Category Archives for "Good Environment Science"

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Futuristic Vehicles Could Vanish After Deliveries

Elizabeth Palermo of Livescience posed the following situation in an article for Discovery News:  Picture this: A tiny, floating device delivers a package into your arms, and then, before you can say “thanks,” it disappears into thin air. Such a magical device may sound like something out of a Harry Potter movie, but it’s real technology that could benefit people in remote areas.

The development of this far-out delivery system is being led by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense charged with developing new technologies for the U.S. military. Several years ago…Read more

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Common Sunscreen Chemical Kills Coral

In a recent article written by Danny Clemens for Discovery.com: A chemical commonly found in sunscreen is detrimental to coral health, a new report finds. An international team of researchers linked oxybenzone, an organic compound used in more than 3,000 sunscreens, to “gross morphological deformities,” DNA damage and endocrine disruption in already-vulnerable baby corals.

Oxybenzone can adversely impact coral health in concentrations as small as 62 parts per trillion — the equivalent of one drop of water in more than six Olympic-sized swimming pools.

30 Days of the Ocean: Photos 

In Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands, however, oxybenzone has been measured in concentrations as high as 1.4 parts per million — an unsurprising statistic considering that an estimated 14,000 tons of sunscreen enter coral reefs each year.  Around the world, at least 10 percent of reefs are at a high risk of exposure to oxybenzone, study authors estimate.  According to the National Park Service, no sunscreen…Read more

Image Source: ThinkStock

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