Please tell me, in a brief paragraph or three, about the Gaia Theory / Hypothesis????
The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis that proposes that living and nonliving parts of the earth are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Named after the Greek earth goddess, this hypothesis postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that promotes life overall. this was a quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis check the link for the full answer Alon
Why is reproduction essential for organisms?
Reproduction is important for the continuation of life.Species will become extinct if they don't produce young one's.Reproduction is also necessary for the process of evolution. We can't imagine evolution of species without continuous reproduction over a long period of time.
What is the importance of the study of living organisms?
Imagine you use your spaceship to land on a new planet. It’s inhabited by (comparatively) primitive life forms.You have two choices:Make up a fanciful, incorrect and extremely complicated report of their species and the planet.Take the time to learn about them, to study them and see what you can learn from them.We study living organisms because (most people believe) they are linked to us through evolution. By studying them we learn about ourselves, and how to better ourselves. More than that, it’s useful and interesting.How can we safely test new cancer drugs without experimenting on mice? If we didn’t study mice, we may as well test them on rocks because we couldn’t apply the results to us. In fact, we wouldn’t even have cancer drugs.All of our medical advancements come from biology, the study of living organisms. Would you rather have a rocket ship and live until the age of thirty due to poor hygiene, or have a long and fulfilled 80+ years of life and hold off on your rocket ship for a bit longer?How about paracetamol (tylenol in the USA)? Next time you have a headache, try and work out how we’d invent a painkiller without knowing how the body worked. Perhaps you’d rather we kept up blood-letting? I mean, you can probably survive without a couple of pints and it’d make you light-headed enough that you’d forget your problems pretty quickly, so maybe that IS the way forward!All jokes aside, biology is important. Studying other life forms helps us to learn about ourselves without human experimentation. That’s a no-no. :)
What advantages does Mars have over Earth and other planters. Hypothetically why would I want to move to Mars
This is a great question! I think you should read the book "The Case for Mars" by Dr. Robert Zubrin, PhD, available on amazon.com and in many local bookstores. Briefly, to answer your question, it is a fact that the human standard of living and overall prosperity is directly proportional to per capita energy use. The higher the better. In order to lift humanity out of poverty, we will need vast, vast amounts of energy. Fossil fuels won't do it. The only really practical source for all this energy is thermonuclear fusion, the same power that powers the sun. The fuel for this cannot be found in any quantity here on Earth. There is a little on the Moon, but most of this fuel is to be found almost totally in the atmospheres of the giant planets. In a couple of centuries, we will be routinely obtaining our fusion fuel from places like Uranus and Neptune, and Mars is a MUCH more favorable place to base this operation than either the Earth or the Moon. This is because Mars is very earthlike, but yet has very low gravity. Mars is the only place in the solar system where food crops can be grown out in the open countryside, other than the Earth, for instance. Furthermore, Mars is much closer to the riches of the asteroid belt. The bottom line is that a very high tech desirable prosperous branch of humanity will develop there. Most of the wealth of the solar system will be concentrated there, both in the hands of governments and individuals. 200 years from now, living on Mars will be like living in Beverly Hills, or Silicon Valley, and living anywhere on Earth will be the pits. The first Starships to colonize other stars will likely be launched from Mars, or one of the moons of Mars. I would move there in a heartbeat, and I will encourage my children and grandchildren to do the same. I hope this helps.
What would happen if there were no plants on earth?
We take Oxygen (O2) from plants, plants give us shadow, provide us with food and fruits. We make furnitures with tree woods, we eat parts of different plant leaves. Other animals in ecosystem also depend on plants for food and shelter. On the other hand, plants take Carbon dioxide (Co2) from us and air. They absorb CO2 from atmosphere and convert into O2 by photosynthesis and thus we get O2. As you know, too much CO2 isn't good for us as CO2 keeps the earth warm but too much CO2 can cause global warming and there are many bad effects of global warming. Plants absorb CO2 that we humans or animals or microorganisms release and keep the temperature of earth ar stable rate.So you see, plants have many advantages in our earth. So if there was no plant, our ecosystem would be disrupted. Herbivorous animals would be extinct without having plants to feed on. And we humans would have many problems too.