Dolphins are beloved for their playfulness and intelligence. People have been going to parks and shows to get a sight of these adorable animals who don’t hesitate to always put on a show. However, these mammals belong out in the ocean.

Marine biologists and environmentalists have been working hard to protect dolphins from poachers. They are at their best and healthiest when they are in their own natural habitat. For the stray ones that get lost, people should be the first in line to provide help.

A dolphin got lost and swam up a Florida canal just recently. Instead of leaving it in harm’s way, around 30 biologists and volunteers then provided help and formed a human chain in order to block the dolphin from further heading up the waterway when it becomes more dangerous.

They all worked hard in order to help the dolphin escape the canal out into Tampa Bay. Without it, the dolphin would have lost its ability to help itself. Had this not happened, the dolphin would have ended up in the aquarium.

Brittany Baldrica is a senior rescue biologist with Clearwater Marine Aquarium. She received a call from the people in the site that a dolphin was found. They were in a canal in Clearwater, Florida. The caller was concerned about the animal and said that it may have been hurt or lost. That’s because the caller had noticed that it hadn’t moved even after four days. It stayed in a small stretch of the artificial waterway.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act said that feeding or harassing marine mammals such as manatees, dolphins, or whales is considered illegal. In fact, Baldrica had just recently rehabilitated a dolphin that was named Izzy. The animal was fed by humans after a boat strike left her stranded in a canal for a long time. She was there so long that she forgot how to hunt.

She told a local Fox affiliate that after the call, they decided to monitor the dolphin for 18 days. “He was behaviorally ok at that point and then upon talking to other people within the residency, they had said the animal may have been there for at least four days, so we were just concerned he got separated from other animals,” Baldrica said.

After such time, Baldrica knew that an intervention was already required. So, she gathered a group of 28 biologists from the Clearwater Aquarium, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. They all entered the canal and formed a “wall of sound” to make the dolphin to swim through a narrow culvert and out to the Tampa Bay direction.

“The goal was to not put hands on the animal. The goal was to just be a barrier that was novel to the animal, so we wanted to create a physical barrier as well as an auditory barrier, so we had somebody behind us that was banging on a boat, revving their engine and then we were splashing the water and moving forward towards the animal, so we were giving the animal the option to swim through the bridge on its own,” Baldrica said.

“We’re thankful to the residents in the area who worked with us to help protect the animal from harassment and provided access to their property while we monitored and rescued the animal,” CMA said in a press release.

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Some people have a fear of flying, and who can blame them? Stories of a plane crash would scare anyone from doing it, and this fear exponentially increases if it happens to someone you know. However, technology has also changed.

Right now, engineers are doing their best to design planes that are safe and reliable. Pilots are also being trained harder so that they can make an informed decision should weather get in the way. With all these things in place, accidents have lowered.

Then, there’s the weather itself. For those on land, this is another one of Mother Nature’s furies that they constantly have to work about.

Weather and Flying

Ask any regular flyer, they start feeling agitated when a plane begins to shake from turbulence. Passengers often start twitching in their seats, hoping to get some good news from the pilot. The good news is that the last few years have been the safest in the history, in terms of aviation.

Between the years 2021 and 2022, the fatal rate of accidents aboard an aircraft worldwide was 0.24 per million flights. To put it in numbers, it was 1 in 4,240,000.

In reality, the number is considered to be realistically lower since the accounting method took into consideration fatalities from events such as hard landings, tail swipes, or runway collisions. They also accounted for those who were killed on ground, the crews, and others.

As for everyone’s fear of falling from the sky, this happened just once in 2022, and this didn’t happen in the Western Hemisphere at all.

In newspapers in different parts of the globe, writers continuously talk about climate catastrophe to end. However, many don’t have the discipline or the right frame of mind to talk about the most recent situation appropriately, especially the global news that everyone has talked about.

Even when the health experts from Canada mistakenly diagnosed a patient and said that he was suffering from “climate change” last year when a heatwave took place, the decadal rate of deaths per 100,000 people during extreme weather events all over the world has been at its lowest right now, even when different newspapers hone in on the extreme news of every heavy weather season.

Incidents such as landslides, heavy fog, glacial lake outbursts, wildfires, heavy storms of snow, snow, and wind, droughts, earthquakes, extreme heat, dry mass movement, floods, and volcanic activity have already been considered. They saw that global average is just 0.16 deaths per 100,000 people, and this was at its lowest ever since they started recording the numbers.

The reason behind the said decline is the unprecedented speed at which people are now getting out of the poverty bracket as well as countries in the Global South developing and getting into an income bracket that, they saw, ca now afford things such as air conditioning. Simply put, this means that those who were once extremely vulnerable to weather events are in now in a much better place to get through them unscathed.

There is also further growth of heavy industries among the fast developing countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, and Turkey. This means that communities at risk for destabilizing events such as earthquakes and floods are now able to get rid of their earthen foundations and replace these with concrete. They’ve also changed their thatched roofs and gone for metal ones as well as using steel girders instead of wooden beams.

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Old buildings have a certain kind of charm. Unfortunately, these aren’t built for sustainability. Solar paneled rooms have been designed for modern buildings and homes, and while these are beautiful, old buildings also need to make the shift.

In 2015, Invisible Solar was mentioned by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MiBACT). They said that this could be the answer to improve energy efficiency in cultural heritage all across the country. In fact, the they are already installed the tiles in Pompeii.

“They look exactly like the terracotta tiles used by the Romans, but they produce the electricity that we need to light the frescoes,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park.

“Since we needed an extensive lightning system, we could either keep consuming energy, leaving poles and cables around and disfiguring the landscape, or choose to respect it and save millions of euros.”

A pilot program will see conducted and this will allow the Invisible Solar terracotta tiles installed in the Portuguese city of Evora, and the Qualiato hopes that this will spark an interest in Dyaqua’s other products. That’s because the same technology and materials that enabled them to create the solar panel terracotta tiles will also enable them to copy natural stone, concrete, and wood exteriors, not just in the roofs of buildings, but on their walls and courtyards as well.

About 90 square feet (9 square meters) of tiling has the ability to generate about 1 kilowatt hours of electricity. This doesn’t sound like much but this still allows solar power to be used on historic buildings. This is much a better option than nothing at all.

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When you take a look at the landfills all over the world, you’ll see how these are filled with non-recyclable garbage that’s left there to rot for the next century or so. If no one does anything about this, this could definitely pose a threat to the environment.

Something needs to be done, and right now. We can no longer afford to wait. It’s a good thing that there are several entrepreneurial and forward-thinking companies out there that have come up with wonderful solutions that may truly save the environment from future problems.

In fact, in order to come up with a renewable, biodegradable design material that also helps remove landfill waste stream, French designers have come up with a plan that everyone could definitely get into. They are proposing to cover the walls of homes with fish scales instead of ceramic tiles, and this new idea may be the next wave of recycling.

The idea to come up with an elegant-looking tile made entirely from fish scales is worth the look and consideration, and this is called Scalite. The makers of the tiles separate and then combine the naturally-occurring minerals and the collagen in the fish scales to make what they believe is an attractive, durable, naturally fire-resistant tile that can be used for homes all over.

Oftentimes in the past, fish scales have sometimes been turned into fertilizer and fish oil supplements. For the most part unfortunately, these are simply thrown out into normal landfill waste streams as they also get rid of the fish head and its bones.

Erik de Laurens came up with this amazing idea. Once he thought of this, he then started a design company called Scale with his cousin Edouard.

While it’s a challenge to zero in on reliable supply chains for fish scales, even from Europe, a continent who is very much aware of the importance of recycling, the square or rectangular tiles of Scalite are priced in between common natural stone like white Corian, and marble, at about $35 per square foot, or €300 per square meter.

“If you’re really serious about your environmental impact then this is a really good solution because it’s basically natural,” Laurens told Fast Company.

Scale that have been designed by Scalite tiles were done to be ruseable in a wide variety of applications, from interior decoration in private homes and offices, to furniture, and even down to retail displays. They even have a myriad of natural dies available in order for them to make wild marble-like patterns in a variety of shades and colors such as moss green and mustard yellow.

Unfortunately, and perhaps even ironically, these haven’t been designed to be water-resistant just yet. One should not use these tiles for the bathroom and outdoors because they will absorb any liquid that comes their way. Nonetheless, the company has already contracted a biochemist to find a solution to address this issue while making sure that the product still remains sustainable.

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They say that good deeds shouldn’t be broadcasted. Those who want to help do so because they want to, not for popularity or fame. And nowadays, finding such a kind soul is difficult. There are many out there who help simply because they want to be known.

Still, it comes as a pleasant surprise when we stumble upon a pure-hearted individual who did charity work without ever talking about it. Such is a case with one man. No one knew what he really did for the people of Alabama until he passed.

It was only during the funeral a man named Hody Childress from Geraldine, Alabama, that people finally realized what he had done. They came to know that for a decade, this quiet, kind, and loving man was a guardian angel to the poor and sick people in the area.

Childress was a farmer and U.S. Air Force veteran. This quiet charity campaign of his started when he visited the local Geraldine drugstore. He saw that not too many of the town folk (which was around 900 of them) could afford to purchase the medicines they needed to stay healthy. They had prescriptions from doctors, but unfortunately, they just didn’t have the cash.

Life wasn’t always easy for Childress. In fact, he also went through his fair share of troubles. He lost a son in 1973, and his first wife in 1999. He had been such a devoted husband to his wife that he carried her into the stands for local football games because she suffered from multiple sclerosis and couldn’t get there herself.

Still, Childress never lost his zest for life. When he learned that many of his neighbors couldn’t afford the medications, he handed Brooke Walker, owner of Geraldine Drugs, a $100 bill to help them.

“Here, this $100 is for anyone who can’t afford their prescription,” Walker said when he recalled his first encounter with the charitable man. “Do not tell a soul that the money came from me, tell them it’s a blessing from God.”

A month had passed and Walker saw Childress again. He once again traipsed inside the drugstore to give the owner another $100  and this came with the exact same instructions—’do not tell a soul that the money came from me, tell them it’s a blessing from God.’

He would do this on the 1st of every month for the same reason in the years that followed. When 2022 came, he missed it because he was suffering a pulmonary disease and other health conditions. So, Childress decided to get someone else to help him. He gave the task to his daughter, Tania Nix.

“I was shocked – I had no idea that he was helping people at the drugstore,” according to WVTM. 

He succumbed to the disease and during his funeral on January 5th, 2023, Nix told the story of Childress’ decade of giving. The amount may not have been big by any comparable means, but this was enough to cover the cost of expensive medications for 2 residents each month, which already made a big difference to the recipients.

Word began to spread that Geraldine had their very own guardian angel, and WVTM reported that the people in the area have agreed to remember his legacy and continue the good work he started.

“There are so many people in Geraldine who have lived longer because of Hody,” pharmacist Heather Walker shared. “Hody was a true humble servant who will always be loved.”

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California is considered the third most expensive state to live in when it comes to living in the United States. And this is also why it either makes complete or no sense that it’s home to Skid Row, which is basically 50 blocks of space where most of the state’s most ‘chronically homeless’ people, that have been living on the streets for over a year.

While people love to visit the Golden State, most prefer to spend their time in Disney Land or walking down Rodeo Drive rather than visiting the rather desolate areas of Skid Row. In fact, most don’t go voluntarily at all. However, Dr. Kwane Stewart, better known as “The Street Vet” is anything but usual, and has actually become famous for not only intentionally visiting this area, but with a goal of giving stuff away.

That’s because Dr. Kwane is the head of a 501(c)(3), which happens to be a non-profit organization called Project Street Vet that takes donations and gets volunteers to help go out onto the streets of Skid Row to give free medical care for the pets of those in the homeless encampments. In fact, just last year they managed to help almost 600 animals with medical care.

Statistics show that there are an estimated 10-25% of homeless people in American that own pets, mostly for companionship, but also for security at times as well. And considering that these homeless people don’t necessarily have the ability to take care of themselves, they hardly have anything to provide to their pets, whom they tend to love more than anything else in the world.

Dr. Stewart isn’t a stranger to hardship himself. In fact, back in 1997, he had loads of student loans that needed to be paid off from the University of Colorado. He was working at a rescue shelter to pay the bills, but found himself rather depressed about the entire situation considering he was euthanizing between 60 to 70 animals a day.

But it was during a surprising encounter with a homeless man and his pet at a 7-11 that made Stewart decide he wanted to do more. Not too long after, he set up a pop-up clinic for animals beside a soup kitchen, and would even walk up and down the streets on some days looking for pets to give medical aid to, something that he never even mentioned to his family.

Before he knew it, seven years had passed when he ended up having an encounter with show business. He was made director of a show called ‘American Humane’s No Animals Were Harmed’ program, where he made sure that animals were treated properly and were not harmed during filming. And after they found out about his kind work for homeless people and their pets, they decided to create a show called Dr. Kwane: The Street Vet. Despite being just one season on Canadian TV, it managed to pull in tons of volunteers, pet product firms, and philanthropists to help him with his passion project.

By 2020, Dr. Stewart and his brother, Ian, began his non-profit that gives free exams, flea medications, supplies, vaccines, and other information to help those that are homeless learn how to raise and take care of their pets despite having limited resources.

Meanwhile, other charity organizations also partnered with animals clinics and Project Street Vet to bring other pop-up clinics to areas where the homeless can bring their pets for better and more sophisticated medical care. In fact, they even offer procedures such as neutering and spaying for their animals. Moreover, Project Street Vet even helps other qualified pet parents with veterinary pet care using financial assistance grants that can be obtained through them.

Aside from all the generosity the site has given, they even have other reports where Project Street Vet has helped almost 600 pets in other cities aside from Los Angeles, such as Atlanta, San Diego, and Webster, Florida. They’ve even helped at least 150 people with financial assistance.

Since they work on donations, contributions, and mostly volunteer work, you can find a way to do your part here.

See more about Dr. Stewart and his incredible advocacy in the video below.

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Artificial intelligence and robotics have been breaking ground in every type of industry on the planet, so why not add farming to the mix? Although most people believe that robots are only used in factories, laboratories, and other types of manufacturing plants, farming is yet another industry in which robots can leave a mark.

Just take a look at this spoke-wheeled robot plant nurse whose main job is to look through 50-acres of row crops, checking for pests, disease, and other adverse issues to give a warning to the main farmer.

Kind of like a tumbleweed, the SentiV scouting robot is just a prototype at the moment, but the people behind this incredible specimen are hoping that the amount it takes to make each one can be offset with the funds that will come from saving on pesticides and fertilizers, since it’s built to figure out which plants need what.

While all factors of farming can be taxing and trying, plating is one of the most delicate periods since most of the costs go into the beginning while the yield and profits come after many months of waiting for the crops to sprout and be ready for harvest. Moreover, there are innumerable things that can go wrong during the time between planting and harvest, such as unexpected outbreaks of disease, pests that are eating up the crops, or even an overgrowth and spreading of weeds and other toxic growths.

In addition, having to manually inspect the crops doesn’t only take hours to complete, even airborne drones don’t have the ability to fully inspect the crops and the leaves, nor can they see under the leaves.

As a result, this 33-pound robot can solve all these issues since it uses spokes to move around instead of wheels, which tend to tread over the crops and plants and crush them. That way, farmers also have lessened costs and reduced labor to make up for.

The SentiV is programmed with the GPS coordinates of the plantation field’s boundaries, which it uses as a guide to go across the entire crop field, with the ability to cover up to 50 acres in one day. During that time, it can scan both the topside and underside of the plants using the pair of cameras attached to it.

Then, the smart algorithms on the robot look for possible threats, monitor the growth of the plants, and even identify the signs and symptoms that the plant may need more or less nutrients or water. Plus, the wheel height of the robot is even conveniently adjustable, making sure that the robot doesn’t accidentally damage the crops.

While the need for farmers, crops, and laborers to take care of these fields is something that may never go out of business, the way that farmers work their fields and the animals that help them may very well go through some major changes, all because of these smart robots that are being manufactured in every size to make labor and materials on farms less extensive and costly.

Incredibly, there is another robot called the sniper robot that has 50 nozzles that can spray weeds with de-weeder, and plants with fertilizer, at a rate of 20 shots per second. Moreover, there’s also a tractor robot that can plow a field all day, all night, all by itself.

See more about the SentiV and how it works in the video below.

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Who says dead trees are only good for firewood? All across the United States, cities are finding ways to upcycle their felled urban trees to make them into usable, valuable, and interesting items rather than burn them, dump them into landfills, or feed them to the chipper.

Aside from this system being just better for the environment all around, it’s also one trend that a group of urban woodworkers have banded together to create a network of entrepreneurs and innovators to create new and improved products using this otherwise so-called ‘waste lumber.’

According to the Urban Wood Network, the U.S. alone can make and produce nearly 8 billion board-feet of urban-sourced lumber annually, when this type of lumber is processed, sold and used to its highest value. This is around 10% of the production of what the traditional lumber industry gets from the forests around the country.

In a 2018 article from Pew Charitable Trusts, it shared how city leaders from Harrisonburg, Virginia started a wood utilization effort that crated park benches, conference room desks, and planter boxes all from the felled trees in their municipality.

Moreover, the article went on to share that in Maryland, they also have the Baltimore Wood Project, another U.S. Forest Service-led program that promotes the reclamation of urban wood. This has provided over 65,000 board-feet for the city construction of wellness centers, fishing piers, and pedestrian bridges around their city.

Meanwhile out west, another company called the West Coast Arborists is also doing its part. With 350 cities all across California and Arizona, they have been fighting for city ordinances on shade trees and other types of urban tree planting programs to promote the planting of high end-use value tree species also for the purpose of reclamation and upcycling.

Notably, the West Coast Arborists have currently been supplying lumber from their felled urban trees to none other than Taylor Guitars, as the company was looking for wood from Shamel ash and red ironbark eucalyptus trees for a number of their guitar models.

Another such company is the Seattle-based bespoke furniture maker, Urban Hardwoods, which has its very own sawmill to process trees that they get through Urban Wood Network. It’s because of Urban Wood Network that municipalities, sawmills, arborists, and finished good makers and producers, as well as others can have such a large scale network of wood reclamation going on.

When it comes to Urban Hardwoods’ creations, they are made from trees that have been cut down ‘as part of the tree-surgeon work in Seattle,’ which are felled all within a 15-mile radius of the store. Just like they say on their website, ‘From tree to table’ since they are not only ethically sourced, but as they explain, every piece of their furniture “has a story to tell.”

In addition, the beautiful and forest-filled state of Oregon also has its own program from their environmental department that’s in charge of recycling shrubs, limbs, and other wood that cannot be turned into high-end furniture or other wood products. Rather, they made them into biochar, which is a recently created soil amendments that uses ‘heating wood over fire without access to oxygen.’ When this biochar is placed in soil, it works like a sponge to absorb minerals and water. Plus it also works be something nice and solid that trees or shrubs can wrap their roots around to keep them steady and grounded.

While biochar is not as carbon-neutral as furniture, like some other fertilizers, it produces less CO2 than when chopping trees into chips, loading them into landfills, or simply burning them. And if it’s better for the environment, then it’s just really better all around.

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Like bees, monarch butterflies are pollinators, and the fact that they migrate from one continent to another is a huge factor in a number of ecosystems across the globe. So after the latest annual Western monarch count, which measures the population of overwintering butterflies, they were happy to announce great news for a second year in a row.

Once again, these monarch butterflies had improved numbers on their population count for another consecutive year, after they had made an incredible rebound back in the year 2021. With their former failing numbers, volunteers were able to show their excitement after these early reports implicated that these numbers have gotten better.

The survey looked at a total of 272 overwintering sites all across the coastal area of California during the months of November and December, as well as other sites within California and Arizona. The volunteers reported that their count resulted in 335,479 individual monarchs.

In fact, in the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties alone, this number tallied to more than 130,000 butterflies. Meanwhile, the San Francisco bay area also saw a comeback in numbers, with over 8,000 butterflies also reported in the nearby counties.

The numbers from this season’s count was a huge relief after last year’s count, which was worrisome with a ‘total of less than 2,000 individuals counted in 2020 – and larger than the 250,000 counted last year.’ This year’s number of 335,479 means that the number is basically “back to normal” in the sense that these were the numbers from 2000 to 2017.

Conservation biologist from the Xerces Society, the group that leads the western monarch count, Emma Pelton, “We can all celebrate this tally. A second year in a row of relatively good numbers gives us hope.”

However, due to the numerous storms that have affected California after their counting efforts may have affected the total tally. Some sites found that butterflies were also blown out of their clusters, which makes them incredibly vulnerable to the cold. But, other sites, such as Pacific Grove, the butterfly monarchs managed to fare quite well, with most of them able to survive.

Notably, by finding ways for groves to be more resilient to climate change and severe weather may actually help monarch butterfly survival, as well as keep their habitats well into the future. This may include replacing dead and dying trees, planting more native nectar sources, or mitigating possible floods in the future.

It’s important to note that while these efforts to protect and re-wild landscapes for these butterflies may be small, they’re also powerful and have proven to be quite successful.

If you would like to help protect and boost the number of monarchs, you may consider joining the mission of the Xerces Society.

They also note, as seen on their website, five different ways you can already help support and protect monarch butterflies:

1. Plant native milkweed.

2. Plant a diversity of nectar plants, ideally native to your area.

3. Stop using pesticides, or minimize risk associated with pesticide use.

4. Call on legislators to support greatly needed policies such as Recovering America’s Wildlife Act and the Monarch Action, Recovery, and Conservation of Habitat Act.

5. Contribute to community science projects that track monarchs, such as the Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper, Western Monarch Mystery Challenge, and nationwide Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program.

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The bees are dying… or are they? Depending on whom you ask, the answer may actually change but regardless of what they actually tell you, bees are some of the most vital creatures to human survival. Why? Because the world depends on them to pollinate flowers, they make honey, as well as tons of other products that are anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, and full of antioxidants.

And to help ensure their safety, well-being, and to protect them from extinction, various bus stops all over Aberdeen, Scotland will be renovated to become “Bee Bus Stops” to make sure they keep on doing what they do best!

This means that some cities in Scotland they will be transforming the tops of their bus stop stations using a flowering plant known as stonecrop – or sedum – in the hopes to not only encourage biodiversity, but to also help keep these shelters cooler in the summer while helping absorb unwanted pollutants.

One of the Scotland’s council members, Ms. Kairin Van Sweeden, described the stops as “quite miserable places” last December, and she says that this new update will help put Scotland’s heritage as one of the successful innovators for public transport.

Currently, the idea is to renovate at least 9 different stops as a test run, however, should they prove to be successful, the city of Aberdeen may just make it a blanket policy for all new bus stops being built, while also requiring the old ones to be refitted in the same manner.

Moreover, the idea of city planners is to draft volunteer programs for people to water and care for these plants at the stops, while being able to encourage community spirit around the area of Union Street.

As reported in Aberdeen Live News, in Aberdeenshire, there was another pilot program where they gave a Park & Ride an eco-friendly makeover, which added a sedum-planted roof, some solar panels, as well as energy saving LED light displays.

The Ellon Park & Ride actually features “Papercast” displays, which are considered the lowest-consuming type of electric signage on earth. It uses an electrified piece of paper that costs no energy to display what it wants to display. This particular station has three different bus shelters, all of which have been outfitted with these sedum-plant roofs and Papercast travel displays for customers to appreciate and enjoy.

Meanwhile, other cities in Europe, such as in Utrecht in The Netherlands, have already switched to these types of bus stops, where bees are free to fly, pollinate, and roam as they please.

Although these days most bus stops are seen as small stops across cities, they can still have a positive environmental impact on the world while working to become a more carbon-efficient, or even possibly one day, to become a carbon-free city.

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Astronomers have been observing the skies for years and with the improvements of the telescope and the technology they use, they were able to identify a total of 208 different stars just under 1 million light years away from the center of the Milky Way.

They had finally built a stellar road sign for the end of our very own galaxy. The photos from James Webb Space Telescope were revealed and these involved the universe at large. They were able to truly see the world out there.

As these astronomers studied our own galaxy, this provides them with the information they need to learn the structure of other galaxies in the universe as well. They also are able to see features of the cosmic neighborhood along the way.

They found what they call the RR Lyrae stars. The 208 most distant stars were actually discovered in the residual data of a ground-based telescope that surveyed a cluster of galaxies far from the Milky Way.

As for our very own Milky Way, it consists of a “bulge.” This bulge is the galactic center and around it is the thin spiral-arm disk where our own solar system is. After this are the inner and outer “halo.” The latter is a region that consists of large amounts of dark matter and less information when compared to the inner regions.

The disk is our Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across, but the outer halo extends in all directions as far as hundreds of thousands of light years. This is where stars were found “beating” like hearts in the darkness because they had such unique characteristics.

“The way their brightness varies looks like an EKG—they’re like the heartbeats of the galaxy—so the brightness goes up quickly and comes down slowly, and the cycle repeats perfectly with this very characteristic shape,” said Raja GuhaThakurta. He is a professor and chair of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.

“In addition, if you measure their average brightness, it is the same from star to star. This combination is fantastic for studying the structure of the galaxy.”

The RR Lyrae stars are considered to be very old stars in the galaxy. When 208 of these are placed in the outer reaches of the halo, the astronomers will be able to gather sufficient data and information regarding the of the Milky Way.

When it comes to measuring the galactic distance in kiloparsecs, astronomers see each one as a representation of 3,260 light years. Some of the farthest RR Lyrae stars identified were found to be 320 kiloparsecs from the bulge. Or, this is roughly 1.04 million light years. The decimal figure represents a big expansion of the previous estimations made on the other portions of the outside halo.  This is also roughly 2.5 million light years to the nearest neighboring galaxy, Andromeda.

“This study is redefining what constitutes the outer limits of our galaxy,” GuhaThakurta explained. “Our galaxy and Andromeda are both so big, there’s hardly any space between the two galaxies.”

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All pets will need to visit the vet at one point in life. It can be for routine vaccination, illness, or an accident. In such cases, you must decide whether to get pet insurance from the best company, Spokk, or self-insurance.

Self-insurance happens when pet owners save some money which they will use for their pet’s treatment. One thing to note is that self-insurance will not provide you with the same benefits as Spokk pet insurance coverage would. On the other hand, pet insurance also has some limitations. Below, we will help you choose between pet insurance or self-insurance by providing the cons and pros of each.

Self-insurance: pros and cons

Self-insurance requires pet owners to have the incredible discipline not to withdraw the already saved-up funds. Also, you will need to have a high commitment to how much you will need to save regularly. Like any other insurance, self-insurance can accrue several pros and cons. Here are the pros and cons of using self-insurance.

Pros of self-insurance:

• It can cover pets with incurable pre-existing conditions.
• It covers all types of pets.
• If your pet never gets in an accident or sickness, you can still have the funds in your hands.
• No paperwork is necessary when settling vet bills.
• Pet susceptibility to illness, breed type, or age restrictions is unnecessary.

Cons of self-insurance:

• The saved-up funds may not be enough to cover expensive emergency veterinary care, especially if you have just started saving.
• No third-party liability if your pet injures or damages another pet or person. The lack of third-party liability may require you to make out-of-pocket payments if your pet injures other pets.

Pet insurance: pros and cons

Pet insurance is currently growing in popularity. There is a 28% increase in pet owners getting insurance coverage in the US alone. The main reason for the growing popularity is that the coverage provides pet owners with a wider treatment option for unexpected illnesses or accidents. Like self-insurance, pet insurance has several pros and cons.

Pros of pet insurance:

• Pet insurance ensures that you will not have to use your savings.
• It allows you to provide the best healthcare for your pet.
• Pet insurance can provide pet owners with additional coverage. For instance, some policies may cover the loss or theft of a pet.
• Have a wider range of policies to choose from, where you can decide to get time-limited maximum benefit, lifetime, or accident-only pet policies.
• It covers curable pre-existing conditions.

Cons of pet insurance:

• You may still need to make out-of-pocket payments.
• You may not use all the advantages that pet insurance provides. For instance, your pet may never cause third-party damage.
• Considering pet insurance for an older pet with pre-existing illnesses can be expensive.
• Pet insurance may have limitations on the type of pre-existing conditions it covers. For instance, you may not find coverage for incurable illnesses.

Factors to consider when choosing between pet insurance and self-insurance

The choice of whether to get pet insurance or self-insurance can be tough for most people. To make the right decision, you may need to make a comparison of pet insurance and self-insurance. Here are some factors to consider when comparing and deciding which is the best:

• The ability to cover your pet’s pre-existing conditions.
• Ability to fund an expensive cost of treatment.
• Cost of coverage and the coverage percentage.
• Ease of access to funds to cover vet bills.
• Availability of additional benefits, such as third-party liability or coverage for pet theft.
• Consider which coverage will provide you with peace of mind while ensuring your pet receives the best healthcare possible.

How to combine self-insurance and pet insurance for maximum coverage?

A comparison of pet insurance and self-insurance indicates that each has its own pros and cons. However, if you combine the two, you stand a higher chance of providing your pet with maximum coverage. For instance, pet insurance pre-existing conditions may have limitations on the type of conditions and whether they are curable. On the other hand, self-insurance does not restrict coverage for pets’ pre-existing conditions.

However, paying out-of-pocket to cover the incurable pre-existing condition can be expensive, especially if your pet gets into an accident or causes third-party damage. In such a case, combining pet insurance and self-insurance is the best option possible.

It will allow you to get the benefits of maximum coverage while prioritizing your pet’s healthcare needs. Thus, you can pay your pet insurance premiums while saving up an emergency fund your pet may require. The emergency fund will help cover vet costs that the pet insurance does not.

In conclusion

The decision for whether to get Spokk pet insurance or self-insurance solely depends on you. Generally, either decision will impact your overall finances. The trick lies in deciding which is the best between the two. Also, you can consider combining self-insurance and pet insurance to provide your pet with the maximum coverage possible.

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Floodings happen all the time and in order to avoid this from happening in the future, a woman from Yorkshire thought about what to do. She came to realize that there are actually thousands of Christmas trees go to waste every single year.

Instead of doing something about these trees, people simply cut them up and throw them into the trash where these are left to rot on their own. In reality, these trees could actually be used as natural flood protection. Hence, this enterprising lady started a unique business just for this purpose.

She started the Rooted Christmas tree rental and what this does is deliver a potted Christmas fir, pine, or spruce to a family when the holidays come around and the decorations are about to be set up. Once the lights are taken down and the tree needs to be removed, the company collects these rentals and replants so that these plants get to see another Holiday season.

During the replanting, the trees are able to grow taller and when they reach full growth, they are replanted on the slopes of the nearby Calder Valley. These then become natural floodwater breaks when the rainy season comes.

The Sunday Times reports that the towns of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire have been plagued with immense floods 4 times in the past 15 years. The recent one was the most devastating as it caused $180 million (£150 million) in damages.

The founder of this company is named Sara Tomkins. She established a Christmas tree plantation in the spring of 2020. She started with 400 trees during this time. Dozens from the original batch have now become too big to fit in the average living room. That’s why these were uprooted and replanted in the upper parts of the Calder Valley. The main goal of these trees is to stop floodwaters from running down and affect the two towns at the foot of the hills.

Rooted started as a sustainability project. It later became a successful commercial enterprise that serves a lot of people. When the residents of Yorkshire learned how their Christmas tree buys would be used to protect their towns from floods as well as reduce waste from trees thrown, people asked to rent Tomkins’ original trees.

Tomkins said that people tend to eventually see these trees are part of the family. In fact, they choose one to rent again and again in order to “watch them grow up with their kids.”

“It’s like people adopt them,” she said. “They become part of the family. I’ve got a couple of people already asking if they can have the same tree again in 2023 and I’m trying to gently break it to them that it’s going to be nine foot by then so it won’t fit in their house.”

Tomkins says that the demand for the trees might actually be three times than what she can give, but she as a full-time job as a music venue director. Thus, she can only do this when she’s off work.

“I do this in my spare time so I don’t have the capacity or the physical space to make it any bigger,” she said when she spoke to The Times. “But the demand being there is such a positive thing because, if we can reduce how many Christmas trees we cut down, that is a massive environmental win.”

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People oftentimes visit Australia not just to get a taste of the city, but to enjoy the beaches as well. In fact, thousands of visitors flock to the waters and watch as surfers ride the waves while others simply sunbathe.

However, with tourism also comes waste. People don’t oftentimes think about the trash they leave behind. They’re simply there to enjoy, without a care in the world. As a result, some parts of the beaches have been littered with so much plastic.

A recent scientific survey was conducted and when this was completed, researchers found that plastic on Australian beaches has fallen by 29 percent since they did the previous survey in 2013. They were impressed at what they found.

The authors of the study give credit to the well-executed and locally focused waste control strategies. They say that this is what Australians can achieve if they just put their heads together, and this may be something that the rest of the world could follow.

The efforts had been organized by the Australian national science agency. And for this year’s survey, they looked at 562 new survey plots that ran across 32 local government entities. They did the research and emphasized on gathering data on which methods implemented by the local officials in the area had been the most effective and successful.

“Our research set out to identify the local government approaches that have been most effective in reducing coastal plastics and identify the underlying behaviors that can lead to the greatest reduction in plastic pollution,” said Dr. Kathryn Willis, the lead researcher of the study.

“We were really surprised and excited to also find that there was on average 29 per cent less plastic on our beaches than in 2013 when similar surveys were conducted,” she added.

The strategies employed had been divided into planned behavior like educational programs and recycling guides, economic strategies, and crime prevention. The latter involved closer monitoring of those illegally dumping trash and other activities that were similar to it.

Out of the efforts made, they saw that economic strategies were found to have the biggest effect on the cleanup efforts. More economic waste management strategies brought about cleaner coastlines on the same level.

“For example, household collection services, where there are multiple waste and recycling streams, makes it easier for community members to separate and discard their waste appropriately,” said CSIRO researcher as well as the co-author of the paper, Dr. Denise Hardesty.

“Our research showed that increases in waste levies had the second largest effect on decreases in coastal plastic pollution. Local governments are moving away from a collect and dump mindset to a sort and improve approach,” the doctor explained.

The research saw that those municipalities that didn’t update their waste control measures over time suffered from dirtier coasts.

As of now, CSIRO is on a mission to reduce plastic waste by as much as 80 percent. They are working hard to achieve this and will always continue to do so.

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There is a dwindling number of honeybees that researchers have noticed. These insects are an integral part of nature, and for the honey they produce, people have benefited from it as well.

So important are these bees that a biotech company announced this week that the USDA (Department of Agriculture) granted them a conditional license. This was for their honeybee vaccine.

At this point in time, even the animals need all the help they can get. This said vaccine aims to boost the bee’s immune system so that they are able to fight against American Foulbrood disease. This disease is a bacteria-based condition that is known to attack colonies. The culprit behind this is what they call the Paenibacillus larvae.

Honeybees are vital to our food supplies. However, because these honeybees are plagued by American Foulbrood, they have been dwindling and dying faster than expected. In fact, the numbers in which they die has been worrying. There had been no safe or sustainable antidote in the past. That is, until now. Previously, the only treatment method that they had for this extremely contagious disease was incinerating the bees and the infected hives with the a specific type of equipment.

The antidote was developed by Dalan Animal Health. They made a solution that contained an inactive version of Paenibacillus larvae bacteria that is non-GMO and more importantly, one that can be used in organic agriculture.

After the antidote was is consumed by the worker bees, the vaccine then becomes incorporated into the royal jelly, something that they give to the queen bee during her feeding. As soon as she is able to ingest it, fragments of the vaccine find their way into her ovaries.

One the larvae is hatched, they have already been exposed to the vaccine and are therefore immune to the disease.

“Our vaccine is a breakthrough in protecting honeybees, impacting food production on a global scale,” Dr. Annette Kleiser, CEO of Dalan Animal Health, said in a statement.

“This is an exciting step forward for beekeepers, as we rely on antibiotic treatment that has limited effectiveness and requires lots of time and energy to apply to our hives,” Trevor Tauzer, owner of Tauzer Apiaries and board member of the California Beekeepers Association, said as he talked about how he can benefit from the antidote.

“If we can prevent an infection in our hives, we can avoid costly treatments and focus our energy on other important elements of keeping our bees healthy,” he added.

A research was made and the results showed just how efficient the drug was. Hence, the USDA issued them the conditional license for its use for a good two years. Dalan, which is headquartered in Athens, Georgia, at the University of Georgia’s Innovation Hub, is set to give out the vaccine on a limited basis. Their target market will be the commercial beekeepers.

They are expected to have the vaccine later this year and it will be set for distribution to the vital bee farms in the U.S. The vaccine itself will be manufactured in Iowa.

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First came the solar-powered vehicles, then came cars that run on electricity. People have been looking for ways to power transportation without using the usual gas and diesel.

Here is New Holland’s brand new tractor that runs on liquified methane. This is beneficial for farmers because it enables them to lower their emissions and save cash on rising diesel costs.

It has also been deemed as efficient for several other reasons. The company behind this innovative method says the fuel can actually be produced easily by methane that comes from cow pies. By doing this, they will be able to follow a more circular economic model in the most circular industry that is also just as important.

The breakthrough 270hp tractor is said to match the performance of the standard diesel-powered ones. In fact, this machine is a pioneer in the industry and it was developed by a British company called Bennamann. They have been hard at work researching and developing biomethane production for more than 10 years now.

The waste byproducts that comes from a herd as small as 100 cows can be transformed into a fuel called fugitive methane. This is done in a biomethane storage unit that is also found on the farm itself.

In order to make the tractor work, a cryogenic tank is fitted on the tractor. This keeps the methane in liquid form at -162 °C.  This provides the vehicle as much power as a diesel. The main difference is that they can significantly save on emission.

They had a pilot test run for the tractor and it was put through its paces on a farm found in Cornwall. They noticed that the carbon dioxide emissions in the area were cut by a good amount as it went from 2,500 metric tons to 500 metric tons in just one year.

“The T7 liquid methane-fuelled tractor is a genuine world-first and another step towards decarbonising the global agricultural industry and realizing a circular economy,” said Bennamann co-founder, Chris Mann.

The company is also setting aside budget as they want to invest on the wider uses of the technology. They have hopes that this could someday be used to charge electric vehicles that are found in rural locations.

Both the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) are working on funding together a study to assess the scale of fugitive methane emissions that are in Cornwall, which is where the Bennanmann’s headquarters is found.

They will look deeper into the current emissions from sites such as dairy farms and wastewater treatment plants to see if this same technology could be applied in the area. The collaboration will also study the future potential of biomethane to be used as fuel for the transport and agriculture sectors.

“If we can make our agriculture industry energy-independent in the face of soaring input costs and volatile energy prices, while reducing emissions, then we can provide a huge economic boost for rural communities, greater food security, and move towards net zero,” said chairman of the LEP, Mark Duddridge.

“These applications are not limited to agriculture or Cornwall. They are global,” he also added.

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In a far-flung area in northern Kenya, a startup company will grow minerals by gathering CO2 from the air and storing it at least 1,300 feet beneath the ground, placing it in volcanic rocks. Then, they’ll allow nature to take its course by turning them into stone via greenhouse gas.

These otherwise incredibly fertile grasslands of Tsavo or Amboseli national parks is considered quite barren, precisely due to its volcanic history. And this process of placing CO2 into basalt rock, which has been successfully used in Iceland, is something new to the African country, but the hope is that they will be just as fruitful.

The company, called Cella Mineral Storage, will partner with Kenya’s growing geothermal energy sector to provide this zero-emission permanent carbon sequestration solution. The hope is to place a facility that sucks CO2 from the air and place it underground, where the geothermal plant is drilling to produce electricity.

Africa admits to being one of the continents that is one of the last in line when it comes to being a climate-neutral continent, mostly due to having weak access to electricity and unreliable grids.

However, due to Kenya’s location on the globe, it actually has a great advantage when it comes to making solar, wind and other geothermal energy sources for the country. In this light, the Kenyan government is hoping to become ‘the continent’s largest exporter of carbon credits.’ And if this project comes to pass and is truly successful, it will mark them as one of the biggest names in carbon capture programs through the Cella Mineral Storage project.

According to Claire Nelson, CEO of Cella, in an interview with Fast Company, “When you’re thinking about large-scale carbon removal, it makes the most sense in a place where there’s a ton of renewables.”

As for Kenya’s electricity needs, almost half of them are filled via geothermal power. Moreover, at least 92% of the current power needs are supplied by renewables as well. In fact, statistics show that there is so much geothermal electricity in the country that there’s a huge surplus of power that could even power at least 20 carbon capture stations.

Although Cella has yet to give an estimate as to how much carbon dioxide their capture stations will manage to get, studying other types of installations will give a general idea of how much they can capture.

A former report on the biggest carbon capture plant, Tata Chemicals Europe located in the United Kingdom, captures at least 40,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, which is basically the same as removing the use of 20,000 cars from the roads.

Meanwhile, another project by the Orca factory in Iceland, which uses the same kind of set up as Cella plans in Kenya, manages to capture 4,000 tons a year.

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Beneath the rainforests of Guatemala, researchers that have been studying the Mayan Empire and they made an incredible discovery. They found that there are over 900 habitations, which include at least 4 big cities, with raised causeways hundreds of miles long that connect them all together.

History has proven that Mayan technology has always been sophisticated. However, this new research proves that they were advanced beyond their years.

It was during the light detected and ranging survey, or LiDAR, which according to its website ‘uses the pulse from a laser to collect measurements to create 3D models and maps of objects and environments. In a nutshell, the system calculates how long it takes for beams of light to hit an object or surface and reflect back to the laser scanner.’

In essence, it allows researchers, archaeologists and the like to do what used to take years, sometimes decades to discover, while also lowering the expense by now being able to simply flying over the site in an airplane a few times to get the info they need.

When the LiDAR flew 650-square miles over the northern area of Guatemala’s Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB), what they found was at least 30 famous ball courts form the Ancient Mesoamerican team sport, as well as 195 cement reservoirs that would drain the lakes in the area dry, as well as 110 miles of raised walkways that connected as many as 417 villages.

Moreover, this all dates to the late and middle Preclassical period of Mayan history, where such events took place as when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple of Solomon, when Assyria sacked the ancient Elamite capital of Susa, as well as where the Greco-Persian wars took place, such as the battle of Thermopylae.

For the past 40 years, there have been ongoing excavation in the MCKB area using traditional means, which revealed 56 sites, including that of some of the biggest stone pyramids found in the history of Mayan culture, called La Danta. Located within the “lost city of the Maya,” they are made from 205,508 limestone blocks and the structure is even bigger than the great pyramid of Giza. Studies show that it would have probably taken between 6 to 10 million days of labor to build.

Incredible Organization

According to the research team, which was led by Richard D. Hansen, an Idaho State University archeologist, he concluded in the Cambridge University Press, of their LiDar survey study, “The skeleton of the ancient political and economic structure as a kingdom-state in the middle and late Preclassic periods has a tantalizing presence in the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin.”

LiDAR delivers the goods. A new mapping study of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB) of northern Guatemala has revealed over 900 Preclassic Maya sites, condensed into 417 ancient cities, towns, and villages of at least six tiers. pic.twitter.com/KxYYPxywQc

— Stone Age Herbalist (@Paracelsus1092) December 20, 2022

The Stone Age Herbalist tweeted that being able to have a topographical visualization of the MCKB was huge, and attempting to make sense of every individual site level was momentous. The researchers managed to use a 6-level tiered system, with the El Mirador being the highest tier consisting of the giant pyramid, while the other areas move backwards from that point.

Through this, the study authors managed to define cities, towns, villages, but admitted that their data was still limited to ‘visible features on the surface.’

The authors went on to say that some settlements could have been bigger than what the surface architecture actually suggests, explaining, “To further complicate issues, the Mirador Basin Project has identified an astonishing presence of “invisible” house mounds, with packed earthen floors, postholes, and Preclassic pottery in situ, but with no surface indications of architecture.”

They also said, “The consistency of architectural forms and patterns, ceramics, sculptural art, and unifying causeway constructions within a specified geographical territory suggests a centralized political, social, and economic organic solidarity among the occupants.”

“The magnitude of the labor in the construction of massive platforms, palaces, dams, causeways, and pyramids dating to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods throughout the MCKB suggests a power to organize thousands of workers and specialists, ranging from lime producers, mortar and quarry specialists, lithic technicians, architects, logistics and agricultural procurement specialists, and legal enforcement and religious officials, all operating under a political and ideological homogeneity,” they added.

Research shows that the poor soil conditions of tropical rainforests tend to contribute to difficulty in building and construction during the Mesoamerican civilization. However, it seems that it wasn’t an issue for those ruling during the El Mirador period to get thousands of people to create the similar Stonehenge-like structure. Rather, they managed to build their construction projects on a regular basis, and on a large scale too for hundreds of years at that.

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Life in space doesn’t seem so farfetched these days. With all the talk of SpaceX and the incredible images from the James Webb telescope, outer space no longer feels like it’s light years away.

Now, scientists share that there may be some heavy evidence of life on one of Saturn’s icy moons named Enceladus, and a robot spacecraft that happens to have taken some of the methane emissions coming out of its liquid interior may just prove their theory to be true.

Now, NASA just needs for the robot to take a sample of these plumes, or if not, punch a hole through the planet’s exterior in order to take a closer look at the salty and warm ocean below.

When NASA first took a look at this moon back in 1980, they didn’t think there was anything to really check out since it just looked like another icy ball of snow in the sky. However, during a second NASA trip that took place between 2005 and 2017, what they found was that this moon’s thick icy layer was actually covering a large and warm saltwater ocean inside that released methane gas, something that normally comes from microbes on the planet Earth. This was discovered during one the Cassini spacecraft’s missions that flew through the water plumes that happened to be erupting from the moon Enceladus’ surface.

Just last year, scientists from the University of Arizona in the United States, as well as those from the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres in France worked together and hypothesized that the reason why methane gas could be found on the moon, it was because life must have emerged from there. They also explain that while the amount of bacteria in its ocean must be small, they just need the robot spacecraft to make a visit to confirm their existence.

University of Arizona’s Professor Régis Ferrière led a study that explained how they wouldn’t even need to land on Enceladus, but rather a well-equipped robot could just fly through one of its plumes to “confidently” figure out if life has evolved there or not.

Why Enceladus of All the 83 Moons of Saturn?

Enceladus happens to be just one of Saturn’s 83 moons, the 6^th largest at that. It’s surface is frozen over, much like what a pond looks like during the coldest winter months. But what makes it even more special is that it reflects light more beautifully than anything else in the solar system.

At least 100 giant water plumes located on the south pole of the moon erupt through the cracks, whose icy covering is actually made by the planet’s gravity. And all the excess methane gas that gets pushed through the plumes looks a lot like the hydrothermal vents of the Earth that are found beneath the sea, where the tectonic plates of the earth meet.

There these tectonic plates meet, the hot magma that lies beneath the sea floor heats the water in the bedrock as it comes out, making “white smokers,” releasing incredibly hot and mineral-rich sea water. Meanwhile, the teeny tiny organisms that live beneath the sea with no access to sunlight actually survive on the energy of the chemicals that are released by the so-called white smokers to remain alive.

Professor Ferrière explains, “On our planet, hydrothermal vents teem with life, big and small, in spite of darkness and insane pressure. The simplest living creatures there are microbes called methanogens that power themselves even in the absence of sunlight.”

The scientists also explain that the methanogens ‘convert dihydrogen and carbon dioxide to gain energy and release methane as a byproduct.’ Meanwhile, they based their calculations on the theory that the moon Enceladus has methanogens that populate the hydrothermal vents in the ocean, which highly resemble the ones there are on Earth.

As a result, the team managed to work out what they believe the exact total mass of methanogens on Enceladus would be, and also the possibility that their cells and other organic molecules could also be expressed through the plumes.

The research team also says that any regions in the Enceladus that happen to have life would also ‘feed the plumes with just enough cells or organic materials’ which could be discovered by the instruments or robots placed on future space ship missions. They also say that while a future mission may have a hard time finding any direct evidence of life, the presence or absence of particular organic molecules – like certain amino acids – may just be indirect evidence ‘for or against an environment’ teeming with life.

The study’s first author, Dr. Antonin Affholder, shares, “The definitive evidence of living cells caught on an alien world may remain elusive for generations. Until then, the fact that we can’t rule out life’s existence on Enceladus is probably the best we can do.”

And now, because of these discoveries, scientists now wish to go back to the Enceladus moon where one specific mission intends to land on the moon sometime in the 2050s to collect “extensive” data about this.

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Once again, photos from outer space have managed to blow our minds after images taken on an orbiter in space were released, showing what a “winter wonderland” looks like on the planet Mars. From frost, to gold trimmed cloud-looking formations, to shimmery stained rock formations, these photos have managed to prove that winter on earth isn’t the only fascinating place this time of year.

However, what may be a huge difference is the fact that winter on Mars is much colder than you can imagine, with many of these landscape photos being taken in temperatures as low as -123°C.

The machine that took these photos of the coldest season on the planet Mars was the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera, which happened to be on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA shares that so far, these images happen to be the most “fabulous” discovery they’ve made at the end of winter, taken during the time all that build up ice began to “thaw” out and sublimate into the atmosphere. It’s during this time that the ice takes on these breathtaking yet eerie forms and shapes, which were captured on camera.

NASA shared on their website during the image release, “When winter comes to Mars, the surface is transformed into a truly otherworldly holiday scene. Snow, ice, and frost accompany the season’s sub-zero temperatures. Some of the coldest of these occur at the planet’s poles, where it gets as low as minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 123 degrees Celsius).”

They added, “Cold as it is, don’t expect snow drifts worthy of the Rocky Mountains. No region of Mars gets more than a few feet of snow, most of which falls over extremely flat areas. And the Red Planet’s elliptical orbit means it takes many more months for winter to come around: a single Mars year is around two Earth years.”

As Mars “thaws” out from the winter frost, it causes geysers on the planet to erupt, allowing sunlight to heat up the gas beneath the translucent ice. When the gas finally bursts out, it sends fans of dust on the surface, which then creates these ethereal surfaces.

Scientists have also chosen to study these fans in order to find out more about Martian winds, and the directions in which they blow.

Notably, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been in orbit since 2006, studying Mars all these years. The spacecraft was originally designed to observe and study the climate and geology of Mars, as well as to find future landing sites for the orbiter, as well as send back collected data from their surface missions on the planet back to the scientists on Earth.

See more about this phenomena in the video below.

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