All Parks are not created equal… in terms of air quality benefits
The ability of trees to remove carbon dioxide from the air and capture carbon makes reforestation a way to combat
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Author: Mary Davis
Growing safe drinking water: from the ground up
The Privilege of clean drinking water It’s easy to take for granted the availability of clean, safe water at the
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Green chemistry can make plastics less painful
Plastics impart a lot of useful properties during a global health pandemic. They’re cheap, disposable, and easy to clean. However, they still present an environmental challenge… read more to find out how green chemistry can help!
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April Showers Bring… Allergies
Depending on where you live, springtime pollen allergies can be as reliable as April showers. Researchers at the University of Iowa have found that even though rain might decrease the pollen count, it can still exacerbate pollen allergies, due to an increase in grain rupture.
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How Microplastics Impact Life at the Bottom
Microplastics are prevalent in the news and in the oceans. Find out what effect they have on organisms at the bottom of the oceans… and the bottom of the food chain.
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Flare-ups in Texas and Environmental Protection for All
Equal treatment under the law is an American ideal, though a multitude of historic and recent examples indicate that it’s
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Pollutants spread too: Contaminants in mountain coal mining runoff transfer to terrestrial systems
Just as the spread of disease can be hard to control, pollutants can transfer between ecosystems, exposing new populations to environmental risks. A collaborative team of environmental scientists are seeking to understand the nature and consequences of the spread of mining pollutants between water- and land-based ecosystems.
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An Environmental Fitness Tracker
Personal fitness trackers are all the rage, and their ease of use enables people to keep an eye on not only their physical activity, but their general fitness and wellness. What if you could use the same convenient method as a Fitbit to measure a type of environmental fitness like air quality?
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Junk food fit for the bugs
Some “food” doesn’t have much nutritional value… and this is certainly true of plastic! Some bug larvae seem to be eating plastic, but they don’t live very long as a result. In a recent study, researchers experimented with different diet supplements to improve larvae’s ability to live off of plastic.
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Consult the tea leaves, and you’ll find… microplastics!
Most of the plastic in the ocean is not readily identifiable. Rather it’s in the form of small, microscopic particles that are released when plastic and synthetic fibers break off and break down from their original use items, such as laundry, straws, and… teabags! A group of researchers from McGill University have found that billions of microplastics are released when steeping tea from synthetic fiber tea bags.
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