Biol 1080 - Prescription Oceans

Connor Hawley

Prof. Partin

BIOL1080

October 5th, 2016

Prescription Oceans

        I watched the 26 minute PBS video on ‘Prescription Oceans’, which centered around how important of a part that the ocean plays within modern healthcare. The major idea within the video is to stress how much us as a society can learn from the ocean.

It takes up over 75% of our world and we have barely touched the surface of its possibilities. We have gotten serums, antidotes, and even just ideas spurred by looking within the ocean. Vertebrae’s within the ocean have very high healing rates and also very high homeostasis abilities.

For example, a species of coral within the Caribbean have been found to have compounds that produce anti-inflammatory bodies that are found to reduce wrinkles in humans. Also, a small tentacle organism has been tested and investigated for these helpful genomes and characteristics; it was found that it contained genes that assisted in memory recovery and also white blood cell advancements.

Most individuals including myself don’t necessarily think about ocean exploration in a sense of healthcare, though after this video I really appreciate the idea of it now. I always thought that medical advancements were made purely by human invention or human discovery rather than studying other organisms.

Lastly, it is important to get the idea of these human advancements and the cause of such out to avoid the negligence within the ocean. The massive pollution in the ocean has been harming sea life and in turn has even put a noticeable monetary and timely burden on those scientists assigned to such ocean exploration efforts.

In all, this video was very informative to watch, and I believe other individuals should watch this as well. I have always been a supporter of the anti-pollution efforts across the nation but after watching this video it only heightened and gave me more reason to fight for the salvation of these bodies of waters and the organisms within it that call it home.