HS-LS2-2
Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.
- Tech
A device spots and counts honeybees hosting a dangerous parasite
At Regeneron ISEF, three teens debuted an infrared system to detect honeybees carrying mites. It can show beekeepers when a colony needs to be treated.
- Health & Medicine
Explainer: Why it’s easier to get sick in the winter
Low humidity helps viruses survive, and cold weather blunts some of the body’s immune responses — making colds and other viral infections more likely.
- Microbes
Mouth-crawling superbugs cause severe cavities in kids
In kids with severe tooth decay, fungi and bacteria team up to create superorganisms that can crawl across teeth.
- Environment
Microplastic pollution aids viruses and prolongs their infectivity
The tiny plastic bits give these germs safe havens. That protection seems to increase as the plastic ages and breaks into ever smaller pieces.
- Plants
Why dandelions are so good at widely spreading their seeds
Individual seeds on a dandelion release most easily in response to winds from a specific direction. As the wind shifts, this scatters the seeds widely.
- Animals
Study finds big drop in animal populations since 1970
But the same thing is not happening throughout the kingdom. For instance, more than half of vertebrate populations are stable or increasing.
- Health & Medicine
An asthma treatment may also help tame cat allergies
Adding a therapy used to treat asthma improved cat allergy symptoms for more than a year, a small study found.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists Say: Infection
Infections range from mild illnesses, such as the common cold, to deadly diseases, such as rabies.
- Environment
Bacterial ‘living wires’ could help protect the seas and climate
Long, thin bacteria that conduct electricity may be able to help clean up oil spills and reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
- Animals
If mosquitoes vanished, would we miss them? Vampire spiders might
Vampire spiders get their meals from blood-filled Anopheles mosquitoes. But if those insects disappear, the spiders will likely adapt.
- Health & Medicine
Should we use a genetic weapon against mosquitoes carrying malaria?
One gene drive to eliminate malaria seems to work in the lab. Now it’s time to ask local people if they want it released in the wild.
- Animals
Some spikes in malaria cases may be tied to amphibian die-offs
Amphibian deaths from a fungal disease may have led to more mosquitoes — and an increase in malaria cases in Costa Rica and Panama.
