The environmental change and moving climate patterns - warm winds and heavy rains in places that used to be mild and generally dry, can cause mosquitos to migrate in new areas.
The danger lies that weather changes on these environments could lead mosquitoes to nourish off new hosts, human and animals alike.
While different hosts carry different viruses, these can combine inside a mosquito and produce new contagious pathogens like Ebola.
For the first time ever a mosquito-borne virus that can cause a severe rash and fever has been recently diagnosed in humans from the researchers of University of Florida.
Though this is the first reported instance of Mosquito borne disease in a human, it's for some time been suspected that such contaminations can happen and we really should worry about.
Luckily, we are on the safe zone for now, but there is a high likelihood that a new Mosquito-borne virus will emerge and the fallout will be horrific.
Asian longhorned tick
The rapid climate change and the conversion of natural habitats to urban areas are the main drivers of novel diseases or the return of viral infections that were once thought to be well-contained.
This increase of geographic range impacts the spread and density of ticks’ population. It is only a matter of time before they become transmitters of tick-borne diseases that infect humans.
The longhorned tick which is native to Asian countries, known to carry deadly human infections – has been recently discovered in several U.S. countries.
The fact that ticks managed to survive both the Atlantic winter and extermination attempts is terrible news.
What is much more dreadful, is that the Asian longhorned tick has the ability to reproduce asexually - it can basically clone itself. It harbors pathogens which can emerge suddenly or combine with others to form new or deadly diseases. And there is not much scientists can do to forecast the next big outbreak.
Ancient Viruses from Arctic Permafrost
There is a high probability for a global epidemic to arise from deadly ancient bacteria and viruses. They could reemerge from arctic permafrost, if the ice continues to melt as the global warming continues to rise. Permafrost is a great preserver of microbes and viruses, because it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark.
Mining and drilling operations carried out by humans are bringing them closer to contact with permafrost and potential zombie pathogens that could have catastrophic effects.
Researches in Siberia have already deliberately awoken a 30,000 years old virus that may have caused an epidemic back then. It was cautiously administered in labs and the analysis showed that it doesn’t affect humans. However, this experiment got scientists concerned about a possible outbreak in the future from viruses hidden in deep layers of ice. There will be preparations but viruses always seem to surprise.
Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria
For quite a long time, researches have been warning about the development of Antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The issue lies in the substantial over-use and abuse of medical antibiotics by humans.
Scientists suggest that primary care physicians should highly consider beforehand whether an antibiotic treatment is necessary to cure patients. Frequent exposure to antibiotics can disrupt the normal balance of bacteria and theoretically lead to a huge and unstoppable epidemic.
Chinese researchers have recently discovered a gene that allows bacteria to become unaffected to polymyxins – antibiotics that work by breaking up the bacterial cell membrane. This is extremely alarming news, since the gene can be transmitted to bacteria and make them super-resistant.
Strains of E-Coli which is one of the most wide-spread bacteria in children, has been shown to be resistant to Polymyxin. This discovery has led to careful observation and serious investment in research for developing new drugs that might prevent diseases in the future.
Virtual Reality Addiction
The fast pace of technological development in the gaming industry, specifically on virtual reality will introduce us to environments and settings far more captivating — and far more controllable than real life. The adoption of VR is expected to rapidly increase in the near future. You might compare it to the extent we use smartphones today. While the tech revolution is longed-for, the issue of distinguishing reality from illusion might take on a new and greater relevance to us as VR technology moves closer to perfectly realistic graphics. The application will extend further than gaming, it will include social media, virtual lives, movies, news, conferences, live music experiences and, of course, pornography. This could potentially and inevitably lead to an addiction not of just virtual reality but also virtual personality. Humans would be at risk of experiencing powerful hallucinations — once they started including other senses, such as touch. Until then, try to take a break from the Internet every once in a while and enjoy the beauty of real life.
#5. Dark Matter & Dark Energy Originally known as the “missing mass problem”, dark matter’s existence was first inferred by Swiss American astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who in 1933 discovered that the mass of all the stars in the Coma cluster of galaxies provided only about 1 percent of the mass needed to keep the galaxies from escaping the cluster’s gravitational pull. But the name "Dark Matter" is very misleading. Because it implies we know it is matter of some kind. But we have no idea what this thing is. A more fitting name would be, dark gravity, because we can detect the gravitational effects of this thing, but we don't know what it is. While dark energy, is an unknown form of energy, which is hypothesized to permeate all of space. Dark energy, is a theoretical repulsive force that counteracts gravity and causes the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. Together, dark matter & dark energy make up 95% of the total mass-energy of the u
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