Oil-Loving Sponges a New Solution to Oil Spill Cleanup in the Ocean

The recent oil spill from a pipeline off the coast of California was not particularly large, historically speaking, but it highlights the ever-present risks of off-shore drilling. Thousands of oil spills happen every year in US waters and damage beaches, mangroves, wetlands, and, of course, the ocean itself. And cleaning up that oil is tricky—it’s not always clumped together on the surface so you can trap it and skim it up; something more like a fine-tooth comb OR the oil-soaking sponge that Seth Darling is developing is necessary to purify the oceans. Darling is a molecular engineer at Argonne National Laboratory. (Segment produced by Olivia Young) (Mark Lopez/Argonne National Laboratory via AP)