Ease Up

Social studies have revealed that the more industrialized and more economically developed a country is, the more fast-paced the country will be. The USA is one of the fastest paced countries in the world. However, fast pace would cause pressures; pressures would cause stress and tension: and stress and tension would cause anxiety, worry, high-blood pressure, stomach ulcer and headache.

To be happy and healthy, we have to come out of tension. How to remove tension? To prepare for this speech, I made a study. There are numerous methods to relax. However, combined with my own experience, I believe three methods are effective to ease up.

The first method is to relax your muscles. In order to relax your mind, you should start with your muscles. Experts suggest that you should check yourself three or four times a day. Ask yourself: Am I making my work harder than it actually needs? Am I hunching up my shoulders? Are the muscles of my face tense or stiff? Do I feel strains with my eyes? Remember that tense muscles are working muscles. They produce nervous tensions and nervous fatigue!

How do you relax your muscles? Suppose you want to relax your eyes. You can close your eyes, focus your attention on your eyes and say to your eyes softly, “Let go. Let go. Stop straining, stop frowning. Let go. Let go.” Repeat that over slowly for a minute…, then you will notice that the muscles of your eyes begin to obey and relax. You can do the same thing with the muscles of your face, your neck, your shoulders, and every part of you body. After you have completely relaxed your body, your mind will also be relaxed.

The second method to easy up is to adjust your breathing. Breathe in and breathe out slowly, steadily and with rhythm. For a few minutes, just pay attention to your breath and try to ignore everything else. Then you will feel peace with your mind. Believe me, it is widely proven that slow, steady and rhythmical breathing is one of the best methods to relax and quiet your mind. It is a method that has been practiced in China and India for thousands of years.

The third method to easy up is to pray. Did I say pray? Yes. Praying is very effective to remove tension, anxiety, and worry. I am not a missionary. But many social and psychological studies have shown that praying has profound effects on your health. What is praying? Different people may have different understanding. But one thing is sure: while you pray, you speak your problems out. Speaking problems out itself is a kind of relief and it clarifies your mind. I believe one function of praying is to take your burden to God and leave it there. Think about this. Isn’t this powerful? God is in control. What are you worrying about? Praying is the tested experience of billions of believers in the world. How to pray? You can master it by going to churches or other places of worship. I believe most of you here know more about how to pray than I do.

To enjoy our life and live longer, we should ease up. When you feel tense and stressful next time, please relax your muscles, adjust your breathing and pray to God.

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This is one of my 5-7 min Toastmaster speeches.

Scientific Method

The progress of science has greatly broadened our understanding of the nature and improved the quality of our life.

Science is organized knowledge on any subject. It includes facts and theories. Scientific methods are techniques used for investigating phenomena, obtaining new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.

Scientific methods differ or vary among subjects, for example, the methods used for studying biology are different from those used for studying Astrology or geology. But basically, a scientific method includes the following steps:

Step one is to define the problem. Ask what the problem is. A well defined problem is halfway to being solved. It is not an easy task to define a problem. Albert Einstein once said if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution. On many occasions, the problem is to know what the problem is.

Step two is to construct hypotheses. Hypothesis is a proposed explanation for the phenomenon or suggested answers to the question. Constructing hypothesis is to give reasonable explanation to the phenomenon based on observation and previous knowledge.

Step three is to make predictions. The prediction is logical and reasonable deduction from the hypothesis. If the hypothesis were correct, what consequences would follow?

Step four is to test the hypothesis by performing experiments or collecting data.

Step five is to draw conclusions. Analyze the results of the experiments and interpreting the data collected, check if they are consistent to the predictions made on step three. Do the results disprove the hypothesis, verify the hypothesis or prove the hypothesis is partly correct that needs to be modified?

These five steps consist of a cycle that will be repeated again and again in continuous scientific exploration.

The key point of scientific knowledge is that the scientific ideas or theories are testable, can be proved or disproved. If an idea or a theory cannot be tested, it could be either because science and technology has not developed to such a stage to provide necessary tools or means to test it, or because the idea or theory is not a scientific one. For example, without invention of microscopes, the microorganisms wouldn’t have been discovered in 19th century, or the idea of existence of invisible life could not be proved at that time.

Ideas concerning value, morality, ethnics and religion are not scientific; they are beyond science. For example, science alone cannot answer if abortion is right or wrong.

It is my belief that scientific methods are not only essential techniques for solving scientific problems but also powerful tools for solving the problems we encounter every day.

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The above is one of my 5-7 min speeches I delivered in Toastmasters Club.

Life comes from life?

If you said, “Two plus two equals four, or there are fish in the ocean.” No one would argue with you and you wouldn’t offend anybody. But if you explicitly claimed, “Life came from God’s design or Life originated from non-living matter”, you could possibly put yourself in hot water and offend somebody.

For centuries until 19th century, people generally believed that some life, such as
frogs, maggots, fleas, mice, arose spontaneously from non-living matter.

For example, the famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle stated that it was an observable truth that fleas arose from rotten matter, mice originated from dirty hay, snakes and crocodiles came from rotting logs at the bottom of water.

The theory that life comes directly from non-living matter is called "spontaneous generation"

In the 19th century, microorganisms were discovered. People knew that meat broth would go bad in several days because of growth of microorganisms. But they didn’t know where the microorganisms came from, and thought the microorganisms must spontaneously generate in the broth.

In 1859, a famous French Scientist, Luis Pasteur designed an experiment and disproved the theory of "spontaneous generation”.

As indicated in the figure below, Pasteur used two flasks, one with a straight neck, and the other with a S-shaped neck. Each flask contained meat broth and both of the flasks are open-mouthed.

He boiled the broth in the two flasks and left them for days. Pasteur found that the broth in the flask with straight neck spoiled, but the broth in the flask with S-shaped neck didn’t.

Pasteur reasoned that microorganisms in the air could enter the flask with straight neck but not the flask with S-shaped necked – because microorganisms were settled by gravity in the neck. He then tilted the S-shaped necked flask so that the broth reached the lowest point in the neck, then the broth rapidly spoiled and went bad.

This experiment proved that the broth itself couldn’t produce microorganisms; microorganisms in the broth came from the microorganisms in the air.

Pasteur concluded that microorganisms were "everywhere", even in the air; and life, even as "simple" as microorganisms, could only come from life.

Up to now, scientists have identified more than two millions of species living on the earth. Please note that no matter you are White men, Black men or Yellow men, we all belong to one species – human being. But there are at least two millions of different species living on the earth. You have to believe that the nature favors diversity. Diversity should not only be tolerated but embraced.

Have we understood life thoroughly? No, far from it. We are still surrounded by the mysteries of life and mysteries of universe. It doesn’t seem strange that there are different understandings about evolution, creationism or intelligent design.

Pasteur’s experiment is sometimes quoted by people who preach Christianity. Is it in favor of creationism or evolution? This is a question left for you.

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The above is one of my 5-7 min speeches delivered in my Toastmaster Club.

Getting Serious about Biofuels

As we know, invention and technology in transportation have changed our concept of distance and made the world smaller. People will always love private cars because they represent a kind of freedom. Needless to say, it needs energy to run cars. According to recent data from the U.S.A government, fossil fuels provide 97% of all the energy consumed for transportation in the USA. However, fossil fuels were formed from plants and animals that lived on earth millions of years ago. The resources of fossil fuels are limited and non-renewable.

The figure below is the world oil production prediction conducted by the Energy Research Center, University of Kansas. According to this prediction the world oil production will peak in 2009. It is arguable when the peak in oil production will occur, past, now, or in 10 years. But it is hard to avoid this conclusion that the worldly oil production will peak soon and then decline.

After world oil production peaks and declines, the world will face a severe situation. The situation is that the world simply cannot produce enough fossil oil to meet the demand from transportation. This energy gap for transportation has to be filled. And to be safe and sustainable, the alternative energy source should be diverse, such as electricity, hydrogen fuel cell and biofuels. Biofuels are fuels that are derived from biomass. It can be produced from crops, weeds, trees and algae. The main forms of biofuels are bioethanol and biodiesel. Bioethanol is ethanol fermented from sugars or starches of corn and sugarcane etc. And Biodiesel is plant oil extracted from soybean and oil palm etc.

The advantage of biofuels over batteries or other technologies to run cars is convenience. It takes only 10 min to refill you car with liquid fuel but it would take much longer with electricity.

Although biofuels offer an alternative to support economic growth and national security, there are some concerns about developing biofuels. The most important concern is competition between food and fuel. If biofuels become more profitable for farmers, they may grow crops for biofuel production instead of food production. And less food production will increase food prices.

Nowadays, scientists are working on improving biofuel production efficiency and lower the production cost. In the future, it is possible to genetically-engineer bacteria and to make them directly produce ethanol or other fuels.

In 2008 USA produced about 4 billion gallons of biofuels accounting for about 3% of all transportation fuel consumed. Obama’s presidential energy plan for biofuels is 60 billion gallons per year by 2030, which is 15 times more than the present biofuel production. This is a challenging goal.

Can we solve the energy problem? Yes we can. I believe, with the advancement of science and technology, the USA and the world will solve the energy problem.

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The above is one of my 5-7 min speeches delivered in my Toastmaster Club.

Photosynthesis, What a Blessing

Photosynthesis is a chemical process that plants and other photosynthetic organisms fix carbon dioxide and water into glucose and release oxygen by using energy of sunlight. Glucose is a kind of sugar and it can be converted into starch, fat, proteins and other components of cells. Photosynthesis can be simply expressed in the equation listed below.

Photosynthesis is considered to be the most important chemical reaction on the earth.

This is because, firstly, oxygen in air originated from photosynthesis. Based on scientific studies, during the early days of the earth, there was no free oxygen in the atmospheres. It was the process of photosynthesis that supplied oxygen to the atmosphere. How important oxygen is to us? Without oxygen it means we cannot breathe. How long can you hold without breathing? You can test it by putting your face into water. I did it. I can hold for one minute. It is extremely difficulty for me to hold for two minutes. The Guinness world record in 2008 is 14 minutes. However, most of people would die in less than ten minutes without breathing. So you see, without oxygen, we would die very quickly.

Secondly, photosynthesis provides the material and energy source for plants, animals and humans. Plants can grow by using solar energy through photosynthesis. But Animals and humans have to eat foods that are plants or other animals to survive. How important foods are to us? Some people in our club have already talked about nutrition and healthy foods. I enjoyed your speeches and I think I have learned a lot from your speeches. Naturally I would like to choose the foods that are good for my health. However, if you had not eaten any food for three days, I bet you would completely forget about nutrition and would possibly eat grasses and worms. Without food, we could hardly survive for one week.

Thirdly, fossil fuels, including oil, coal and natural gas are the products of photosynthesis. Why are they called fossil fuels? Because they formed from plants and animals that lived on earth millions of years ago. How important fossil fuels are to us? Recent information reveals that fossil fuels, oil, natural gas and coal provide us with 86% of the energy that we are consuming. Without fossil fuels, we not only cannot drive, but the industry would completely paralyze or collapse. Our way of living would have to go back up to that of three hundred years ago. Can you adapt to that kind of life? I don’t know whether I can adapt to it or not but I prefer the present life style. So without fossil fuels we could not enjoy our present life style.

Photosynthesis provides us with Oxygen, food and fossil fuels. We human did not design or create photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a gift of nature or a gift of God if you like to see it from the angle of religion. No matter how photosynthesis originated, isn’t it a blessing for mankind?

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The above is a speech I delivered at my Toastmasters club. This five to seven minute speech is based on Toastmasters Competent Communication Manual, Project Seven: Research Your Topic.

Genome and Creating Artificial Life

In my last speech, I talked about DNA and genes. DNA is a molecule that encodes genetic information in cells.

Genome is the entire DNA of an organism. This is to say that a genome contains all the genetic information needed to make the organism. Most of you may have heard of “Human Genome project”. Up to now, scientists have sequenced genomes of about a dozen of organisms. There are accumulated interests for scientist to understand the huge amount of genome sequencing data. Studying of genome data would help scientists better understand some basic questions about life, such as minimal genetic information needed to make or sustain a life. Such knowledge would makes it possible one day in the future that scientists can specifically design a genome, synthesize the genome and create an synthetic or artificial life.

Hers is an experiment conducted by scientists in Craig Venter Institute.

Left in the picture is a kind of bacteria. We called it A. A has its own genome X. Scientists designed a genome Y based on the blue script of another bacteria B.

Genome Y was introduced into Bacteria A and later Genome Y replaced genome X.

After the genome was replaced, all characteristics of bacteria A including its proteins, membrane and appearance changed, changed completely into bacteria B. This experiment illustrated that after transplantation of genome, a bacterial species changed into another.

This experiment itself didn’t create a new life. But it is a big step toward creating a synthetic or artificial life.

What could this technology – creating artificail life do? Unlimited! If synthetic life can be created in the future, this technology would be as revolutionary as nuclear energy and computers. One possible application of synthetic life is to create microorganism for bio-fuels production.

Some people may feel it is impossible or extremely dangerous for human being to create artificial life. Are we playing God here? As far as I am concerned, I think scientists will be able to create simple life like bacteria in 10 or 20 years, but it would be extremely difficulty or very unlikely to create complicated life like plants and animals in the near future.

Is the technology of creating artificial life horrible? No. I don’t think so. Technology itself cannot be labeled “good” or “evil”. It depends how it is used. Similar as nuclear energy, hazards the technology of creating artificial life could possibly bring about are environmental pollution because of accidental release of artificial life and production of bio-weapon by terrorists using this technology.

History has proven that the world, the society and people’s life have been getting better and better because of the development of science and technology. So it will be the case for the technology of creating artificial life as well.

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The above is one of 5 - 7 minute speeches I delivered in my Toastmasters club.

Gene and Genetic Engineering

If you think why dogs give birth to dogs, cats give birth to cats, or an apple seed grows into an apple tree, you are thinking basic questions of Genetics. That phenomenon is called heredity. Why are we humans? The answer is simple: we are humans because our parents are humans. Our parents passed the information of humans to us and based on that kind of information we developed into humans. The information our parents passed to us is called Genetic Information. A unit of the genetic information is called a gene.

Genes exist in the sequence of DNA, a large molecule contained in the cells. DNA is composed of four bases, A, T, G, C. Different genes have different lengths and sequences.

Genes are softwares, or programs of an organism. They determine how an organism looks, how it takes its food, how it fights infection, and sometimes how it behaves. Change of a gene can mean death, illness or characteristic change to an organism.

The technique involving direct manipulation of genes is called genetic engineering.

One example of application of genetic engineering is Bt cotton. Bt represents Bacterial Toxin, a kind of protein encoded by Bacteria Bt gene. Bt is toxic to some insects. Bt gene is a bacteria gene. Cotton or other plants don’t naturally have the gene. Scientists have isolated the Bt gene from bacteria and transferred it into some cotton plants. The cotton plants that obtain the Bt gene are called genetically modified cotton or Bt cotton. Bt cotton can produce bacterial toxin, which can kill pests that eat the cotton. Nowadays, Bt cotton has widely planted in USA, China and India. Application of Bt cotton can increase yield, save farm labor and avoid pesticide contamination.

Another example of application of genetic engineering is Gene Therapy, a technique of directly using genes to treat or prevent diseases. Recently, scientists in University of Washington injected genes that produce color-detecting proteins into two color-blind monkeys and cured the color-blind monkeys. The two monkeys have been able to see red and green for the first time.

Genetic engineering has already emerged as a powerful technique in agriculture and medicine. It is expected that genetic engineering will provide revolutionary technology to solve energy, environmental, and global warming problems in the future.

Someone says that the 20th century is the century of physics and 21st century is the century of biology. I believe it.

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The above is one of 5-7 minute speeches that I delivered in my Toastmaster Club.