Acid rain damages many rice crops which occur very frequently in Asia. Rice crops that have been affected by acid rain can be fixed by rinsing them with clean water but it is often hard to tell when the crops have been damaged. Dr. Wang Xin of Nankai University in Tianjin, China has proposed a cheap way of finding out when exactly the crops have been damaged. The way that it works is crops naturally secrete molecules of carbohydrates, amino acids, and fatty acids that feed bacteria in the soil. Acid rain affects the secretion of these molecules, meaning more acidity equals less molecules and less molecules means less bacteria. If one were to watch the bacteria activity it would be pretty easy to figure out that acid rain has affected the rice crops.

This article does an amazing job at applying acid rain to real life situations. It addresses a problem and then proposes a solution that can be easily applied to real life. It describes how acid rain specifically affects these crops and what that does to bacteria. It proves that the solution can be quick and cheap.