Category Archives: News

Science/Nature

Ocean pollution and how to prevent it

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By: Addison Strack

Ocean pollution is a major problem that is greatly affecting the world’s oceans, and this article will give information about how to prevent the issue.

There are two main types of ocean pollution that damage ecosystems in the ocean, and are harmful to the health of organisms in the ocean.

The first type of pollution is called chemical pollution. Chemical pollution is a result of runoff from the use of fertilizer and pesticides on farms, sewage, and more. An increased use of nitrogen and phosphorus in chemicals that end up in the ocean have promoted the growth of algal blooms, which can be toxic to wildlife and humans. These chemicals are also very harmful to ecosystems in the ocean.

The second type of pollution is trash pollution. The main type of trash that ends up in oceans is plastic items, such as shopping bags, beverage bottles and caps, food wrappers, and more. Plastics are the main type of trash pollution in the ocean, because plastic can take 100s of years to decompose, resulting in buildup of these items in the ocean.

Trash pollution is very dangerous to marine life, because they can get tangled in, and digest the trash. When small organisms eat micro plastics, which are very small pieces of plastics, they absorb the chemicals from the plastics into their tissues. When larger organisms consume these smaller organisms, the toxic chemicals then become a part of their tissues. Eventually, micro plastics will then reach part of the food that humans eat.

If we don’t do anything about ocean pollution, there will be multiple negative impacts. One of the most notable impacts would be that if ocean pollution continues, it will accelerate climate change. Mangroves, reefs, and other underwater ecosystems store large amounts of carbon, and because of this, the ocean contains the most amount of carbon in the world. Pollution can destroy these ecosystems, resulting in the carbon being released into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change.

Ocean pollution also puts marine life in danger, and can lead to extinction and endangerment of underwater species.

There are multiple things that you can do to help prevent and reduce ocean pollution.

Reducing your waste is a major change that you can make in your everyday life, to help prevent ocean pollution. Avoiding singles use plastics, such as plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic straws, and more will help to reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfills, which could eventually make their way into the ocean.

Respecting the ocean is another thing that you can do. You can do this by fishing responsibly, making sure you don’t litter, and following rules when you are on the water.

Volunteering for beach and ocean cleanups in your community also helps immensely. You could participate in international events as well, such as Global Ocean Cleanup or The International Coastal Cleanup.

As seen above, protecting the world’s oceans is critical if we want to do anything to avoid worsening climate change, and ensure that the ocean will be accessible for generations to come.

If you would like to read more about ocean pollution and cleanups, feel free to visit the websites below:

Science/Nature

James Webb achievements

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By: Reed Morris

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on Christmas Day, 2022. At a cost of over 10 billion dollars, a project of this magnitude MUST have a worthwhile outcome. The JWST has only been operational and in position for three months, but has already surpassed expectations. 

Throughout the launch process, deployment, and calibration, everything went perfectly. All 300 some single points of failure deployed without issue, and the telescope was finally up and running by July of 2022. The first set of images was released on July 12th, showing the world what NASA’s bleeding edge technology could do. 

The first image released by NASA was a much more advanced and detailed version of Hubble’s deep field. The deep field is pictured below.

While this picture might seem like any other picture of space, it contains some of the most spectacular sights in our known universe. This image contains the farthest intergalactic objects humans have ever observed. It also shows many instances of gravitational lensing, where massive galaxy clusters warp space enough to bend the light from galaxies behind, to amplify and focus their light. 

This deep field is fascinating in many ways. First off we have to talk about its size. While this image seems large, the area that Webb viewed to take this picture was roughly the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length. Another very interesting aspect about this deep field is the time it took to capture the image. While Hubble took weeks to capture a lesser deep field, James Webb took just hours to capture the spectacular image pictured above. With that sort of efficiency and processing power, the future of space exploration is in Webb’s pocket. 

One of the most important aspects of Webb that I mentioned a lot in my previous article is its ability to peer back in time further than we’ve ever dreamed. While we currently live just around 14.5 billion years after the theoretical Big Bang, the above deep field displays light captured back to under 1 billion years after the Big Bang. Webb’s large mirror and intense infrared capabilities allows us to view the warped and stretched light that has been traveling for eons through cold empty nothing, just to be absorbed by Webb’s censor and displayed in the spectacular deep field. 

As Webb continues to explore deeper into space and further back in time, keep an eye out in the news and here for further exploration into the James Webb Space Telescope’s achievements and discoveries. 

Science/Nature

NASA hit an asteroid with a rocket. Why? 

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By: Brogan Frey

On Monday, September 26th, 2022, at 6:14 pm Central Standard Time, a rocket launched by NASA on November 24th, 2021, made impact with an asteroid named Dimorphos. NASA has been planning this mission for years. 

The first thing NASA wants everyone to know is that this asteroid was no threat to earth, and it has not become one after this mission. This was a test to see if we can, in fact, redirect an asteroid by crashing into it, in preparation for a possible doomsday situation, like ones seen in movies like ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Don’t Look Up.’ There is no threat to earth from any asteroid at the moment. 

This mission was conducted by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), a NASA department. The mission was nicknamed “DART,” which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, and was one of the first for the PDCO. 

When the rocket was just 19 minutes away from impact, scientists could finally see the moonlet Dimorphos for the first time. A moonlet is an object that has enough gravity to affect the dust and ice around them, but isn’t large enough to be classified as a moon. 

It will take a few weeks for NASA to tell if this mission actually had an impact on the direction of the asteroid, because this asteroid is over 7 million miles away, and it has a large orbit, so it will take a bit of time to notice any differences in the orbit. 

Before the crash, Dimorphos took about 11 hours and 55 minutes to complete one orbit, and this is expected to go down just a little bit. Even though we don’t know yet how much this affected the asteroid’s orbit, scientists are expecting the crash to shorten the asteroid’s orbital period by about 10 minutes. 

The asteroid weighs about 1.1 billion pounds, compared to the rocket’s 1200. It may seem too small to have any impact, and it sure does seem that way. Says NASA’s Elena Adams, “It’s basically like throwing a tennis ball at a 747 (airplane). If it goes fast enough, you’re gonna move it.” And this rocket certainly moved fast. It was going about 14,000 mph before crashing into the asteroid.

Overall, I think NASA is smart for testing this because there may be a day where we need to crash a rocket into an asteroid to stop what could be a catastrophic disaster. Because, although asteroids don’t crash into the earth every day, it has happened before, and being prepared is always ideal. 

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National, News, Science/Nature, World

Its the end of the world as we know it

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(Yes like the R.E.M. song)

By: Reed Morris

All around the world, we are facing disastrous natural phenomena. The magnitude of these events seem as though they are straight out of Hollywood movies. Here is a compilation, and explanation, of some of the most major events from the late summer of 2022.

To kick off the month of August, a major flood in Kentucky had a rising death toll, passing 37 on August 2nd. In the wake of the flood, lay 12,000 powerless homes, empty schools, and millions of dollars worth of damage to local infrastructure. There was a frantic mass exodus which saw excessive looting.

Because of these factors the state was put under curfew and was essentially locked down for a short amount of time. Intervention by the federal government was eventually deemed necessary, and Biden sent federal support to Kentucky to assist localized teams of rescuers and national guardsmen in the evacuation process. 

Another case of these extremely strange and sometimes deadly weather phenomena is the case of coasts, East vs West.

Recently, at least, the US has seen an increase in extreme weather. This year was the first time we truly realized how intensely different weather can be from one side of the country to the other.

In August and September of 2022, the west coast of the United States was under extreme stress from the absurd heat that it was experiencing.

Temperatures in LA flew into the triple digits. People were asked to turn off their lights and stop using electricity to try to keep the power grid alive. With everyone living in intense heat, the power grid was struggling immensely to support the AC units needed to keep the entire population cool.

Now, we move to the east coast. For almost a month straight, during August, there was torrential rain, hail, and flooding. A direct example of this is what happened to Kentucky, as mentioned before.

We usually think of our country as better than most, but when it comes to the wrath of the sky and earth, everyone is equally powerless.

The largest of these recent natural disasters struck the Middle Eastern country of Pakistan.

While American students begrudgingly returned from their summer vacations and turned back to a life at school, children and families in Pakistan were struck by a much worse predicament.

An excess of water struck Pakistan seemingly out of nowhere. With the countries fluid infrastructure not being modern, it was quickly overrun by the extreme load. Dams lost function, levees broke, and the agricultural artery of Pakistan was its ultimate demise.

Where this really becomes truly shocking is the number of real people that have been displaced by the disaster. Over 30 million Pakistani residents have been forced to move, and over 600,000 have been forced into relief camps. One third of the country’s population is in a dire situation. This is terrifying, but it’s just the beginning.

Deadly weather phenomena are something we as a species must learn to overcome. The only issue is, we don’t know how to. Natural disasters are like our planets version of a check mate. There is nothing we can do to stop it when it happens, we can only plan to make it more difficult for our opponent to get us into that position.

This is where I must bring up global warming. We are simply not doing enough to avoid the horrendous fallout our species has laid unto ourselves. I am not going to pretend to be an atmospheric fluid dynamic professor, or a well spoken well researched activist. I’m just someone who has noticed a problem and feels that not enough people are addressing it.

At the end of the day, there’s not much we can do as individuals. The only chance we have is by operating together. Writing legislation and finding new ways to do what needs to be done without killing this planet that has so graciously allowed us to thrive.

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World

Who was the late Queen of England and what was the impact of her sudden death

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By: Domingo Basso

The late Queen of England: Queen Elizabeth II, who was born on April 21, 1926, in Mayfair London, died September 8, 2022, at the age of 96. According to ‘The New York Times’ she died peacefully but the cause of her death was not specified due to the Royal Palace not disclosing that information. Despite that being true, a royal biographer claimed that the Queen was suffering from a bone condition and Lady Colin Campbell, a royal expert who has written about Princess Diana, went as far as to claim that the Queen had died from bone cancer. 

After the Queen passed away, her son, who was commonly known as “The Prince of Wales” became King Charles III, and now has the throne. Before becoming King, he already established over 20 charities and supported many different causes regarding the environment, rural communities, the construction, the arts, healthcare, and education.

But, now let’s move on to how the world is dealing with the loss of a figure as important as her Majesty. Sources such as ‘The Washington Post’ say that very soon after her death became known to the public, there were a quarter of a million people in line to see and pay their respects to the Queen once it became possible to do so. (that’s 250,000 people!) So many people wanted to pay their respects to her that there was a queue that grew so long that the queue time would reach up to 24 hours at a point. In fact, the queue grew so large that there had to be a line to get in the line to pay respects.

 The state funeral for the Queen happened at Westminster Abbey on Monday, the 19th of September, at 11am, and the funeral service was live-streamed on YouTube so that more people could be able to mourn her passing. To end the funeral service, there was 2 minutes of silence followed by the national anthem, to bring it to a close. 

So, the death of Queen Elizabeth II impacted a LOT of people around the world, and especially the citizens of the United Kingdom due to her rule having lasted decades. Her impact was massive due to how the UK runs to this day. So, we can only hope for the best for the citizens of the United Kingdom with the loss of somebody very important to all of them. And we can also hope that their newest ruler, the King, may be able to live up to the name of his late predecessor.

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News

The everything bubble is bursting

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By: Reed Morris

What’s going on?

Over the past few years, the world has been fueling the growth of massive and extremely valuable bubbles. Much like the dot com bubble back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s people started pouring a mass amount of money into the .com space. Unsurprisingly however, the bubble could only get so big and it eventually burst, causing a lot of economic troubles and loss of money. What we are seeing now is similar to the bursting of the .com bubble, but our current bubble is everything.

In the graph below you can see some crashes throughout recent history. The spike above the 2000’s represents the dot com bubble bursting, the smaller spike after, and the subsequent drop, shows the housing bubble popping, and on the far right, we can see where our economy is now, and the absurdly large bubble we are on the cusp of bursting.

What’s Bursting?

If you are currently investing and/or you’re like me and follow the stock market out of interest, you will know that everything is going down. Companies like Amazon, Shopify, Carvana, Netflix, and Alphabet are all hard down right now. The trend to notice however is that most of the stocks that are heavily down are tech stocks, but in our current world tech stocks are the most important. The stock market is taking a hit and barely hanging on by the skin of its teeth, and as such, we need to be prepared for an all out economic crash in the coming months.

On the more questionable side of investing, the crypto and NFT markets are down exponentially. When the crypto and NFT markets peaked in November of 2021, the WEB3 world was in paradise, there were new opportunities, absurd amounts of cash flow, and there was always someone willing to buy the next NFT.

Since November however, the market has taken a slight downturn. Some coins and NFT’s stayed up; some even grew, but most started slipping. In the spring of ‘22, the crypto market took the hardest hit in its history. So-called “stablecoins” plummeted, spreading fear through the economy and causing a lot of people to sell, which in turn caused the rest of the market to collapse.

‘Bitcoin’, one of the first and longest lasting cryptocurrencies, has lost over 600 billion dollars in market value since November, and on top of that, the rest of the crypto market as a whole has lost over 1 trillion dollars since this fall. This amount of money being lost is unfathomable.

On the NFT side of things, sales are also down an extreme amount. Since its peak in November, sales of NFT’s on major trading platforms has gone down around 92%. The collapse of the WEB3 space will truly test the strength of the community around it and we will see where it goes from here.

Why is everything popping?

The main cause of this bubble pop is a problem our country is facing and a problem that needs to be addressed. Inflation. Inflation is going up and showing no signs of stopping. The main cause for inflation was the fact that over the past two years, money has essentially been free to borrow. During the pandemic, interest rates were slammed through the floor and people started taking advantage of that. People were borrowing money to help run their businesses, and other people were borrowing even more money to invest in those businesses. This unsustainable cycle can go on for a while but it eventually needs to be stopped.

The only tool the government has in its economic toolbox is this big scary sledgehammer called “Raising interest rates”. When people hear that the government is going to raise interest rates, they get scared and scramble. These people don’t want to have to pay interest on their borrowed tubs of money, so the first thing they turn to is selling stock.

The reason these companies are now collapsing is because when a company is growing, people don’t really care if it’s making much money, they just care about the growth. The thing about raising interest rates is that people don’t want to invest anymore, and these companies stop growing, so people finally decide to think, “Hey, is this company actually worth anything and will I actually make money long term?” And in most of these bubble situations, the answer is absolutely not.

Is this the worst it will get?

I wish. Truly I wish it was the worst that this is going to get. The government knows the only way to stop inflation is by heavily raising interest rates, but that is the last thing it wants to do. If it suddenly and greatly raised interest rates to stop inflation, the economy would collapse, the bubbles would all pop, and the country would be facing another deep recession. Instead of stomping its foot and stopping inflation, the government has been skirting the idea.

At first the government just SAID it were going to raise rates. This had almost no effect and inflation kept on growing. So they finally raised interest rates but on an extremely minuscule scale, nowhere near enough to fix inflation. Inflation continued to grow and so the government did it again, and once again, no effect.

The scary thing is, the amount that interest rates have been raised is nowhere near enough to reverse inflation, but the two super small bumps in interest rates that the government has hit the economy with are already causing a ton of things to implode. Inflation is going up, the economy is going down quickly, and we’re just getting started. Buckle your seats everyone. We’re in for a ride.

National

Purple heroin and the dangers associated with it

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By: Abdihakim Mohamoud

Purple heroin is an illegal drug that is a combination of heroin, carfentanil, brorphine, and fentanyl. Purple heroin is especially dangerous because of the last two ingredients, brorphine and fentanyl, which can cause overdoses quickly.

The name purple heroin comes from the drug’s purple color, and it is a compact tablet which looks similar to fancy chocolate. After an unnamed person died in Van Buren County, Michigan, with a connection to the deadly drug, police in the region have been on high alert.

Someone who is overdosing on purple heroin can have a number of symptoms which are similar to other overdose situations. Confusion, difficulty staying alert, and blue nails or lips are some common symptoms of a purple heroin overdose.

Purple heroin is a psychoactive drug, meaning that it alters brain activity, and can change perception, mood, behavior, and consciousness. This drug acts as a depressant on the central nervous system, which is similar to other opioid drugs.

One of the main meeting points for the selling of the drugs are malls and colleges, and police are keeping a keen eye on these places. Raids are also being conducted to further stop the selling of this incredibly dangerous drug.

However, there are some drugs such as Narcan and Naloxone that can be used to reverse an overdose, and save one’s life. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, around 78% of drug overdose deaths involved at least one opioid in 2018, and 2,011 deaths in total.

“Parents should be very cautious if they come across any chemicals or anything suspicious looking. Reach out and contact our office and we will send someone out to look at it,” said Van Buren County Undersheriff Kevin Conklin.

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Events

Spring celebrations: India and Europe

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By: Ava Bleifuss

Spring is known for bringing in new life. It has the smell of fresh flowers and sounds of chirping birds. Spring can occur during different times of the year depending on the location of the country. There are many different ways that people celebrate spring. Two of the many festivals are Holi and May Day. 

Holi is a spring festival that is celebrated in India. In 2023, it will be celebrated on March 8. It is also known as the festival of color and is celebrated over two days. It is based on Hindu mythology, telling the story of Lord Vishnu and the triumph over the evil king.

Holi is a celebration of spring, family, and friendship. People gather in streets to splash colored powder on each other with colored water. Each color has its own meaning: red symbolizes love and fertility, yellow is the color for turmeric and is a natural remedy that is used in India, blue symbolizes the Hindu god Krishna, and green symbolizes new and fresh beginnings.

Families decorate their homes and share delicious treats with each other. Foods that are commonly eaten during Holi are: thandai, dahi bhalle, puran poli, malpua, rasmalai, badan phirni, coconut milk murukku, and bhang pakora. 

May Day is celebrated on May 1st, right before the beginning of summer. This holiday is a celebration of ancient origins. It started in Roman Britain where soldiers danced around decorated trees to celebrate the coming of spring while thanking their goddess, Flora. Flora is the goddess of flowering plants, and bringing in new life. She is often correlated with being the goddess of the budding of youth.

The Maypole dance is usually done during the celebration of May Day. There is a pole in the middle with colorful bright ribbons that people hold on to when they dance. When the dance is done correctly, the ribbons create a beautiful pattern around the pole. After they do the dance the other way, they undo the ribbons around the pole which symbolizes the longer days as summer approaches.

There are different ways to celebrate May Day. In Austria and Germany, the pole is painted with blue and white stripes and is put in the middle of a village. This is then followed by a procession. Another tradition is that people try to climb to the top of the Maypole. 

Spring connects the end of hibernation to the beginning of growth and summer. People around the world all celebrate this wonderful season in many different ways. Regardless of where people live, festivals and celebrations of spring are something that everyone has in common.

National

America’s fastest growing cities

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By: Caelyn Hippen

Cities all over the world are rapidly growing, and most populations live in urban areas. 80% of Americans live in urban areas, and 55% of the entire world’s population live in urban areas. This number is already large, but that percentage is expected to increase to 68% by 2050.

Big cities and urban areas are becoming more popular because big cities have bigger, and more, job opportunities overall. The more jobs offer a higher pay.

Another pro to a big city is that there are better schools and more opportunities for a better education. Better schools are more often found in big cities with better and more qualified teachers, and better opportunities for students.

There are 3 main factors to a city’s success and growth.

  1. Transportation and housing supply – the more available houses there are, the more people there will be that move in. Then, depending on the availability of parking, people will want easy access to transportation to get to work.
  2. Amenities – specifically natural resources. People want to live in a city that is industrial and modernized, but people also want a place to go to relax and enjoy the outdoors. An example of this is in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is a huge city that has many different types of homes, restaurants, transportations, etc. But then, you see Vondel park. Vondelpark is a 120 acre park that has ponds, food, walking and biking trails, and a lot of flowers and trees. It is a great place to relax in such a big city.
  3. The 3rd and final factor is education – I talked about education before, but like I said, parents want the best for their children. Having good schools near their new home or their job is very important and could decide on what city people live in completely.

According to Worldpopulationreview.com, Phoenix, Arizona is the fastest growing city in the USA (as of 2020). In a one year period, the population in Phoenix grew by 25,000 people, compared to the other fast growing cities of the year, which only grew by 10,000 people.

Between 2012 and 2017, Seattle was the fastest growing city, with a population increase of 14.2%, followed by Austin, Fort Worth, and Miami.

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News

How companies “Woke-Wash” their brands

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By: Ella Tabor

Recently, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there has been an uproar of sustainability and a level of awareness that brands are portraying. This is mainly due to the increased desire for political change from the public and the media. Businesses simply can’t risk facing any form of scrutiny. 

These brands aim to appeal to their consumers by releasing more levels of sizing, a deeper range of shades for make-up, an image of sustainability, and messages of empowerment or in support of equality movements; anything that makes the brand look politically correct. 

But, these brands, most often, do not actually support or employ the messages they say they do. 

The term “Woke-Washing” is used to describe business practices that are made to appear conscious, yet do not provide much substance. 

The art of performing a progressive move only for the public eye is nothing new. Take for instance the term “Glass Cliff”. Originally coined by women, the “Glass Cliff” refers to when a company promotes someone (most often minority and women) to an executive position under circumstances that make success improbable. Often, companies will do this to their leaders of color; they get all the praise for the progressive action and none of the criticism when they let them go.

For an example of this shady technique, let’s look at the brand Lululemon. Lululemon is a brand that focuses on athletic wear, athleisure, and healthy living. Lululemon portrays an image of inclusivity and equity yet, in 2019 the brand was mocked for promoting an event on “decolonising gender” and “resisting capitalism”. 

The brand was quickly shamed by the media and Twitter users for its ironic stance on capitalism, given the price vs. quality of their clothing. One Twitter user, Randi Max, says, “…Lululemon’s yoga pants cost $150 and you are telling me to resist capitalism?” 

Also, in 2019, the brand faced allegations that workers at a factory in Bangladesh, who make the brand’s clothing, had been beaten and abused according to The Guardian. Attempting to sweep this under the rug, Lululemon gave no proper response to these allegations. 

As we can see, Woke-Washing is truly just another form of performative activism; it forces false narratives of progressive actions without any of the action. 

Lululemon is only one example; however, there are many. Next time you shop at a store, it is worth looking into the brand’s ethics.