Prospecting Beneath the Seas

For decades, scientists have searched for plants that contain disease-fighting compounds. Some powerful cancer drugs are derived from a flower that grows in the forests of Madagascar. But experts say a better place to search for these natural medicines may be among the myriad life forms that dwell in the ocean. As NPR's Eric Niiler reports, researchers are now scouring the seven seas in hopes of finding the next blockbuster drug.

 

Full article:

http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_953341.html

 

On my way back from school I was listening to the radio while they talked about this subject. Sounded intresting (esspecially about the whale bones), just wonder what everyone thinks.

Just hope this doesnt mean people start mining coral reefs and ripping yet more life out of the seas.

 

Our record here is bad, From the collapse of the Grand Banks fishery to the Danes vacuuming the North Sea for sand eels to burn in power stations.

 

Its time we woke up and realised what we might be losing.

Yea, but hopefully we are becoming more envirarmentaly aware as it seems. The more we explore and understand the oceans the better we will be. The Coral reefs are one of the most evolved organisms on earth and they can help us in ways we can't imagen. They can repress sponing because they know of a storms. They are highly evolved, they have existed for more than 450 million years although in the ancient past it was first the blue green algae and later the sponges, not corals, which were the major reef builders. We must protect these structures and I do believe they it's illegal to tamper with them. More reef information - http://www.coralreefalliance.org/

I hope so. But when i read articles like this and look back on the human races record i can't help worrying. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1835951.stm

 

Maybe we can learn, lets hope.