Friday, June 6, 2014

Are you watching?

If you have not been watching the revamped sequel to Cosmos, starring Neil deGrasse Tyson, you really should be and here's why. Aside from it being incredibly entertaining with unprecedented visual effects and story telling, it could just be the most important show of our generation. Of course, I am biased in saying that because of my interest in physics and the natural world, but every episode covers important topics that we cannot keep avoiding. I truly believe that if everyone in the world watched this show, the world would be a better place. For too long, much of the world has remained in the dark about the world's origins, the importance of knowing our place in the universe, the impact we are having on the world and the truth of evolution. Cosmos brings these issues and many more to light and presents them in scientifically sound ways that even younger children could begin to understand. The last episode of the series is showing this Sunday the 8th, and its undoubtedly going to be a big one. If you haven't been watching here's a link to the shows website where you can watch them all for free. Enjoy!

Monday, June 2, 2014

Undersea Potential

We know more about outer space than we do about the Earth's oceans, an ecosystem that covers over 70 percent of our planets surface. That is about to change with this ambitious project created by Fabien Cousteau, called Mission 31. It is a 30 day mission for "aquanauts" to live in an underwater station and study the vastly unexplored world of the seas. With so many problems in the world today, I think it is vital that we direct more efforts towards learning about the oceans, afterall, this is our home planet, and it only seems right that we should know everything about it. Our future depends on the ocean more than we realize. I don't mean to say that we should forget about space exploration, i think it is equally important for the survival of the human race, but we cannot continue to set the oceans aside any longer. 

We do not have nearly the understanding of the oceans that we should have. Some of the things that we do know are that life began there, it is where the vast majority of the biomass of the world lives. But to us land animals, it seems like a harsh, unforgiving place for our kind of life. But that is because we have not adapted to the ocean. In the future, we may be forced to expand into the ocean. With rising shorelines causing islands and coastal cities to flood, we may need to free ourselves from the shackles of land. Floating underwater cities and undersea bases are possibilities for future dwellings, and the more we know about the oceans, the better prepared we will be to make this transfer over. We are far away from this strange future, but we must increase our knowledge begging now. Here you can even watch some of the live feed videos from the mission, and see what the crew is up to.