Walking in Water

Almost anyone can tell the difference between a liquid and a solid. A liquid flows. A solid stays put. You pour a liquid and push a solid. The difference seems as clear as water and ice.

But some stuff doesn’t fit neatly into either group, like the goop you get by dissolving cornstarch in water.  The concoction looks like a liquid, and can be stirred gently with your hand or a spoon. But appearances are deceiving: Fill a swimming pool with the stuff, and you can run across the surface without getting wet. It’s a good party trick — or a launching point for a science fair experiment.

“If you were to punch, you might break your wrist,” Scott Waitukaitis, a physicist from the University of Chicago. He and other physicists often study the behavior of different states of matter to understand natural forces.

Iron versus climate change

 A team of scientists traveled by ship to an enormous whirlpool in the ocean near Antarctica. Their goal was to find out if a risky strategy for fighting climate change might work. The plan: Dump iron in the water to trigger the growth of organisms called algae. Then let the algae soak up carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to global warming. Finally, watch to see if the organisms drift to the seafloor.

This iron fertilization of algae appears to have been successful, an international team of researchers reports in the July 19 issue of Nature. Algae indeed removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then sank deep into the ocean. Some scientists still aren’t sure if iron fertilization is a good idea, but this study is one step toward showing that the tactic for fighting global warming holds promise.

Invalid ship in Antartica

In 2004, a team of scientists traveled by ship to an enormous whirlpool in the ocean near Antarctica. Their goal was to find out if a risky strategy for fighting climate change might work. Dump iron in the water to trigger the growth of organisms called algae. Then let the algae soak up carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to global warming. Finally, watch to see if the organisms drift to the seafloor.

An Unsolved Ocean Mystery

Ever since Amelia Earhart vanished while flying over the South Pacific in 1937, scientists and historians have searched for the remains of her plane. On July 3, a group of researchers set out to look for the plane using the latest technology. On Monday, the team announced that they collected a great deal of evidence but did not find the plane.

 TIGHA  still believes that the plane crashed into a reef somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and is already planning a voyage next year. Patricia Thrasher, the president of TIGHA, explained that a complicated search like this one could take a long time. “It’s not like an Indiana Jones flick where you go through a door and there it is,” she said.