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BUBBLES BUSTING PLASTIC WASTE The world has a plastic problem, and not of the Barbie variety. Life is plastic and far from fantastic. As single-use plastics continue to permeate every aspect of our daily lives globally, especially during and post-pandemic where the spread of the disease was at the forefront of everyone’s mind, not necessarily the environment, we are now experiencing the impact of a plastic pandemic. So much so that plastic, in particular micro-plastics, have now been detected in the ocean fish that we consume daily. What this means is outside of the various ways that we knowingly subject ourselves and our environment to plastics and micro-plastics, we are unknowingly ingesting it too. The long-term effects of this are still being investigated; [...]

VIRGIN GALACTIC THE OFFICIAL COMMERCIALISATION OF SPACE TRAVEL Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group has finally begun his journey to commercialise space travel through Unity, his Virgin Galactic rocket plane after almost 20 years working towards this milestone for the Virgin Group. The flight which took place in June 2023 was the “first purchased mission” rather than another test flight. The first mission for Unity was live streamed worldwide for its 72 minute duration. Unity, the space rocket, is assisted in reaching the required altitude through its carrier plane, which takes it to 44,500ft , the rocket then climbs the rest of the way on its own and at its peak, Unity managed to hit 279,00ft which for those of us who [...]

THE HOTTEST DAY(S) ON EAR SO FAR July 2023 marked a new world record in terms of the hottest ever recorded days on Earth – for three consecutive days, the recorded results have showcased the culmination of a number of different contributing factors which have driven the median global temperatures higher than they’ve ever been before. In the last three years, the world has been experiencing a drawn-out La Nina weather pattern and cycle. This is longer than the typical nine to twelve month La Nina and El Nino climate cycles. These climate patterns are responsible for determining things like temperature and rainfall across all regions of the globe.  Locally, La Nina has meant wetter and colder temperatures from December to February, whereas [...]

IS THREADS REALLY THE NEXT TWITTER? What is Threads you may be asking? Well, if you haven’t heard already, Threads is what Meta believes may just be the “Twitter Killer.” Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads launched on Thursday the 6th of July 2023 and within hours of launching, apparently already has over 30 million users – at least according to Zuckerberg. The social media space has certainly been heating up since business billionaire Elon Musk bought and took over Twitter in October 2022, with Donald Trump also pushing his Twitter-equivalent Truth Social, which was launched in February 2022 and currently boasts approximately 1.7 million users in the USA. In all fairness, there is no shortage of social media equivalents to Twitter on the App-market boasting [...]

DOES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN UPCOMING EXTINCTIONS No, this isn’t the premise of iRobot or another such dystopian future AI-based film, these are the warnings of industry experts who believe that artificial intelligence may have a role to play in future extinctions. That being said – there are many other industry players who believe that such assertions are premature and potentially unfounded. Governments globally are being warned to make contingencies and accommodations for the rate at which AI is becoming a part of everyday life as the legality of all this needs to be considered from a regulatory standpoint too. The biggest underlying concern is the level of redundancy to which AI has the potential of imposing on jobs [...]

OUT OF LA NIÑA INTO THE EL NIÑO FRYING PAN El Niño and La Niña are the climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean that play a big role in determining our weather worldwide. Periods of El Niño and La Niña typically last 12 months, however its not an exact science and they can go on to last years. There is also no set schedule in that El Niño and La Niña alternate every two to seven years on average, that being said we experience El Niño more frequently than we do La Niña. The more recent years have showcased some of the more severe sides of both weather patterns, largely exacerbated by climate change. El Niño, meaning ‘little boy’ in Spanish affects our [...]