Assistant Professor Ryan Kelly and Professor Nives Dolšak were both recently featured in articles discussing water and the valuable, as well as harmful things it can contain.

An article published in The Mercury News took a look at eDNA as a new tool for marine biologists. As the article explains, Professor Kelly and other scientists took stock of the marine mammals and fish in Monterey Bay in a study designed to show how eDNA stacks up against traditional dive surveys. The scientists found that eDNA assessments picked up almost all the organisms scuba divers spied underwater– plus many more that human eyes missed. Professor Kelly is quoted as saying “It’s remarkable what you can get out of a glass of water. You can see the whole ecosystem in there.” This study was published in the journal Molecular Ecology.

Professor Dolšak’s article “It’s not just Flint: Here’s why we ignore water pollution” published in The Washington Post gives some insights on why we neglect water pollution. Among the reasons are less visibility of water pollution and governments ignoring linkages between industry and safe water. Policymakers are more likely to devote attention when they will be politically rewarded for devoting attention — or punished if they don’t. As long as water problems are invisible, and more likely to affect people who are themselves not visible or politically important to policymakers, problems like those in Flint, Michigan and Victoria, B.C. will continue.