The Museum of Natural History at the University of Iowa campus is located in the Iowa Hall of the McBride Building on the Pentacrest Area of the university. On Friday afternoon of February 20th, I arrived at the museum and found few visitors which made the exhibits easily accessible. Since I was a child, I have been going to the museum since it is a favorite of my parents. The museum had kept me entertained for hours while I explored and looked at the exhibits for things that I have not previously
Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether global warming could affect the thermohaline circulation cycle (THC) significantly enough that it could even shut it down and thus cause a shift in the climate of Europe severe enough to cause another Little Ice Age. To answer the question about whether global warming could cause another ice age, I have divided this paper into segments. The first will explain what the thermohaline circulation cycle is. Next, I will look at the last
We have been living in the Holocene; a relatively warm, stable period that started at the end of the last ice age some 11700 years ago and still continues today. As the climate became warmer after the Pleistocene Ice Age agriculture was invented and the global population started to increase. Today there are more 7 billion people alive. The increasing population is putting a lot of pressure of our planet, with industrialization still rapidly increasing our skies and waters are becoming more and more
The “first ice core based climate history for Africa” was reconstructed by Thompson et al. with data obtained from an ice field on Kibo, Mount Kilimanjaro’s highest peak” (589) The proxy records covered the more recent geologic epoch known as the Holocene which began around 11.7 thousand years ago and extends through today. Some of the techniques used by Thompson et al. in the reconstruction included aerial photographs, automatic weather stations, oxygen isotope (O18) and chemical analysis of pertinent
and beginning before the “warm period of the first half of the twentieth century.” Matthes originally coined the term “Little Ice Age” when he described it as an “epoch of renewed but moderate glaciation which followed the warmest part of the Holocene.” The glaciers of the Sierra Nevada in California were the focus of Mat... ... middle of paper ... ...dur. The climate of Iceland through one thousand years. Copenhagen, 1916-1917. Tyrell, J. B., ed., David Thompson’s Narrative of His Explorations
The statement in question for this assignment puts forth various assertions: that the Little Ice Age cooled the climate worldwide, that it wasn’t the coldest period since the last ice age, and that because the earth is in a natural time of warming from this period, human-made greenhouse gasses are not plausible as a source of global warming. Some of these statements are true, but there are also fallacies within these assertions. The Little Ice Age is the name for the period of cooling spanning from
In Dipesh Chakrabarty’s essay, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” he begins with “…the proposition that anthropogenic explanations of climate change spell the collapse of the age-old humanist distinction between natural history and human history.” With this initial statement, Chakrabarty declares that the advent of manmade climate change in the anthropocene, humans can no longer be considered separately from nature as they had been previously segregated by Enlightenment and western thinking.
Climate is the average weather conditions present in a particular area over a long period of time. Earth’s climate is an intricate system that is essential to our livelihoods. It is for this reason that scientists, such as paleoclimatologist, are hoping to better understand future climate conditions by studying the Earth’s past and present climate conditions. There are two types of data available to scientist studying past and present climate conditions. The first is instrumental data, which is
After I read this book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. I realized it talks about the extinctions the Earth has confronted and the purposes behind these. In the beginning, the general concept of "extinction" was not popular yet it finally developed as an idea in the revolutionary France. This was achieved by one creature, the creature now discussed to the American mastodon and exclusive Cuvier who is alluded to as the "Father of fossil science". The reason of this book is that we can
neighbors within our very planet. Earth is in the midst of its sixth great extinction, keyed as the Holocene Extinction after the current epoch the planet is in. The Holocene Extinction, starting between 9,000 and 13,000 years ago, is the most recent since the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, during which the dinosaurs were wiped out (Heymann, Chibante and Brooks). Such knowledge of our current ongoing mass extinction event is not well known among the common populace. The simple fact is that
Holocene Extinction (6th Mass Extinction) Did you know humans had the power create a mass extinction event? For 12,000 years, the Holocene extinction has been devastating life on earth; it branches into nearly all taxonomic groups: birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and arthropods. Only 875 extinctions have been documented between the year 1500 and 2010, but, according to International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, there is approximately 140,000 extinctions per year.
Learning is defined as a, "relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience" (Myers, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the different theoretical approaches and explanations for learning through an examination of the theories of behaviorism, social learning and cognitive. I will investigate the principles and postulates of each theory, their strengths and their weaknesses. It is my belief that because each theory is best applicable to varying
While many people may believe that learning is just a natural response that all animals are capable of, there is actually a more complex explanation on how we learn the things we do in order to survive in the world. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are both basic forms of learning, they have the word conditioning in common. Conditioning is the acquisition of specific patterns of behavior in the presence of well-defined stimuli. Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which
The Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) has been on the endangered species list since 1967 with only 130 individuals surviving within a small area in Southern Florida (Sullivan 2004). Prior to conservation efforts, the Florida panther has suffered several population losses due to inbreeding, habitat loss, and vehicular collisions with only an estimated 30 surviving individuals in the 1970s (Maehr 1992). The number one threat to the Florida panther is habitat loss and habitat fragmentation due to
Life, death, are very common. Maybe to common. In this world there are many plants and animals going extinct. Often times humans can get what want and need: like food, shelter, warmth, and help. Sadly plants and animals can not just get what they want; they have to survive. Many time the environment will harm or make it harder for thee plants and animals to survive off of what they find, not what they buy. As humans, we need plant and animals to survive. Many of the plant and animals are used for
De-extinction is a process that has been experimented with for many years, but has never been completely successful. The ethics and consequences of this idea have been questioned but, de-extinction has the potential to be truly helpful to humans and the environment, and many of the scenarios that people think could happen, are actually impossible. To actually revive a species, there are certain conditions that must be met, and the terrible situations that people think could happen, are unable to
therefore it is up to humans to repair the damage caused, be it cleaning the environment and habitats of these creatures, or taking more direct action to protect and preserve the species that are on the brink of extinction. As stated above, there are a multitude of causes for this “mass extinction”, and most all of them are caused by humans. One such causality is overfishing. Everyone loves to eat fish. However, with overfishing, humans are collecting more fish than we can consume as a population. Overfishing
A professional illustrator and historical figure shaping American identity, Walton Ford describes his own work as "nasty underground cartoons"(Ford; Pbs). The painting titled Tur is located on the third floor of the Smithsonian Museum. This three-section watercolor depicts the prehistoric, extinct Aurochs. The large mammal was often mistaken for bison. They were, by law, only to be hunted by royalty. Tur, the polish translation for Aurochs, is the reincarnation from the imagination of German scientists
Wildlife Endangerment Due to Human Intervention in Nature "The driving force behind today’s alarming decline in species is the destruction, degradation and fragmentation of habitat due to our increasing human population and wasteful consumption of resources."1 Everyday wildlife is forced to seek refuge in very remote, small areas. As the human population increases, land that was once inhabited by wildlife is urbanized to suit human needs. In other words, the land available for wildlife to survive
been done and it is not too late. Lynn R. Goldman, who wrote the article, “Endangered Species Act,” explains the details and the importance of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The article suggests that human activity is the lead cause of species extinction. Human kind brings loss of habitat, pollution, and overharvesting. What people do not realize is that species biodiversity has many health benefits for them. Whether it is a substance used in pharmaceuticals, or improving the quality of the environment