Greenland's Melting

People argue all the time about how the ocean ice is melting and it will rise water levels, but that's not what causes the rise. The ice in the ocean, floating in the water, is made to melt. The problem with it melting at this point though is that the ice has reduced significantly and is causing climate changes over Greenland. The summer temperature have extended into the mid September and the ice has more layers melting, in result then raising water levels. Greenland's ice is now down to only 1/3 of its ice in layers. Not to mention, in 2011-2014 Greenland lost a total of 1 trillion tons of ice. Computer models used data to predict future models of the country and there is a soon possibility that they may become ice-free.

Cannibalism

Ever get too stressed out and start to eat constantly? Well these Gonatus squid have a super high metabolism, topping all other cephalopods. They grow fast and have to constantly eat so this cannibalistic feature actually gives them an advantage because it eliminates competition and to them is another food source. Their diet is 42% other squid, according to a study of 109 videos of them eating. These squid only reproduce once in their lifetime before dying off, but the female produces between 2000 to 3000 eggs. When they aren't eating their own family, you can catch them eating lanternfish and owlfish.

Hurricane Matthew Aftermath

Hurricane Matthew is causing some health and farm related concerns. In North Carolina, flooding from the hurricane has killed about 5 million bird poultry, mainly chickens. There has been a total of 1.8 million confirmed kills of chicken and soon to be raised. Sanderson Farms, the third largest poultry meat producer in the U.S., has lost over 250,000 chickens to the storm. Not only is the flooding killing the chickens, but also invading hog waste pits. The waste will mix with the flood water and eventually hit the ocean through rivers and such. Van der Vaart, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, stated that even though it is unknown how much pig sewage has merged with the flood water, it will be diluted enough that the environmental impact will be minimal.

Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Matthew has wiped Haiti and is moving along our east coast as we speak. Already costing the US $6 billion in damages, this is the most expensive storm since hurricane Sandy. This hurricane is setting multiple records including highest rainfall in one day, highest atmospheric moisture, and highest observed gust in the US. Not to mention the death toll at the moment is already 1045 people. This tropical storm peaked at a category 5 only 80 miles north of Columbia, headed through Haiti  at a 4 and then hit Cuba at a 3, and rose back to a category 4 when it hit Florida. Not to mention, Haiti has still not even fully recovered from their incident in 2010 when they were hit with a magnitude 7 earthquake. The storm is now in tropical depression 200 miles east of North Carolina.

Liquid Ocean in Space

The heart on the planet Pluto has a frozen surface but also has evidence that shows that there might me an ocean 60 miles deep. After finding that Pluto was ocean locked with it's largest moon, scientists were trying to find the reason behind this. The heart shape on Pluto was where a meteor hit way long ago, but then the planets core bounced back to level out both sides(isostatic compensation) and filled the core with nitrogen ice. But for the planets side to be locked with the moon it requires a much larger mass which they believe is a super salty ocean.

Wietering, Hanneke, "Plutos 'Heart' Hints At Deep, Underground Ocean", Space.com  23 September, 2016. http://www.space.com/34179-plutos-heart-hints-at-deep-underground-ocean.html

Old Geezer

392 year-old shark discovered in Greenland, is now the longest living vertebrate animal to live. How was the sharks age determined? The Greenland shark, also known as the grey shark, grows 1 cm per year. The average shark is 5 meters long. But then they tested for bomb-pulses of carbon-14, which was left behind from nuclear bomb testing in the 50's.

Using the information of the testing for
carbon-14 and the growth curve of the shark, they correlated the two to estimate its age. This is the second longest living animal, behind the Icelandic clam, Ming,  that lived to 507 y/o.

Shell Oil Spill

90 mi from the Louisiana Coast
May 12th, 2016.

Shell spills 90,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. So why isn't this as big in the media as the BP oil spill in 2010? The Coast Guard has a threshold of 100,000 to consider it a "major spill" and declared that there was no environmental damage, although the span was 2 miles by 13 miles. The reason we should be even more worried though is just because of the fact that it's labeled as a minor spill; which means less money for research and clean up, and less action against the company who polluted our ocean.