Curio Cabinet

This is the one time we want to soak up microplastics. As recent research has shown, microplastics are everywhere and in everything. They’re notoriously difficult to remove once they’ve taken hold somewhere, and their environmental and health effects are just now beginning to be understood. Fortunately, a group of researchers at Wuhan University in China might have come up with a way to remove microplastics from water using biodegradable materials. Microplastics are defined as any piece of plastic five millimeters or smaller, and there’s estimated to be around 15.5 million tons of them just sitting on the ocean floor. That’s not even counting the microplastics that wash up on shore to mingle with sand or the ones in bodies of water further inland. With plastic production only set to increase in coming years, battling microplastics seems like a hopeless task. But cleaning this mess might just require the right sponge.
 
Researchers in China have managed to develop a sponge made of cotton cellulose and squid bones—both relatively inexpensive materials—that can simply soak up microplastic particles from water. The sponge acts like a filter, and when the researchers tested it in different bodies of water, they found that it was 99.9 percent effective at removing microplastics while maintaining efficiency for several decontamination cycles. That’s another thing: the sponge can be reused many times in addition to being completely biodegradable. There are some limits, though. Firstly, the sponge is only effective at removing microplastics floating around in water; it can’t do much about removing what’s already mixed in with sediment. Secondly, using the sponge would require a means to safely contain whatever microplastics have been removed, which is a separate problem entirely. Still, it could help prevent further contamination of water if scaled up and deployed widely. Even when the cleaning task is this momentous, it seems you can’t go wrong with a humble sponge.

 
[Image description: The surface of water under an open sky.] Credit & copyright: Matt Hardy, Pexels

It’s the final day of 2024! As such, when the ball drops in Times Square tonight, a familiar song will play alongside the traditional Auld Lang Syne, as it has every New Year’s Eve since 2005: John Lennon’s Imagine. This iconic song asks listeners to imagine a world without politics, war, and religion. But imagine if John Lennon wasn’t entirely responsible for Imagine’s success! The fact is, inspiration for the song’s iconic lyrics came from Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, who wrote some of her own “imaginings” in her 1964 book, Grapefruit. When speaking about his famously-poignant piano ballad in a 1980 BBC interview, Lennon admitted that the song “...should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song because a lot of the lyrics and the concept came from Yoko. But those days, I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution.” That did change officially in 2017, when The National Music Publishers Association credited Ono on the track alongside Lennon. Like the possibilities of a new year, it’s better late than never!

This is one dispute between neighbors that got way out of hand. On this day in 1845, the U.S. Congress approved the annexation of the Republic of Texas, leading to the Mexican-American War. The conflict lasted for two brutal years and claimed the lives of nearly 40,000 soldiers.
 
Contrary of popular belief, Texas was not actually part of Mexico at the time of its annexation. Rather, it was a breakaway state—a Republic of its own that had gained independence from Mexico during the fittingly-named Texas Revolution. When the U.S. decided to annex it, the Republic had existed for around 10 years. For most of its existence, the U.S. recognized the Republic of Texas as an independent nation, while Mexico did not. Mexico considered it a rebellious state, and was eager to quash the Republic’s independent economic dealings with other nations. At the same time, they threatened war if the U.S. ever tried to annex the Republic of Texas.
 
Mexico had plenty of reasons to worry since the Republic of Texas itself was in favor of being annexed. In 1836, the Republic voted to become part of the U.S., as they were eager to procure the protection of the U.S. military and gain a stronger economic standing. However, it wasn’t until 1845 that President John Tyler, with the help of President-elect James K. Polk, passed a joint resolution in both houses of Congress and officially made Texas part of the United States. This increase in U.S. territory followed a trend of westward expansion at the time.
 
Mexico wasn’t happy, but they didn’t make good on their threat to declare war over the annexation. Rather, they took issue with Texas’ new borders. Mexico believed that the border should only extend as far as the Nueces River, but Texas claimed that their border extended all the way to the Rio Grande River and included portions of modern-day New Mexico and Colorado. In November, 1845, The U.S. sent Congressman John Slidell to negotiate a purchase agreement with Mexico for the disputed areas of land. At the same time, The U.S. Army began to take up stations within the disputed territory, infuriating Mexican military leaders and leading to open skirmishes between Mexican and U.S. troops. President Polk had run on a platform of westward U.S. expansion, so he wasn’t about to cede any land to Mexico, and Mexico wouldn’t allow it to be purchased. So, Polk urged Congress to declare war on Mexico, which they did on May 13, 1846.
 
From the start, Mexico faced serious disadvantages. Their armaments were outdated compared to those of U.S. troops, as most Mexican soldiers used surplus British muskets while U.S. soldiers had access to rifles and revolvers. Most difficult for Mexico to overcome were its own, severe political divisions. Centralistas, who supported a centralized Mexican government, were bitter rivals with federalists, who wanted a decentralized government structure. These two groups often failed to work together within military ranks, and sometimes even turned their weapons on one another. Even Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexico’s most famous military leader, struggled to get his nation’s divided political factions to fight together.
 
These obstacles quickly proved insurmountable for the Mexican military. After a three-day battle, the U.S. handily captured the major city of Monterrey, Mexico, on September 24, 1846. Not long after, the U.S. advanced into central Mexico and the bloody Battle of Buena Vista ended ambiguously, with both sides claiming victory. However, Mexico never decisively won a single battle in the war, and on September 14, 1847, the U.S. Army captured Mexico City, ending the fighting.
 
It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing from that point on. The Mexican government had to reform enough to be able to negotiate the war’s ending. This took time, since most of the Mexican government had fled Mexico City in advance of its downfall. It wasn’t until February 2, 1848, that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, and the war officially ended. The treaty granted the U.S. all of the formerly-contested territory, which eventually became the states of New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, California, and, of course, Texas. In return, Mexico got $15 million—far less than the U.S. originally offered to purchase the territory for. It might not have been a great deal to begin with—but Mexico likely ended up wishing they'd taken it.

 
[Image description: An illustration of soldiers in blue uniforms on horseback, one holding a sword aloft. Other soldiers are on the ground in disarray as others march up a distant hill amid clouds of smoke.] Credit & copyright: Storming of Independence Hill at the Battle of Monterey Kelloggs & Thayer, c. 1850-1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Control number: 93507890. Public Domain.