Space exploration and investigation, while multi faceted, has essentially had an overall focus of one thing: finding life. As of now, while it is overwhelmingly likely that life does exist somewhere else in the Universe, we are the only planet we know of with life. One of the reasons for that, is to our knowledge, life requires water to survive. And this hypothesis makes sense due to the fact that all life on our planet requires water to survive in one way or another. Theoretically, there are infinite planets out there, meaning life could evolve in other ways, but as far as we know that is not how it works. This means that most of our focus on a potential life-bearing planet revolves around the existence of water. And scientists do not think they have found a planet with liquid water…until now that is.

The key to this is not so much that it is water – water as a vapor exists in a whole lot of places throughout the galaxy and universe – it is the fact that it is liquid water. Water vapor is more difficult to be utilized by life because it is a gas, and that makes it difficult to harness and utilize for habitation. But liquid water is concentrated enough to be to hold and support life. Early life on this planet lived exclusively in water for hundreds of millions of years, so to our understanding it is necessary for most life. Or at the very least, it provides very good conditions for life to develop and grow!

The discovery of this liquid water on an exoplanet does not guarantee life, but it is still a great step in our search for life. We may never know if this planet holds life, but at least it will hopefully tell us that there is liquid water elsewhere in the galaxy, meaning life as we know it could be more real than we ever thought possible.

This week, news of Hurricane Dorian has dominated the news cycles. It became a Category 5 hurricane before making landfall in the Bahama’s, and wrought widespread destruction there. While this is sad news for the inhabitants of the island, it appears as of now to be moving up the eastern US coast, hopefully sparing more destruction.

Many articles have talked about how hurricanes are becoming more consistently powerful in recent years, and that this is linked to climate change. But how is it possible that such a massive storm that is hundreds of miles across is influenced by climate change?

The answer lies in the temperature of the oceans. Hurricane season in the Atlantic ocean begins in August, at which point in the summer the oceans have been steadily warming up, allowing the water and air to become warm enough to sustain the massive flow of energy that takes place. Essentially, the warmer the water, the more powerful the hurricane can be. So, as the oceans heat up, it allows more powerful storms to occur, and to last longer than they traditionally would.

For the last two decades, climate change has seemed like an abstract concept, one that we understand in theory to be true, but hard to physically see if you are not a scientist studying it. But that time is past, and extreme weather events are only going to get worse as our climate changes more rapidly than it ever has before.

Often, when we think of a scientific discovery, of someone finding something that we have never seen before, we envision grown ups in white lab coats, surrounded by high tech equipment, feverishly researching some new awe-inspiring discovery they know will change the course of history. And while I am sure many scientists WISH this is what they were doing, most of the time new discoveries are found in a very unexciting setting.

This was the case when three high school seniors in Rochester, New York swabbed three surfaces we see every day: a smart phone screen, a door handle and a hand dryer. Very typical and, well, boring sounding, right? Well, while the surfaces themselves were nothing to get excited over, once their swabs were analyzed, the teenagers realized they had found a brand new bacterium on their swab!

Now so far this new bacteria does not have any known potential use, but it just might. That is the exciting part of discovery; you really have no idea how helpful they will be. When electrons were discovered over 100 years ago, no one thought they would really be useful at all. Well, come to 2019, and our entire world is operated on electricity and its communicative abilities. Maybe this bacterium will be what helps find the cure for cancer. Or maybe it it better at dissolving grease than hand soap. Or maybe when heated to the exact right temperature, it learns to talk! Well, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea. Science is not necessarily about looking for things that you know will do something, it is about looking for something you hope will do anything.

In many parts of the world, the need of fresh water for the local population is much higher than the amount available. This is due to many reasons, including pollution, acidification, salination, and naturally low precipitation rates, but the problem remains that places are running out of fresh water that is needed for drinking and crop growing. This in turn has led to numerous plans of different plausibility to surface around the world. Many of these are expensive, some are reasonable, and many are outlandish. But one coming out of South Africa is truly exceptional in its ingenuity.

Right now, Cape Town, South Africa is in the middle of a multi year drought. This has led to its population of 4 million people to be restricted to 18.5 gallons per day per person. Does that not sound like a lot? Well, in comparison, the average American uses 80-100 gallons of fresh water each and every day. Which means the residents of this city on the southern tip of Africa use around 20% of the water many of us use daily. So, to try to combat this deficiency, one idea that has been proposed is to drag an iceberg from Antarctica to be slowly siphoned off for a fresh water supply. This plan would cost over $200 million per iceberg, so it is unlikely to ever occur, but the thought of a bunch of boats dragging a bunch of ice bergs to be used for water is certainly an interesting one!

Throughout the years, deforestation has destroyed ecosystems and made various species go extinct. However, through human action, this has become much worse. As of now there are approximately one million species of animals and plants that are at risk of extinction in the near future. Most major land habitats have seen a drastic reduction of almost 20% in their levels of biodiversity. Biodiversity is the amount of different species of plants and animals that we have, and the higher the level the better. With the human population rapidly increasing, activities like farming, fishing, mining, etc are causing further strain on the environment.

Loss of biodiversity is still accelerating through the year 2050 if we continue at current rates. Unless countries start to make some changes, these conditions will only worsen. Some may think that the lack of healthy ecosystems does not affect humans, and that it’s only bad for the animals and plants, but they are sadly mistaken. Humans are dependent on biodiversity because it connects with clean water and food security in both rich and poor countries. Some examples of the natural services that high levels of biodiversity provide are rain forests absorbing immense quantities of carbon dioxide (helping to slow the pace of global warming), wetlands purifying drinking water, as well as many medical components coming from a wide array of plants in high risk areas.

Just because these things do not personally affect you or the region you live in now does not mean it will not in the near future. The only way to preserve the earth is to make changes in your daily life, whether it be cutting out plastic, not littering, eating less meat or taking a shorter shower. While not intending to scare, this information should cause you worry. Without drastic action soon, the world in 50 years will look very different from the world today. Little by little, you are helping the earth and all the inhabitants of it. The real change starts with you.