Sophomore physiology and neurobiology major
In the annals of legend and lore, there is no monster that strikes fear into me quite as much as the Kraken. And as a guy with quite a number of irrational superstitious Voodoo Mama Juju fears, there’s absolutely nothing that can be as terrifying as the idea of a 100-foot squid that could drag you miles into the ocean. The terrifying part is that there is growing evidence that a creature like this once existed.
Recent discoveries in Nevada regarding the deaths of nine 45-foot ichthyosaurs have been attributed to the possible existence of an ancient Kraken, as the vertebrae of the killed ichthyosaurs were arranged in a pattern that eerily looked like a tentacle.
With so many fascinating things yet to be discovered in the aquatic world, it makes one question why there seems to be so few students engaging in less “sexy” science fields such as marine biology. Nowadays, whenever I ask someone what their major is, I always seem to get a rather unoriginal variety of similar answers, particularly if those majors are science-related.
Altogether, it seems as though we have a growing obsession with these “sexier” sciences, such as biology and chemistry, and as though we are neglecting other branches that are equally important.
And that is a major problem with today’s education and priority system.
While I, too, am guilty as a physiology and neurobiology major, overall around the world research and work in lesser-known fields such as entomology and atmospheric and oceanic sciences is criminally underfunded. Students and employees who might otherwise be interested in those fields are pushed away by the lack of financial incentive to get into those fields, as jobs in those sectors generally will pay significantly less than jobs in the “sexier” sciences of biology, chemistry and physics. This in turn bodes ill for the future of science. If we only concentrate on fields of study that will generate high profit margins, how will we discover what has yet to be discovered?
Indeed, it is quite possible that the answers to the medical and agricultural problems we face nowadays already exist within nature. However, our continual lack of investment and the intrinsic difficulty of documenting all these eclectic forms of life are hindering our abilities to make discoveries. Considering how there are still millions of species that have yet to be discovered on Earth and how we lose thousands of species each year to a variety of manmade and natural extinction factors, it is clear that there must be a worldwide focus on these less “sexy” sciences. Failure to do so will result in gradual loss in biodiversity that could prove to be catastrophic.
In the end, today’s newfound technologies have allowed us to successfully explore many of our planet’s harshest and most unforgivable terrains. Further advances in astrophysics, aeronautical sciences and medical sciences have allowed even our expansion into new planetary systems, and yet our growing fascination with these “sexier” sciences have caused us to lose sight of equally promising frontiers that lie right before our eyes.
Max An is a sophomore physiology and neurobiology major. He can be reached at maxandbk@gmail.com.
