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Fun Brain Games That Train the Mind at ImproveMemory.org

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Play free brain training games in your browser, no download required. Challenge your mind with Sudoku, math puzzles, geography quizzes, and more!

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Guess the hidden word in 6 tries.

Each guess must be a valid 5 letter word, you cannot enter random letters. Hit the enter button to submit the guess.

After your submission, the color of the tiles will change as in the examples below.
Examples
The letter G is in the word and in the correct spot.

The letter O is in the word but in the wrong spot.

The letter E is not in the word in any spot at all.

Wordle Rules. How to play Wordle.

In wordle you have to guess a 5 letter word, "the hidden word". There are versions of this game in which you have to guess 6 letter words or even 7 letters words, but the most popular is the 5 letter word game.

You have to guess the word in 6 tries.
So basically you begin by typing a word, it has to be a real word found on the dictionary. Once you type in your guess and click Enter your guess is going to be submitted. The background of the letters will change color

If the letter is in the word and in the right spot, it will turn green.

If the letter is in the word, but not on the right spot, it will turn yellow.

If the letter turns gray, the letter is not in the word at all.

The best strategy is to begin with a word that has many vowels. Some find it helpful to begin with the word IRATE or ARISE.

If you want to erase your guess you can click the backspace button. As said, it has to be a real word, one which you can find in a dictionary, otherwise you will get an alert.

If you find the correct word, a popup window will appear with your statistics. You can choose to share the results with your friends or have the option to play again.

Wordle FAQ. Frequently asked questions.

Can I play more than a game per day?
Yes. In our website you can. In the original version of this game you could play only one game in 24 hours, which is why this game has gone viral. The more you restrict something, the more people will want it.

Will Wordle remain free?
This is one of the most asked question on this topic. People are afraid that it will no longer be free, due to its popularity, but this is not the case with wordle. There are a lot of websites like ours, all for free. Even if some of them decide to charge users, the others won't.

Will Wordle become an app?
To date there is no official Wordle app, but you may find some copy-cats. You can decide to download any of the Wordle app in the Appstore or GooglePlay, but do you really need one more app on you phone?? Just use our website. Its easy to use and you don't need to install anything on your phone. Wordle without daily limit? Why is Wordle only one word per day? Maybe the original version of this game. In our website you can play as many games as you want, thus the name Wordle Unlimited.

Where can I find the archive of past games?
Actually there is a website that not only has the complete Wordle Archive (opens in new window), but you can play those previous games. Just select the number of the play.

Is there any Wordle Solver?
Yes. There is a website where you can easily find the answer to any wordle game. Use this website. Just type some words and click on the letters to change color like in the game. It will give suggest other words to use that has the best probability to guess the hidden word. At the end there is a list of possible solutions. The more words you enter, the less words remain as a possible solution till only one word remains. Usually you can find the answer in 3-4 tries, less than the 6 tries allowed in the game.

Why has Wordle gone viral?
In the original game there was only one word for all players during 24 hours. So everybody had to guess the same word and this is the reason why wordle has gone viral. Everybody wants to share how many guesses they got the answer and they shared the result on twitter and other social media. The twitt did not have the website address in itself, just the colors, but everybody who had been playing the same game understood the meaning. It became like a badge of honor.

I am a foreigner, can I play Wordle in my own language?
Yes many independent developers have make their own version of Wordle in their language. You can check some of them here.

Can I challenge my friends on wordle?
At this time there is no multiplayer version of Worlde, but you can challenge your friends in another way. Using this website (opens in other tab) you can create your own "hidden word", you will get a link to a specific game that has as the answer the word you choose. You can share this link with your friends.

Can I get wordle of dark mode?
The default is white background game, but you can change it. You can go to the settings icon and then activate the "dark mode". This is especially helpful during night hours.

Wordle is easy for me, how to make things more complicated?
Go to the settings icon and then activate the "Hard mode".

Does wordle has a feature for color blinded people?
Yes, we thought of that too. In the settings page you can activate "Color Blind Mode".

Download Wordle app.

Download wordle on Google Play.
There are many apps to choose.

"W Challenge" by "Short Cut Games"

Wordle by "Fat Cat Studios"

"Wordaily-Word Puzzle Game" by "FreePanda Word PuzzleGames"

"Word Challenge" by "MeeGame Studio"

"Worded - Daily & Unlimited" by "Wekele Technologies"

Wordus by "Ruby Game Studio"

"Word Guess Challenge" by "Cider Software LLC"

"Wordly - Daily Word Puzzle" by "Tech Tree Games"

"Slang! Lingo word game" by Brain

"Wordzy: Daily Word Game" by Cattus

"Catch the Word" by "Skill Cap"

"6 Tries 1 Word" by Hyperfun

"Wordix: Word Puzzle" by "Casual Azur Games"

There are many more copy-cats for Wordle on Play Store.
Download wordle on Appstore.
On the Appstore there are fewer apps for Wordle. Some of them are:

"Wordle! Daily Word Search Puzzles" by Steven Cravotta

"WordLetter! Wordl!" by "Cem Erdogan"

"PuzzWord: 5-letter Word Puzzle" by "Gavel-It LLC"

This website is not affiliated with the original Wordle game.
Privacy policy | Sitemap | Terms and conditions

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Play Wordle unlimited. You can play as many times as you want. Also a Wordle solver is available

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This online quiz is called Classifying Matter

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Legends of Learning: Pure Substances Game

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Legends of Learning: Pure Substances Game

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How much water is on Earth?

Earth has a lot of water. It's one of the things that makes our big, blue planet so special. Learn more about Earth's water in this video!

Download the 8.5x11 poster! Download the 11x17 poster!
This poster summarizes the video and makes a great wall decoration!

Click here to read a transcript of this video

How much water is on Earth?

Earth is special because it has so much water. It's in the ground, forms big oceans, and it's in our atmosphere.

It's also in living things. Your body is made up mostly of water.

Water covers 71 percent of Earth's surface. And almost all of it-96.5 percent-is salt water.

Salt water has different kinds of salt in it, but it mostly has sodium chloride, the same salt we add to our food.

Just 3.5 percent of the water on Earth is fresh water we can drink. And most of that fresh water, 68 percent, is trapped in ice and glaciers.

A third of the fresh water is in the ground. We call it groundwater. The last two percent of fresh water is in the rivers, lakes, and streams.

A very small amount is in our atmosphere, where it exists as water vapor. That's what clouds are made of.

If you took all the water on Earth and put it together it would be a ball 860 miles wide. That's a lot of water!

Related Resources for Educators

Our World: ICESat-2 - What Is Ice?
Our World: Why Are Oceans Salty?
Real World: Global Cloud Observation Day

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Learn more about Earth's water in this video!

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Visualize the gravitational force that two objects exert on each other. Adjust properties of the objects to see how changing the properties affects the gravitational attraction.

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Combustion makes fireworks explode, matches catch fire, and candles burn. In this interactive, learn how a fire ignites, how chemical reactions rearrange the molecules of burning material, and what a flame is made of.

This feature originally appeared on the site for the NOVA program Fireworks!.

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Combustion makes fireworks explode, matches catch fire, and candles burn. In this interactive, learn how a fire ignites, how chemical reactions rearrange the molecules of burning material, and what a flame is made of. This feature originally appeared on the site for the NOVA program Fireworks!.

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Choose whether you want to be Strep Throat or the Influenza Virus. Your job is to infect your host as quickly as possible. Because bacteria and viruses kno

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This fun (and very simple) game simply requires students to select a color. When the background of the page changes to the selected color, the student clic

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Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde | Euromaxx

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Adjust the width and pressure difference of a tornado and watch what happens

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Channel One News' Extreme Weather Simulator gives you a chance to see Mother Nature's destructive side. Send in the clashing air masses, whip up the winds and drop the precipitation that send our planet into chaos when blizzards, tornadoes and tropical cyclones strike. Take a tour of the world's worst weather disasters in history. Then explore the science behind these extreme storms.

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Channel One News' Extreme Weather Simulator gives you a chance to see Mother Nature's destructive side. Send in the clashing air masses, whip up the winds and drop the precipitation that send our planet into chaos when blizzards, tornadoes and tropical cyclones strike. Take a tour of the world's worst weather disasters in history.

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Make waves with a dripping faucet, audio speaker, or laser! Adjust frequency and amplitude, and observe the effects. Hear the sound produced by the speaker, and discover what determines the color of light.

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Take a look at the clouds, if there are any in your sky right now. If not, here are a few examples. Watch the billows, the white lofty tufts set against the blue sky. Or, depending on your weather, watch the soft grey edges smear together into blended tones that drag down through the air to the ground.

They're an inspiration to most of us, but a nightmare for climate scientists. Clouds are exceptionally complex creatures, and that complexity makes it difficult to predict how and where they'll form - which is unfortunate, since those predictions are essential to understanding precipitation patterns and how our climate will change in the future.

But University of Utah researchers may have found a way to greatly reduce the difficulty of predicting formation of clouds. The results, published today in Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres could fill a key gap in scientists' understanding of how climate change may play out.

"We used simple thermodynamics," says atmospheric sciences professor Tim Garrett, "to predict that there should be many small clouds and few large clouds in proportions that obey simple mathematical laws."
Clouds are climate wild cards
Clouds, particularly those in the tropics, are part of the Earth's system for getting rid of excess heat generated by the sun. That's why they matter to climate scientists. They're part of a vertical conveyor belt, lifting hot buoyant air up to an altitude where the heat can be easily radiated into the cold blackness of space. But clouds can play with heat in other ways.

"Think of how quickly a cloud can change the temperature during a summer picnic," says postdoctoral scholar and study co-author Ian Glenn. "A slight change in the fraction or distribution of even a few small clouds on an otherwise nice clear day can make or break an outing."

Clouds constantly grow and shrink as they exchange air with surrounding dry air. So far, it's unclear how clouds factor into the effects of global climate change - will clouds slow down warming? Or enhance it? Will warming create more clouds? If so, what regions will be most affected?

That uncertainty can be seen in the range of values of climate sensitivity, or the temperature response to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Current projections say the increase could be between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius. It's difficult to pin it down much more than that because of the problem of understanding the role of clouds and precipitation in a changing climate.

"Both the low range and high range are bad news for civilization," Garrett says, "but one is clearly far more catastrophic - so it's a pretty important problem to get right."
Clouds are deeply complex
Researchers previously approached the problem of clouds by trying to understand the layers of complexity inherent in how clouds interact with the surface, the air and even themselves. Study co-author Steven Krueger says that the physical processes in clouds range from cloud droplets, at the micrometer scale, to large-scale cloud systems that can stretch over a continent. And the inherent turbulence of clouds creates eddies - spirals of turbulent energy - that stretch the predictive power of even the best models of clouds run on supercomputers.

"To model all scales of the global atmosphere, from the smallest turbulent eddies to the global scale would take about a billion billion times what can we currently use in our computers," Krueger says. "We can fully calculate all of the cloud physics in a volume about 1 meter on a side, for about 10 minutes, at a computational cost of 10,000 CPU hours."

To get around that complexity, climate modelers simulate large scales while making simplifying assumptions about small-scale processes. But what if there's another way - what if clouds follow simple mathematical principles that can recreate the statistics of clouds' complexity without needing massive computing resources?
Clouds are leaky conduits
Let's go back to the concept of clouds as conduits of heat into the upper atmosphere. A tall, sharp, white cloud is composed of droplets of water, in contrast to the clear, blue, relatively drier air around it. The white, wet clouds and the blue, dry air are in constant contact with each other, sharing a common boundary. It's this boundary that got Garrett thinking.

As water droplets form inside clouds, a little bit of heat is released, making the clouds buoyant in the atmosphere. Garrett says that this makes clouds efficient at their job of lifting heat away from the ground - and also means that the hot, rising air is turbulent and can spill out of the sides of the cloud as it rises.

"This realization about clouds as leaky conduits made me think that the place to look for understanding clouds and climate was not their areas looking down, as has commonly been the focus, but instead their edges," Garrett says.

He began studying the thermodynamics along the perimeters and edges of clouds, and found that the total horizontal perimeter of clouds, turbulent exchanges of heat and humidity across cloud edges and the vertical temperature and humidity profile of the atmosphere could all be related. One notable upside: atmospheric vertical temperature and humidity profiles are relatively simple to predict in changing climates so the link to cloud amount simplifies a notoriously difficult problem.

Some other principles of cloud dynamics that arose from the authors' equations: Competition among clouds for atmospheric heat and moisture helps explain how many clouds form. The product of the number of clouds and their perimeter remains constant, a mathematical law known as scale invariance. This means that a large number of clouds are poor in perimeter while a lucky few are rich. Also, these relationships between different size classes of clouds turn out to be independent of the atmospheric temperature. More on that in a minute.

Garrett and his colleagues tested their theoretical findings by comparing their statistical model to one of the mega-models of cloud formation, the Giga-LES model. It simulates a full 24 hours of atmospheric time over a 150-square-mile (400-square-kilometer) area at high resolution. One 24-hour simulation takes 300,000 processor hours to complete. Garrett's model, based on just a few lines of physics equations, reproduced key statistics of the sizes and shapes of clouds in the dynamic Giga-LES model to within 13 percent.

There are things a statistical model can't do, of course. "It cannot show, for example, a cloud looking like Mickey Mouse showing up at a particular time or place," Garrett says, "so it is best suited for predictions about long-term climate rather than short-term weather."
Clouds follow the rules
So, what does this mean for climate change modelers who want to know how clouds will react to warming global temperatures?

"This is quite speculative," Garrett says, "but the suggestion of our study is that cloud-climate feedbacks may be small, because tropical clouds will rearrange themselves in a warmer climate so as to continue their currently low impact on surface temperatures." In other words, while the total amount of cloud cover may go up, the proportions of cloud sizes at different altitudes likely won't change much. If this model is proven out, climate scientists may be able to breathe a little easier knowing that clouds likely won't be amplifying global warming.

"If these cloud feedbacks are smaller than previously expected," Garrett says, "the Earth may not warm as fast as our worst fears."

Read the full study here.

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An easier way to simulate cloud cover | UNews

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Take a look at the clouds, if there are any in your sky right now. If not, here are a few examples. Watch the billows, the white lofty tufts set against the blue sky. Or, depending on your weather, watch the soft grey edges smear together into blended tones that drag down through the air...

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Topics

Description

Adjust mountain snowfall and temperature to see the glacier grow and shrink. Use scientific tools to measure thickness, velocity and glacial budget.

Sample Learning Goals

Explain how environmental conditions (temperature and precipitation) impact glacial mass budget; identify where snow accumulates in a glacier and justify why.

Explain how ice moves within a glacier; describe and illustrate flow within a glacier.

Explain or illustrate (demonstrate) how glaciers (i) stay at equilibrium, (ii) grow/advance, (iii) shrink/retreat, and (iv) form; compare climatic conditions leading to each.

Determine and illustrate how multiple advance-retreat cycles affect the record of glacial end moraines.

Teacher-Submitted Activities

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Adjust mountain snowfall and temperature to see the glacier grow and shrink. Use scientific tools to measure thickness, velocity and glacial budget. Explain how environmental conditions (temperature and precipitation) impact glacial mass budget; identify where snow accumulates in a glacier and justify why. Explain how ice moves within a glacier; describe and illustrate flow within a glacier.

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Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration.

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How changes in temperature create ocean currents ( Ocean Stratification Demonstration)

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Heat Transfer - Cash Course Engineering!

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Heat Transfer - Cash Course Engineering!

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Heat Transfer: Crash Course Engineering #14

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Thermal conduction, convection, and radiation (video) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Football to the Face in Slow motion - The Slow Mo Guys

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While working with a group of fifth-graders the other day we had a wonderful discussion regarding neuroplasticity and how one could actually change the shape and development of his or her brain. These students already had the basic understanding of how neurons process and store information and how they form neural networks when learning something new. They understood that neurotransmitters were passed from one neuron to another and recognized the importance of the synapse. As their brains connected new information to their prior knowledge, more and more synapses are formed within the human brain. What they didn't realize was how positive and negative thoughts affect this growth and development of these miraculous neurons and their synaptic junctions.
What is going on in the brain when one produces positive or negative thoughts?
Every thought releases some type of chemical. When positive thoughts are generated, when you're feeling happy, or optimistic, cortisol decreases and the brain produces serotonin, creating a feeling of well-being. When serotonin levels are normal, one feels happy, calmer, less anxious, more focused and more emotionally stable (Scaccia, 2017). Dopamine is also a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward system and pleasure center.
Positive Feelings:
Daniel Goleman author of "Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence" states that the brain has heightened prefrontal activity and positivity resulting in enhanced mental functions such as creative thinking, cognitive flexibility, and even faster processing. Positive emotions actually widen our span of attention and it also changes our perception and focus on more of the "we" instead of the "me" (Goleman, 2013. pg. 170). And I asked the students, "Isn't this exactly what we want when working collaboratively with fellow classmates?"

Taking a look at the prefrontal cortex, when happy thoughts occur, there is brain growth through the reinforcement and generation of new synapses. The prefrontal cortex is where all mind/brain functions conjugate and then are disbursed to various parts of the brain or transmitted to other parts of the body. The prefrontal cortex is the switching station that regulates the signals from the neurons as well as allows you to reflect and think about what you are doing at the time. It allows you to control your emotions through your deep limbic brain. Since it allows you to focus, it also gives you time for metacognition (being aware of one's own thought processes).
Negative Feelings:
As our discussion continued with the students, we talked about what happens when they're anxious, under stress or angry. The brain actually draws precious metabolic energy away from the prefrontal cortex. With these negative thoughts, the brain can't perform at high or even normal capacity. When stressed or scared, it's difficult to take in and process new material, yet alone think creatively. "Stress can alter plasticity in the nervous system, particularly in the limbic system" (Sapolsky, 2003).

Single photon emission computed tomography ( SPECT) brain imaging studies have shown that negative thoughts also reduce activity in the cerebellum, which controls coordination, balance, working relationships with others as well as speed of thought ( Marien, 2015).

Goleman believes that social pain is hardwired into the brain in a way that physical pain is not, hence we can re-live it over and over in our minds (Goleman, 2013). He explains the emotional tone of a boss delivering criticism to the employee will have a greater effect on the individual than the actual statements themselves. Likewise, the emotional tone of the teacher delivering feedback to a student will have more of an impact than the actual feedback itself. I reminded the students that equally important is their emotional tone when working with their fellow classmates.

The frontal lobe, particularly the prefrontal cortex, decides the amount of attention to pay to something based on its importance and how you feel about it. The more you focus on negativity, the more synapses and neurons you brain will create - supporting your negative thought process. Negative thoughts slow down the brain's ability to function and it actually impedes cognition.

Glass Half-full or Half-empty?
Behavioral scientists have also observed some interesting differences between optimists and pessimists. Besides the fact that optimists are more preserving and successful in life, they also tend to have better physical health. Being optimistic "involves highly desirable cognitive, emotional, and motivational components" ( Reynolds, 2011).
Negative Thoughts

Slow down brain coordination

Make it difficult to process thoughts ... or find solutions

Hinders creative ability

Decreases activity in the cerebellum

Impacts the left temporal lobe (fear factor), affecting mood, memory and impulse control

Positive Thoughts

Synapses (areas connecting neurons) increase dynamically

Increases mental productivity by improving cognition

Intensifies ability to pay attention, to focus

Improves ability to think and analyze incoming data

Improves ability to solve problems quicker and enhance creativity

Conclusion:
The class concluded with a summary on what the students had learned about the power of positive thinking. Since the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that helps them control their emotions and behaviors, they understood how it also helps them stay focused. By thinking positive thoughts, the students came to realize they have the ability to enhance their higher-order thinking skills as well as analyze and control their cognitive processes, especially when actively engaged in learning. After a few moments of letting the students process what they just learned, Tony summed it all up by saying, "So, to get better at learning - to improve our thinking - we need to keep our brains happy."

For comments and/or questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at
DrLou@meteoreducation.com

Lou Whitaker, Ed. D.
Neuro-Education Consultant

About the Author:
Dr. Lou E. Whitaker has a Bachelor of Science in Education from Northern Illinois University, a Masters in Administration from National-Louis University and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. Having over 35 years of experience in education, she has been a teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, and served as the Associate Superintendent for Schools for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. She is currently an Educational Consultant for Open Minds Enterprises, EdCenter, Global Center for College & Career Readiness, as well as a consultant for MeTEOR Education.

Chosen as one of Dr. Pat Wolfe's Brainy Bunch Members, she has been involved with Dr. Wolfe's continuous study of the human brain. The Brainy Bunch is a group of educators and health professionals who are passionate about brain development and its impact on learning. On a yearly basis, the group invites two outstanding neuroscientists to meet with them and discuss their latest research developments. Then this renowned group of educators, led by Dr. Wolfe, translate neurological research into classroom practice. Dr. Whitaker understands the importance of keeping abreast of what is going on in neuroscience as well as understanding the importance of data-driven best practice research. These are essential for making a positive impact on our students' lives.

Bibliography
Goleman, D. (2013). Focus: The hidden driver of excellence. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

Marien, P. a. (2015). The linguistic cerebellum. New York, New York: Academic Press.

Reynolds, S. (2011, August 2). Happy brain, happy life. Retrieved September 15, 2017, from Psychology Today: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/attention

Sapolsky, R. (2003, November). Stress and plasticity in the limbic system. Neurochemical Research, 28(11), 1735-1742.

Scaccia, A. (2017, May 18). Serotonin: What you need to know. Retrieved September 15, 2017, from healthline: https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/serotonin#overview1

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How does Thinking Positive Thoughts Affect Neuroplasticity?

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While working with a group of fifth-graders the other day we had a wonderful discussion regarding neuroplasticity and how one could actually change the shape and development of his or her brain. These students already had the basic understanding of how neurons process and store information and how they form neural networks when learning something new.

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This article discusses a new innovation in helping cleaning up our oceans. For 10 points on any CFA or to replace a bad/missing grade, research other innovations/inventions being made to help our environment.

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With more plastic than fish expected in our oceans by 2050, cleaning up this mess seems like an impossible task. But a team of inventors from Sussex, England have developed a novel solution. The SeaVax is a solar- and wind-powered ship that can suck up plastic waste.

The inventors at Bluebird Marine Systems LTD unveiled their proof of concept at the government-funded Innovate UK show in London in November. The inventors are entering prototype phase, the Express reported.

The ship purportedly works by funneling plastic waste as it moves forward. According to this mockup posted to the Innovate UK website, once built, the vessel will be around 144 feet long and fully autonomous. Deck-mounted solar panels and two wind turbines will feed power to electric pumps and filters that can suck up plastic solids and micro plastics. An onboard shredder rips and breaks up larger pieces of debris.

The builders calculated on their website that the finished robovac will be able to generate enough energy to treat an average of 89.9 million liters of seawater in a year, translating to 22,400,000 kilograms of plastic from a body of water that has high concentrations of surface solid plastic, such as river estuaries.

"Working in a fleet, these autonomous robotic boats could keep plastic buildup contained and significantly reduce the existing ocean gyres in around 5-10 years, cost effectively," the inventors said.

The captured plastic is temporarily stored in a cargo hold that can carry around 150 tons of weight until it can be off-loaded or recycled, the inventors said.

"With our system all sizes of rubbish, from huge fishing nets to deadly micro particles, can be swept or sucked up, ground down and stored in SeaVax's tanks," project director Chris Close explained to the Express.

The project has reportedly cost £138,000 (roughly $198,000) and a year to develop.

There are various ocean cleanup projects already underway, but Dr. Marcus Eriksen, research director at 5 Gyres Institute, explained to EcoWatch that many of the open ocean techno-fixes have died down in the last five years.

It's "mostly because the science of plastic pollution tells us plastics fragment quickly, are mostly small particles widely distributed across the globe and are highly toxic after time at sea-more akin to a smog of plastic rather than a consolidated patch," he said. "Recovery is much more challenging than we thought, and the ocean is rapidly beaching it and sinking the smallest particles."

Dr. Eriksen also pointed out that by-catch and the unintended killing of passively floating organisms that can't swim away is a big issue around any cleanup contraption.

Another issue, he said, is the "PR challenge of not letting post-consumer cleanup distract the attention of the public and policymakers from circular economy thinking, like upstream design innovations and policy intervention that prevent the problem in the first place."

For what it's worth, Bluebird Marine Systems said their finished SeaVax will feature automatic shutdown in case marine life is detected, as well as an SOS beacon to alert rescue workers of any marine life-threatening situations.

The company also said on their website, "We agree with most others, that we must begin to look closer to home, to try to prevent our rivers from feeding the oceans in the first place-and we should use less plastic for packaging."

Open-ocean clean up devices are better for capturing persistent plastic products like fishing gear that's designed to last years or decades, Dr. Eriksen noted.

"Catching that before it fragments into microplastic is worthy," he said. "The biggest advantage to these clean-up contraptions is deployment upstream. That's where the waste really is the worst. You'll get your biggest bang for your buck, and you will save our seas from the greatest source of contamination. The further upstream you go, the more success you will have."

According to the Express, Bluebird Marine Systems has already received interest from people in India trying to develop a clean-up solution for the polluted Ganges river. There was also interest from Nigeria and Australia who might want to use the device for oil cleanup.

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Solar-Powered Vacuum Could Suck Up 24,000 Tons of Ocean Plastic Every Year

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With more plastic than fish expected in our oceans by 2050, cleaning up this mess seems like an impossible task. But a team of inventors from Sussex, England have developed a novel solution. The SeaVax is a solar- and wind-powered ship that can suck up plastic waste.The inventors at Bluebird Marine ...

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Why is biodiversity so important? - Kim Preshoff

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From Mt. St. Helens volcanic ashes, Mother Nature rebuilds

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Why certain naturally occurring wildfires are necessary - Jim Schulz

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His Epic Message Will Make You Want to Save the World | Short Film Showcase

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What Would Happen If Humans Suddenly Disappeared? | Unveiled

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BP Oil Spill 5 Years Later: Wildlife Still Suffering | msnbc

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Human Activities that Affect the Ecosystem

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Humans interact with the world around us every day, but some of our actions are more harmful than others. As our population approaches 7 billion people, the effects of human activities on the ecosystem, including the water, air, land and the life that we share the world with, are almost immeasurable.

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How Hurricanes can harm and help the ecosyste

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How Hurricanes can harm and help the ecosyste

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Hurricanes Harvey and Irma set records with their power, and the devastation they left in their wake. Irma has destroyed more than 90 percent of the structures on some Caribbean islands. All told, Harvey dumped 27 trillion gallons of water over Texas and Louisiana, swelling floodwaters that have been very slow to drain. Harvey has left its stamp on the landscape, too; the storm appears to have actually pushed a piece of the planet's crust down by more than half an inch.

There are a lot of ways that major storms can impact the ecosystem. When a hurricane hits, animals can be swept away or stranded, trees splintered, and coastal lands swallowed up. "Hurricanes are like people-they're really different, each one of them, in terms of how they express themselves," says Tom Doyle, deputy director of the United States Geological Survey Wetland and Aquatic Research Center in Lafayette, Louisiana. This violent self-expression can be dictated by many features, from a storm's path and intensity to the geology of the lands it passes over.

Hurricanes alter every ecosystem they pass through on both land and sea. And now that Irma and Harvey have spent their fury, scientists are returning to these areas to take stock of the damage. "With extreme events like this, we need to understand what's happened, we need to learn from it, and hopefully that will help us when we face future scenarios to be more resilient," says Bryan Brooks, director of the Environmental Health Science program at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

The coast

When a hurricane hits, seawater surges into wetlands, bays, and estuaries. Some freshwater fish and other creatures can't survive the onslaught of salt. Others, adapted to high salinity, suffer as the result of freshwater flooding. Vegetation can take a hit, too. As Hurricane Irma raged through Florida, it ripped up seagrass beds in Florida Bay.

Hurricanes can pull water from the coastline; several manatees were left stranded after Irma water drained from Sarasota Bay. Another crew of manatees had to be rescued from a small backyard pond. High above the flooding, birds can be blown hundreds of miles from their homes in a storm.

Hurricanes can also upset wetlands, which help absorb floods, filter water, and shelter a tremendous variety of plants and animals. "They support much of the fish and wildlife that we see around the Gulf Coast," says Bren Haase, chief of planning and research at the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority in Baton Rouge. "The shorelines and wetlands also serve as our first line of defense against those storm surges, so as they absorb the brunt of the storm surge and unfortunately are lost, they're not there for future events." During Hurricane Sandy, wetlands prevented an estimated $625 million in flood damage to the East Coast.

Hurricanes can dramatically alter the seaside landscape as well; in 2005, more than 200 square miles of Louisiana's coastline were obliterated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "You can see, certainly, some dramatic and catastrophic changes in areas of our coast," Haase says. "But it's really the cumulative effect of numbers of storms over numbers of years that ultimately degrades the ecosystem." Storms are predicted to become more fearsome thanks to climate change, which will only exacerbate the problem.

Haase and his colleagues are working to restore Louisiana's coastal ecosystem and make it resilient enough to withstand storms and manmade disasters like oil spills. They are repairing barrier islands and shorelines and dredging up sediments and pumping them along the coast to rebuild marshes battered by hurricanes.

"No matter what we do here in Louisiana, we know our coast is going to change, our coast in the future is not going to be the same as our coast in the past," Haase says.

On the other hand, hurricanes can also bring nutrient-rich sands to wetlands, and clear open sandy areas of the type favored by the endangered piping plover and other beach-nesting birds. Hurricane Sandy plowed a channel across New York's Fire Island that has actually flushed polluted water out of Great South Bay, improving water quality and enticing fish, seals, and other marine life to take up residence.

Powerful storms can flood sea turtle nests, too. It's likely that Irma wiped out many eggs on the nesting beaches of Florida, says Vincent Saba, a research fishery biologist at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center. He and his colleagues will soon investigate how much damage the storm wrought. The good news is that sea turtles will make several nests throughout the season, so even if a storm wipes one out, others will have a chance to finish incubating.

The rivers and streams

As a hurricane pushes over land, it will continue to pour water into streams, rivers, and lakes. When these waterways swell and overflow their banks, they can engulf roads, destroy homes and bridges, and send animals scrambling for higher ground.

During Harvey, bats that lived on the underside of a bridge over Buffalo Bayou had to be evacuated by volunteers before they drowned in the rising waters. Alligators migrated inland to escape the rush of cold rainwater. Gator experts advised residents to keep their distance, but not worry too much-the reptiles were more concerned with getting to safety than picking a fight with people. "They got flooded out of their pond, they got flooded out of their river," Chris Stephens, head of alligator relocation company Gator Squad, told The Washington Post. "They had to evacuate, too."

For fire ants, it was another story-the rafts of ants that floated about in Harvey's floodwaters were armed and eager to stream onto any person or boat that ventured near. Texans were also told to be on the lookout for snakes, raccoons, and other displaced wildlife. Exotic pets can escape during the chaos too, making it easier for invasive species to spread.

Meanwhile, the rivers themselves can be reshaped when storm water cuts into their banks, or when the floods fling rocks and sediments about and carry in trash and branches. As the leaves, wood and other organic matter that hurricanes churn up and leave behind rot, they will sap oxygen from the surrounding waters. As oxygen levels in rivers, lakes, and wetlands drop, fish begin to die. More than 180 million fish suffocated in Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992.

Floodwater also carries disease and toxins; Harvey and Irma have overwhelmed wastewater treatment plants, causing sewage to overflow into Texas and Florida cities and an aquatic preserve. Already, the fecal bacterium E. coli, which can sicken people if ingested, has been detected in floodwaters in Houston. Officials worry that the hurricane has also spread pathogens like cholera and typhoid, hazardous runoff from petrochemical refineries, and carcinogens from Superfund sites. Pollution released by hurricanes can also accumulate in fish and shellfish.

To find out how Harvey has altered Texan waterways, researchers will examine if the elevated floodwaters have carved changes into the streambeds and caused erosion along the banks. They'll take water samples from tributaries and bayous and test for contaminants, or introduce common fish, shellfish, or insects to see if they thrive or die. "You take those samples back to the laboratory and you basically introduce...your canary in the coalmine," Brooks says.

Ideally, researchers would be performing these studies every year all over the state so they would have a baseline to compare with the water post-disaster, Brooks says. But Texas is a big state, so there are gaps. Without these routine surveys, though, we cannot know what is normal for a given area.

It's unclear how long it will take the ecosystem to recover from Harvey. "I don't think anybody knows; with the type of event that's just occurred, we don't really have data," Brooks says. "The amount and the extent of the flooding in this scenario is so unique."

The trees

Trees taking a beating during hurricanes, and some are better equipped to handle it than others. Palm trees are full of flexible tissue that lets them bend in the wind. Most trees, once the wind picks up to 70 to 75 miles per hour, will begin to be stripped of leaves and small branches. When a storm reaches Category 3 status, it can crack trunks or tip them over. "It's getting twisted or mashed in such a way that it weakens and fractures," Doyle says. Still, there are several Gulf Coast trees that fare better than their fellows. Bald cypress trees are one; live oaks are so sturdy that the Navy once used them to build ships.

The violence a hurricane enacts on trees can depend on its path. Hurricane Sandy, despite its long voyage as a tropical storm, was able to knock down an astonishing number of trees in the mid-Atlantic, Doyle says. The odd, perpendicular direction Sandy approached from let it stack water into an impressive storm surge that liquefied the soil, making trees easier to tip over.

With mangroves, it can be hard to predict. The mangroves along the Gulf Coast are short and scrubby, and may have been spared Harvey's winds when they were submerged in floodwater, Doyle says. "I'd be a little surprised if the surge wasn't high enough that there wasn't any real direct wind thrashing of the tops of the mangroves," he says. The trees may be elastic enough to survive being battered by waves, but it's also possible that they were left underwater too long to survive. In Florida, the mangroves grow much taller, but are better anchored in the karst underlying their soil, which is harder than the silty ground Gulf Coast mangroves grow in. "The karst provides a platform on which the roots kind of bind," Doyle says. However, "The winds were still killing and knocking down mangroves, I expect to see post-storm some forests that are laid down."

Hurricanes can also contribute to the slow migration of marshes inwards from the coast. After a storm, the ground soaks up seawater carried in by the storm and becomes saltier. When coupled with a drought that has left the soil parched, the saltwater can settle in and make a hostile environment for trees. Over time, this can kill the trees in coastal forests. "Long after the storm is gone, those soils will still be at the higher [salinity] level," Doyle says. Slowly, the area will transition into a ghost forest, and then a marsh.

Damaged forests are bad news for birds-Hurricane Katrina knocked out fruit-bearing trees that migrating birds rely on to boost their energy before they head over the Gulf, Doyle says. "They actually were displaced into other forest habitat that had more pines and things that they don't eat...just to keep their energy levels up." When Hurricane Hugo struck South Carolina in 1989, it destroyed the old-growth forests that host the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

Hurricanes spell trouble for farmers, too. Hurricane Irma has taken out half of Florida's citrus crop this year after submerging the delicate roots of the fruit-laden trees for days. Sugar cane fields have been struck hard, too. In Georgia, about 30 percent of the pecan crop has been lost. In Cuba, miles of banana plantations have been damaged.

Hurricanes do come with a few silver linings for forests. By ripping away leaves and toppling trees, storms can open up patches of forest so that sunlight can stream in and new plants can grow.

"I'm not one of these alarmists, like, 'Oh a hurricane happened everything is going to hell in a hand basket,'" Doyle says. "Yeah, we got a bunch of trees down all browned, but it's not going to become a parking lot; it's going to come back."

The reefs

Even the seas aren't safe from hurricanes. Sharks and other fish can sense that trouble is coming and head for deeper waters. Coral reefs, however, can get clobbered. Major hurricanes break and topple corals, sponges, and sea fans, and can bury reefs in sand, smothering them, Emma Hickerson, research coordinator for Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, said in an email.

The sanctuary lies between 70 and 115 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. It is full of colorful reefs and is visited by sea turtles, whale sharks, and manta rays. It's also vulnerable when storms roll through.

Water from about 60 percent of the continental United States drains into the Gulf of Mexico, carrying runoff that has created a dead zone, or dangerously low-oxygen area, the size of New Jersey. During a storm, this connection becomes even more of a liability; in 2005, Hurricane Rita battered the reefs and brought an unwelcome gift. "Rita flushed out the Texas and Louisiana coastlines, bringing with it discolored, polluted water," Hickerson says. The water hung around for about two months. The corals appeared to have recovered well by 2008-"in time for Hurricane Ike to come barreling through and repeat the physical damage," Hickerson says.

Now, the sanctuary faces a new threat. Hickerson and her colleagues believe that Harvey did not pass close enough to severely damage most of the area's reefs. They are more concerned about the prodigious amount of rain that fell along the Texas coast, which may eventually make its way out to Flower Garden Banks. The team has spotted a plume of polluted freshwater in satellite imagery making its way towards the sanctuary. When it arrives, it might dilute the seawater the corals thrive on or poison them directly. The dirty water might also make the water turbid, blotting out the sunlight corals need to keep their symbiotic algae happy.

Flower Garden's research team is scuba diving to look for damage and collect samples of the habitat before the freshwater intrudes, Hickerson says. It's hard to tell when the plume will reach the sanctuary; this depends on the currents and wind. The best-case scenario would be for the currents to keep the fresh and polluted water north of the reefs.

Nothing can be done to stem the flow or clean it up. "I am optimistic that the reefs will recover from this storm, as long as the plume does not impact them," Hickerson says.

Occasionally, hurricanes do help reefs out by carrying in cooler water, she says. This puts a halt on coral bleaching, which happens when corals become stressed by warm temperatures and expel their algae tenants.

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All the ways hurricanes can harm-and help-the ecosystems they hit

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Hurricanes Harvey and Irma set records with their power, and the devastation they left in their wake. Irma has destroyed more than 90 percent of the structures on some Caribbean islands. All told, Harvey dumped 27 trillion gallons of water over Texas and Louisiana, swelling floodwaters that have been very slow to drain.

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Do some of your own research! Search the web for one example of how the ecosystem has changed due to changes caused by over population, human interactions, or natural disasters. Please write a paragraph about what you learned. This is worth 10pt on any CFA or assignment of your choosing.