Counting the World's Ants

On this week's news update…

Plastic Pollution

Tackling plastic pollution…

Counting Ants

Counting the world's ants…

Black Hole Sound

And the sound of a black hole!

First up...

Every year millions of tons of plastic enter the world's oceans. This causes serious damage to marine ecosystems.

Most plastic in the oceans is carried there by rivers. When plastic waste is dumped or washed into rivers, it flows downstream and ends up in the sea. To tackle this problem, engineers have designed a simple barrier system that can be set up in rivers to stop plastic flowing downstream.

TrashBoom

Called a “TrashBoom,” the barrier works by suspending a metal mesh from floating pipes. Plastic floating on the water's surface is caught by the boom, and can then be collected and recycled.

This simple technology could help turn the tide on ocean plastic pollution!

Next up…

Animal Watch

It's Animal Watch!

Ants live all over the world. The tiny insects are nature's mini engineers. As they search for food, and build nests, they churn up large amounts of soil, which helps it stay healthy. But why do ants have such a large impact on the world?

One reason is that there are so many of them!

Scientists have estimated that for every human on Earth, there are 2.5 million ants. This makes a total of 20 quadrillion ants. That's a lot of ants!

In fact, if every ant in the world was weighed, they would weigh more than every wild mammal and bird combined!

Arranging to weigh all the world's ants could be a tricky job though!

And finally…

Our universe is home to some out-of-this-world phenomena. One of the strangest phenomena are black holes.

black holes

We can't actually see black holes with our own eyes, but scientists have created animations to help us understand them. A black hole is formed when a large star starts to run out of fuel and collapses in on itself, or implodes.

The area where the star used to be is so dense and heavy that objects cannot escape its gravity. This means that anything nearby is sucked into it, including light itself!

Kimberly Arcand

Recently, a NASA scientist, Kimberly Arcand, has managed to recreate the sound of a black hole. The sound has been adjusted so that we can hear it properly, but it still sounds pretty spooky!

That's all for this week, we'll see you next time!