​Hundreds of thousands of tons of bacteria are released every year due to melting glaciers ● Drought in China may have worse consequences than those caused by the Covid pandemic ● Pharaoh Tutankhamun artefacts were found centuries after its discovery

Hundreds of thousands of tons of bacteria are released annually as a result of melting glaciers

With recent reports of melting glaciers, catastrophic scenarios in which ancient bacteria come back to life, creating veritable epidemiological apocalypses, have begun to multiply like mushrooms after the rain.

To find out how much truth there is in such assumptions, a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen collected samples from glaciers in North America, Europe and Greenland, and published the results in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

According to the data obtained, the number of bacteria released by the melting of glaciers is huge. Each milliliter of water contains tens of thousands of bacteria. And this means that, according to a mathematical calculation, about 650,000 tons of bacteria are released from glaciers every year. And this whole process will last almost 80 years, by which time the glaciers will disappear.

The good thing is that although he didn’t analyze the bacteria individually to see if there were any that could affect human health, the vast majority of them disappear when exposed to sunlight. Thus, the danger of an epidemiological disaster remains extremely low. This, even if among them there are those that can potentially infect people. The bad part is that bacteria collected from water samples tend to absorb the sun’s energy, and this only exacerbates the effects of Northern Hemisphere warming.

The drought in China could have worse consequences than those caused by the Covid pandemic

China has faced a record drought this year, and experts believe its effects could be devastating on a global scale. Although Chinese authorities have taken unprecedented measures to ensure water supply for domestic consumption as well as for agriculture and industry, everyone is wondering what will happen if prolonged droughts become an annual occurrence.

In fact, experts estimate that by 2030, China’s ability to meet its water needs will decline by 25%. And this reduction will have global consequences, much more serious than the Covid pandemic or the Russian-Ukrainian war.

China is now one of the world’s leading exporters of food, energy and materials needed for industrial activity. The fact is that all these areas need water or energy, the lack of which can cause chain reactions with negative consequences for the entire planet. Another aspect that the researchers take into account is the cessation of the global supply of rare metals needed to produce batteries for electric cars, raw materials for photovoltaic cells or wind turbines, in which China is a world leader.

This would be a domino effect with serious consequences for all the major economies of the world. Although the risk is inevitable, the study authors say that preventive measures can still be taken, but they need to be implemented as soon as possible. Decisions that provide some economic stability can still be made, ranging from regulating water use to increasing imports to changing crops and farming techniques. Everything depends on China’s efforts, as well as on the efforts of the international community, which must be aware of this danger.

Artifacts of Pharaoh Tutankhamun were found centuries after their discovery

The tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun was opened in November 1922, exactly a century ago. Although said to be the only intact tomb of the pharaoh, it was actually robbed twice shortly after his death. Despite this, Tutankhamun’s tomb provided the largest collection of artefacts ever discovered in such a context.

And yet the objects discovered in 1922 disappeared shortly after the moment of discovery. Howard Carter, the British archaeologist who led the research that led to the identification of the tomb, spent 10 years cataloging and photographing the objects in the pharaoh’s tomb before transferring them to the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo.

The problem was that the inventory presented by Carter did not match the inventory of objects held in the museum, which meant that some of them disappeared shortly after they were transferred. As allegations of theft have surfaced in recent years, a massive effort to identify the lost artifacts has been launched by the Egyptian authorities and their counterparts in the West.

In this way, it was possible to restore the ceramic necklace, which was exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum in New York until 2011. Parts of another necklace found on Tutankhamun’s chest have been found in the collection of the Kansas City Art Museum, as well as in private collections. Dozens of other items have been spotted after being auctioned off from private collections. Most of them have already arrived in Cairo and returned the original collection. As for the person or persons who may have stolen them to sell to museums and collectors in the Western world, all leads lead directly to Howard Carter.

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