The potato was very important to the world around the time of the Irish Potato Blight.  The people mainly survived on only potatoes and milk and nothing more for their nutrition as together they had all the essential nutrients.    About half of the Irish community was solely dependent on this potato.  The societal and political factors that led to the severity of the potato blight was the massive population increase, the land owners being exploited and forced to export their crops to England, having poor housing conditions, and a low standard of living.  The pathogen associated with the potato blight was P. infestans known as HERB-1 mixed with the strain US-1.  The origin of the disease was it traveled from Mexico to North America to Europe perhaps on the potatoes used to feed the people on the ship as they crossed the sea.  Weather may have affected the potato as it had one of the coldest winters before, and also it has cool misty environment which helps to spread the disease.  The consequences of the blight on the Irish population was devastating.  Mass starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland took place.  About one million people died and a million people emigrated to mainly North America.  All these malnourished people let them to be vulnerable to diseases.  These diseases, measles, whooping cough, TB, cholera, are influenced by nutritional status.  The people were in famine and had no nutrition leaving them very vulnerable to die of starvation or disease as they had no strength.

Technologies used to modify genes has many potential benefits yet it has just as many risks to it.  Modifying genes could mean changing whole species to try to eliminate diseases or eliminate a species to rid the diseases.  The risks are high with modifying genes. If scientists were to change genes to change a species that change could change their whole wiring.  A new and worse disease could come out of it, just by trying to eliminate one.  The other way of eliminating a species could cause a cascade effect.  Everything on earth effects everything, if you try to get rid of mosquitos, they are a pollinator. Without the pollinating plants will die and with plants dying animals will die and eventually it will catch up to us and affect us drastically.  Another risk and possible benefit is changing embryos.  It could be good with fixing DNA sequences and having people not have disabilities.  The trouble is if this technology fell into the wrong hangs it could be used to build a superhuman that couldn’t be stopped.  Technology is a great thing to have to help rid diseases, however we need to use it properly in order to not make a drastic chain reaction.

HR: class discussion, movie, powerpoints, articles on canvas