Donald Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Donald Scavia, University of Michigan
Nutrient pollution fouls lakes and bays with algae, killing fish and threatening public health. Progress curbing it has been slow, mainly because of farm pollution.
Workers fill bags with fertiliser in Morocco’s northern city of Meknes.
Photo by Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images
Farmers are contending with huge spikes in fertilizer prices. The Biden administration is paying US companies to boost synthetic fertilizer production, but there are other, more sustainable options.
Children participate in a water fight in Lake Ontario in Mississauga, Ontario, during a heat wave on June 5, 2021.
Zou Zheng/Xinhua via Getty Images
Studying these deposits gives scientists information about how past environments change. That, in turn, gives us informed estimates on how climates and environments will change in the near future.
Tampa Bay’s sea grass meadows need sunlight to thrive. Algae blooms block that light and can be toxic to marine life.
Joe Whalen Caulerpa/Tampa Bay Estuary Program via Unsplash
Harmful algae blooms are an increasing problem in Florida. Once nutrients are in the water to fuel them, little can be done to stop the growth, and the results can be devastating for marine life.
The spread of tawny crazy ants may be driven, in part, by their need for calcium. The calcium-rich limestone bedrock of the lower U.S. Midwest may provide ideal conditions for populations to explode.
Prithvi Simha, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; Björn Vinnerås, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and Jenna Senecal, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
If rolled out worldwide, our method could replace a quarter of all the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser used in agriculture.
Phosphorus was first discovered by boiling down thousands of litres of urine.
Shutterstock/Lesterman
Global phosphate production is set to peak in 2030, around the same time the world’s population will reach nine billion. As a finite resource, a phosphate shortage will effect global food production.
The red tip on these matches contains phosphorus, which ignites when in contact with oxygen.
Andrew Rafalsky/Shutterstock.com
The elements that make up each column of the periodic table share a set of common traits. Here, a chemist describes group 15 and the crucial role phosphorus, in particular, plays in cancer.
The ‘used water’ that flows from our showers, dishwashers and toilets isn’t a waste to engineers – it contains valuable materials. The challenge is recovering them and turning them into products.
Originally found in a bucket of urine by an alchemist searching for the elixir of life, the race is on to find a way to rescue Element 15 from permanent exile in our rivers and streams.
Blooms of algae, like this growth in 2015 in Lake St. Clair between Michigan and Ontario, promote the formation of dead zones.
NASA Earth Observatory
Scientists have mapped a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Oman, without enough oxygen in the water to support life. This Speed Read explains why dead zones form in waters around the world.