Environment

As part of a worldwide drive by the Catholic church to increase environmental awareness, priests are now going to have to to learn about climate change. Priests have been issued with new guidelines stating that members of the clergy should be ‘promoters’ of ‘appropriate care for everything connected to the protection of creation’. The Mail Online reports: The Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences has ruled that climate change is real and caused by human activity. Members of the church have been urged to spread the message in a non-political manner.

With many of the key cabinet positions in Trump's administration having been filled, one major post remained open: that of Energy Secretary. However according to Bloomberg, the mystery is almost over as Donald Trump has narrowed his search for energy secretary to four people.

Russian scientists have discovered a brand new life form in Antarctica that they say has  genetic material never seen before in science. The new life was found in the subglacial Lake Vostok in Antartica, and only shares 86% of its genes with other known organisms. Ancient-code.com reports: In 2016, Sergei Bulat, head of the cryobiology laboratory at the University of Nuclear Physics in St. Petersburg, announced the discovery of a new life form in Antarctica: a bacterium found in a subglacial lake that could only be accessed after drilling through four kilometers of ice.

Scientists have warned that a recent spike in Earthquakes around the San Andreas Fault is a harbinger of a much bigger mega earthquake about to strike California.  Following Thursday afternoon’s 6.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of California, another 7.8 earthquake hit the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Experts have warned that these inexplicably large earthquakes occuring along the Ring of Fire could have ruptured the San Andreas Fault, which would increase the chances of a deadly mega earthquake hitting California.

Monsanto faces a multi-million dollar lawsuit from the state of Seattle over claims that the agrochemical giant are poisoning citizens and wildlife.  According to Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, PCBs used by Monsanto have polluted “every waterway in the state,” posing a massive health problem to residents. Seattletimes.com reports: Monsanto was the sole producer of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) for commercial use in the U.S.