brain imaging

New scientific discoveries and research can make people understand many things that are unknown before and provide people better and more comfortable life. However, at the same time, they bring us some negative impacts. For example, the development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can help detect and locate brain activity when people thinking and predict the brain activation patterns and thus contributes a lot in the field of treating mental diseases, but also may raise a series of ethical problems, such as abuses and testing of children. Therefore, researchers should predict and minimize potential unethical abuses of their works.Firstly, access is a significant issue. Researchers should well keep all the data related to the research, ranging from the data and experiment results to the final work. As under some circumstances, a few unethical researchers and organizations may embezzle the unfinished works to obtain profits or reputation from them. However, they may misuse the information and cause some problems. For example, the manufacturing of nuclear weapons and other threatening weapons should be the top secret. All the things related to the manufacturing process and the material needed must be taken very good care of, in case of misuse by terrorists. Thus, the access to the database should be secured.Moreover, in order to prevent the potential unethical abuses happening, researchers have to predict the potential abuses caused by the research in advance and think of ways to overcome them. Therefore, before the research done, researchers should minimize the possible troubles and then prevent wicked people making use of it. Also, rules and regulations must to be made in dealing with the unethical problems. In conclusion, the development of science and technology raises some ethical issues. To prevent and minimize the unethical abuses of the research works, researchers have to be responsible for the accuracy and security of their works and be aware of the potential unethical issues.

Is it an ethical issue to make decisons relating to climate change?

In less than a month, almost all the countries in the world, except those near the equator, are covered with heavy snow. Our blue planet turns out to be a white one. Nobody can survive in the white world for they have all been frozen to death. Is it a new fiction? In the movie “the day after tomorrow”, the survived people wish so but unfortunately it is not. In fact, based on the climate change today, scientists have predicted that if the temperature continues to rise, we are likely to have a second Ice Age in the future. When? Maybe it is 1000 years later, 100 years later, or it may just happen tomorrow. Reports, journals, speeches and other media have stated the drawbacks of the climate change affecting our future generations, and many have regarded the corresponding reactions and decisions as ethical issues. In my opinion, from the effects which global warming has on the earth, the induced living problems point out that our actions relation to climate change are in immediate demand to protect both the lives now and in the future.
One of the significant problems caused by the climate change is the rising sea level. Around the globe, sea level is about 6 inches higher than it was 100 years ago, due primarily to warmer sea water, along with glacier melting, and the rate of rise is increasing. Relative sea level rise is currently causing substantial loss of lands in some deltas. Besides, the warmer sea temperature influences the cycling of the food chain because the elementary parts, the mini-organisms, cannot be bought to the deeper ocean by the heavier cold current. Countries living on the fish export, for example, Japan and Mexico, have faced the reduction of marine products. From the small scale, the rising sea level is evading the homes and the income of people living in the coastal regions. From a large scale, the economy of the country is affected. Once the living environment and living standards cannot be sustained by the country, there will be no political peace within that country and also with the world.
Another major drawback is the less regular rainfall distribution in the world. In other words, regions having large amounts of rainfall before exhibit much more raindrops, for example, Singapore, while areas lack of rains in the past can hardly see the raindrops nowadays like Inner Mongolia. The resultant problem is more floods occurring in the countries or regions near equator; the increasing areas of desserts in the counties or regions located towards poles. Both floods and desserts harm people’s lives.
In conclusion, comparing the drawbacks climate change has brought to the world to the benefits gained, actions must be taken to prevent the world from getting hotter. It is not only an ethical issue for us to react to consider our future generations, but a strong relation between our nowadays lives and the nature change to take actions to protect ourselves. Government and the better-off ones should make decisions and reactions relating to climate change as it is they who make the choices.

How to solve the problem of waste disposal.

Since 1978, China has experienced an increasing faster industry development. The huge amounts of waste have been and will be a fatal cause of the health of its people as well as a potentially marked resistance to its development. As a future engineer, I propose that the government should construct product-waste chains within different portions of industries so that the materials can be used more efficiently. Therefore, the sources will be less; finally the growing industry will also be environmentally friendly. First of all,, let me explain what exactly the product-waste chains are. There are two types of product-waster chains. One type is that the used products of one industry, say, the waster, will be the sources of other industries. Once this product-waste-source process can be established in a cycle, the chain will be constructed. Take the water flow as a typical example in nature. The water molecules go from sea as vapor into the sky, forms clouds and drops down to the ground as rain, runs to the rivers and in the end flows back to the sea. The other type of product-waste chain is that the bi-products of one industry will be the sources of other industries. As well as the product-waste-source chain, if the bi-product-source process is established in a cycle, the bi-product-source chain will be formed. The advantages of the chains are obvious ---- less raw materials are required as the material flow is cycled; less waste is produced for the waste may be used either in a product-waster-source chain or in a bi-product-source chain. The demand of less raw materials and less production of waster will eventually help the industry development to be environmentally green. In conclusion, the two product-waste chains will make a great effort in solving the waste disposal problem by asking for less raw materials and producing less waste products.