We Traced the Forever Chemicals Getting Into Ocean Ecosystems – the Conversation

Biscayne Bay (by Shaun Wolfe, National Park Service, public domain).

PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that have been raising health concerns across the country, are not just a problem in drinking water. As these chemicals leach out of failing septic systems and landfills and wash off airport runways and farm fields, they can end up in streams that ultimately discharge into ocean ecosystems where fish, dolphins, manatees, sharks and other marine species live…

Why does nature create patterns? – the Conversation

Giants Causeway, Northern Ireland (by llee_wu CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

The reason patterns often appear in nature is simple: The same basic physical or chemical processes occur in many patterned substances and organisms as they form. Whether in plants and animals or rocks, foams and ice crystals, the intricate patterns that happen in nature come down to what’s happening at the level of atoms and molecules…