Ali Burnheim

Participant in the Young STEM Journalism Bootcamp (2025)

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Articles by Ali Burnheim

Have you ever wondered if you could swing from building to building like Spiderman? Well, perhaps someday you will be able to do this! Around October 2024, scientists at the University of the United States found a way to create a Spiderman-based web-like fluid. The building blocks of this were the cocoons of the Bombyx mori silkworm, which is then boiled down which  into a special solution to break down and extract the main component – a fibrous protein called silk fibroin. The acetone caused the silk fibroin to form a semi-solid hydrogel over hours. But if this web-like material is going to be useful, it must form much quicker.
Climate change is the biggest threat for the Great Barrier Reef, and reefs worldwide. Other key threats include poor water quality, fishing impacts on protected and threatened species, marine debris and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, says the Australian Government. Another threat is ocean litter, which hurts and even kills marine wildlife. But there are ways we can prevent these problems, like recycling, and using renewable energy. Renewable energy includes wind power, solar power, bioenergy (organic matter burned as a fuel) and hydroelectric, including tidal energy.