycle.
Without light it is impossible to know if its day or night and that hugely
impacts on the brain, in order to regulate the sleep pattern and replenishing substances required for the body metabolic functions (ex: enzymes).
By looking into the management of the sleep cycle pattern in
blind people, we could relate it to the future human, as both kinds are unable
to visualize. The majority of blind people suffer from non-24-hour
sleep-wake disorder (non 24). The chronic and little-known sleep condition is
characterized by a body clock that is not aligned with a 24-hour day. Though
non-24 can affect those with normal vision, it is especially prevalent among
blind people who cannot sense light, the strongest environmental signal that
synchronizes the brain’s internal sleep-wake pattern to the 24-hour cycle of the
Earth day.
The human body clock consists of an intricate
network of chemical and electrical signals controlled by two rice-grain-size
structures deep in the brain. Most people’s internal clock runs slightly longer
than 24 hours. However, among sighted people, the clock is reset each day by
light-sensing cells in the eyes that signal to the brain that it is
daytime.
For the blind, this reset mechanism fails. The resulting symptoms are similar to those experienced by sighted people who chronically disrupt their light cycle by shift work or travel across time zones.
Therefore to overcome this problem, people had used drugs which can mimic and effect the brain to signal when to sleep.
“Some who suffer from non-24 have found limited relief through treatment with synthetic versions of the hormone melatonin, which works to drag forward the body clock’s reset time by providing a chemical pulse to the brain that signals
nighttime.”
Eventually, as we relate this phenomenon with future human, we could predict the similar changes to them when comparing with the blind people. However, is there a possibility to develop drugs in the form of pills which contain melatonin to mimic the brain to regulate the sleep cycle pattern? In the future with no light can this be the ultimate source and help to find sleep?
Thulangana Ganeshan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/blind-people-often-find-it-hard-to-align-their-sleep-wake-cycle-with-24-hour-day/2012/08/06/5578f090-bb0d-11e1-abd4-aecc81b4466d_story.html