Don’t recognize this little foe? Well you should. Because as it stands, it has collected a death toll of an estimated 200 million people, peaking in its infection during the 1346-1353 European pandemic. That’s right, you’re looking Yersinia pestis bacterium, more commonly known as the “Bubonic Plague”!
In humans, death is often an outcome of two drastically different means to an end: Love and War. However, it has always been thought that we stood alone on battlefields. While other animals typically engage in deadly fights or disputes over a fertile female or the chance to procreate, it has long been understood that calculated war-like murder is a trait only humans could have. That is, until we looked into the trees.
If you’ve never heard of a gibbon, you’ve likely overlooked them at your local zoo. The unique arboreal apes are furry tree huggers that aren’t very active in captivity, but occupy a unique place in evolutionary history and in the hearts of ecologists worldwide. And now, after sequencing and analyzing the genome of the northern white-cheeked gibbon species (Nomascus leucogenys), researchers believe they may have found an answer as to how the small apes were able to set themselves apart under such a short evolutionary time.
In anticipation for the annual ministerial meeting of the United Nation’s General Assembly, to be held next Tuesday Sept. 23, news worldwide has turned to the global climate issues and an atmosphere of change. With the announcement breaking ground just this morning that world-renowned actor Leonardo DiCaprio will join the Climate Summit being held in conjunction with the annual meeting as the United Nations’ newest Messenger of Peace, much has been speculated as to what the actor will be discussing. But with the announcement of DiCaprio’s place at the podium, news too has come on the research front that is hoping to illuminate misconceptions in global data regarding atmospheric radicals responsible for major changes to the climate.
After more than three years of fierce competition between rival aerospace engineering companies, news today came from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and ended the search for NASA’s newest partners, as they announced the selection of aerospace leaders Boeing and new startup SpaceX to develop ferry spacecrafts to shuttle American astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
As the loveable artist in the Titanic and the brooding mastermind behind the plot of Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio has gained international acclaim for his characters on the silver screen. But it’s his passions behind the scenes that have landed DiCaprio his new role as leading man for the United Nations, as a U.N. Messenger of Peace.
Want to try your hand at reporting like the pros? Well you may be in luck if you’re a social media enthusiast, because NASA has a special mission they’re opening up to you.
Certainly when you think of a butterfly, you think of lofty wings and graceful fluttering. But reality is far from expectations when we think of patterned wonders.
