Bryce Cullen Staff Writer California is finally getting what it needs… rain. Yet, too much of any good thing doesn’t mean it gets better. California could be receiving as much as fifteen inches of rain in the Sierra Nevada while other areas of higher elevation could receive two feet of snow. This year has been a wild year in terms of precipitation; places like Alpine and Soda Springs received more than seventy-five inches of snow with their recent weather system. Another one just like it isn’t too far behind. You may be asking yourself how this is possible. Well science has an explanation for that, and it is quite interesting. It is called an “atmospheric river," a weather phenomenon that is a column of moisture that flows inland from the Pacific. These atmospheric rivers can be anywhere from 250 to 375 miles wide. Strong atmospheric rivers can carry water vapor “equivalent to 7.5-15 times the average flow of liquid water at the mouth of the Mississippi River,” stated the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also says, "On average, about 30%-50% of annual precipitation in the (West Coast) states occurs in just a few (atmospheric river) events, thus contributing to water supply". Howeve, with those atmospheric river events, they also bring heavy flooding. In which case California is finally getting some rain, but just a little less would have done just fine. Rhea Sodem Staff Writer Snapchat made fictional spy gear that is usually seen in movies come to life with its new product called Snapchat Spectacles. These glasses do not take photographs, but they take ten second videos that directly upload to your Snapchat when synced with your phone. These glasses cost $130 and come in the colors black, red, and blue. The camera in the glasses are supposed to take 115 degree videos that give the impression from the user’s point of view. On the side of the lens, there is a button that can be pressed to capture a video and clicked twice to stop recording. There is no need to worry about creepers taking videos without consent because a white light illuminates on the exterior of the lens to let others know that the user is currently taking a video. The case that holds the glasses can be charged when you’re not using the glasses, they can be placed in the case to charge. According to Snapchat, a full charge should last you a casual day of recording or approximately sixteen videos. If you want to buy it, you can try them on through the Snapchat filter from the code on their website. Unfortunately, these glasses are being sold only at pop-up vending machines and are limited in location. Amber Hancock-Burns Staff Writer A peanut allergy is one of the most known food allergies and is responsible for the most deaths caused by an allergen. Because of the high amount of those affected, doctors are trying to find a way to prevent peanut allergies in children. More than fifty million people in the United States are affected with a food allergy, and doctors want to reduce that number as much as possible. They decided to start with the peanut allergy due to it being so common among children. Doctors have found that if a child is introduced to peanut containing foods around the age of four to seven months, there is a chance that they can prevent a peanut allergy from developing. Bryce Cullen Staff Writer More than one hundred years ago, a massive asteroid impacted Russia. This was called the Tunguska event, the largest asteroid event to be witnessed. It occurred in 1908 when the asteroid made contact on the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in a remote Siberian forest in Russia. This collision was so massive people from more than forty miles away were thrown from their porches and chairs by the tremendous force created from the impact. The force of the impact leveled around 1,000 square miles of forest. To put that number into perspective, it is the equivalent of wiping almost the entire state of Rhode Island. Respected scientists including Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins have supported this past event. They are using this event in an attempt to educate the public of the dangers of possible deadly asteroids that could strike Earth. Ashton Baysden A&E Editor While North Carolina had a fairly warm Christmas, it would appear that the start of 2017 will be the antithesis of preceding months in terms of weather. Cold air has made its way into Wake County, lowering temperatures by over thirty degrees within the past couple of weeks, and now meteorologists are predicting that Raleigh could see four to six inches of snow on Saturday. A Winter Storm Watch has been issued by the National Weather Service for nearly three dozen North Carolinian counties. While the idea of receiving that much snow is appealing, many are fearing for the impact it will have on the school year. If Raleigh does indeed receive as much snow as predicted, schools could be closed for at least two days going into next week which would eliminate any days off until spring break in April. With the semester quickly approaching its end, the timing is just too poor for many Wake County residents to feel excitement about the winter weather. In addition to the school year, the weather is also going to affect the inauguration of NC Gov. Roy Cooper. The inaugural ceremony initially planned for the new leader has been cancelled, as well as the inaugural parade. Amber Hancock-Burns Staff Writer When Anias and Jadon McDonald were born, they were joined at the head. Their parents and the doctors around them knew that they would need to be separated before the age of two in order to have a chance at survival. Their survival was made possible on Oct. 13, by Dr. James Goodrich, Dr. Oren Trepper, and their team of over thirty other nurses and doctors at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York. Jadon was able to leave the surgery room first around four hours before Anias, due to it taking longer to reconstruct his skull. His skull cap eventually had to be removed in order to stop infections, and he will now wear a protective helmet until the age of seven, when bone can be placed there to restore the skull cap. Jadon experienced paralysis on his left side after the surgery but has since gained full mobility back. Meanwhile, Anias experienced seizures, but they were corrected with medication. Rhea Sodem Staff Writer While everybody was celebrating the start of 2017, there was a terrorist attack at the Reina Nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey. A total of thirty-nine people were killed, and dozens of others were injured. Sixteen people have already been arrested who have connections to the massacre, and the list seems to keep on growing. Authorities are still searching for the primary gunman. Officers have found fingerprints and a photo of the suspect but unfortunately cannot detect when or where the photo was taken. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks through Twitter saying, “In continuation of the blessed operations which ISIS carries out against Turkey, a soldier of the brave caliphate attacked one of the most popular nightclubs while Christians were celebrating their holiday”. The United States and Turkish officials have officially claimed this an act or terrorism. "We were having fun. At first we thought it was a fight; then there was a lot of gunfire. After the gunfire everyone started to run toward the terrace. We ran as well. There was someone next to me who was shot and fell on the floor. We ran away and hid under the sofas." said witness Yunus Turk. Not only Turkish people were killed in the massacre; there were people from fourteen different countries such as India, Morocco, Jordan, Canada, Russia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Leanne Nasser, who was a teenager going abroad for the very first time and had never left Israel before, was killed in the shooting. Her father was quite unhappy with the situation but was eventually persuaded into letting her go. She was with three other friends and they decided to go to the Reina Nightclub to celebrate the New Year. A couple hours before midnight, she posted a Snapchat selfie, but the following morning she was declared dead. That is only one story of the thirty-nine other that were killed. Officials are still in the process of investigating the missing shooter and other suspects. Bryce Cullen
Staff Writer Everyone has heard of climate change and just how serious things are getting with this issue. Yet in the Arctic, these issues are occurring even faster than the rest of the world. According to the research of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Arctic is heating up two times faster compared to the rest of the world. With that, the temperature shift in the Artic shows how the climate will change throughout the globe. Along with the study, they have found an increasing average in air temperature from October 2015 to September 2016, the highest since 1995 at 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit. With the influence of Greenhouse gasses, this marks the highest average on record. These changes could have permanently changed the terrain of the artic; it is causing more sea ice to melt, and the Perennial sea ice is melting drastically. The Perennial sea ice of the Arctic is the portion of ice that normally survives its yearly summer melt season. However, recent studies reveal that this part of the sea ice is decreasing at an alarming rate. Research has also found that within the Perennial sea ice is stored carbon. Thus when it is melted it is released into the atmosphere, exacerbating the effects of greenhouse gas tolls on the climate and weather patterns. Madeline Rudd Staff Writer The tallest animal on land has recently been noticed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in June of this year and has moved up the Red List crisis ladder from “least concern” to “vulnerable”. In 1985, the giraffe population varied around 151,700 to 163,400, but in the 2015 count, biologists discovered that the number has dramatically dropped to 97,562. The decline in giraffe population cannot be real because giraffes live all over Africa right? Wrong. It seems like there are plenty of giraffes in the world, but that is because we are familiar with them and see them when we go to the zoo. Along with the African elephant, the giraffe would not have this extreme population decline without the help of its neighbors, the humans. The giraffe’s natural homes are in the countries below the Sahara Desert, from Niger to Zimbabwe and Botswana. In the past twenty years, the human population in these countries has increased tremendously and is predicted to grow even more in the future. Niger, for example, is expected to almost double in population in the next fifteen years and has the number one fertility rate in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. Now what does a human population increase really entail? With humans comes multiple problems, “(1) habitat loss (through deforestation, land use conversion, expansion of agricultural activities and human population growth) (2) civil unrest (ethnic violence, rebel militias, paramilitary and military operations), (3) illegal hunting (poaching), and (4) ecological changes (mining activity, habitat conversion to agriculture, climate-induced processes).” According to the IUCN, these are the four reasons why the giraffe population has declined with habitat loss being the number one reason for the dramatic population loss; therefore, the more our population increase the giraffe population decreases because of our overuse of resources that we should be sharing with the “locals” around us. Amber Hancock-Burns Staff Writer When you see someone in a movie implant a tracking chip into someone else, you most likely ask yourself, what is wrong with them? These may be your thoughts but not the thoughts of Japan. Iruma, near Tokyo, has used the idea of microchipping someone to help track the elderly of the town. Iruma is using QR code stickers to help with the large amount of elderly with dementia. In this town, about three-thousand of the 39,500 people are living with dementia and sometimes wander away from their families without knowing how to return. The QR code is on a small sticker that goes on one’s fingernail and gives each wearer a registration number. The registration number is connected to the their hometown and the hometown’s city hall telephone number. |
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