Oxygen

Another review request. Thanks to gameandwatch9!

Before I start this review, let me get a few administrative things out of the way:

• I now post a new review once a week, generally every Friday, so now you'll know when to check this site. (I might do some reviews in between, though, so don't forget to check the archives.)
• My inbox is awfully empty. Keep sending in those review requests! The e-mail address you should send them to is on the right-hand side of the blog, under "About Me", I think.
• Edit: Anonymous users can now post comments! Post away!

Okay, good. Now, onward to oxygen. Incidentally, by oxygen, I do not mean the television channel. I mean the stuff you breathe in order to live.

This is actually one of the harder reviews I've done so far. You see, even though I've been breathing in oxygen my whole life (and hopefully, so have you), it's not really something I actively think about. In fact, it happens pretty much automatically; I can stop breathing if I want to (though I wouldn't really recommend doing that), but if I'm not actively trying to stop myself, my lungs basically do their own thing. All the better for me, I suppose; the less work I have to do on top of college, the better.

Now that I do think about oxygen, however, it seems to me that our dependence on it is quite annoying. Think about all the things we can't do without assistance because we're so oxygen-dependant: scuba-diving, snorkeling, spelunking, and space exploration all require some form of oxygen tank or method of obtaining oxygen. Wouldn't all those things be so much more fun if we didn't have unwieldy stuff strapped to ourselves the entire time?

What's more, we are constantly threatened by dangers such as carbon-monoxide poisoning and lung damage because we breathe in order to absorb oxygen. How many movies have you seen where some sort of deadly gas is being released into a room or a car or something, and the protagonist is racing against time to thwart the villain because he'll eventually have to breathe in? Our potential vulnerability due to this weakness has even caused certain security companies to create carbon-monoxide monitors, which we then have to buy in order to be safe, wasting precious money that could be used on a myriad other things if we didn't need oxygen so badly.

That said, there are benefits to oxygen, and the benefits far outweigh any minor inconveniences. The thing that immediately comes to mind for me is fire, or, more specifically, burning things. Think back, for a moment, to science class: I assume that at some point your teacher did the experiment where you use a vacuum pump to suck the oxygen out of a glass jar with a candle inside? The candle goes out because there's no oxygen in the jar; in a sense, fire is as dependant on oxygen as we are.

When you think about it, a lot of what we do involves using fire to heat or burn things at some point or another. When I cook, for instance, I must light a fire. What would happen to the culinary industry if oxygen wasn't there to help start the fire? (Actually, I'd probably be eating a lot more sushi, which would be awesome and a good deal healthier than my current diet, but that's neither here nor there.) Another example is power. My laptop is currently connected by a power cord to a surge protector, which is connected to the wall, and, eventually, links up with whatever power plant supplies energy to my college's residence halls. I'm fairly certain that said power plant generates electricity by burning something, though I'm not sure specifically what.

In retrospect, I suppose oxygen is something like a double-edged sword. While our need for it can often be frustrating, it makes life a little more livable at the same time.

The Rundown
Convenience: 6/10. We can find oxygen in most places we need to go, but for extra exploration, special gear is needed. Also, oxygen makes things rust, which isn't convenient at all.
Necessity: 10/10. We need it to live. Can't get by without it.
Helpfulness: 10/10. Cooking food, combustion engines, and certain kinds of power plants wouldn't be possible without fire, which, in turn, wouldn't be possible without oxygen.
Ease of Absorption: 10/10. Like I said, it pretty much just happens.
Overall: 9/10. Yep. Oxygen's pretty sweet.