EVOLUTIONS Environmental Leaders 2018

Scientists have discovered a way to turn carbon dioxide (CO2) into useable energy! The harmful gas that exits our cars, bodies, and factories has the potential of powering the objects we use daily. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy has discovered a new and unconventional catalyst for the reaction that converts CO2 to carbon monoxide(CO). According to an article in science daily, carbon monoxide can be used to make a wide range of beneficial elements from hydrogen to alcohols.  The problem that scientists are having is that until recently the elements that can catalyze such a reaction efficiently are the rare and expensive noble metals such as gold and platinum. However, researchers have discovered that single atoms of nickel - which is more abundant and less expensive - can be used for the same purpose. Both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are dangerous to humans and the environment alike. But if researchers can find a way to harness the potential energy of these...

When people buy drones, usually they're for taking videos of whatever they want or just to play around with. Many YouTubers use drones due to the fact that videos or photos that are taken on the drone are absolutely stunning, especially when you look at it in HD. Researchers at the University of Adelaide took advantage of this fact and applied it for something much more important than taking videos for the aesthetic. They decided to compare looking at and counting wildlife in person and looking at wildlife using images taken by drones. A few thousand rubber ducks were spread onto a beach and were counted by experienced wildlife spotters vs counting by drone images. The wildlife spotters were physically at the beach spotting the ducks using binoculars or telescopes. The drone images were counted by citizen scientists. They found that counting by drone gave a closer duck count to the actual duck count than being physically at the beach counting that way. They also included another ...

From hurricane Harvey to Irma to Maria, the United States was bombarded with back-to-back hurricanes last summer. These catastrophic hurricanes have devastated millions of lives and destroyed thousands of homes. All this time, violent storms have only caused distraught to people. What if we can turn it to something good and harvest its energy?  I was reading an article about capturing energy from hurricanes. It said that a hurricane has about 600 terawatts worth of energy–that's probably enough to power the entire world! Various technologies are currently being innovated to maximize the amount of energy being harvested. In fact, they are testing a lot of theories to prove this. This just made me realize: we are so focused on protecting ourselves from the enemy that we forgot that we could use our enemy's strength in our favor!  If we could truly develop a technology that could harvest energy from hurricanes, then we could help save the environment! 600 terawatts ...

Back in 1985, scientist discovered that the Ozone layer was declining. The Ozone layer is about 10-50 kilometers above Earth's surface filled with gas that keeps people, plants, and animals safe from the sun's harmful ultraviolet waves. The ozone layer is scattered between the upper, middle, and lower stratosphere as well as the troposphere. Throughout the layers, the middle and upper layers have rebounded since 1985 when the problem was first spotted. As for the lower layer, it has continued to drop since 1985! Although the drop is not as fast as it was in 1985, it is still happening. There are multiple reasons why the ozone layer is still declining but none of their reasons can be scientifically proven. Other experts are impressed by the studies but are worried about what they found. In 1985, the rate of decline was five percent and now it has decreased to only 0.5 percent.  Why are experts still worried about the decline of our ozone layer? If we keep this up, there wil...