Rising Ocean Temperatures Could Cause Dangerous Drop in Oxygen Levels by Next Century

In all of the discussions on global warming and the resulting global ocean temperature increase, the major focus has been on the possibility of flooding wreaking havoc on our ecosystems and landmasses. However, it seems an even deadlier danger has now been discovered.

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(Not quite.)

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Sergei Petrovskii, a professor at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, has just found that a rise of just six degrees celsius in ocean temperatures could result in phytoplankton stopping their production of oxygen. This is really bad news, because roughly two-thirds of the planet’s total oxygen is created by phytoplankton. Making matters worse, a rise of six degrees could happen by 2100 – less than a century away. Petrovskii was quoted saying, “This would likely result in the mass mortality of animals and humans.” Let me put that into layman’s terms:

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The findings couldn’t have been more timely, as the United Nations is set to meet at the Paris Climate Change Conference from November 30 to December 11, where a universal agreement on action for climate change is trying to be reached. Obviously this discovery will have massive implications for the meeting, but what type of implications will it have on regular members of society? Climate change has continuously had those who disregard it or consider it to not be an issue; will a clear threat of the suffocation of a planet be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

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(Party like it’s 2115!!!)

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You can read more about the study in the University of Leicester’s press release, where the link to the findings in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology is posted as well.

 

 

Colonizing Mars is humanity’s next great achievement

I’ve always dreamed of going to another planet.

Ever since I was little, the idea of humanity exploring exoplanets has been something I, along with so many others, have really wanted to see become a reality. One of the largest problems we face in making our sci-fi dreams come true is time: more specifically, we don’t live long enough to make the trip with the propulsion technology we have. It’s been clear that one of those factors had to change, and my money has always been on the latter rather than the former. That might be what has happened with Nasa’s EM Drive.

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(The “Live Forever” department’s tests haven’t been nearly as successful)

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The drive relies on solar energy instead of a propellant and is able to generate thrust seemingly out of nowhere through the use of a magnetron (which I’m linking for those of you who are physics-oriented, since I’m not and can’t explain it well).  There was skepticism after tests in 2014 about the unaccounted thrust being generated, but NASA recently tested the drive again in a vacuum and the thrust was still there, even though it was a small amount. When magnified to the size of a spaceship, the amount of thrust generated that seems to defy Newton’s law of conservation of momentum can send us through space without using any fuel.

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(<<T H E   F U T U R E>>)

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The implications for this drive are gigantic: it’s estimated that manned trips would reach the Moon in only 4 hours, Mars in 70 days, and Pluto in 18 months. To put that in perspective, the unmanned spacecraft that just took images of Pluto this year took nearly a decade to reach the body, and we could theoretically do so in a year and a half. Moreover, it would only take roughly 100 years to reach Alpha Centauri, a trip that would take 10,000+ years with our current technology.

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(The welcoming committee, probably)

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If the drive were to function successfully on the scale of a spacecraft, it only speeds along our current plans to explore the solar system. You may have heard of the commercial attempt to reach Mars and create a reality show, known as Mars One. There are already members of the crew who are talking about the possibilities of reproducing on Mars and colonizing. Being able to make the trip in less than 1/3 of a year would mean great things for travel between the planets. NASA has been planning a progression toward manned trips to Mars, creating new spacesuit designs and projecting humans on Mars by the 2030s. In addition, earlier this year MIT created a device known as MOXIE that would slowly terra-form Mars’ atmosphere to create breathable oxygen. Not only that, MOXIE would also create liquid oxygen that could serve as potential fuel for a return flight. Of course, if the EM Drive were a success, we wouldn’t need that fuel in the first place.

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(“Just going to the store, Mom”)

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It seems we’re hitting a time of discovery that all points toward human colonization of Mars, and maybe even beyond. Before the midway point of the century, humanity could be inhabiting other planets. Less than 100 years after we first landed on the Moon. If technology is progressing this fast, imagine where we’ll be by the end of the century. Before 2100, we could easily have kids who don’t have to dream about exploring other planets – because they were born on them.

Our stress is affecting our future children; but is that good or bad?

It’s not often that we get to see evolution at work in front of our eyes. However, that’s what seems to have been found with the recent discovery at the University of Pennsylvania. According to findings posted on Science Daily:

Researchers have shown at the molecular level how experiencing stress changes a male mouse’s sperm in such a way that it affects his offspring’s response to stress. This change is imparted epigenetically, or through a means other than the DNA code, by molecules called microRNAs, or miRs.

I’m no epigeneticist – and I didn’t even know that word existed until reading about these findings – but the basic takeaway from the study is that elevated levels of stress experienced in the lifetime of a father can impact the way his offspring respond to stress. The study used mice to test the findings, and when performing a stress test on the offspring by restraining them, the mice from the stressed fathers had lower cortisone levels than others. Stressed fathers produced offspring who had a dampened response to stressors. It seems to me that this discovery has implications on the subjects of health (both physical and mental), our societal makeup, and even the evolution of humanity as a species.

Physical Health

It’s no secret that heart disease is a major killer in the United States. 1 in every 4 deaths in the states comes from the silent killer. A lot of that coronary distress comes from our poor eating habits, but a big contribution comes from the large amount of stress we put on ourselves. We live in a world where the 40-hour work week is now a nearly a full workday longer and we’re expected to be accessible 24 hours a day through our devices and computers. Add all of that up with our extreme emphasis on “success” and “achievement” and you have an overworked, overstressed group of people with little to no time to exit the “work” mindset.

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(America: A Self-Portrait)

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Cortisone is a steroid produced in our bodies that helps to fight inflammation, but is also part of the adrenaline-rushed fight-or-flight response associated with stress, and contributes to this heart disease epidemic. With cortisone levels lower than normal in the offspring observed in the research, could we be witnessing an evolution in the response to stress that saves our hearts from the strain experienced by previous generations?

Mental Health & Productivity

These findings are so recent we aren’t really sure of the implications on what type of people it will produce. The way I see it, there are two possible outcomes from a dampened response to stress, and they couldn’t be further from each other. The first is a superhuman who can handle any of the present-day stress you throw at them and more. They’ll take all of our jobs because they’re so much more productive and we’ll all have to learn to serve our anxiety-free overlords humbly.

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(Hopefully by now you’re getting that there’s an attempted element of humor in this)

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The second outcome is one where this new breed of humans with dampened stress responses don’t feel as much of an obligation to their stressors, and instead opt for less stress overall. Instead of adapting to the issue and becoming better at handling it, we instead go the route of aversion. Is it possible this could be an evolutionary way of regulating the amount of self-imposed stress we create? Which way do you think we’re heading?

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(I feel you.)

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Humanity as a Whole

As was said earlier, we’re just beginning to figure these transmissions out. Before these findings, it wasn’t thought that the father had any genetic contribution of this caliber to the brains of their offspring in the early stages of development. Now that we’re aware of the possibility, what other life experiences could we be transmitting to our children, directly affecting their development? Our desires, addictions, fears, etc. could be shaping the way our children will develop without us even realizing it. Would you live differently if you knew that your future kids were being directly shaped from your decisions before they were even born?

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(And now living on in your little manifestations of yourself.)

The World Will Stand Still without Your Opinion.

I’m not an expert on anything.

I’m a 21 year old college student whose main proficiency is that of most other adolescents and young adults: consuming content on the internet.

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(pictured: me, doing what I do.)

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As a member of this generation that has grown up alongside the growth of the internet and technology, my role as a member of this global network has developed with me. We’re in Web 2.0, which means we have multi-way communication and things are focused around user-generated content. No other form of media has immediate, direct communication between businesses, organizations, political figures, regular people . . . anyone. And it’s been around for less than 20 years.

It’s easy to forget just how new our connectedness really is. And with each new generation, the memory of how it was before will fade more and more. Just 50 years ago, the thought of having a face-to-face conversation with someone on another continent would’ve been mind-blowing. 100 years ago there were still parts of the United States that didn’t have bathrooms inside their house.

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(#blessed)

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We’ve proven that we know how to have fun with it – through our Caturdayz, our memes, and the way we’re able to have thousands of vines making fun of a music video less than a week after the video releases (looking at you, Drake). The most re-tweeted tweet in Twitter’s (short) history is a photo. Facebook is prioritizing videos and photos in its algorithm. Instagram is now the most popular social media site for youth. We love visual content; we eat it up. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but shouldn’t there be a balance between our entertainment and our engagement in advancing society?

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(For the record, this one’s my favorite.)

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We’re so much more fortunate, globally-informed, and equipped to do something about it than any generation has ever been. We’ve already begun to use our advantage for good: through the internet’s ability to crowdfund and expose the real lives of people, donors from over 100 countries raised over 1 million USD for a Brooklyn middle school in need and over 2 million USD to help end bonded labor in Pakistan. Those are only two examples of the countless wonderful things that have been done through this medium. But the sky is the limit on how much good we can do with our ability to spread information worldwide in less than a day.

We have the opportunity to be proactive, not reactive to all of the things happening in today’s world. At least five articles show up in my Facebook newsfeed daily on a new innovation, idea, or discovery that has been made. What if we opened a dialogue with each other and pooled our insights to see where these new things might take us – not just immediately, but five, ten, or even twenty years down the road? Imagine the foresight we have working as a unit. Think of all of the potential crises that could’ve been avoided if we would have had global communication. With a worldwide conversation made up of multiple future-oriented viewpoints, maybe we would have seen that a pesticide that was developed in the early 1900s would turn into a chemical weapon in WWI and the main ingredient for Nazi gas chambers in WW2. Or on a lighter note, we might have discovered the alternate use for a Cincinnati man’s wallpaper cleaner much sooner.

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(Spoiler: it’s Play-Doh. ^^ALSO WEREN’T THOSE THE GREATEST?)

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We have the ability to make a large impact on the world, and that’s what this blog is about: using the technology we were lucky enough to be born into to think proactively about the world. Ideas act like viruses, and we’ve seen better than anyone how they spread across the cells of this network. And the best part is, you don’t have to be an expert on anything to have an opinion.

I mean, I’m not an expert either.