MS-ESS3-3
Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
- Earth
From icebergs to smoke, forecasting where dangers will drift
Smoke drifts. Fish eggs float downstream. Where such drifting things end up may seem a mystery. But research can predict where they’ll end up.
- Chemistry
A new way to make plastics could keep them from littering the seas
Borrowing from genetics, scientists are creating plastics that will degrade. They can even choose how quickly these materials break down.
- Microbes
Genes point to how some bacteria can gobble up electricity
A new study shows how some microbes absorb and release electrons — a trait that may point to new fuels or ways to store energy.
- Earth
Analyze This: Nutrients from sewage may harm coastal ecosystems
A new model suggests that 58 percent of coral reefs and 88 percent of seagrass beds are exposed to excess nitrogen from wastewater.
- Ecosystems
Leaky sewer pipes pollute urban streams and bays with drugs
Scientists find that leaking sewer pipes around Baltimore, Md., spew thousands of doses of medicines into the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways.
- Materials Science
Analyze This: Hardened wood can make sharp steak knives
Researchers treated wood to make it hard and dense. Out of it, they carved sharp knives and nails that could substitute for ones made of steel.
- Chemistry
Scientists find a ‘greener’ way to make jeans blue
When coated onto jeans, a plant-based polymer reduces water and cuts the amount of toxic chemicals needed.
- Chemistry
Everyday plastics can pollute, leaching thousands of chemicals
Plastic bags and containers leach potentially toxic chemicals into both food and water, but researchers yet don’t know how they might affect health.
- Chemistry
Chemists win Nobel Prize for faster, cleaner way of making molecules
Both scientists independently came up with new process — asymmetric organocatalysis. That name may be a mouthful, but it’s not that hard to understand.
- Ecosystems
Cheatgrass thrives on the well-lit urban night scene
Middle-grade campers team up with ecologists at Denver University to show that streetlights boost the growth of a reviled invasive species.
- Materials Science
Tiny swimming robots may help clean up a microplastics mess
Big problem, tiny solution. Researchers in the Czech Republic have designed swimming robots that can help collect and break down microplastics.
- Tech
Let’s learn about artificial intelligence
Computers are getting smarter all the time. At some tasks, they can even outsmart people.
