#Science / Environment

[wachinyeya]

https://english.radio.cz/beavers-build-planned-dams-protected-landscape-area-while-local-officials-still-8841536

A beaver colony in the Brdy region has gained overnight fame by building several dams in the Brdy protected landscape area, creating a natural wetland exactly where it was needed. It saved the local authorities 30 million crowns, and has the public cracking jokes about public administration and red tape.

The administration of the Brdy protected landscape area, which had gained approval for the 30 million crown project, was dealing with red tape and seeking the respective building permits from the Vltava River Basin authorities when the dam project was completed almost overnight by a local colony of beavers.

They could not have chosen their location better –erecting the dams on a bypass gully that was built by soldiers in the former military base years ago, so as to drain the area. The revitalization project drafted by environmentalists was supposed to remedy this. Bohumil Fišer, head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area Administration says Nature took its course and the beavers created the necessary biotope conditions practically overnight.

[typhlonectes]

[reasonsforhope]

"The substances behind the slimy strings from okra and the gel from fenugreek seeds could trap microplastics better than a commonly used synthetic polymer.

Texas researchers proposed in 2022 using these sticky natural polymers to clean up water. Now, they’ve found that okra and/or fenugreek extracts attracted and removed up to 90% of microplastics from ocean water, freshwater, and groundwater.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Rajani Srinivasan and colleagues at Tarleton State University found that the plant-based polymers from okra, fenugreek, and tamarind stick to microplastics, clumping together and sinking for easy separation from water.

In this next stage of the research, they have optimized the process for okra and fenugreek extracts and tested results in a variety of types of water.

To extract the sticky plant polymers, the team soaked sliced okra pods and blended fenugreek seeds in separate containers of water overnight. Then, researchers removed the dissolved extracts from each solution and dried them into powders.

Analyses published in the American Chemical Society journal showed that the powdered extracts contained polysaccharides, which are natural polymers. Initial tests in pure water spiked with microplastics showed that:

One gram of either powder in a quart (one liter) of water trapped microplastics the most effectively.

Dried okra and fenugreek extracts removed 67% and 93%, respectively, of the plastic in an hour.

A mixture of equal parts okra and fenugreek powder reached maximum removal efficiency (70%) within 30 minutes.

The natural polymers performed significantly better than the synthetic, commercially available polyacrylamide polymer used in wastewater treatment.

Then the researchers tested the plant extracts on real microplastic-polluted water. They collected samples from waterbodies around Texas and brought them to the lab. The plant extract removal efficiency changed depending on the original water source.

Okra worked best in ocean water (80%), fenugreek in groundwater (80-90%), and the 1:1 combination of okra and fenugreek in freshwater (77%).

The researchers hypothesize that the natural polymers had different efficiencies because each water sample had different types, sizes and shapes of microplastics.

Polyacrylamide, which is currently used to remove contaminants during wastewater treatment, has low toxicity, but its precursor acrylamide is considered toxic. Okra and fenugreek extracts could serve as biodegradable and nontoxic alternatives.

“Utilizing these plant-based extracts in water treatment will remove microplastics and other pollutants without introducing additional toxic substances to the treated water,” said Srinivasan in a media release, “thus reducing long-term health risks to the population.”

She had previously studied the use of food-grade plant extracts as non-toxic flocculants to remove textile-based pollutants from wastewater and thought, ‘Why not try microplastics?’"

-via Good News Network, May 10, 2025

[rebeccathenaturalist]

A caveat to this study: the researchers were primarily looking at insect pollinator biodiversity. Planting a few native wildflowers in your garden will not suddenly cause unusual megafauna from the surrounding hinterlands to crowd onto your porch.

That being said, this study backs up Douglas Tallamy's optimistic vision of Homegrown National Park, which calls for people in communities of all sizes to dedicate some of their yard (or porch or balcony) to native plants. This creates a patchwork of microhabitats that can support more mobile insect life and other small beings, which is particularly crucial in areas where habitat fragmentation is severe. This patchwork can create migration corridors, at least for smaller, very mobile species, between larger areas of habitat that were previously cut off from each other.

It may not seem like much to have a few pots of native flowers on your tiny little balcony compared to someone who can rewild acres of land, but it makes more of a difference than you may realize. You may just be creating a place where a pollinating insect flying by can get some nectar, or lay her eggs. Moreover, by planting native species you're showing your neighbors these plants can be just as beautiful as non-native ornamentals, and they may follow suit.

In a time when habitat loss is the single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction, every bit of native habitat restored makes a difference.

[whoisandyloam]

[legodna]

You guys wanna see a science Lego set? Well, here's Lego DNA!

With a scientifically accurate DNA model, and a historically accurate lab + 5 scientists!

Aims: to promote science to kids and honor Rosalind Franklin.

Less than 600 votes needed to reach 10K when it will be considered as a real official Lego set to be sold worldwide!

If you like it, please support here and share with your friends: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/c92cd95b-49e7-46ec-b844-ac6482c51139

More details below!

#chemistry #science #biology #design #diy #education #nature #environmental science #molecular biology #stem #women in stem #research #laboratory #women scientists #school #university #college #students #learning #lego art #lego photography #afol #lego sets #lego ideas #lego builds #lego moc #rosalind franklin #james watson #francis crick #university student

[kafkasapartment]

“Chironomid larvae are opportunistic omnivores (they can eat pretty much anything that can be eaten) but they are also classified by their main feeding modes; collector-gatherers, collector-filterers, scrapers, shredders, engulfers and piercers. Of course, one species can fit in multiple feeding strategies!

These larvae play an important role in aquatic ecosystems since they're a major food source for fish, frogs, birds and semi-aquatic mammals. They also are litter decomposers, rock cleaners and are important for nutrient recycling. Chironomid larvae are also very sensitive to polluants such as pesticides and are thus used as bio indicators of freshwater quality!”

[mindblowingscience]

The world's wealthiest 10 percent of individuals are responsible for two-thirds of global warming since 1990, researchers said on Wednesday. How the rich consume and invest has substantially increased the risk of deadly heatwaves and drought, they reported in the first study to quantify the impact of concentrated private wealth on extreme climate events. "We link the carbon footprints of the wealthiest individuals directly to real-world climate impacts," lead author Sarah Schoengart, a scientist at ETH Zurich, told AFP.

Continue Reading.

[hope-for-the-planet]

These tiny solar cells work using a process much like photosynthesis--photons hit the dye, electrons are released and then passed on to a special conductive material that harvests the electricity. They're designed to work in lower light conditions than traditional solar cells and are powerful enough to power small electronics up to the size of a keyboard.

The idea is that these tiny solar cells could replace small batteries for low-energy electronics--they last significantly longer and produce 90% fewer emissions per unit of energy than traditional batteries. Solar cells also remove the emissions from shipping and replacing batteries, although there are potentially some additional environmental costs associated with their production.

This is a really cool step towards having electronics that are powered by renewable energy on an individual level rather than requiring batteries.

[politijohn]

Source

More of this

[danlwarren]

Video by me and Ainsley Seago trying to explain the important work insect taxonomists do

[considernature]

EEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEE EEEEEEE

That's right! It's International Bat Appreciation Day! We share our planet with over 1400 species of bat, making the second most abundant mammal order, and they perform a wide variety of ecological roles, from dispersing seeds to pollinating flowers to eating thousands of insects in a single night! Over 200 bat species are listed as Threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature--that is over 14 percent of all bats!

YOU can help endangered bats today by donating to Pennsylvania Bat Rescue at this link. This PA-based organization rehabilitates sick or injured bats and helps educate people like you and me in how we can create more bat-friendly environments.

If you want to learn about particularly-cool bat species native to New Zealand, check out this Consider Nature article on the Pekapeka, the bat that walks:

For the rest of the day, Consider Nature will be bat-bombing Tumblr with some of our favorite bat species to share them with the world!

Alt text: a small brown bat stretching its wings with the kind of fabulous flourish that would impress Ryan Evans.

[reasonsforhope]

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Hey, US folks--if you haven't already heard, the federal government is taking public comments on whether to weaken the Endangered Species Act. In short, they want to redefine the definition of "harming" wildlife (not just animals but also plants and fungi, though no fungi have been listed yet) so that the destruction of wildlife habitat is no longer considered to be harm under the ESA.

As anyone who knows anything about ecology, wildlife biology, or just the way the natural world works knows, if you destroy a species' habitat, you harm that species. Period. The people who want this definition changed are corporations and other entities who want to use sensitive wildlife habitat for logging, mining, even golf courses. Meanwhile, endangered species that rely on these places as their last havens are much more likely to go extinct because they can't just "go somewhere else".

This isn't wishy-washy bleeding-heart stuff here. This is SCIENCE. Actual scientists who have dedicated their careers to studying wildlife and their habitats are the ones who have been pushing so hard for decades to protect and restore these lands, and to educate people on why habitat destruction is the single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction.

Sunday, May 18, 2025, is the last day to leave a public comment. You can do so at https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034-0001. This doesn't have to be a long or involved comment; simply saying "I do not support changing the current definition of harm in the Endangered Species Act" is enough. It won't take long, but it will let those in charge know what we, the people, want. Thank you for taking the time for this.

(Please reblog, and thank you!)

[beauty-funny-trippy]

‘WHO VOTED FOR THIS?’ : TRUMP OBSTRUCTS CANCER RESEARCH FUNDING Trump has given orders to freeze ALL federally funded medical research in America. This includes research to treat: Cancer, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Arthritis, Obesity, Drug Addiction, Depression, Childhood Leukemia, Heart Disease, etc. All of us know someone who is a afflicted with a medical condition that science is trying to cure, or at least lessen its severity. Who in their right mind would want to put a freeze on such important work? Notice Trump's priorities. He's not interested in lowering the cost of housing, or reducing middle and lower income Americans' taxes, or the price of groceries. Why? Because he's laser focused on more important stuff like: stopping life-saving medical research, worsening the climate crisis, reigniting inflation by mass deportations, increasing prescription drug prices, and of course, America's most urgent need of all — renaming the Gulf of Mexico. The man needs to have his head examined. Oh, ...darn. He just put a freeze on medical research into finding out what the hell is wrong with him!