BTEOATTW

The Best Things Ever of All Time, This Week!

Medieval potions, the International Year of Soils and more cool things we learned this week.

EACH WEEKA\J staffers will be sharing our favourite facts & findings from whatever books, articles, documentaries, podcasts and other media we’ve been consuming. Here’s what we’ve learned this week.

EACH WEEKA\J staffers will be sharing our favourite facts & findings from whatever books, articles, documentaries, podcasts and other media we’ve been consuming. Here’s what we’ve learned this week.

Things from the Internet!

The Guardian has published a new interactive infographic that lets you track current fossil fuel use in real time and see how much has been extracted in your lifetime.
Source: The Guardian \ Found by nik

A new study finds that the Earth is actually getting greener: The increase in above-ground biomass carbon (ABC) in the wetter regions of Northern Australian and Southern African savannahs reversed global ABC loss, resulting in an overall gain. (This isn’t to say, however, that everywhere in the world is gaining tree cover.)
Source: Nature: Climate Change \ Found by Samantha

A new process for cleaning food uses no chemicals such as bleach or detergent. It uses electrically-charged water!
Source: Inventorspot.com Found by nik

Peak Sand?! The world is running out of legal sand, and organized crime around the world is now supplying the demand. Islands are being erased for their sand, as desert sand, while plenty, is simply no good for making cement.
Source: Wired.com \ Found by nik

Wisdom of the Ancients: 1000-year-old Medieval Anglo-Saxon potion is effective against drug-resistant superbug MRSA!
Source: NewScientist \ Found by nik

Things from Emails!

Lancaster Sound is home to 70,000 narwhals in the summer, and is one of the Arctic’s most biologically productive areas. And it is nearing its designation as a National Marine Conservation Area.
Source: WWF \ Found by Samantha

Global Soil Week!

Next week is Global Soil Week, so we’ve compiled a list of the best soil-related things of all time, this week!

Plants need more than just water and sunlight to grow. In fact, there are 15 essential nutrients for plant growth, including potassium, sulphur, magnesium, calcium, copper and even iron.
Source: A Healthy Planet Starts With Healthy Soil

Frozen soil (and wetlands) in the Arctic hold twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does.
Source: WWF \ Found by Samantha

To celebrate 2015 being the International Year of Soils, The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is creating a video each month to help educate the public on the importance of soil. April’s video discusses how soil purifies water:


Source: Water Technology \ Found by Rachel