The Chemical Ocean Acid Test

In May 2011 a group of scientist went up to Norway to test how the ocean life is reacting to the rise in chemical acidity of the ocean. As acid levels rise marine life is experiencing new problems that they never had to face before, a decrease in one species could jeopardize a whole ecosystem and even harm us. As Carbon dioxide levels rise the ocean absorbs them and create carbonic acid which can kill many species. These scientist have found that the oceans have become more than 30 precent more acidic than they were 150 years ago, and that by the end of this century that number may have doubled. "Life is flexible, so some organisms will be able to adapt and evolve. But the worry today is that the change is happening so fast that many may not have time to ajust." says Gatusso, one of the scientist working on the project.

Their project test all organism from the bacteria level towards large fish. And how the lowered pH levels will affect them each. They have found that animals with calcium base skeletons or parts such as; crabs and corals, are the most affected. This is troubleing beacuse corals are a source of food and shelter for many animals and without them many species could suffer. And with 1 billion of people relying on the ocean for food it has become a very big problem.

Chemical Beverage Signatures Allow Geographical Tracking of People By What They've Been Drinking

According to a new research Utah has come up with, over time they can tell where a person has been, where they have traveled to, etc. They have figured out that its is possible to track what someones been drinking and that information then leads them and allows them to figure out the rest because of the fingerprints left in the hair. They measure the isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen which takes gets the researchers closer to their conclusion. They tested this by taking samples of 33 different cities and happened to notice that the isotope pattern of the city matched the pattern of the tap water. The article explains how water was their strongest source of information; soda and beer were not as strong.

The article selected is an example of hypothesis based science because having a conclusion and then observing what was occurring while they were taking tests to prove it led them to the actual facts.

The importance this has to humans is allowing them to know that " you are what you eat" is said common but this article supports why it is true. It keeps them aware that what they drink/digest accumulates and leaves patterns and prints in a certain part of their body that allows researchers to track them down.

author: Rebecca Boyle

title of article: Chemical Beverage Signatures Allow Geographical Tracking of People By What They've Been Drinking

journal: POPSCI

date published: June 30, 2010

Pages: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/chemistry-you-can-tell-where-your-drinks-come

Is Water Vapor in the Stratosphere Slowing Global Warming

Author: David Biello

Journal: Scientific American

Date Published : January 29, 2010

Link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-water-vapor-in-the-stratosphere-slowing-global-warming

Earth stratosphere is a cold, dry place above the troposphere. The only way that water gets into the high latitude above the Earth’s surface, is when it billows up from the humid tropics rising up to the tropopause. Since 2001 there has been less water in the stratosphere because of cooler temperatures in the tropopause and may be holding back global warming. The reason for water vapor temperature change is because the drop in temperature at the interference between troposphere and stratosphere. This effect can be in the variability of Earth’s climate or carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases trapping more heat and warming the sea surface temperature. Methane’s growth rate has dropped which has made it a weaker source of stratospheric water. A drier lower stratosphere has slowed warming caused by thickening the greenhouses gas blanket.

This article is describing how the greenhouses gas, such as CO₂, has dried the stratosphere causing global warming slowed. This is an example of discovery based science because the observations made by the scientists of the stratosphere and the troposphere made them conclude that the greenhouses gases are the cause of slowing global warming. This article is important to us because it informs us that thanks to the greenhouses gases, global warming has slowed, no longer making it a fast problem for our Earth environment.

Recyclable Water

At the Parafield Aquifier storag, researchers gathered storm water from an urban environment and placed it in an aquifer and then re-gathered the treated water through a well. Before the treatment the water contained some amounts of bacteria and raised amounts of iron. After the treatment, most of the hazardous bacteria and properties of the water had been removed or reduced.

The researchers took the approach of gathering water from an urban land and then placing it in a constructed wetland to then place it in an aquifer and then re-gather the treated water via a well in order to identify if they could recycle water to make it drinkable.

They performed hypothesis science because they examined on the water before coming up with there finding.

This research has great importance to humans because if the scientists were to successfully recycle the water to make it drinkable once again then we would have found a new source of making drinkable water.

author: American Society of Agronomy

Title: Drinking Recycled Water? Study Establishes Methods to Assess Recycled Aquifer Water

Date published:Jan. 6, 2011

pages:1

Recyclable

At the Parafield Aquifier storag, researchers gathered storm water from an urban environment and placed it in an aquifer and then re-gathered the treated water through a well. Before the treatment the water contained some amounts of bacteria and raised amounts of iron. After the treatment, most of the hazardous bacteria and properties of the water had been removed or reduced.

The researchers took the approach of gathering water from an urban land and then placing it in a constructed wetland to then place it in an aquifer and then re-gather the treated water via a well in order to identify if they could recycle water to make it drinkable.

They performed hypothesis science because they examined on the water before coming up with there finding.

This research has great importance to humans because if the scientists were to successfully recycle the water to make it drinkable once again then we would have found a new source of making drinkable water.

author: American Society of Agronomy

Title: Drinking Recycled Water? Study Establishes Methods to Assess Recycled Aquifer Water

Date published:Jan. 6, 2011

pages:1

Using the ocean as an inexhaustible water supply

It is estimated that a ound 2012, 36 states experience water shortages. Some states, such as Florida are turning to dedsalination plants. The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant produces 25 million gallons a day (about 10% of the regions water supply). Some critics say however that these plants have a negative effect on coastal marine life. Therefore, many places around the world are turning to the idea of offshore desalination platforms or vessels. The benefits are that offshore, the water can be extracted from depths where sea life density is low and the water is cleaner; also, the cost of an offshore plant is less because it doesn't need third party power, it can produce it's own. India and Spain have built tests plants but these approaches make a small production of only about 5 million gallons or less per day. The Water Standard Company intends to build a Seawater Desalination Vessel (SDV) which could produce 5 times as much (3 times as much as the production of the Tampa Bay desalination plant). This vessel would be about a mile offshore and would generate its own power with gas turbines (biofuels could be used). The process used would be Osmosis, the same procruise ships and military ships for decades. The company plans on building the first ship in Israel, Australia, China, or the Middle East; all areas with a high demand for water.

The aticle is discovery based because the plant has not yet been tested (as of 2008). Expected results have not been proved to be effective (cost, safe efor marine life, etc.)

This is important for humans because water is one of the many resources on earth which is scarse, yet it is vital for all forms of life. Humans need to start finding effective alternatives to meet the demands of people. This is especially important to countries which are in dire need of water such as the Mddle Est, etc.

Patrick Huyghe, "Water, Water Everywhere, So Let's All Have a Drink", June 11, 2008, www.discovermagazine.com

Drinking Recycled Water

9/16/11

The arlticle is about water and how some scientist in The Australian Government National Water Commission got paid to examine the quality of water after it has been treated using a managed aquifer recharge and wether or not the finished product would meet with standard drinking water guidlines. They did the experimet by collecting storm water and measuring its concentration. The results of the storm water amazed them with small amounts of fecal bacteria, elevated concentrations of iron, and other contaminates were found in the water. However, after the water was run through the aquifer and underwent further treatment, the water came out almost completely cleaned and some other treatments had to be made to remove some hazards.

The type of experiment that they did was hypothesis based experiment beacuse they made test and then reached a conclusion after the tests. The importance that the findings have to humans is that it could provide better drinking water for poeple that might not have enough money to get healthey water. it could also be the means of recycling and reusing water that before could only be used once.

Tittle of article: Drinking Recycled water? Study establishes Methods to Assess Recycled Aquifer Water

Author/journal: Journal of Envoirmental Quality

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110106145429.htm

Date published: December 2010

Water Properties: Water Science for Schools: Physical and Chemical Water Properties

Water is an essential molecule to living organisms life. It is the World's primary natural resource. Unfortunately water is begging to disappear. Water scarcity is becoming a major problem in the World today.

Water is called "universal solvent" that is because it has the capacity to dissolve many more substances than any other liquids. When water goes through different parts anything it has the capacity to take valuable chemicals, minerals, and nutrients.

Water has a neutral pH because it is nor acidic or basic. Water can be found in three different stages either liquids, solids, or gases. This is because of Earth's water are in constant change and movement it makes water be able to form in three different stages.

Water has the capacity to absorb lots of heat before it begins to heat up, that is why water is known to have specific heat index. Water can also be found to have a high surface tension. That means that is has the capacity to come together.

Facts:

- One of every six people are not able to find immediate access to safe drinking water.

- Around 6,000 people die daily because there is not enough drinking water available for them.

- When water freezes at 32^o F its mass would be around 62 pounds per cubic feet.

- When water boils at 100^o F its weight would be around 61 pounds per cubic feet.

Water Volumes:

1 Gallon is the same as 4 Quarts

1 Gallon is the same as 8 Pints

1 Gallon is the same as 128 Fluid Ounces

This article is discovery based observations. They are making inferences from the different characteristics and properties of water.

Howard Perlman, Water Properties: Water Science for Schools: Physical and Chemical Water Properties, USGS, February 8, 2011, http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterproperties.html

Water Lust: Why All the Excitement When H2O Is Found in Space?

NASA in September 2009 announced that they had found ice water in craters on Mars and water dispersed on the moon. Water is the most important thing for living organisms, and it might be common in the solar system. Evidence suggests that water as a solid, liquid or gas is present at the poles of Mercury, within the clouds of Venus, on Mars, inside asteroids and comets, and on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Scientists have also speculated that subsurface oceans of liquid water exist in Jupiter's moons. They have also detected water forms in Pluto's moon, in interstellar gas and in the atmospheres of stars. Pamela Conrad, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, states ""It's not a surprise that the simple (molecules) would show up again and again ... But I think its discovery on specific planets or other bodies in the solar system has a significance beyond whether or not we're surprised that it's there. It gives us permission to speculate on whether or not there is other chemistry that would be relevant to the origin or the sustenance of life."

Scientists continue their search for extraterrestrial water because Earth requires it. Liquid water has properties that make it essential for life. Sushil Atreya, who studies the formation of planets and the evolution of their atmospheres at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's Planetery Science Laboratory, says "Liquid water acts as a solvent, as a medium and as a catalyst for certain types of proteins, and those are three main things that allow life to flourish."

This article is an example of discovery science because scientists have found evidence of water forms in the universe and deducted that water is common in other places besides Earth. This discovery is important for humans because it proves that other forms of life may exist in other planets and astoids, etc.

Author: Bruce Lieberman

Title: Water Lust: Why All the Excitement When H2O Is Found in Space?

Journal: Scientific American

Date published: October 4, 2009

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=water-lust-why-all-the-ex

Team of International Marine Scientists Call for Ban on Deep Sea Fishing

Fishing restriction have been placed in costal lines for many years in order to maintain stable fishing population but as the demand of fish went up, many corporal companies have gone to the deep seas in order to harvest fish which are less regulated by governments . Unlike costal lines, the vast deep seas are patches of wildlife isolated. With new technologies fishers can search deeper depts for fish and catch an entire population destroying the coral reefs. Coral reefs can survive for 4000 years but now are dying instantly. Also from 1964 to 2004 harvesting fishes has increased sevenfold. If fishes are depleted than many coral reefs will be destroyed. However some countries like France, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain in the European Union might resist because they have a long Martine traditions and a major part in their economies.

This a an example of discovery science because scientist recorded data and then made a hypotheses that which states that all the coral reefs are disappearing because the fishes are being depleted by industrial fishing which has increase sevenfold. This is important to humans because their will be less Eco diversity and removing fishes can affect other parts of the oceans and eventually humans. In addition if fishing is not regulated then when most fishes are extinct countries that rely on fish for their diets might have change staples

http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/43226
From: David A Gabel, ENN

Published September 9, 2011 09:29 AM

The Great Barrier Reef

One of the most important and most beautiful ecosystems in the world, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, is in grave danger. Scientific groups like the WWF have predicted the almost complete destruction of this ecosystem by 2050, due to the increase of sea temperature, caused by climate change. They believe that the high thermal levels caused by global warming will psychologically stress the corals and lead to “bleach” or lose their symbiotic algae. If short-term, this bleaching process can be recovered from but if prolonged, it can lead to damage and death. Dr. Arnold Dekker, an Australian scientist said, “an increase in frequency of coral bleaching may be one of the first tangible effects of global warming.” Other reasons that coral reefs may soon be extinct are many; changes in sea level, elevated storm frequency and intensity, altered ocean circulation, variation in precipitation and land runoff, and increasing ocean acidification.

This article is an example of hypothesis-based science. The part that is hypothesis-based science is the research that led to the specific facts about the coral reefs, like the bleaching. They pose the question “if bleaching continues, then The Great Barrier Reef will be dead by 2050. This discovery has had an impact on humans because “the degradation and loss of coral ecosystems in will likely have a wide-ranging impact on the world economy.” How? Because more than 500 million people live very close to the coral reefs, and they rely on them as buffers from storms, and as services for daily subsistence.

Source: http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1117-corals.html

Ice In Motion

Jason Box, a glaciologist at Ohio State University in Columbus has been studying the glacial breakup of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. He spent two months on a ship observing the glacier but on August 4, 2010, a piece of ice four times the size of Manhattan broke off the glacier. In the past few years, many of these pieces of ice have been breaking off glaciers and falling into the oceans of the world. Scientists assume that if the glaciers keep moving faster and faster and breaking off at the rate their going, in the next few centuries, the water level may raise by 67 meters. Scientists are trying to better understand the movement of these glaciers and are setting up the glaciers with cameras, instruments, and underwater submersibles to learn what drives and moves the ice toward the ocean. One of the fastest flowing glaciers is the Jakobshavn Isbrae on Greenland’s west coast. In 2008 Albert Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, dropped 90 rubber ducks into water tunnels and try to follow them through the glacier. However the ducks have not appeared on the other side of the glacier. Since this iceberg has been emitting ice pieces into the ocean for years, many believe it could have been part of the Titanic incident in 1912.

This is discovery based science because the scientists are discovering how the glaciers move towards the ocean and how the melting of the ice could raise the sea levels.

This is important because if the glaciers melt in the polar ice caps, the sea levels could rise dramatically and affect millions of people living on the coast.

Author: Alexandra Witze

Title: Ice in Motion

Date Published: March 26, 2011

Pages: 23-24

Things You Didn't Know About...Water

The human body is made up of around 78 % of water. The amount of water the human body needs in its system to function is around 6 to 7 liters daily. These calculations make the worldly water demand a very high one. It puts water on the top scale of importance in daily life. There are 332,500,000 cubic miles of water (all kinds) in the world. Water makes up approximately 73% of the Earth’s globe. Out of that solid 73% only 1% of it is drinkable for humans (including bottled water). So what’s going to happen? Humans need to learn how to value the little things in order to appreciate the big ones. Water needs to be appreciated or else one day (could be soon) there might not be any left.

This research was done through discovery science. It was a discovery in which scientists observed the several patterns of water need, plentitude and contamination in order to get to the conclusion: “Water is plenty, yet drinkable water is not”.

Author: Rebecca Coffey

Title: Things You Didn't Know About...Water

Journal: Discover Magazine

Date: August 10, 2010

Page: 20

Water on the Moon?

Water is composed of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. It can also be formed when hydrogen combines with a hydroxyl molecule (OHˉ). The different spacecrafts (Cassini, Deep Impact, and Chandrayaan) saw the sign of water in the moon. Hydroxyl molecules and water love to eat the 2.8 micron light, so eventually they absorb it. Then as the astronauts take a spectrum of the moon they saw a big dip at that wavelength. The spacecraft showed that there is 1% water in the lunar surface by weight. This water may come from comets that hit the moon and deposit water, and over the past billions of years may have also dumped as ten trillion liters of water in the surface. The water amount detected changed over the month-lunar day. There was more in the morning and less at noon a week later. It clearly shows that the Sun is involved in this process. Scientists say that the solar wind is thick with hydrogen may slam into the lunar rock freezes oxygen, which then combines to form H₂O. This shows that the Sun affects the water levels. An amazingly finding is that the water levels appear to be only in the surface.

This article is an example of hypothesis based science, because they did many experiments on the moon. They send the three spacecrafts Cassini, Deep Impact, and Chandrayaan to see if there was water. Cassini and Deep Impact swung by the Moon and Chandrayaan orbited the Moon. This article is important because maybe the Moon may be hiding what scientists are finding the most, and the Moon is the nearest astronomical object in the sky, and there are many researches involved in the Moon.

author : Phil Plait

title of article: Water on the Moon...? Yup. It's real

journal: DISCOVERY MAGAZINE

pages of article: 1

One Beetle's Way of Getting Water from Fog

The long legged Namib beetle from the Namib desert faces towards the wind. Its outer wings are against it. There, drops of water form from the fog, collecting to form bigger drops that can counter the force of adhesion and roll to the beetles mouth. It usually drinks at dawn. The timing is crucial for the beetle's survival, because later during the day the sun evaporates the fog, and all that is left is the intense heat of the desert. Fog is made up of many water droplets that are so small that they are carried by the wind and air. It is very hard to collect this water. They need to be brought together so gravity can bring them down.

Andrew R. Parker, a zoologist at the University of Oxford, and Chris R. Lawrence, an investigator at a defense research firm, discovered that the beetles' wings have bumps that attract water and small valleys that repel it. The bumps collect drops of water until they can get big enough to fall into the small valleys, which repel water, so the drops roll down to the beetles mouth because of the angle of the beetle's body. Parker and Lawrence were able to develop a surface similar to the beetle's wings. They put glass spheres in a small layer of wax. They conducted experiments and found that if these spheres were arranged and ordered, more water was collected. Other materials similar to the glass and the wax could be used later.

This article is an example of hypothesis science. The scientists observed a beetle that collected water, and tried to find ways to imitate the beetle's surface through experimentation. They came up with that the best solution was an ordered array of glass spheres in a small layer of wax, and that other ways were not so efficient.

This is important for humans because Parker and Lawrence hope to someday use this to clear fog in airports and as a new way of obtaining drinking water, especially in very dry places where people have very little.

Author: Adam Summers
Title of Article: Like Water Off a Beetle's Back
Journal: Natural History
Date Published: February 2004
Pages: 1

Scour power: Big storms shift coastal erosion into overdrive

Resculpting of shorelines by storms has become a popular research topic. A fact that has greatly befuddled scientists is that Louisiana lose on average a land area equal to about two football fields each hour to subsidence and sea level rises. What this is saying is that every hour, 200 yards of land are either covered by water or eroded on the coast of Louisiana. After hurricane Ike passed through Louisiana, it flushed away 3-meter tall ridges of shells and loose gravel 40-50 meters seaward and scoured as much as two-thirds of the ridges’ height. Fresh deposits of sand and mud stretched up to 15 kilometers offshore. The piles included about 300,000 cubic meters of sand from each kilometer of coastline. Previous studies of the seafloor in this area have suggested that material at water depths greater than 5 meters typically stays put under normal conditions, much of that sand probably won’t be coming back to shore. Along the Atlantic Coast, the shore erodes inland, on average, between 60 centimeters and a meter each year; annual rates of erosion along the Gulf Coast are double that. In southern Louisiana, a long term sinking, or subsidence-a phenomenon resulting from reduced deliveries of river sediment and the ongoing withdrawal of oil and gas from underground reservoirs-makes barrier islands unusually susceptible to storms.

This article is important to humans because the more coastal erosion that occur across the United States means less land for human beings to be able to live on which in thus means that more people will be cramped into smaller places. These discoveries are discovery based because the scientists that wrote this article used data from over the years and many different hurricanes to produce their thesis.

Heat Waves

Waves are speeding up thanks to global warming. This could affect weather patterns around the world. The waves are constantly generated by surface winds and pushed westward by the Earth's eastward rotation. They advance by between four and ten inches a second in the tropics, more slowly toward the poles. But that's about 10 percent faster than oceanic planetary waves traveled at the start of the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago, according to John C. Fyfe and Oleg A. Saenko. Global climate models point to the temperature increase in the upper ocean- a consequence of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. By 2100, the investigators add, if carbon dioxide levels rise as predicted, the waves will travel 35 percent faster than they did in preindustrial times. Oceanic planetary waves affect ocean currents, which strongly influence continental weather and climate. As the waves speed up, Fyfe and Saenko forecast big changes that may include more frequent El Niño events and heat waves across western North America and Europe.

The article I selected is hypothesis based. They make an assumption that due to global warming, waves are speeding up and due to that there will be more frequent El Niño events and heat waves across western North America and Europe. This research is important to humans, because we can prevent global warming which would prevent these frequent heat waves.

Author: Harvey Leifert

Title of Article: Heat Waves

Journal: Natural History Magazine

Date Published: September 2007

Page: http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/samplings/141347/heat-waves

Thirst

According to a man named George H. Smith from the United States Navy, sea water could be drunk in crucial positions. Smith was stranded in the ocean questioned himself why birds could drink the seawater and he could not so he decided to investigate. He cut the bird open and followed the trace of the water and found that around the intestines of the bird there was a handful of fat. He used the fat and spread it around his mouth and drank a pint of seawater each day for five days until he was picked up which he was in fairly good condition. Scientist mention that the reason he was not affected by the seawater was because he was not dehydrated before he began to drink the water and that on the fifth day it rained and he was given all the fresh water he wanted. Dr. Alain Bombard proved that a man could survive for six days on drinking sea water but he must drink it in very small quantities (one tenth of a pint.

The article is an example of hypothesis based science. The reason it is hypothesis-based is because the French Navy soldier Dr. Alain Bombard did an experiment where he actually drank sea water for five days to come to a conclusion. This article or research is an importance for humans because for centuries there have been reports of men dying of drinking sea water and there is finally an article explaining a way to be able to drink sea water.

Author: William H. Allen
Title of Article: Thirst
Journal: Natural History Magazine
Date: December, 1956
Pages: 1

Churning water by the numbers

Scientists have discovered that the movement of jellyfish mixes the ocean water. The jellyfish (Mastigias) drag the water as they swim; combining the cold water and mixing it with warmer water higher above. These specific jellyfish drag water because of their thickness in body mass. Even though they are small creatures, jellyfish carry more water with them than large creatures do. Scientist John Dabiri calculated the power generated from this movement to be as much as a trillion watts. These small movements can influence the cycling of heat and carbon in oceans, which are important factors for the global climate. Oceanographer William Dewar of Florida State University in Tallahassee states that the analysis “doesn’t leave a lot of doubt- it’s very convincing.”

This article is an example of hypothesis-based science because the researchers performed an experiment to track the flow of water moving with the jellyfish to prove their findings. They also made calculations and did tests to confirm their research. This article also shows the importance of the global climate and the ecosystems which can have an effect on humans since water is a necessity for life.

By: Rachel Ehrenberg

"Churning water by the numbers: small swimmers may affect ocean mixing and climate"

Science News

August 29,2009

Page 14

Water Lust: Why All the Excitement When H20 is Found in Space?

The article is about the importance of water and its properties. The article addresses why water is so important to life and why finding water in any of its forms on other planets could signal that there is life there as well.

Water in various states has been found in the craters of mars, the moon, the poles of Mercury, the clouds of Venus, on Mars, inside asteroids and comets, and on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It has also been found on several of Jupiter's moons and inn the atmosphere of stars.

Water is so important because life on Earth requires it. Sushil Atreya from University of Michigan Ann Arbor's Planetary Science Laboratory says "liquid water acts as a solvent, as a medium and as a catalyst for certain types of proteins, and those are three main things that allow life to flourish."

Liquid water's property as a solvent, comes from its molecular structure. The oxygen atoms hold their electrons more strongly than the hydrogen atoms do, so they accumulate a negative electrical charge, while water's hydrogen atoms are positively charged. Also, more things dissolve in it than in other kinds of solvents. Water is "an ideal medium in which chemical reactions can occur and nutrients can be easily transported." Furthermore, water can remain a liquid in very high or very low temperatures.

One very important property is that ice floats. Frozen water is less dense than its liquid form, this allows water to be present under the ice instead of entire bodies of water being frozen solid. This makes life possible in places like Europa, (Jupiter's ice-covered moon. Scientists suspect it to have a liquid water ocean under the ice. Finally, water absorbs infrared radiation, so it can store heat and maintain temperatures.

This article is an example of discovery science because it gives enough information to propose that life can be found on other planets, but no experiments were conducted. This research is important for humans because it is one step closer to discovering life on other planets.

Online Article

by: Bruce Lieberman

October 4, 2009

Scientific American

How Big is Your Water Footprint?

Everyone has heard the term 'carbon footprint'. It emerged because of rising concern for greenhouse gas emissions. A newer term has emerged to address another environmental concern regarding water, humanity's most valuable resource. The current definition of a 'water footprint' is "an inventory of the total amount of water that goes into [the] manufacture [of a product]." In the case of a cup of coffee for example, this measure includes not only the twelve ounces of water that the consumer drinks, but also water that goes into watering the coffee plant and other production needs. There is currently a dispute among environmental scientists and researchers regarding which aspects should be taken account into calculating a particular product's water footprint. Is it enough to just give a value for the volume of water used, or should where the water came from also be included in these calculations?

In the February issue of Global Environmental Change (Australia), Brad Ridoutt published a study in which he thinks to have proven the importance water's initial location in the calculation of water footprints. He provides an example: take a jar of pasta sauce and a bag of M&M's. After considering the raw volume of growing the tomatoes, sugar, and other ingredients against the water used in manufacturing M&M's, the water footprint of the sauce is around 52 gallons while that of the M&M's is around 300. Ridoutt says that this is not the whole picture. Since tomatoes are usually grown in hot, dry climates they require heavy use of irrigation drawn from far away water sources. On the other hand, the cocoa and peanuts are grown in more temperate climates and don't require irrigation because they draw their water from the ground. Most agencies acknowledge the importance of Ridoutt's discovery, but think that it is too soon to consider more criteria when calculating water footprints. For now, they think that it is best just to calculate them based on volume.

This is an example of discovery science because Ridoutt started with a hypothesis regarding the calculation of water footprints and proved it with an experiment (sauce vs. M&M's). These findings are very important to humans because they deal with water, our most important resource. Everyone should calculate their water footprint in order to wisely use this resource.

By: Alison Kenward

How Big is Your Water Footprint?

Discover Magazine

Published online on March 29, 2010