Treated ground water is not directly consumed by us. It's used in public drinking water supplies, agricultural crop irrigation, and industrial manufacturing processes like cooling towers and underground aquifers. But how do we actually "treat" groundwater? Well, one way is by modeling filtration infrastructure after actual biofilms. In this article, let's take a look at how taking inspiration from nature's controversial microscopic living beings benefits us. What Are Biofilms

One of the largest and worst oil spills in history was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In 2010, a Deepwater Horizon oil rig had sunk in the Gulf of Mexico because a bubble of methane gas escaped from the well and shot up to a pipe, causing an explosion. This explosion released an extremely dangerous amount of oil and gas. By the time officials were able to control the oil rig and cap the well, the rig was estimated to have lost around 3.19 million barrels of oil and 11 human

A Layer 9 data center in Mexico The past couple of months, my for you page has been flooded with videos and articles pointing out global water bankruptcy. If you don't know this term, the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) published a report stating that our global long-term water use has exceeded the amount of safe and sustainable water that our planet can actually support. We essentially are using too much compared to what we h

We all know the dreadful and nose scrunching smell produced from swamps and bogs. However, the methane produced from them is far more devastating to our atmosphere and global warming. Although we all know that methane itself is an extremely large part of emissions, we tend to focus on how industrial and man-made efforts are the greatest cause of the growing percentage of methane- but due to global warming, now our own natural and wild landscapes are the forefront of its emis

Environmental monitoring (weather patterns, air particulate matter, greenhouse gases, and so much more) is more difficult to conduct than you might think. Although we get weather information as soon as we tap into our Weather App, collecting such data is nearly impossible due to the surface area that needs to be assessed at each second of the day. Additionally, general sensors, lab analysis, and engineering systems are all facing lower funding and lower supply. However, mach

Oceans sustain our everyday life as well as supporting various marine ecosystems. They also are Earth's largest carbon sinks, acting as a critical buffer against climate change by absorbing a si gnificant amo unt of produced emissions. Recently, a company called Equatic has developed a way to speed up and measure this removal process in seawater, raising questions on how engineered solutions can work alongside nature to address climate change. Why is carbon removal so importa

Batteries. They literally power so many tools and machines in our lives. From being involved in great proportions for car batteries to small scale factors such as Triple A batteries in a simple television remote, batteries make up basic everyday objects that we depend on everyday. However, how are batteries recycled, and how is this helpful to our environment? How Do You Recycle A Battery? Usually, many alkaline batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, and button cell batteries) are dis

When we think of bodies of water, such as the oceans, they seem so vast to the human eye. Even just thinking about solutions to balance out dissolved oxygen levels, water pollution, and micro-plastic content can feel daunting, but what if I told you that we have created an innovation for our rivers and streams that is invisible to the naked eye? Meet the nanobubble- a gaseous bubble that can be applied in areas from treating microbial injuries all the way to removing toxic al

According to the International Energy Agency , "electricity demand from data centers worldwide is set to more than double by 2030 to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh), slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today." However in many ways AI is also transforming the transition to greener energy practices. So what role should AI play in our energy consumption in the future? How is AI currently helping our energy grid? The MIT Technology Review calls the gri

According Laura Paddison from CNN Climate, "Tehran, home to around 10 million people, could run out of water altogether[...] within...

Learning about the Amazon rainforest was an area of curiosity that I always had; however, each year my class would watch a nature...

Fireworks have been a patriotic staples for people across continents, whether it be for July 4th, Chinese New Year, Diwali, and New...

We've all heard of solar-powered panels, but what about solar-energy pavements? In 2021, the Barcelona city council established the first...

Nuclear energy is one of the most complex and misunderstood forms of energy production amongst the public due to events such as Chernobyl...

On my blog, I’ve written several posts about the dangerous and growing presence of microplastics in our everyday lives. Yet, with plastic...

According to a report from the New York Times, "all but two U.S. states are in drought". Most of us are aware of the droughts in our own...

Over the last two decades, jellyfish swarms have become increasingly common in our oceans, sometimes disrupting human activities in dramatic ways. In Manila, an entire island experienced a blackout due to jellyfish clogging power plant intakes. Scotland’s nuclear plants have faced similar issues, and even the USS Ronald Reagan was temporarily incapacitated by a massive bloom. Clearly, jellyfish are affecting productivity and infrastructure—but how did this become such a wides

Clouds are tell tale signs of the weather that's approaching. A cumulonimbus cloud warns of thunderstorms while puffy stratus clouds...

Recently, Michigan has declared that they aim to make a renewable energy grid state-wide starting in 2026. However this idea is not the...

While reading an article from the Wall Street Journal, I realized the pace at which businesses are moving at in order to ensure that they...