Biodegradable balloons 🎈, reading score improvements 📖, and an endangered parrot 🦜

Good morning {{name!|reader}},

We’re more distracted than at any time in history. And it’s hard to put us at fault. We have constant access to a device that can answer pretty much any question we’ve ever thought of, let us talk to anyone we’ve ever met, and show us more content than we could consume in a million lifetimes. All just a reach away. So, it’s no wonder we always keep our phones on us to the point they feel like an appendage. There’s even a well-documented feeling called phantom vibration syndrome where people sense a vibration from a notification in their pocket, even when their phone hasn’t gone off. One study found that it was experienced by 90% of undergraduates.  

Even when the phone’s not doing anything, our brain instinctively expecting it to costs us our attention. A UC Irvine study found that after a distraction it takes us 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus. That time quickly adds up when distractions can come from something as simple as the presence of our phone nearby, let alone checking them. We also have trouble perceiving how distracting our phones can be. 800 test-takers were randomly assigned to put their phone face down on their desk, in a pocket or bag, or in another room. All participants reported giving their full attention, but those with phones on their desk performed significantly worse, regardless of whether the device was even on.

This isn’t a declaration to throw the phone away when you’re trying to get something done. But it is important to draw attention to the things that limit us. 70 decibels of volume in a coffee shop was found to improve creative performance while 85 decibels wrecked it. The presence of other people helped on simple, well-learned tasks but hurt on complex and novel ones. Then, the goal becomes removing the right distraction to curate an environment best in-tune with the task at hand.

On that note, this week we’re bringing you three stories where the solution involved taking something away. Biodegradable balloons were invented by skipping the traditional sulfur curing step. States are enacting solutions for reading development by removing the balanced structure previously implemented. And rangers are letting the kākāpō population recover by giving up hand-rearing protection.

With gratitude,

The 3GT Crew

Chemical engineers at Imperial College London announced their invention of the “Bioloon,” a balloon that inflates, stretches, and floats like any other, but is designed to break down after use. It’s made from the same base material as any other balloon but is the only one that can claim the feat of breaking down completely. Previous companies have tried to announce biodegradable balloons. Researchers bought and tested them. Some lost a bit of mass. Others lost their strength. But at the end of the day, they remained balloons.

So what’s different here? Since their invention in 1824, all balloons have started from the same natural latex material, which comes from the sap of rubber trees. Ordinary balloons undergo a process called vulcanization where the natural latex is cured with sulfur accelerators, antioxidants, and activators. The material turns into a tough, long-lasting rubber that can hold up in everyday use. However, it also prevents the balloon from biodegrading and can leach toxic chemicals into the environment. Bioloon skips vulcanization by blending natural latex with a biodegradable polymer, avoiding any harmful additives. Their testing showed balloons breaking down within nine months in soil, seawater, and deionized water.

Researchers looking to create environmentally friendly balloons never thought about giving up the essence of a balloon: its durability. The idea came from a party planner, Charlotte Melia, who had to deal with thousands of balloons a week and could never find a sustainable alternative despite 10 years of looking. Through partnership with a PhD student and hundreds of failed trials, a solution worthy of a party in its honor was developed.

While their research has shown biodegradation, it has yet to be third-party validated. Commercial availability is also about one to two years away. Still, the Bioloon might be the first viable solution for a giant problem. Once swallowed, balloons and their fragments have been found to be 32 times more likely to kill seabirds than a piece of hard plastic. On top of that, Imperial estimates 20 to 25 billion balloons are purchased every year. Lined up end to end, that’s enough for a trip to the moon and back, 7 times. But outside of just balloons, household and surgical gloves are vulcanized the same way, which is where the Bioloon team sees its next opportunity.

Last week, NWEA, a non-profit K-12 testing organization behind the MAP test, published a report showing that reading scores rose across kindergarten to 8^th grade between spring 2025 and 2026 after five years of staying flat. And for the first time since the pandemic, scores in the bottom 10% improved too after previous years had shown them falling. These results come shortly after the US government’s longest-running student test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) published its latest numbers. 7,400 nine-year-olds were tested in early 2025. While most students stayed roughly flat since 2020, students at the 10^th and 25^th percentile saw significant gains since 2022.

It’s important to remember that these nine-year-olds were only four when schools closed at the start of the pandemic. Most of them didn’t start school until after in-person teaching had resumed. They also seem to be better suited than their middle school counterparts for the education ahead of them: 37% of nine-year-olds read for fun almost every day versus just 14% of thirteen-year-olds.

Zooming out: while promising that the damage of the pandemic didn’t transfer to the next cohort of children, an OECD study of fifteen-year-olds found reading is down 31 points since 2015 (roughly a year and a half of schooling). In the US alone, reading scores among that age group is down 14 points since 2022. For adolescents, the gap between top and bottom students is widening. 8^th grade reading at the 10^th percentile has fallen 19 points since 2013 while the 90^th percentile hasn’t moved.

States have recognized the systemic issue and started implementing changes. More than 40 states and Washington, D.C. have enacted legislation or formal policies on the science of reading, to get rid of “balanced” literacy. This means more emphasis on foundational teachings, early screening, and teacher training. Per NWEA, last school year’s gains closed roughly a third of what was left of the pandemic gap. Further, NWEA’s data reveals that the decline in reading scores began more than a decade before the pandemic. The next national results will come out in early 2027. For now, the youngest students have finally turned a corner.

Thanks to 90 new chicks reaching the survival threshold this season, New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) recently reported that the kākāpō population reached a recovery-era high of 325 birds. The kākāpō is a critically endangered species of parrot that lives an interesting lifestyle compared to its fellow birds. The bright green, chunky bird is both nocturnal and flightless. The recovery program kicked off in 1995 when the population had dwindled down to just 51 birds. This year’s milestone is thought to be the first time their population has exceeded 300 in the last 75 years.

Kākāpō required a lot of extra help to get here. Hundreds of years ago, the bird was a fixture across several islands, nearly to the point of overabundance. But invasive predators like cats, rats, dogs, and stoats (weasel-like predators introduced by humans to control the rabbit population) decimated the flightless bird. Feared extinct in the 1970s and 80s, a handful of birds were found and shipped to small, safe islands. The program began with 24/7 care including rangers on all-night nest watch, crawling into burrows to put heating pads on chicks when the mother left to feed, and eggs transported to incubators while decoys were left behind. The birds are also equipped with a small backpack radio transmitter, tracking their location and activity levels.

This season, the program changed their approach. Rangers left eggs to hatch under their mothers with minimal intervention. Given the genomes of every living kākāpō have been sequenced, priority care went towards the eggs least represented in the gene pool. Infrared cameras in nests allowed remote monitoring to supersede widespread in-person surveillance. It culminated in 106 chicks hatched with just two of them requiring hand-rearing.

Living on predator-free islands certainly makes it easier for kākāpō. Those three islands were at carrying capacity before the new chicks. In 2023, the program released ten male kākāpō into a sanctuary mountain on mainland New Zealand, but six of them quickly escaped. While the adventurous birds may not be ready to fully reintegrate just yet, the DOC is taking steps to get them ready. They left a handful of chicks unnamed this year as they transition to a natural, unmanaged population. In the meantime, they’ll be preparing the birds for further autonomy in 2028, their next breeding season.