Category: Science

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The Amazon Rainforest Is Burning, and It’s an Environmental Disaster

The Amazon rainforest is on fire, and experts say this wildfire will affect climate change for many years to come.

CNN reported that The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has said the fires are burning at the highest rate they’ve seen since tracking started in 2013.

Sao Paulo, 1700 miles away, is seeing smoke from the fire’s blazes.

Video shows heavy smoke and smog overcoming the city and creating black out conditions.

Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, too, are seeing heavy, black smoke coming from the Brazilian fires.

The INPE also reported there were 72,843 fires in Brazil this year. More than half of those fires burned in the Amazon. This represents an 80 percent increase in the total number of fires over last year.

Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Natural disasters can spark flames when the area is dry, but these fires are also frequently started illegally by ranchers trying to clear out forest to create grazing land for cattle. Environmentalists are blaming Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, for relaxing laws limiting deforestation and underplaying the disaster in general to the rest of the world.

According to the BBC, the Amazon rainforest contributes 20 percent of the Earth’s oxygen. Plus, the rainforest is home to millions of species of plants and animals, as well as over one million indigenous people.

The rainforest is critical to millions of lives and to the Earth, itself.

If the Amazon is destroyed, the World Wildlife Fund says the area will likely become a savannah, but inhospitable to people, animals or plants.

And instead of pumping out oxygen, the new savannah will be the Earth’s next major source of carbon emissions. Meaning, the Amazon will no longer serve as the lungs of the world, but will begin pump out enough carbon to actually drive the climate crisis.

This is bad news, folks. Bad news indeed.

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Scientists Have Finally Figured out Why Some Squirrels Have Black Fur

If you live in certain regions of the U.S. or the U.K., you may have spotted squirrels that are black instead of gray. These unusual animals have been a bit of a mystery, but now scientists have figured out why they have such an odd color.

Researchers at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge University and the Virginia Museum of Natural History worked together on a project to test squirrel DNA. They discovered that black squirrels are the product of interspecies breeding between the common gray squirrel and the fox squirrel.

Photo Credit: iStock

Fox squirrels are usually reddish-brown, but some of them carry a faulty pigment gene that turns their fur a darker shade. Scientists believe that a black fox squirrel joined in on a mating fenzy among gray squirrels and mated with a female, who then gave birth to a black squirrel.

There may be an evolutionary benefit to black fur that caused the gene to be passed down. Black fur could help squirrels absorb and retain more heat — an important benefit in colder regions.

Black squirrels remain rare, however. There is an estimated one black squirrel in every 10,000 squirrels.

Photo Credit: iStock

In certain limited regions, though, the black squirrels have become predominant. At Kent State University in Ohio, for example, 10 black squirrels were released by students after they were captured by wildlife authorities, and they now populate the entire campus.

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Women in Africa Are Recycling Plastic into Bricks for a Schoolhouse

Tthe world produces over 300 million tons of plastic every year, much of which quickly goes into the trash where it takes centuries to decompose. In Abidjan, Ivory Coast, women are putting plastic garbage to good use by turning it into bricks to build schools, New York Times reports.

Many women in Abidjan make a living by gathering plastic waste from city streets and selling it to recycling centers. Those same women are now working with a Colombian company to convert the waste into bricks to build schools.

The project will result in hundreds of classrooms to serve about 26,400 students — plus, it’s an opportunity for the women to make a better living.

Many schools in the area are built out of traditional mud-bricks and wood. These buildings require a lot of upkeep, as they easily erode in the sun and rain.

The buildings made out of recycled plastic, on the other hand, will last practically forever. In this context, plastic’s slow decomposition is a benefit.

Also, the country’s classrooms are severely overcrowded, with up to 90 students in each class. Additional classrooms are desperately needed.

Since Abidjan produces about 300 tons of plastic waste a day, there’s plenty of plastic to use. Each classroom takes about five tons of plastic waste.

The company converting the waste, Conceptos Plásticos, initially produced the bricks at a factory in Colombia, but they are now building a factory in Abidjan, which will make the classrooms much cheaper to produce.

Several classrooms are already up and running, and the project plans to deliver 528 total, each of which will fit 50 students.

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Check out These 5 Ancient Legends Based on Real Events

A lot of kids go through a phase when they’re fascinated by the legends and myths that have wound their way through the centuries. Whether Robin Hood, Arthur and Lancelot, the antics of the gods of old, or creatures like a unicorn or a vampire, it’s fun to imagine that the world might have once been more magical than it is today.

And these 5 legends, which are rooted in reality, suggest that just maybe…it was.

5. Atlantis

Greek philosopher Plato was the first to describe a beautiful, advanced civilization that once disappeared beneath the sea, never to be seen or heard from again – but he was far from the last to re-tell one of the most well-known myths in human history.

Now, many archaeologists think he was describing the collapse of the Minoan empire after a volcanic eruption rocked Thera (modern-day Santorini). The core of the island collapsed in the aftermath, creating a tsunami that flooded the island and left it completely under water, sending it to a grave from which it never arose.

4. The Ape-Men Army of Sri Lanka

Indian Sanskrit epic the Ramayana features a classic kidnapping plot, in which Sita, the wife of god Rama, is stolen away to the Demon Kingdom on Lanka. To rescue her, Rama banded with an army of ape-like men to build a floating bridge between India and Lanka that they used to defeat the demon king, Ravana.

The tale, of course, is just good storytelling, but the bridge still exists – aerial surveys show a 30-mile-long stretch of limestone shoals under the sea that reaches between India and Sri Lanka.

Experts believe it was above the water until a 15th-century cyclone brought a huge storm surge into the channel.

3. Thunderbird and the Whale

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The Thunderbird awaits you.

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Native American lore tells of a benevolent, supernatural being called a Thunderbird, which once swooped over the sea to snatch a killer whale that was stealing resources from the Quileute tribe.

The bird prevailed, dropping the whale on dry land to die with a thud that shook the ground, and many natives died during the battle and ensuing chaos.

Back in the 1980s, geologists discovered that a powerful earthquake occurred in the area in 1700, one that would have been powerful enough to cause a tsunami. It would have hit the coast where the tribe lived, generating the tales to explain the giant shaking of the earth.

As far as the Thunderbird, many scientists believe it’s based on the Aiornis, a prehistoric giant bird that co-existed thousands of years ago with early North America settlers. The bird had a wingspan of up to 16 feet and used to feast on whales washed up on the beaches.

2. The Guest Star

In 1006, people looking at the sky all over the world described seeing a “guest star.” Persian scholar Ibn Sina was particularly intrigued, however, explaining how the star hung in the sky for months, changing color and eventually emitting sparks before fading away.

We now know that Sina was describing a supernova that took place 7200 years ago and whose dying remnants can still be detected by powerful NASA technology.

They believe the color changes he described were due to the merger of two white dwarfs, which astronomers say would create a supernova bursting with color. What Sina did, essentially, was provide details for modern scientists that would otherwise have been lost to time.

1. The Great Flood

There are stories from around the world that join the biblical account of a great flood that covered most of the earth, wiping out almost all of mankind in the process – so most think it makes sense to assume this event took place in our human past in some way, shape, or form.

Geological records show that around 11,500 years ago, glacier meltwater melted into the North Sea, causing the Black Sea to dry up while the Mediterranean Basin refilled with seawater from the Atlantic Ocean. Between them was dry land, but eventually the Mediterranean overflowed into the Black Sea, forcing the barrier between them to all but disappear.

The result would have been a waterfall 200x the volume of Niagara Falls and covering an area double the size of Manhattan in a single day.

That said, the worst flood of the last 10 millennia took place along the Yellow River in China at a date that coincides with ancient texts.

This is the next best thing to actually being a kid again!

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Is Being Killed by a Guillotine Painless? Learn the History, and Everything We Know About It.

Sure, it seems terrifying – a giant blade dropping toward the back of your exposed neck – but it turns out that the people on revolutionary France were actually being relatively humane (at least when it came to how they executed their many victims).

In the intervening centuries, the U.S. (the only developed nation to still use the death penalty) has tried out all sorts of ways to legally murder its citizens, almost all of which have been found to be, well, bad.

If not excruciating.

So, if quick and painless is what we’re going for when it comes to executions, perhaps the guillotine should make a re-entrance. Find a new day in the sun, as it were.

Death by guillotine (as long as the blade is sharp) would be completely painless – the blade almost immediately severs the nerves from your spinal cord to your brain, paralyzing you and blocking pain receptors from sending signals to your brain.

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Daily #Art – Day 08-03-19 (2019) In the Name of freedom Here's an illustrated tribute to French revolutionary Madame Roland (Mar 17, 1754 – Nov 8, 1793), with a portrait of her before being guillotined by the mob. Her famous last words was: “'O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!” “O freedom, what crimes are committed in your name!” I would like to use this art to condemn all violent rioters who use freedom and democracy as a guise to create chaos and destruction. . 每日藝術 – 2019年8月3日 （2019）自由之名 這是一幅向法國大革命時期政治家羅蘭夫人（1754年3月17日－1793年11月8日）致敬的畫, 繪了她在被暴民送上斷頭台前的肖像。 羅蘭夫人臨刑前留下了一句為後人所廣為傳誦的名言： 「自由啊，古今天下多少罪惡，假汝之名以行！」 謹以此畫指責古今中外借自由民主為名來製造混亂和破壞的暴徒。 (#15,678 / #268 / #164) . . . #dailyart #illustration #pendrawing #portraitart #revolutionary #madameroland #roland #freedom #liberté #mob #mobjustice #guillotine #crime #自由 #罪惡 #羅蘭夫人 #反送中 #香港 #hinxlinx #ericlynxlin #elynx #軒 #instaart #artofinstagram

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It would be so fast, in fact, that experts don’t think you would feel the blade at all; your death would be nearly instantaneous.

There might be spasms or jerks that happen – involuntary eye or muscle movements – which are common up to five minutes after death as the brain suffocates from lack of oxygen. But the deceased person is, you know…deceased. So they can’t feel anything at all.

Even studies that acknowledge brain activity can continue after death agree that the subject is really not alive in any practical way, which means they do not have any kind of feelings, including pain.

While the guillotine was much more humane than being shot by a firing squad, hanged, or burned at the stake, the idea of being murdered in much the same way as a chicken was surely something people were trying to avoid by the time it went out of fashion.

Though if I ever found myself on the wrong side of the law (or the mob), this does sound like the best possible way to go.

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Many Parents Have a Favorite Kid – and It’s Often Their Youngest

Your parents may have promised they never played favorites (and you say the same to your kids). But as children grow into adults, I think it’s normal to find that, while you might not have a favorite, some people just get on more easily than others.

That said, there is actually some pretty convincing science behind the idea that parents tend to favor their youngest child more often than their older siblings.

Image Credit: Pixabay

First, let’s go with self confessions from both parents and grandparents. According to The Independent, a Mumsnet survey of both groups did indeed find favoritism among both groups (though with differing preferences).

Of the 1185 parents and 1111 grandparents who responded, 23% of parents and 42% of grandparents admitted to having a favorite. But while 56% of the committed parents said their youngest was their favorite, 40% of grandparents prefer their eldest grandchild.

Half of the survey responders thought having a favorite was “awful” and potentially damaging for the favorite child’s siblings, as well.

Image Credit: Pixabay

In studies that are more scientifically rigorous, similar biases have emerged.

This one revealed that 70% of fathers and 74% of mothers admitted to showing favoritism, but youngest kids don’t always feel the most loved. Another study, done in 2005, found that oldest children tend to feel like they’re the favorite (even if that’s perhaps not true), and that younger children typically feel as if their parents are biased toward their older sibling.

And this 2017 study found that when the younger child feels as if favoritism plays a role in their household, they were much more affected by it than older siblings (whether for better, if they were the favorite, or worse, if they were not), while older children’s relationships with their parents were not affected regardless of who the perceived “favorite” child was in the house.

Image Credit: Pixabay

BYU professor Alex Jensen, though, noted that how you show favoritism plays a role, too.

“When parents are more loving, and they’re more supportive and consistent with all of the kids, the favoritism tends to not matter as much… you need to treat them fairly, but not equally.”

Perhaps the most important outcome is from this 2006 study, which suggests the best thing to do (as a kid) is just to not let it bother you – research suggests you can’t change it no matter what you do, and that mothers, especially, rarely switch up their favorite child over the course of their lives.

So, oldest or youngest or middle child – be yourself, and know that even if they don’t love you the most, your parents still love you a whole lot.

And that should count for something, right?

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10 Facts That Are Good for Quiet Reflection

With this fact set, you’re getting quality and quantity.

Enjoy! And learn!

1. Harmful

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2. Get a load of those names

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3. Are you living it?

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4. Prudish

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5. Thank God!

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6. Dream away

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7. I think I sound like Barry White

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8. That is cool!

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9. Clone wars

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10. Ahhhhh, that’s better

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I can safely say I didn’t know any of those facts. How about you?!?!

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This Non-Profit Recycles the Soap from Hotels You Leave Behind When You Check out

Every time you check out of a hotel, you leave behind a mostly-unused bar of soap. It may even be untouched, if you’re the type of person who has strong soap preferences. So what happens to it?

The answer is pretty disappointing: hotels generally just throw the soap away for sanitary reasons. And all that soap adds up; about one million bars of soap are thrown out every day in the U.S., between travelers and hotels.

One traveler was unhappy to discover this wasteful practice, so he decided to do something about it. Shawn Seipler, a former tech employee who used to travel five months out of the year, thought that he could make better use of all those slivers of soap, so he started Clean The World. The Orlando-based company collects unwanted hotel soap, sanitizes it, melts it down, and redistributes it around the world.

Just last year, Clean The World made over 7 million bars of recycled soap, which were then donated to people in need. Thousands of children die from diseases that are preventable with basic hygiene — or, as Clean The World puts it, “Soap saves lives.” The organization also recycles shampoo, conditioner and body wash for homeless shelters around the world.

Clean The World partners with hotels for the modest price of 50 cents per room per month. There are operating centers in Orlando, Las Vegas, Montreal, India and Hong Kong.

“There’s a whole world of hotels out there we can get to start donating,” Shawn told Thrillist. “Right now we’ve got 20 percent of all hotels in the US. That’s a lot of room to grow, and a lot of soap to make.”

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This Is Why Humidity Make Us Feel Hotter

The actual temperature outside is around 91 degrees as I write this, but the “heat index” is about 106 degrees – but what is it about the extra water in the air that makes it feel (absolutely, one-hundred-percent) unbearable outside?

Well, part of that reason can be explained by our bodies natural cooling system – sweating.

Sweat works to cool us by evaporating from our skin, which wicks away heat in the process, but when the air outside is too moist, the sweat drips of us instead of evaporating.

It leaves you just as smelly, but not nearly as cool.

The National Weather Service has a handy chart to help weather people determine the relative humidity (the amount of water the air can hold, based on temperature) and compute the “heat index,” too.

In 1979, Robert G. Steadman, an academic textile researcher, wrote a paper that laid out the basic factors that affect how hot a person felt under a given set of conditions, and the resulting chart is basically being used to calculate heat index today.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The research relies on the idea of a “typical” person – 5’7, 147 pounds, wearing long pants and a short-sleeved shirt, and walking over 3mph in the shade (enjoying a light breeze), so while it may vary slightly from person to person, probably not enough to make a huge difference on any given day.

The National Weather Service has a four-tiered system to tell people how dire the heat situation is out there, with days with a heat index over 130 classified as “extreme danger,” and “danger” days ranging from 105-130.

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Current perceived temperature: #romansigner #heatindex

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On those days, prolonged exposure to the heat and humidity can cause sunstroke, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke, so you know. You probably want to stay inside.

I’ll be here on my couch, praying my air conditioner makes it through another six weeks of summer weather.

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Take a Look at Iceland’s First Dead Glacier Captured in Satellite Images

This is scary and sad at the same time.

The Okjökull glacier was dead, declared Oddur Sigurðsson, a geologist in the Icelandic Meteorological Office back in 2014.

By then, the glacier had mostly disappeared.

Fast forward five years and Sigurðsson and other scientists are hiking to the old summit to place a plaque commemorating it upon the volcano it once dominated. It is officially the first glacier lost to climate change.

These dramatic satellite images show the tragic change of the glacier between 1986 and 2019.

 

The Okjökull glacier is only one of Iceland’s receding glaciers, many of which are also changing at dramatic rates. According to Sigurðsson, glacier conditions all around the world are on the decline due to the impending climate crisis.

He has been documenting the vanishing of approximately 56 out of the 300ish smaller glaciers in the northern part of Iceland.

Here is the image of the Okjökull glacier in September, 1986.

Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Here is the image of the glacier taken August, 2019.

Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Every continent, except for Australia which does not have glaciers, is experiencing the loss of glaciers, some slow, others much quicker.

Alex Gardner, a NASA glaciologist, told Mashable, “We’re not trying to figure out whether the glaciers will melt in the future. We’re just trying to find out how much and how fast.”

Since 2001, 18 of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred. The warm temperatures have thinned the rivers of ice that create the glaciers.

Photo Credit: Vojife

Sigurðsson calculated that in 1890 the Okjökull glacier occupied 16 square kilometers, or 6 square mile. By 1945, it was dwindling, and it eventually died in 2014. Now, only small amounts of snow and ice exist along the slope.

Assuming warming trends continue along with unchanged rates of carbon emissions – which seems to be our trajectory unless something dramatic happens in the global political landscape – Iceland will see a decline in its glaciers of 40 percent by the end of the century.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, all of Iceland’s ice masses could disappear by 2200, if not sooner.

In the meantime, Sigurðsson is taking on the sad task of tracking all the living glaciers, especially those in retreat.

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