Last week’s highlight was the conference on climate change held in the United Kingdom, which was the talk of the interested people. There are few other issues that need to be mentioned, specially, the recently described life in the deepest point of the ocean.

Global warming is serious than thought. This was the conclusion of a conference on the possible impacts of global warming or climate change which was held in Exeter, the United Kingdom. Several researchers from over 30 countries participated in this conference, where several papers were presented. The aim was to evaluate the impacts of global warming and climate change and search out for the best of science of the phenomenon. In other words, this conference was aimed to look at the ‘what levels of green house gas emissions would bring irreversible and significant damage to the ecosystems and human society?’ It was organized by the Meteorological Office of the UK, and known as "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change".

At present we have to expect further rising of temperatures because still green house gas emissions are increasing. Although the emissions can be lowered in the near future, to pre-industrial amounts, temperatures will rise as the already emitted gases are in the atmosphere.

According to a study based on computer models, this global warming will result in a temperature rise of between 2 to 11 degrees C globally. This was done by the climate prediction.net with over 95,000 different models running on computers worldwide. The lowest rise is 2`B0C which will also result severe impacts.

As we mentioned last week, it is believed that 2 degree Celsius rise in average temperatures would be the threshold value. It was the suggestion of the European Union, but research by a German revealed that it was even too much. In such a situation, one cannot even think about the effects of a 11`B0C rise of temperatures. A time table of the impacts of global warming was also presented at the conference. It describes when the effects will take place etc.

This is the reality or the factual impact of the global warming. As we know, countries like the UK are aware of this situation and they have been pioneering the search for rapid action. However some countries are not yet on the right track.

Accepting reality will be helpful to trigger the efforts to overcome the problems in the future more successfully. It is better than neglecting reality while blaming science or the validity of the evidence on global warming, which will be a waste of time.

This conference is expected to be an eye opener as well as the organizers were wishing. We hope the same!

Life is there even in the deepest point of the oceans. Although they are tiny single celled creatures, this life is almost at a depth of 11 kilometres in the ocean. These animals were discovered from ‘Challenger’ deep in a depth of 10,896m in Marianas trench, Pacific Ocean.

These organisms were previously unknown single celled creatures, belong to the group called foraminifera. They were recovered by a remote submarine like instrument and reported in Science magazine.

These life organisms have adapted to the high pressure which is over 1000 times greater than the surface. These organisms display the diversity of life on earth. This is a small part of the biodiversity which man is struggling hard to explore. There is lot to be discovered.

This move from the United Kingdom is not a positive one. A proposed amendment to existing laws in the UK will enable the jailing of animal rights activists for a term of up to five years. This action is said to be implemented to stop the disruption of medical research, which was delayed and disrupted by the protesters.

Supporters of using animals in research are saying that the animal rights extremism is out of control. The new laws are not aimed at peaceful protests, but on extreme activities.

However, this is not a good move as this may encourage the authorities to come up with similar tough action against other activists including environmentalists. Our fear is that whether this will happen.