Today, scientists released one of the most stunning images ever taken: a picture of a black hole. Located 55 million light years from our solar system (light travels almost 6 trillion miles in one year, so don’t expect to visit any time soon,) this was the first image ever taken of a black hole. What is a black hole? It is an area that has such a high concentration of gravity, that light cannot escape it. Every beam of light that enters never leaves. Formed from the death of a super massive star, black holes are something everyone knows of, but not many people know much about. Even the scientists who have studied them all their lives say they know almost nothing about them. Black holes are often at the center of a galaxy as they create the only gravitational force strong enough to hold millions of stars, planets, asteroids, gas clouds and more together. There is even one at the center of our galaxy! But do not worry, it will never swallow us up and suck us in. The sun will expand and destroy us before that ever occurred (you still have over 7.5 billion years before that happens!) Check out the amazing image below and see history for yourself!

What you are seeing is not so much a picture of the black hole itself, but the lack of light as it crosses the event horizon – or the plane where gravity becomes too strong and no light, or anything else, can escape. Cool, right!?

Hydrogen fuel has had much research done on it recently, and for good reason: it is a potentially powerful and clean energy source. The process of gaining hydrogen generally comes from a process called electrolysis, or the process of using electricity to split molecules, in this case splitting H2O (water) into Hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O). The problem with this is that fresh water is a very precious resource, one that many areas of the world are running out of. This means that using what little they do have to make an energy source is not exactly the most attractive option. But recently researchers have found a way to perform this action using salt water…which is one of the most abundant substances on earth! Hopefully this provides humanity with an ample source of a clean and essentially renewable resource, because as many of us are well aware, this is something we certainly need.

Plastic plays a big role in our everyday life and is involved in practically everything we use. Although it is plenty useful, plastic is a substance that the earth cannot digest. With the ever growing pollution problem in the world, it would be wise to ease off of it. Yes, it sounds crazy, but it’s even crazier that babies are being born pre-polluted, our groundwater and food chain are being spoiled, the plastic attracts other pollutants, etc. Some people may go further than others to take plastic completely out of their lives. For example, a woman named Beth Terry felt very strongly about this and decided she was not going to use any plastic products. She started by cleaning out any food that had plastic packaging. This was an easy start but things got more challenging when she went onto the bathroom. She had to switch to shampoo bars instead of bottles and she started making her own conditioner, as well as toothpaste, because she couldn’t find either that didn’t contain a plastic packaging.

“I thought I’d be able to find a plastic-free version of all the convenient foods I was consuming,” Ms. Terry said. “I didn’t realize that plastic made those foods possible.” Even though avoiding using plastic may seem impossible, it’s not. It also gets easier overtime as you learn and become more familiar where all the specific plastic-free products you want are. Instead of looking at it as an inconvenience, some look at it as a little game.

 

 

Unfortunately, the negative impact of climate change, pollution, and deforestation are clearly visible in recent years. The population of various species have been declining at an alarming rate. In particular, insect populations have been decreasing faster than any other species. Insects are vital to different food webs, so a decline in insect pollutions could cause a large drop in other animal populations. Not only are insect primary food for other animals, but they are also the biggest pollinators in the world. There is a strange phenomenon called colony collapsed disorder, where honey bees are not returning to their hives, causing colonies to die out.  Honey bees make up a large portion of insect pollinators, so losing bees could mean a great loss in various food sources.

Some of these crucial insect groups are populations of bees, dragonflies, ants, and beetles. A decrease in these insects may cause a large increase in pest insects such as cockroaches and houseflies. Pest species are more adaptable in warmer climates, specifically in man-made habitats. Of course, no one wants to live in an infested home, filled with cockroaches, but sadly, many of these species have evolved resistance to many different pesticides.

Society as a whole, needs to become more aware of the negative impact we are causing to the natural world around us. Factors like pesticides, deforestation, chemical pollutants, and fertilizers, have created a great loss in key insect populations. Moving forward, we need to start caring for our environment. Some ways in which we can achieve this is by buying organic food, gardening and planting trees, and buying products that do not use plastic packaging. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll see the insects we love so much back in action!

Today, February 13th, 2019, is a bittersweet day in the scientific community. On this day, the brilliant minds at NASA made the final call to terminate the Mars rover Opportunity program that has roamed our celestial neighbors surface for the last 14 years in some of the toughest conditions imaginable (and yet my iPhone seems to be useless after 3 years…) The truly amazing thing about this lifespan, is that the rover was only supposed to last for 90 days, and yet here it is, declared dead after 14 years!!!! This amazing piece of technology helped us revolutionize our understanding of ancient Mars, and gave us peeks into what sort of environment may have existed there long ago. Running solely on solar power, this machine of human dreams road around the rough terrain taking pictures and samples of the rocks around it, singing happy birthday to itself once a year, the only source of intelligence on this barren land. 50 years ago humans made it to the moon, and 14 years ago we put a rover on Mars. Who knows what the next 50 years will bring?