According to the nonprofit organization Orca Network, a killer whale which is presumably as old as the Titanic has been spotted last week off the coast of Washington state.

The killer whale which is known by the scientists as J12 but nicknamed Granny is considered to be 105 years old and has been photographed while swimming and jumping with other orcas.

Granny, which according to a news station was alive one year before the Titanic took its trip across the Atlantic is supposed to be born in 1911. According to these findings, Granny is the oldest living killer whale.

When the killer whale was spotted, she was jumping in and out of the water. This behavior is usually a sign of playfulness and is considered a directive towards high health status. Orcas are extremely fast swimmers and have been recorded at speeds of up to 54km/h.

Female orcas usually don’t exceed the limit of fifty years old, and only a few of them overcome the age of a hundred. Scientists started to follow Granny in 1971 when she was already sixty years old and surpassed her age limit.

The Orca Network says that the margin of error on appraising the killer whale’s age is 12 years.

Due to their similarity, there are some ways to tell orcas apart. Among these, we must mention their scars or margins. Granny, for example, has a half-moon shaped notch and a marking on her dorsal fin.

The killer whale or orca belongs to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. Some feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals such as seals and dolphins. Their sophisticated hunting techniques and vocal behaviors are often specific to a particular group and passed across generations.

At up to nearly 10 meters long, male orcas are larger than females and have a tall dorsal fin that can go up to 2 meters height. Female length is about 20% less, and the curved dorsal fin is less than half the height of the males.

Granny is generally seen in waters around Canada and Washington.

Unfortunately, the orca populations in the US and Canadian Pacific Northwest, Iceland and Japan were negatively impacted from the 1960s to the 1980s by the live capture industry.

Image source: Wikipedia

The latest climate reports revealed that 2015 is one of the most important years when it comes to global temperatures. Researchers are worried that the climate changes are no longer subtle, with temperatures both in the oceans and on air reaching new limits and sea levels arriving at new historic heights.

The annual surface temperatures overcome the ones confirmed last year. 90 percent of the CO2 inserted in the atmosphere is assimilated by the oceans that also reached record breaking temperatures. The expansion of the oceans is, at the same time, due to melting glaciers. The fastest increase in water level is encountered in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans, with an average of 3.3 mm a year. As they warm, oceans tend to expand, causing the sea level to rise.

Climate reports show that the sea levels in 1993 were about 2.27 inches lower that in 2015. In 2015, the global average temperatures exceeded records set by the ones last year by more than 0.1 degree Celsius.

The heatwave experienced in recent months has heavy consequences claiming thousands of lives. Also, due to the lack of rainfall, several forest fires have devastated entire regions. These are all several effects of global warming that are severely affecting us and have long-lasting impacts if not permanent.

The extreme warmth was also influenced by the El Niño Event in which abnormal high-temperature Pacific Ocean waters were impregnated in the atmosphere together with the heat-trapping gasses radiated from the cities. The El Niño Event also amplified the Pacific tropical cyclone activity which contributed to drought and increasing wildfire in some parts of the world as well as a strong release of carbon dioxide. Drought area was the most extreme since the 1980s.

According to climate reports, last year was a record setting one, thereby, every continent experienced record-breaking temperatures and South America, and Africa suffered from extreme drought conditions. Also, 2015 was the 36th consecutive year of alpine glacial melt, more than half of Greenland’s surface was in a melting state. In areas such as North Alaska, temperatures have increased by 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit every ten years since 2000.

Also, 2015 was the 36th consecutive year of alpine glacial melt, more than half of Greenland’s surface was in a melting state. In areas such as North Alaska, temperatures have increased by 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit every ten years since 2000.

Image source: Pixabay

Around this time last year, a marvelous invention was proposed as a potential panacea for all our climate troubles: A solar-powered solution that involves using the ambient carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to create materials for batteries and planes.

Now, almost a year later, another innovation comes out of Chicago to suggest a similar reaction: A solar cell that sucks the CO2 out of the atmosphere while also generating hydrocarbon fuel.

The researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago who made the breakthrough explained that the product is more like an artificial leaf which mimics the process of photosynthesis – turning sunlight and carbon dioxide into fuel.

“The new solar cell is not photovoltaic — it’s photosynthetic,” said the senior author of the study Amin Salehi-Khojin, an assistant professor at UIC. The paper on the new technology has been published in the journal Science.

The process of producing energy from fossil fuels to greenhouse gas can now be reversed in a more sustainable way and help recycle atmospheric carbon into fuel with the help of sunlight.

Instead of acting like a real plant and producing sugar, the solar cell artificial leaf produces synthesis gas – also known as syngas – which burns on its own or turns into diesel and other materials.

There is one obstacle, however, to actually developing technology like this one or the solar-CO2-lithium innovation.

Producing composites and other fuels from greenhouse gasses costs a lot of money; the revolution in how we produce sustainable energy and fuels can only happen if CO2-derived syngas becomes as cheap as a gallon of gasoline.

Meanwhile, the Chicago researchers’ system uses a different catalyst to convert CO2 to burnable carbon. Nanoflake tungsten diselenide, as it’s called, is some 20 times cheaper than precious metals that have been used in the past.

Addressing climate change seems to be increasingly driven by new innovations, similar to the ones that contributed to the problem for decades. We have examples of such inventions, but it’s going to take a significant leap to take them out of the research lab and into the market.

Salehi-Khojin believes the system they created can be adapted to be used in solar farms, as well as on a smaller scale. Some more years of research could perhaps even make it usable on Mars.

Image Sources: 1, 2

Starting July 21, NASA astronauts have begun training in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

While it may sound strange to have space men training underwater, NASA’s 16-day mission is supposed to mimic conditions similar to those on planet Mars.

Six astronauts have dived into Aquarius Reef Base, which is located 19 meters below sea level. The mission – dubbed as NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) – is designed to help astronauts and the additional mission teams to check their skill and equipment for potential Mars missions.

According to the space agency, the conditions at Aquarius Reef Base are, in fact, quite similar to the conditions astronauts deal with when they work in microgravity environments.

NASA revealed that the NEEMO aquanauts learn to deal with the changes that come with living and working on a distant asteroid, planet or moon.

During the 16-day training, NASA astronauts had one special experiment that required using DNA sequencer. Reid Wiseman, one of the astronauts in the mission, shared a picture of the tool in action.

The DNA Sequencer, named Minion, helps crew members perform the necessary DNA analyses, test microbes, and monitor their own health.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins said the DNA sequencer is a useful tool at the International Space Station (ISS).

“NEEMO 21 astronauts and crew will pioneer complex tasks on the seafloor utilising the most advanced underwater navigation and science tools which are methodically choreographed to mimic a Mars exploration traverse,” said Bill Todd, leader of the NEEMO Project.

The NEEMO team chosen for this particular mission is made up of Marc O Griofa (Teloregen/VEGA/AirDocs), NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Noel Du Toit (Naval Postgraduate School), Matthias Maurer from European Space Agency, Dawn Kernagis (Institute for Human & Machine Cognition), and NASA astronaut Megan McArthur.

The mission involves simulated spacewalks and lessons of piloting underwater vehicles. One of the first challenges for the team was building a coral nursery, which allowed the crew members to practice their construction skills in low-gravity.

The NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) teams involved in the NEEMO 21 Project are confident this kind of missions could offer astronauts some much-needed practice before engaging in extraterrestrial trips.

Image Sources: 1, 2, 3