Bionic Mushroom Power

bionic mushroom featured

Mario’s mushroom power. Super Mario Brothers is a long-loved game where magical mushrooms can give Mario or Luigi extra powers. While these mushrooms won’t give you extra powers, they might be able to give your house a little extra power. We can thank our mushroom power to a few things: the mushroom, some tiny …

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Plastic in your Poop

microplastics on a beach featured

Microplastics are making their way through you. A recent discovery presented at the United European Gastroenterology conference this past week had some shocking findings – there is plastic in your poop. In fact, of 8 people studied, all 8 had microplastics found in their stool samples. You might want to …

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Heidi’s Hearing Plants

Dr. Heidi Appel – The scientist who listens to plants Did you know plants can ‘hear’ and react? That is the newest discovery about plants presented in Oecologia. Plants can send sense vibrations. Recent studies have shown that their roots can use certain vibrations to seek out water. And an …

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Exploring the Deep Dark Sea

TO SAVE A HABITAT, WE MUST UNDERSTAND THE RESIDENTS OF THAT HABITAT. We know less about the mysterious part of the ocean known as the twilight zone than we do about the surface of the moon. Academy scientists are helping to change that by exploring this new frontier. – California …

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The world’s coolest new species

Every year thousands of new species of animals, plants, bacteria, you name it are found. Nearly 18,000 a year, which is a lot if you consider how hard we are always searching, and yet year after year there are tens of thousands more to be put in the books.  To celebrate …

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Sensational Plants

Plants can sense, react, and act like an animal. When we are young we learn to classify objects. The first major classification is living vs. non-living. Then we classify all living things into one of the 6 kingdoms. We often think of these kingdoms as separate. Animals are far different …

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Saving the Great Barrier Reef

Two scuba divers check the health of the Great Barrier Reef

A sunshade to save the Great Barrier Reef. This week the University of Melbourne released a new method to potentially save the Great Barrier reef, and it is basically a giant sunshade. What is the sunshade made of? The proposed sunshade to protect the Great Barrier reef from incident sunlight …

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Recycling CO2 to make Ethanol

Synthetic Photosynthesis would recycle carbon dioxide while creating ethanol

Carbon dioxide is a pesky gas that is building up in our atmosphere from burning too many fossil fuels. About 10-25% of the greenhouse effect is due to carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect. Life on Earth relies on a delicate balance of heat from …

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World’s Deepest Hole Barely Scratches the Surface.

comparison of deepest naturally occuring cave, south african mine, oil hole in kansas and kola superdeep borehole with Earth's crust

How far can we drill into the Earth? And what is at the bottom of the world’s deepest hole? In 1970 the Russians imparted on a big project, the Kola Superdeep Borehole. One that would take us to places we have never been…on Earth. They had a lofty goal, drill 15,000m …

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