AlaSt_blog

Animals like cats or dogs eat grass to help their digestion, while wild species use natural substances in order to prevent diseases or to prevent getting parasites. This behavior is called animal self-medication, or more formally “zoopharmacognosy”. There are also other behaviors such as the consumption of medicinal plants, soil, or the application of substances to the body. That might be a bit surprising, but for example consuming dirt is also really important for some of the wild animals, since it’s the source of many minerals which are helpful in the process of digestion. There was an expedition to Brazil recently taking place and it was discovered that Cabreúva which is locally known for its great anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory and antibiotic functions. It is found that it is a resource that could help the species that use it to maintain their populations by improving their health and increasing their reproductive success. In my opinion that is such an important discovery, bec...

BBC interviewed four cleaners who said that they were fired from Twitter on Monday, they said that they were sacked without getting severance pay. One of them -  Adrianna Villarreal, who worked for Twitter for four years, told the BBC that now she’s afraid that she might not have enough money to feed her family during Christmas Time. Julio Alvarado had been a cleaner for 10 years at Twitter and his says that the atmosphere has always been nice and friendly. That was until Elon Musk took Twitter over in October. "Elon Musk has had a long history of flouting labour laws," said Mr Chiu. The president of the cleaners' union, told the BBC they organised a protest on Monday which led to cleaners being fired immediately. In my opinion, sacking people off just before the Christmas Time is quite cruel. A lot of them may not be able to live through winter or even feed their children, but honestly I don’t think that neither Elon Musk nor his people care too much about it. They’re ...

Austin Lee Edwards is a 28-years-old man who drove across US to meet teen girl met online. He catfished her to obtain her personal information by deceiving her with a false identity. He is suspected of committing a triple homicide, by setting fire to victim’s family home in Riverside, California. Bodies found in burned home are identified as the girl’s grandparents and mother. The teenage girl herself, was luckily unharmed and taken into protective custody. The suspect died in a shooting with police. Until last month, he was a Virginia state police trooper, and on 16th of November, Edwards was hired as a deputy sheriff in Washington county. I think this story is absolutely horrific and heartbreaking. A person who was supposed to help others and defend the law, turns out to be a criminal who people should be protected from. This story proves how important it is to teach kids to never trust strangers on the internet. We don’t know who is behind the screen and they might not be who they...

On 15 th of November this year, our world population reached 8 billion people. That’s over 3 times larger than it was in 1950. Basing on current trends, UN estimates that it’s possible that by 2030 the population might reach 8,5 billion and by 2050 we could get to 10,4 billion of people. Most rapid growth happened in early 1960s, though the pace of growth has slowed with wider availability of contraception, economies development and increased level of education for young girls. Now, typically, woman gives birth twice and in 1950s it was five. This doesn’t apply to every region though, because for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, women are giving birth more than four times and in Pacific region – three times. In my opinion, though it seems quite exciting that there is so many people living on earth right now, I think it should be concerning as well. The fact that the population is growing, comes with many downsides as well. The more of us there is, the more food, space, energy, etc. w...

Two teenage activists, glued their hands to frames of two Francisco Goya paintings (“The Naked Maja” and “The Clothed Maja”), at the Prado museum, in Madrid. They wrote “+1,5°C” between the two artworks. The museum confirms that luckily none of the paintings were damaged, but the frames do have slight blemishes. Climate crisis is a really important concern in the modern world, but in my opinion, drawing attention to this problem by committing acts of vandalism is just dumb and completely inappropriate. Though the paintings aren’t destroyed, they possibly could’ve been and I think that exposing such important   and valuable art works to the potential damage is certainly not right. Also, I don’t understand why they would ever consider destroying art pieces completely unrelated to the global warming problem. Summing up, though the intentions of the activists are rather good, I think that the way in which they are drawing attention to the problem is completely wrong and inappropriate...

Last Sunday, a pedestrian bridge collapsed in Morbi (India), which lead to death of 135 people. Pedestrians standing in the middle of the bridge, fell into the water and drowned, while people who were closer to ends died from hitting the rocks. There is a suspicion of a massive corruption being involved, because the Gujarat government entrusted the repair of a 100-year-old bridge to the local company called Oreva and this company is known from making watches, clocks and lighting. It is unknown if they have any experience in repairing infrastructure. Personally, I think that this tragedy shows how big of a tragedy can happen because of someone’s oversight. 135 innocent people died, leaving their families in grief and pain. Incidents like that happen relatively often and that’s why I think it is so important to prevent them. It can be done by committing the repair of bridges and all the other public utilities only to trusted companies and contractors.   source: https://www.theg...