Earth’s ozone recovery

Fingerprint forensics

To view this email as a web page, go here.

1/16/23 Thank you for subscribing to The Cheat Sheet, from Science News Explores. If you like this newsletter, share it with a friend or colleague. Did someone forward this to you? Sign up for our weekly updates. Got questions, suggestions or comments? Email us at sns@sciencenews.org and put “The Cheat Sheet” in the subject line. We’d love to hear from you. In the News Last week, a United Nations–backed panel of experts announced that Earth’s ozone layer is on track to recover within the next 40 years. That’s good news, since the blanket of ozone in our atmosphere protects life on Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. In 1987, nearly 200 countries signed the Montreal Protocol to phase out humanmade ozone-destroying chemicals. And now, it appears those decades of work are paying off.  In Science News Explores and Science News, learn more about ozone, its place in the atmosphere and how air-monitoring stations around the globe are helping catch out Montreal Protocol violators . There are also stories on how chemicals not banned by the Montreal Protocol may indirectly form ozone-destroying gases — and how wildfires, which are worsening with climate change, deal their own damage to this layer of the atmosphere.  A New Magazine for Kids Learn more and subscribe to Science News Explores, a new magazine designed to satisfy young readers’ curiosity about how the world works.      SUBSCRIBE NOW   Catch up with the latest from Science News Explores Tiny bumps on polar bear paws help them get traction on snow: Super-small structures  on the Arctic animals’ paws might offer extra friction that keeps them from slipping on snow, a new study concludes.  Readability: 6.0 Resources: power words, alternate version at Science News Was that fingerprint left during a crime? A new test may answer that: In what could be a boon to forensics, chemists have come up with a way to analyze the age of fingerprints. Readability: 7.3 Resources: power words Fossil-fuel use is confusing some carbon-dating measurements: Carbon-14 dating of recent artifacts will soon give scientists confusing results. That’s another price society pays for its reliance on fossil fuels. Readability: 7.8 Resources: power words, graph, video Microplastic pollution aids viruses and prolongs their infectivity: The tiny plastic bits give these germs safe havens. And that protectiveness increases as the plastic ages and breaks into ever smaller pieces. Readability: 7.5 Resources: power words, classroom questions, word find puzzle, video Explainer: What is friction?: The force of friction always acts to slow things down. It depends on just two factors: the materials and how hard they are pressed together. Readability: 6.5  Resources: power words, video Why dandelions are so good at widely spreading their seeds: Individual seeds on a dandelion release most easily in response to winds from a specific direction. As the wind shifts, this scatters the seeds widely. Readability: 6.0 Resources: power words, alternate version at Science News Explainer: Radioactive dating helps solve mysteries: Knowing the decay rate of radioactive elements can help date ancient fossils and other artifacts. Readability: 7.6 Resources: power words, graph Explainer: Radiation and radioactive decay: Like clockwork, radioactive forms of some elements shed parts of themselves as they attempt to become nonradioactive. Readability: 7.5  Resources: power words, graph, video Scientists Say: Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence is technology smart enough to do tasks that would normally require human brainpower. Readability: 7.3 Resources: power words, audio recording Science News Learning A new educator guide from Science News Learning accompanies our Science News Explores story on Earth’s population hitting 8 billion people. In this lesson plan , students learn about how the human population has grown over time and how it is projected to grow in the future. In a quick activity, students think about how a growing human population might impact various industries. (Science News Learning, like Science News Explores, is part of Society for Science.)   Find out more about the resources available for using Science News Explores stories for learning. And if you like this newsletter, please share it with a friend or colleague. Did someone share this with you? Subscribe to this newsletter here. If you’ve got questions, suggestions or comments, email us at sns@sciencenews.org. Thank you for reading! Privacy policy  |  Update Profile  | Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe This email was sent by: Society for Science 1719 N Street NW Washington, DC, 20036, US