March 2023

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Big News
We get our final warning about climate change.
In ominous news the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued the sixth and final part of their climate report this month. The IPCC consists of the world’s leading climate scientists and unsurprisingly their assessment was not positive. The review is thousands of pages long and took hundreds of scientists eight years to compile. It was designed to be a comprehensive review of all the data and insight around the climate crisis, but the most recent report can be summed up as: it's now or never! The latest release of this report, called the synthesis report, might be the last assessment that can be carried out before the global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Beyond this threshold the damage to our climate will rapidly become irreversible. The only question left is: will this final warning will be enough to ignite global action to stop the irreparable devastation that we face?

COVID lab leak theory resurfaces. At the end of February/early March there was more discussion around the origin of COVID-19. An updated and classified 2021 report by the US energy department was released, it concluded that the coronavirus, responsible for the global COVID-19 pandemic, most likely emerged due to a laboratory leak. FBI Director Christopher Wray also stated that the FBI believed that COVID-19 likely originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab. This has reignited debate among scientists, politicians and members of the public; no one is certain how accurate these claims are. The US Department of Energy said that while they thought the lab leak theory was likely, they could only support that conclusion with "low confidence". In contrast, several scientists have pointed towards stronger evidence that supports the conclusion that the virus originated in a Wuhan food market. We may never have a definitive conclusion, but that hasn’t stopped any of the debate this month.

Littles News
Tons of water on the moon. It may sound bizarre but a study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences has identified a water source on the moon - glass beads. A team has analysed 117 glass beads which were found in samples collected from the Moon's surface during China's robotic Chang'e 5 mission in 2020. It is thought that the beads, which are less than a millimeter in diameter, are formed when meteoroids crash into the moon's surface and create showers of molten droplets, which then cool and form glass beads. The researchers have a theory that solar winds allow these beads fill with water. They believe that solar winds carry hydrogen to the surface of the moon, this hydrogen then reacts with oxygen present at the surface of the lunar glass beads. The beads then act as a sponge and absorb and fill with the water. This discovery could be a vital piece in the future of lunar exploration; it could lay the foundation for our colonization of the lunar surface

What I’ve been enjoying
Stardew Valley. I’ve had some downtime this month and have been diving back into some of my favourite Nintendo Switch games. I started with Stardew Valley, which is easily one of my all time favourites. Like so many Nintendo games it has a simple premise - you are a farmer and it’s your job to plant, water and grow crops. But you end up doing so much more; you can fight monsters, befriend townsfolk and explore the surrounding woodland and desert. This is my third playthrough and it still brings me joy every time; it can be surprisingly relaxing and therapeutic. I imagine a psychologist would make a comment about the fact it brings me an artificial sense of “control” in a world which often feels uncontrollable. Maybe that is true, maybe not. Either way, who doesn’t enjoy slaying monsters, completing quests and growing parsnips? If you can think of any other Switch games I should try out, let me know in the comments!

P.S: If you want to read more content from me then check out my recent fiction work available now for free on Medium.