APES Current Events

Recently, Kathryn Kauffman, Libusha Kelly, and nine others discovered and studied a new type of virus found in the ocean. This virus, unlike most viruses, has no tail and their genomes only have 10,000 bases. Although this virus, now named    Autolykiviridae,  was found in bacteria extracted from the ocean, it might be in other places as well. This might even include the human body. I found this article interesting because this virus has remained undetected under our noses for a while now, and it can lead to a much greater understanding of bacterial viruses now that we can study it for the first time. It is especially exciting that we will be able to learned how this virus impacts the ocean and an organism's health. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180124131725.htm

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/animals-worldwide-stick-close-to-home-when-humans-move-in/ Seed transplant and nutrient cycling are linked to why animals are moving their location further leading to trouble. Some animals are unable to move due to human activities such as highways, railroads, cities, etc. It is said by researchers that communities should try and help animals as they move by creating highway overpasses and farmers leaving gates open  in cold weather for animals to migrate. 

In "What Comes After the Inconvenient Truth", Al Gore starts out his presentation by describing how many notable water masses have increased in size over the last decade or so because of carbon getting trapped in ice and heating it up. These notable places include Antarctica, the Polar North, and areas in the Himalayas where glaciers used to exist, but have since melted and formed lakes. We have learned to rely so much on this water that is melting, that when it goes away, either from evaporation or it freezes again for a short time during the winter, up to 40% of people in the world are left without water. This "drying" that occurs then triggers wild fires in the spring and summer that have grown to increasing danger recently. We currently add up to 25 million tons of CO2 into the ocean everyday, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels by humans. He then talks about how the burning of fossil fuels is the leading contributor to climate change worldwide. Al Gore make...

In 2015, 200,000 saiga antelopes mysteriously died and scientists have recently found the reason why. The team of scientists working to figure this out, concluded that the antelopes had a fatal blood poisoning caused by Pasteurella multocida type B bacteria. This bacteria is a normal inhabitant in the snouts of the saiga antelopes and usually do not do any harm to them, but due to the humidity and warmer temperatures, the bacteria turned deadly. If this can happen in antelopes, how do we know what other bacteria the changing climate can alter. I think more research should be done to prevent this from happening to any more species or totally obliterating one. Link

Dogs win tally of nerve cells in the outer wrinkles of the brain Many researchers decide to choose 8 animals from the carnivore family: ferret, banded mongoose, raccoon, cat, dog, hyena, lion, and brown bear. They chose these animals in or to see how different size brains compared in the number of nerve cells in the brain. They determined that there was a pretty good link between the number of nerve cells and the size of the brain, except for the larger carnivores like the lion and bear. They both have less neurons then a dog. It really interesting that they made this discovery because you would think that dogs are extremely smart but the fact that because animals with larger brains have a lot less neurons is incredible.

Because of the warmer water, a majority of female sea turtles are being born. There is about one male for every 116 females. Sea turtles can survive with fewer males than females, however, scientists do not know how much of a difference is too much. Link Here

https://newrepublic.com/article/146195/overlooked-environmental-crisis-2017 Nutrient pollution has grown to be a huge problem in 2017! Just off the coast of Louisiana in an 8,000-square-mile space of ocean, is growing as a dead zone. The marine life their is literally suffocating to death, as a result of nutrient pollution that's flowing from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. Because of this huge clumps of algae are appearing which is sucking the oxygen from the water. Making it harder for the fish to breath, and fleeing in mass sizes.Plants and worms are unable to flee and just dying. Now the so called "dead zone" in the Gulf grew to the size of New Jersey in 2017, which is the largest dead zone ever recorded in the world!

https://www.livescience.com/61338-ocean-losing-oxygen.html Recently, there have been scientist seeing a lot on dead zones in our oceans. There are rising global temperatures. With all of this going on it is affecting the animals and plant life that are living in it. IN these dead zones there is no oxygen This is not just affecting the animals living in the water but as well as the animals outside the water.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180125140848.htm  This is a scary thought to think that our human trash it causing more problems for the coral reef. We as humans are killing off the living things of this earth. The plastic that ends up in these coral reefs cause more virus to get into the coral and kills them. The plastic increases the live of bacteria that are getting into the reefs and affecting them. How do we fix this? Is there anything we can do to save the coral reefs? We could kill off all coral reefs are spread more virus around to fish and ocean life. 

In recent studies it has been shown that there is a great amount of plastic trash in coral reefs. Along with this increase of plastic found, it has also been noted that there has been a great increase in disease within the reefs. Bacteria lives and grows quickly and easily on these plastic items thus infecting the coral reefs around it with diseases. This is very concerning as there are already many reefs dying/dead as is and if we don't take precautions now we might kill off all reefs in no time. A rticle

Have you ever noticed waters rising at the beach? Researchers say that due to sea levels rising the beaches in Delaware and the bays are rising. With waters going up a whole meter of sea level than what they normally are and what they used to be. From personal experience of having a beach house this can make boating very difficult in the bays and the canals can be very mixed up. With levels rising the canals can shift and boaters could be in danger of sandbars and possibly crashing, Ocean life, human life, and just everyday things could be changed due to the sea levels rising in bays. It is definitely something that should catch your attention and should be fixed. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180124172428.htm

In Australia and New Zealand, data was collected at 30 locations, collecting the measurements of 40 sparrows at each place. Their findings supported the idea that increasing summer temperatures lead to a smaller average adult size which could affect birds' fitness further down the line. By studying these birds, it helps the scientists to understand how they adapt to the changing climate. I think this can shed more of a light and make more people begin to research the effects temperature variation has on development. I never thought about the bodies of animals being different sizes on depending where they lived and the temperatures there. (cold temperatures= larger bodies, hot temperatures=smaller bodies) Link to article 

In Saudi Arabia, there has been a tradition much like our dog shows, but instead of judging dogs, they judge camels. These camels are subjected to harmful botox injections to make them "more attractive". Not only are the people of Saudi Arabia injecting these camels with botox, but the owners of the camels tug and pull at their lips in order to make them longer, and inject the camel with hormones to increase muscle mass. This all shows that humans infringe on the biological "norm" of animals, without thought of the consequences of this alteration. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/24/580228837/a-dozen-camels-disqualified-from-saudi-beauty-pageant-over-botox-injections

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/climate/glacier-collapse-avalanche.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront After reading this article it only support more that the climate is changing. Severe Avalanches seem rare normally, but after scientists saw two severe avalanches in one year, something had to be the cause. As unfortunate as it is, if the climate beings to warm up even more there will be more of this going on, and it seems that there are several cities in range of several glaciers. This is kinda alarming but I'm not really surprised that this is happening. I'm more curious to see what the future hold in store for us. I do find it interesting that warmer climates around here seem to be getting colder, even though these glaciers are melting. Recently we had a cold snap around here in PA where the temperature...

Article Here The ocean contains living coral reefs but now they are being covered by plastic. There has been an estimated 11.1 billion plastic items in the Asia Pacific region. Whats worse that scientists estimate that its going to increase by 40 percent in the next seven years. On top of that is that the plastic contains bacteria and viruses. This is bad that theirs going to be that much plastic in the ocean. If this keeps up I think its going to affect more plant life in the ocean than the coral reefs.

2017 Was One of the Hottest Years on Record. And That Was Without El Niño. Throughout the years, the temperature of the overall planet has been relatively similar to growing shortly, but as seen through the graph pictured in the article, 2017 was one of the hottest. 2017 was a time where I feel environmental issues got pushed aside, when they should have been attacked head-on. I mean, even without El Nino, it was still the hottest year among others. Maybe the new years revolution of all people should be to help the environment a little more and realize that temperature are rising. This doesn't mean a better summer tan; it means glaciers melting and our home on earth falling apart.  Article Here

Ocean temperatures in 2017 measured the hottest year on record.  This increase in temperature leads to coral bleaching and melting sea ice.  Coral bleaching is when coral removes the algae that it needs to be healthy, due to stress from heat or pollution.  Without this algae, the coral will starve.  As a result of the warmer waters, we could also see rising sea levels, more intense storms, and unstable marine habitats.  Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are trapping more heat closer to the Earth's surface, therefore causing the increase in ocean temperatures. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/hottest-year-record-global-warming-oceans-spd/

This article, that discusses the new study pertaining to a sandwich you have for lunch and the carbon footprint you produce because of that, is certainly nothing short of absurd. Obviously, most of the ingredients that are put on sandwiches are packaged and distributed in factories - factories that emit CO2. But are we supposed to stop eating lunch because our world relies on factories that unfortunately NEED to release CO2? I'm all about limiting our carbon footprint, but this "study" is nothing more than wasted money for something that everybody knows as self-evident. Article Found Here

So this entire article is theoretical, it's important to get that out of the way first. What dark matter is an opposite to regular matter, such as such as protons, neutrons, electrons, and neutrinos. It's an explanation partial for many mystery in our universe. So the entire of this article pissed me off. It just sounded, or read, as a sci-fi writer that had no idea what real science is and was just trying to make dark matter sound more mystical then it really is. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clumps-dark-matter-could-be-lurking-undetected-our-galaxy?tgt=nr

Plastic pollution is making coral and causing more of them to die which creates less homes for aquatic creatures. This is a huge issue due to many of the coral reefs we have today already deteriorating and breaking apart. The continuous of plastic pollution would cause a large amount of the coral that we have left to deteriorate and die. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/plastic-pollution-increases-risk-devastating-disease-corals?tgt=nr

HOW A PROFESSIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER DISCOVERED THE LIES AND DECIDED TO FIGHT FOR SCIENCE

Researchers at Manchester University in England have recently have had some discoveries about microwaves. Microwaves themselves do not emit CO2, but the required process of building the microwave does require a massive amount of energy that is equal to the tailpipe emissions of 6.8 million cars. I think that this article is very interesting because it is a common misconception that microwaves emit harmful chemicals, but to see that it is actually the energy that builds it is eye opening. Although there are no studies done in the US yet, I look forward to seeing how closely the US and England relate to each other.

As we already know the Great Barrier Reef is dying because of the climate change. So, Australia is launching a project to save the reef to boost the coral abundance. Already ideas have been made and more ideas have been shared. This can help this barrier be saved in some way and save fishes and other organisms homes.Nutrient runoff and industrial chemicals could be a factored of this too. In which, scientists had to come up with ideas to change the way run offs occur and bring down chemicals. So, any idea that is made to help, may in some way change and help the reef. This can all affect the environment of the ocean. Read the article  here .

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/tech/ecosolutions-5-ways-tech/index.html In this article CNN discusses 5 inventions that could the save the planet. The first one was making the ocean drinkable. This will help create more water. The 2nd is a drone that pollinates the plants. The 3rd is biodegradable bullets. The bullets would carry seeds to feed animals. The 4th a plant based plastic that doesn't pollute. This would bring the pollution in the USA down. The last one is a plane that only emits water. They want to create emission free taxis.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/through-the-lens/starving-polar-bear-photo-climate-change-canada-spd/                 These two wildlife photographers took a video of a starving polar bear in order to raise attention to then environment. The reaction they got on social media was huge. This is an ongoing issue in cold climates today. Ice caps are melting, glaciers are disappearing, and our naturally cold animals will soon be gone. More research and more help about removing harmful gasses and substances from the atmosphere should be taking place. Losing one species or having them evolve to live elsewhere could throw off everything in nature, including humans. 

Bees have been disappearing since 2007 and no one can seem to find out why. Scientists are coming to the conclusion they may never find out what happen to our little pollinators. One of the strangest parts about this phenomenon is the fact that they aren't finding any dead bees, the bees are literally just disappearing. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mystery-vanishing-honeybees-still-not-definitively-solved?tgt=nr

Here's an interesting post about house sparrows carrying the west nile virus. These birds actually live longer where there is light pollution which mean the west nile virus can be spread much more. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/light-pollution-can-prolong-risk-sparrows-passing-along-west-nile-virus?tgt=nr

South Africa: Cape Town slashes water use amid drought

According to the article, Baltimore classrooms reached temperatures in the low 30’s and 40’s due to the outdated heating systems and “leaky” windows the schools have. Teachers took pictures of the young students bundled up indoors and wrote that "Trying to provide a stable learning environment in these extreme conditions is unfair and inhumane, to say the least.” Other issues such as burst pipes and failing boilers were also becoming a prevalent problem among the schools. Outraged parents, and members of the community started fundraisers and collected money in hopes to fix these issues. Within just a few days, the GoFundMe page had raised about $31,000. This article was shocking and very interesting to read. I would never think that such poor conditions would exist in public schools today. If the temperature in an area is cold, proper precautions should be followed to allow the students to remain warm while spending their time in school. Also, if the temperature in an area is w...

My reaction to this article was surprising. Who would have ever thought that possible climate change could harm fish and other living species in the ocean? According to the article it is saying that the climate change so getting really hot is affecting the ocean temperature which is killing food that fish and other living species in the ocean need to survive. Hopefully this is not the case though.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180111101408.htm In the Great Barrier Reef the ocean temperatures have been rising slowly. This change in the environment is affecting animals living in these areas. Specifically, the sea turtle. Scientists know that warmer sea temperatures determine the gender of the turtles. If the water continues to get warmer, then, eventually, the males will die off and only females will be left. Then, the turtles will go extinct because there are no males to reproduce with the females. https://www.livescience.com/61338-ocean-losing-oxygen.html Recently, scientists have been seeing a higher amount of dead zones in the oceans. This is a negative effect on the oceans and the plants and animals that live in it. These dead zones contain little to no oxygen, so nothing can live there. This is also awful for land creatures as well because the water holds no nutrients which is not good drinking water.

Sand temperatures determine the sex of turtle hatchlings, so warmer temps will results in more females. So in Australia's northern Great Barrier Reef has pretty much all females, this will really affect the turtle population in a negative way. This really has no affect on our daily lives in America but it is just interesting to me that a simple climate change can affect so many things in so many different ways. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180111101408.htm

Millions of people across the globe will be in danger of rivers flooding due to climate change. Over half of the United States and other areas such as central Europe, Central and South America, Africa, India, China, Indonesia, and Pakistan will be affected by the rising river banks. In the next 25 years, the amount of people expected to be affected by river flooding is estimated to increase by ten-fold. This article also talks about "climate change inertia," which is the principle that once climate change gets into motion it is hard to stop. If we stop emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, the planet will continue to change in climate. This is important and should be taken very seriously because this could affect millions of people across the United States and many other countries as well.  Article

        This article shows evidence from several demographic maps and polls showing the relatively low belief in climate change.    The article shows that, " Fewer than a third of registered Republicans nationwide say that climate change is caused mostly by human activities, while nearly half say it’s mostly due to 'natural changes in the environment,'". There has also been an increase in this belief since the current President took office, which has made disbelief in climate change a part of the conservative republican identity. In many areas, up to 70% of  republicans do not believe in climate change. This is extremely dangerous belief, especially as it becomes a more central belief of the Republican party as a whole.  To believe, despite all of the reports constantly released by top notch scientists stating otherwise, that climate change is not real could be detrimental to the human race. The republican party is also extrem...

"Just Keep Swimming Just Keep Swimming Swimming" but how far can you swim? The Ocean seems like a bottomless pit. Yet it really is! The bottom of the ocean is sinking. How? You might ask well for many of reasons. One is the earths crust. Think of the earths crust as a trampoline, without pressure the trampoline stays flat but with pressure the trampoline bends and sinks down the more pressure you add the deeper it sinks. That is how the earths crust works. As global warming, and hurricanes becomes more popular, more water is pushed into the ocean as a result the ocean gets deeper. Studies have shown that the ocean floor has decreased by 2 cm but is that all? No one knows for sure how far the oceans floor has sank but now that it has been brought to our attention I know scientists will sink to the bottom of this! ;) https://www.livescience.com/61328-ocean-bottom-is-sinking.html

Fast radio bursts may be from a neutron star orbiting a black hole: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fast-radio-bursts-may-be-neutron-star-orbiting-black-hole Recently scientists have found a new neutron star that could be potentially orbiting a black hole just discovered. Scientists say that burst of neuron stars are not common but have noticed a repetition of the burst. They have tracked these burst all the way to another possible galaxy. I think that this is an amazing discovery because we are discovering how much farther our galaxy can go. This could open so many possibilities of learning more about our planet and what surrounds it. 

Recently, due to glaciers and melting ice sheets, it is causing more water to be in our oceans, which does not seem like a big deal. However, it is causing the seafloor to be pushed down and is sinking lower and lower. Hurricane Harvey cause the seafloor to drop 2 cm due to all the water that resulting from the storm. This is happening due to the elasticity in the earth's crust. Scientists are concluding from regional patterns that they see is that the ocean floor may be more stretched out than they know; it could be as much as 20 mm. Also, it has been discovered that the sea levels have increased by 8%, which contributes to the drop in the ocean floor. https://www.livescience.com/61328-ocean-bottom-is-sinking.html

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/manned-mission-mars-humans-microbes-life This article talks about how Nasa is planning to send humans to mars. They want to send humans there by 2030, but there is another sector to be launched in 2024. Nasa doesn't want to send life to Mars so early because if they do then the research they are looking for could be ruined, they won't be able to find anything new or anything from the past. They also do not fully know if Mars is compatible for life yet.I find this interesting because one, I didn't even know they were thinking of sending people to Mars and especially not that soon! Also it was new to me knowing that they are still researching on mars, and I hope that they are able to send people up there and get things going.

Due to significantly colder temperatures on the East Coast of the United States, Florida is suffering from a large population of unaccustomed iguanas.  Green iguanas are a prevelent invaisve species in Florida that are accustomed to warm, tropical climates in order to thrive.  When temperature drop below 40-50 degrees Farenheit, their blood flow slows down and they fall into a deep sleep, similar to a coma, that last until their bodies are warmed to a survivable temperature.  But, if the iguanas cannot get their internal body temps to rise, then they die.  This is causing the invasive species to significantl decline, which is threatening their ability to sustain a population in the Florida state area.  Due to green iguanes native habitat being trees, once their bodies cool to low enough temperatures, they are falling from their homes, making it seem as though Florida is "raining iguanas."  This article has an interesting and direct relation to our recent ch...