APES Current Events

Covid 19 is already a dangerous disease. Millions of people are dying from it. Not to state the obvious but it is much worse for people that are amino compromised. People can be completely healthy with no health problems and still die, that's why this is a pandemic. This article is explaining how dangerous and deadly this disease is for people who have diabetes. They are much more likely to get and and suffer. To people that aren't compromised, we still get it but our symptoms usually aren't too bad. For diabetes and any other disease, you are at much higher risk. After reading through this article, I emphasize how important it is to listen about social distancing. Even though you might not have any medical conditions, you are still putting people at risk. Contact tracing starts with someone that got it and can go back to someone they walked past in a store a week ago. If we are not careful thousands of more people are going to die.  link: https://go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do

 We have seen yet other month of rising temperatures throughout the world. Studies have shown that globally we have seen an increase of 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit increase. Particularly, 2020 was 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, higher than the average temperature between 1981 to 2010. Northern Europe and the Arctic Ocean experienced the higher average temperatures for the month. It is likely that with the lowering temperatures in December of this year, that 2020 will remand tied with 2016 for the warmest year. El ninos and La niñas also affect the land temperatures during certain seasons. Humans are the main leading cause of the rising temperatures do to the lifestyle we live. We need to find ways that we can help lower the temperature in order to keep Earth safe. If we keep damaging the Earth, we will have an unhealthy place to leave, and eventually no home.    https://www.baltimoresun.com/weather/weather-news/sns-nyt-record-hot-november-20201207-k7rgyqadovblzkfbd4i7dyyhza-story.html

 Gaming has obviously become something we do all the time right now, especially because there is not much else we can do.  It's also hard for many gamers to stop playing because many games contain real-world problems.  Gaming has always been rough for the environment with the plastic, e-waste, and mined-metal to name a few.  However, gaming materials are becoming invisible.  This will solve the problem right?  Wrong.  Gaming is leaving a major carbon footprint with the U.S. using 34 terawatt-hours per year in energy use.  In West Virginia alone, the carbon dioxide emissions are equal to what would be emitted by over 5 million cars.  All the gaming companies know the impact on the environment that is happening, and they say they are planning on coming up with a solution for the problem soon.  Microsoft says they are going to be carbon-negative by 2030, and Sony says they will achieve no environmental footprint at all by 2050.  Even when people are using consoles, we run into the pro

      Pollution is a major threat to the environment and ecosystems. Out of all the waste that reaches the ocean and major bodies of water, over 80% of it is transported by rivers. Because of this, Emily Duncan of the university of Exeter (U.K.) collected 25 500mL bottles, implanted with special tracking technology, to monitor the travel of waste as it travels through rivers. Using this method, they found that waste often travelled into large bodies of water far from where they were release, one time even 2845 kilometers away. With these results, additional studies have shown just how useful for research, informing, etc., this method of tracking is.  From what I have read, this method seems to be very effective in tracking the movement of waste. Personally, I think that this technology is interesting for many other reasons than to just track waste, as it could be used simply to find river routes and other related paths through waterways, which I think would be pretty cool.   Link:  htt

 The  chemical, Phosphine is a chemical that can only be made by living things. It has been said that there is a possibility of this being on Venus. Yes, that would have to mean there are living things producing it. Whether it is humans or microbes, something is out there. It could mean a variety of things, but scientists are not quite sure exactly what it is yet.  Clara Sousa-Silva, a scientist who has been studying this, says that phosphine should not be in Venus's atmosphere, because it would be too hard to successfully make. There is a possibility the phosphine fingerprint could be false, which is why there have been no definite conclusions made yet.  This discovery would be a lifechanging find. It would tell us many things as well. That other planets could possibly be suitable for life. Although Venus has an extremely high surface temperature, and would be impossible to live on, it is still fascinating that the chemical has possibly been traced to be found on Venus.  https://w

Plastic is being found in areas that plastic should be nowhere near, such as the deep sea and the highest peak, Mount Everest. The amount of plastic being used has increased an extreme amount from the 1950s to now. In the 50's, only around 5 million metric tons were being produced, but in 2020, that number is up to 330 million metric tons. These tiny bits of plastic can throw off ecosystems when harmful to animals within them. Snow and stream samples contained from Mount Everest showed large amounts of plastic in both. Microplastics have also been found imbedded in the arctic ice, in our guts, and just blowing through the wind - this may explain how it gets to such remote locations. In the arctic, over 17 different kinds of plastic have been found in melted ice. Researchers also discovered that humans consume between 39,000 and 50,000 pieces of microplastic each year.  Most of this plastic waste that is found in places where it shouldn't be is due to littering which is under ou

 Colin Schaller  This article is about how the U.K. is the first country to allow its inhabitants to get the Covid-19 vaccination. It goes on to describe the long process of testing the vaccine on animals especially monkeys. It talks about how the monkey population is now at an all time low. Due to Covid-19 monkey farms have become a new job. They raise the monkeys and then sell them to the testing labs. The U.K. is going to receving 40 million doses of the vaccination in  2020-21. This article relates to our previous class unit when we were talking about population density. Due to Covid-19 the world population has gone down in a vast number. Since the start of the disease we have lost 1.5 million people. Also it has to due with the wealth of countries. Due to the fact that the most wealthy countries are going to receive the vaccination first.  Link: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-pfizer-uk-first-approval

 I was just reading (and commenting on) an article in the blog about fresh water.  I am putting a link to the movie Wind River which we have access to.  A description from the site   " WIND RIVER is a modern-day story of cowboys and Indians. White ranchers on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming are fighting to protect their long-held water rights for irrigated agriculture. The Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes are fighting to save the de-watered Wind River and a part of their own heritage. This is a classic example of the changing face of the West, as environmentalists and Indian activists use the courts in an attempt to curtail some of the traditional, but harmful, practices of white ranchers and farmers." https://docuseek2.com/v/a/MNH4/1/0/0

 Bristol Bay, a water body filled with some of the world's finest salmon located in southwest Alaska, was recently put at risk by the possible development of a large-scale copper, molybdenum, and gold mine. Bristol Bay's natural environment depends on the salmon to function. Commercial fishermen rely on the fish supply and outdoorspeople revel in its natural wonder. Many people have pushed to protect this unique American landmark, and it was finally saved. Pebble Limited Partnership was denied the rights to their prosepcted place from their mine from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project was supposed to be put at the headwaters of the fishery. Runoff from the mine would lower the quality of the water and would likely kill off large populations of fish. Politics were turned aside and people from both political parties worked to save Bristol Bay. While the journey is not over yet, these salmon will be saved from the global trend of shrinking populations around the world. 

      The Antarctic Sheet of ice is one of the, if not the strongest sheets of ice in the world. Due to global warming though, the melting of the polar ice sheet is happening faster than expected. An international team of scientists studied the East Arntarctic sheet using deep-sea sediments, and came to a conclusion that the ice sheets are weakening and shrinking, and are become less stable than ever before. I believe that this in happening to the Antarctic Sheet simply because of global warming. This sheet of ice used to be one of the strongest things on the planet and now its is becoming very weak, and who knows maybe in our lifetime it will almost be gone.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201130113559.htm 

       A group of people called the Wayuu lived in the Guajira Desert. Their main source of water was drained because of a dam built for coal exploitation. Before this drought many relied on the  guajiro beans. Many stopped farming and resorted to food stamps which were not enough. Between 5,000 and 14,000 died because of malnutrition. A women named Uriana has been working with her clan to bring back the guajiro bean. Beans are an important crop because of their nutrition. They provide almost all of the necessary nutrients with just one crop. Guajiro beans in particular are good for the soil and have a long on season. This bean is sacred to the community and has a ritual surrounding the planting of it. With five years of recreating an agricultural system with these beans and riving the agriculture, the community has recovered.     This is important because it sheds a positive light on climate change. Reading this is inspiring, and it makes you proud of the human race. Also, it shows th

     The article speaks about the immense damage that humans have caused the planet. It relates many of these damages to big companies and the wealthiest of Americans consuming too many products for the environment to survive. It talks about the UN National of Biodiversity. A convention that set environmental conservation goals for the world. All countries ratified these ideals except for the United States. With the current damage done to the environment the window to save it is closing and it will be very difficult to turn humanity's destruction around.     This article projects the urgency of the situation very well as many Americans see the environment as a secondary concern to the economy. Many see a booming economy as a higher necessity than having an environment to provide everything that we need to survive. Many do their little part to help the environment like turning the lights off in vacant rooms but these trivial attempts aren't the main problem. It is the big corpor

     Normally we think that during different wars the populations of different species decreases, that's not 100% correct. In the mountainous rainforests of Jammu and Kashmir, on the borders of India, Pakistan, and China the population of indigenous animals is increasing. The police have collected most of the weapons people  carry around, and people are no longer scared to go outside and walk around. Also because of this, there is almost no poaching, making the populations rise more. The fact that war has created an increase in rare animal's population is extremely astonishing. CREATING WAR IS HIGHLY NOT RECOMENDED TO BRING UP POPULATIONS THOUGH.       I found this article very entertaining and informative. It definitely changed my perspective on what is going on around the world and how it effects the populations, not just in a bad way. The only thing that confuses me is, what happens when we stop? Like will those animal's populations decrease again, or will they stay the

      An avian species called the Zebra finch has been found to have the ability to identify any member of its large flock, by recognizing their song. After a set of experiments was done, it was discovered that the Zebra finches were able to differentiate both between different songs of its flock members, along with different long-distance contact calls between the other birds. Both males & females of the species were very successful in the experiment, leading scientists to the conclusion that the brains of songbirds are specifically wired to communicate orally amongst themselves.      This is impressive because Zebra finches are typically part of a flock of up to 100 birds, meaning they have been able to memorize and recognize up to 100 different songs. It is likely that if these finches were able to recognize one another's calls, then other songbird species could do the same. This information is interesting because it could lead to more experiments which will be able to show

Link   Logan Scholl Heagrety December 1,2020 Protecting half the planet could help solve climate change and dieing species Earth is battling with the dangerous problem of climate change, and their are not very many ways to really slow it down signifigantly. Perseving 50 percent of land for naturl species would allow climate change and different species. Protecting land would also perserve greens like trees, and shrubs. Climate change will be the death of us if we don't act now. The world needs to do everything they can to stop pollution and any other contributors to climate change.