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Carbon dioxide (CO2) is known as a greenhouse gas and plays an essential role in climate change; it is no wonder scientists have been looking for solutions to prevent its release in the environment. However, as a cheap, readily available and non-toxic carbon source, in the past few years there have been efforts to turn carbon dioxide into valuable wares, or ‘value-added’ products.

"Now I know mosses have a whole secret world,” says Jean, a University of Saskatchewan biology PhD student. “It’s like discovering a mini forest in the forest.” 

Not just pretty, mosses contribute up to 30 per cent of Canada’s boreal forest total growth every year, while maintaining the organic floor necessary for evergreens to grow. 

Scientists have devised a simple test for an earlier and more accurate warning of returning bladder cancer than existing methods, according to research(link is external) published in the British Journal of Cancer(link is external).

As the infamous floating “garbage patch” churns up bits of plastic in the tropical Pacific Ocean, a University of Washington undergraduate has discovered a related problem much closer to home: nearly invisible bits of plastic on Puget Sound beaches.

As a year-long project toward a UW bachelor’s degree, the oceanography major visited 12 beaches around Puget Sound to tally the number of microplastics, generally classified as fragments between 0.3 and 5 millimeters (1/100 to 1/5 of an inch) or smaller than a grain of rice.

Titus Divala has seen the effects of malaria first-hand.

Now a University of Maryland researcher, he was born and raised in Malawi, where the mosquito-borne infectious disease is the third most common cause of death.