Friday, May 20, 2011

Advances in Medical and Agricultural Technologies

Preview:
 Agriculture Biotechnology is the application of scientific techniques
to modify and improve plants, animals, and microorganisms
to enhance their value. Agricultural biotechnology
is the area of biotechnology involving applications
to agriculture. Agricultural biotechnology has been
practiced for a long time, as people have sought to improve
agriculturally important organisms by selection
and breeding. An example of traditional agricultural biotechnology
is the development of disease-resistant wheat
varieties by cross-breeding different wheat types until
the desired disease resistance was present in a resulting
new variety.
Medical technology extends and improves life. It alleviates pain, injury and handicap. Its role in healthcare is essential. Incessant medical technology innovation enhances the quality and effectiveness of care. Billions of patients worldwide depend on medical technology at home, at the doctor’s, at hospital and in nursing homes. Wheelchairs, pacemakers, orthopedic shoes, spectacles and contact lenses, insulin pens, hip prostheses, condoms, oxygen masks, dental floss, MRI scanners, pregnancy tests, surgical instruments, bandages, syringes, life-support machines: more than 500,000 products (10,000 generic groups) are available today. Medical technology represents only 6,3% of total healthcare expenditure in Europe - a modest share if you consider the benefits for every member of society.


 Narrative/ Things I learned:

The reporters stressed out the technologies commonly used by the people today in terms of agriculture and medicine.
Based on my own understanding, the effect of technology in agriculture is 
Farmers use crop-protection technologies because they
provide cost-effective solutions to pest problems which,
if left uncontrolled, would severely lower yields. As
mentioned above, crops such as corn, cotton, and potato
have been successfully transformed through genetic
engineering to make a protein that kills certain insects
when they feed on the plants.
The effect of technology in medicine are the new technologies that can cure diseases. Technologies used in every surgeries and operations were commonly used by the modern doctors and it is also means higher payments for every surgeries and operation process which means that only  who can afford were the ones that can be saved.

Source:
Ania Wieczorek
Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences

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