Contaminating

Agriculture, forestry and urbanization are increasing the amount of sediment, chemicals and plastics flowing into the oceans, and contaminating the coastline.

The project envisions a future where human explorers can bring a compact habitat built out of a lightweight material with dormant fungi that will last on long journeys to places like Mars. Upon arrival, by unfolding that basic structure and simply adding water, the fungi will be able to grow around that framework into a fully functional human habitat – all while being safely contained within the habitat to avoid contaminating the Martian environment.

The dead zone’s expansion is believed to be driven by pollutant runoff from farms and cities contaminating the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico and stimulates oxygen-consuming algae growth.

For example, according to Stein, efforts are being made to prevent a recurrence of what happened during super storm Sandy: salty ocean water driven by the storm surge breached the freshwater marsh systems on the Atlantic coast, contaminating critical shore bird habitats.