It's a small world!?

Question

I have to write a science essay based roughly around the title, 'it's a small world'. It can be in any format, about any topic, but I'm struggling to think of any interesting themes that I can a) find lots of easy-to-process information on and b) write a fair amount on. So far my train of thought is microorganisms, pathogens (bioweaons? HIV/AIDS?) and I was wondering if you guys could give me any leads... I'm a writer not a scientist!

Answer 1

Try taking the view that the world apparently shrinks over time by analysing the possible maximum distance travelled in 24 hours throughout the history of the human race. Your points of reference might be the dawn of the species and travelling on foot, the development of cartography and navigation, the domestication of the horse, sea-going sailing vessels, the train, the car, flight, jet aircraft and finish up with orbital spacecraft.

As a kicker, you might mention that from a point of view of mass, the Earth is actually getting larger! (Approx 100 000 000kg per day accumulated from various space debris.)

Answer 2

The Earth's relationship to the universe. Simple, but maybe it'll help. Microorganisms is a good one, but you can also go with humans. Humans can adapt to any environment (better than any other species) and it has brought the world (in human perspective) smaller. Kind of like the world to a cat is only a house, or a neighborhood, because that is as far as they can go. The world to a human is the whole Earth, if we wanted to, we can travel to China, South America, or Antartica. In this case too, it is a small world.

Answer 3

"small world", as it is used, is to say that "distances" between people have diminished over the years.
This is due to:
- instant intercontinental communications (you know after a few minutes what is happening the other side of the world).
- facility to travel between two different places on Earth, very quickly ("distance no object").
- internet: gosh that's a fast one! I got your msg a few minutes after you sent it. I am in Pt, you ar God knows where!
- Knowledge spreads fast, again through comms: we can become more equals, faster.
What I am saying is that the world became small because communication, travel, information is now nearly instantaneous.
20 years ago, you woul'd not have heard of the big tsunami for another two or three months after the fact. Today, you got live pictures, WHILE it's happenning.
That makes the "distances" irrelevant, hence, a smaller world.

Answer 4

Yep, cloning ain't a bad idea.
Stem cells, specifically. At the point where stem cells are collected, the embryo could be as small as as 150 cells in size, way way too small to be seen even with a powerful optical microscope. Still stirs plenty of passions though!

Answer 5

If you want disease as a topic look up the influenza pandemic around 1918-1920. A small world is evidenced by how far it spread, how quickly it spread and how many people it killed (more than the First World War).

Answer 6

write about insects - there's loads of excellent pictures and info out there already, and you can cover biology with their behaviour, physics through how they fly and their strength to weight ratios, etc and chemistry through their chemical messages and defences. So much to choose from.

Answer 7

Why not have a look at the microscopic creatures on Earth?

Answer 8

how about the journey of a penny for however long as you want to make it

Answer 9

why don't you write about micro-orgajnisms, most of them are tiny.Did it work...........