Thursday, August 25, 2011

An Amazing World

We live in an amazing world. That much we all know but it seems no one knows just how amazing Mother Earth truly is.

Scientists have long argued about just how many species there are on Earth. The numbers varied somewhere between 3 million and 100 million and recently a new study estimated that Earth has almost 8.8 million species of life.

Of course no one can be sure of the number and this is just an educated guess at best. However there are some people who say it just doesn’t matter how many species there are on Earth and even scientists question why we need to know the exact number of species on our planet. Usually, it’s the cost that is the problem.

Now I wouldn’t begin to hazard a guess on how many species of life there are on Earth but I say that it's important to know the number. Currently we only know about 1.9 million species on Earth which means mankind has not even scratch the surface of the question. It could be possible that one of the millions of undiscovered species has some unknown properties which can help fight diseases or other ailments we have. This is not an impossible possibility.

As for the cost factor; If mankind can spend millions of dollars fighting wars left, right and centre, why can’t spend some of the money on this question. Considering the potential benefits, surely it will be money better spent.

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