Archive for August 11, 2017

Erkin | August 11, 2017
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Think Ocean Water is Gross? Sand Is Way Grosser

Some people like to stick to the sand when they go to the beach. The ocean can harbor sewage-related fecal contamination and a random infectious bacteria infestation or two. But it turns out that those who stay beach-side are actually making the more disgusting choice. New research shows that sand can be even more contaminated than ocean water.

Chemists from the University of Hawaii recently learned that levels of fecal bacteria in beach sand can be up to 100 times higher than in the water nearby. And, being scientists, they immediately set out to discover why. Their task was more daunting than they initially thought: a majority of studies on marine beach bacteria have taken place in water, not sand.

So the scientists went back to the lab. There, they spiked beach sand and sea water with raw municipal wastewater and the team was able to study how contaminated coastal waters impact beaches themselves. Their research revealed that, unsurprisingly, water and sand behave in completely different ways: waterborne bacteria dies off and disappears relatively quickly, but when microbes get trapped in sand they take much longer to decay. Because microbes can hang around for so much longer in the sand, they could create long-term public health problems on beaches long after water cleanups have occurred. Read more

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Erkin | August 11, 2017
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How Can We Keep Track of Earth’s Invisible Water?

It’s no secret that Earth is a wet and wild place—from grade school onward, most people can readily cite the fact that water covers about 70 percent of the planet’s surface. And images taken from space show our home world as a “blue marble” awash in oceans, rivers and lakes.

But life on Earth depends on a lot of water that we can’t see, from vapor in the air we breathe to freshwater in deep aquifers used to irrigate crops. Figuring out where this water came from, where it is now, how it moves around and how humans are affecting its flow will be critical to management of this most precious resource.

This week, Generation Anthropocene goes on a continent-hopping tour of the invisible water that drives planetary processes. Producer Mike Osborne kicks things off by chatting with Jenny Suckale, a Stanford geophysicist who has been tracking melting in Antarctica and how it may contribute to global sea level rise. Suckale and her colleagues have been especially focused on ice streams and how they move meltwater from the interior of the ice sheet into the ocean. Read more

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