Environment
press releases.

Environment1 May 2024

FathomVerse mobile game inspires a new wave of ocean exploration

A new mobile game launching today allows anyone with a smartphone or tablet to take part in ocean exploration and discovery. Welcome to FathomVerse. Now available for download on the App Store and Google Play, FathomVerse allows players to interact with real underwater images to improve the artificial intelligence that helps researchers study ocean life. The game combines immersive imagery, compelling gameplay, and cutting-edge science to inspire a new wave of ocean explorers. Scientists are collecting massive amounts of images and video to study marine life and assess ocean ...

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Environment1 May 2024

New Japanese lily species identified, 1st addition to sukashiyuri group in 110 years

A new species of the Japanese lily known as sukashiyuri has been identified for the first time since 1914 by a research team led by Dr. Seita Watanabe, a specially appointed assistant professor at the Botanical Gardens and the Graduate School of Science at Osaka Metropolitan University. Dr. Watanabe questioned the classification used up to now for sukashiyuri group, which usually has orange flowers. These lilies have high ornamental value, having been exported from Japan for more than two centuries. There have been only four taxonomic groups, but Dr. Watanabe and his team sought evidence to prove that there were ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

Astronomers share climate-friendly meeting solutions

Carbon emissions associated with air travel to professional conferences make up a sizable fraction of the emissions produced by researchers in academia. Andrea Gokus, a McDonnell Center postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is advocating for a reduction of these emissions. In a paper published in PNAS Nexus, Gokus and collaborators estimated the CO2-equivalent emissions for conference travel to all 362 open meetings in the field of astronomy in 2019. The total is an estimated ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

Ecological Society of America announces 2024 Fellows

The Ecological Society of America is pleased to announce its 2024 Fellows. The Society’s fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research, communication, education, management and policy. This year, the ESA Governing Board has confirmed nine new Fellows and ten new Early Career Fellows. Fellows are members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA, including, but not restricted to, those that advance or apply ecological knowledge in academics, ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

Scientists show ancient village adapted to drought, rising seas

Around 6,200 BCE, the climate changed. Global temperatures dropped, sea levels rose and the southern Levant, including modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, southern Syria and the Sinai desert, entered a period of drought. Previously, archaeologists believed that this abrupt shift in global climate, called the 8.2ka event, may have led to the widespread abandonment of coastal settlements in the southern Levant. In a recent study published with the journal Antiquity, researchers at UC San Diego, the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University share new evidence suggesting at least one village formerly thought abandoned not only remained occupied, but ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

Low-intensity grazing is locally better for biodiversity but challenging for land users, a new study shows

The grazing of both domestic and wild animals is shaping landscapes across Europe. It can also contribute to multiple ecosystem services, such as providing habitat for biodiversity. Grazing systems with lower densities of animals and with minimal and only targeted applications of deworming and other medicinal treatments offer benefits for local biodiversity protection and various ecosystem services. However, this type of land management also poses a range of challenges, leading to a constant decline in the number of land users engaged in low-intensity grazing. A team of researchers led by iDiv, UL, and UFZ set out to investigate these ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

Protecting endangered monkeys from poachers, habitat loss

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Tai Forest Monkey Project has operated a research field station in west Africa’s Ivory Coast for 30 years, but on the one day since its opening that the site was unstaffed because of conflict in nearby Liberia, poachers took advantage – and killed 18 endangered monkeys. The anecdote is a telling example, scientists say, of how thousands of field stations studying primates in forests around the world not only generate knowledge about these threatened species, but also contribute to ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

China’s bid to decarbonize may have hidden costs

ITHACA, N.Y. – Environmentalists rejoiced when China announced its commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, but the decarbonization of China – which emits 27% of global carbon dioxide and a third of the world’s greenhouse gases – may come with hidden costs and hard environmental choices, according to new research. In a paper published in Communications Earth & Environment, Stefano Galelli, associate professor at Cornell University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and colleagues attempt to quantify how decarbonizing the China Southern Power Grid, which provides electricity ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

Climate change and mercury pollution stressed plants for millions of years

The link between massive flood basalt volcanism and the end-Triassic (201 million years ago) mass-extinction is commonly accepted. However, exactly how volcanism led to the collapse of ecosystems and the extinction of entire families of organisms is difficult to establish. Extreme climate change from the release of carbon dioxide, degradation of the ozone layer due to the injection of damaging chemicals, and the emissions of toxic pollutants, are all seen as contributing factors. One toxic element stands out: ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

INSEAD’s research on sustainable circular models among the most influential papers in last 30 years

Studies by INSEAD Professors Atalay Atasu and Luk Van Wassenhove have been recognised by members of the Product Operations Management Society for their impact. Their papers are named among the top 10 most influential papers published in the first 30 years of the Production and Operations Management (POM) journal. They were voted for by POM society members based on an original list of 150 of the most cited papers since the publications launch in 1992. Emeritus Professor Van Wassenhove is a co-author of two papers that made the top 10. His 2005 paper, “Sustainable Operations Management” looked at ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

The carbon emissions of academic astronomy

The carbon emissions associated with air travel to professional conferences make up a sizable fraction of the emissions produced by academia. Andrea Gokus and colleagues estimated the CO2-equivalent emissions for conference travel to all 362 open meetings in the field of astronomy in 2019. The total is an estimated 42,500 tCO2e, or about one ton per participant per meeting. According to the authors, networking and discussing new scientific developments at meetings is important for advancing the field, but adjustments can be made to reduce the hefty carbon cost. Holding meetings virtually ...

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Environment30 Apr 2024

Abrupt permafrost thaw intensifies warming effects on soil CO2 emission

According to a recent study published in Nature Geoscience, scientists have found that soil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are more sensitive to climate warming in permafrost-collapsed areas than in non-collapsed areas. This study, based on field warming experiments combined with laboratory incubation of soils from a large-scale sampling, provides new insights about permafrost carbon–climate feedback in the context of future climate warming. Warmer temperatures have led to rapid permafrost thawing in high-latitude and -altitude permafrost regions. Abrupt permafrost thaw, ...

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Environment29 Apr 2024

"BioBlitz" citizen science reveals urban biodiversity, guides management

Citizen scientists are uncovering rare animal, plant, and fungi species in areas where they have never been seen before, increasing our knowledge of urban biodiversity and proving the existence of local species long thought extinct. The approach used is called a BioBlitz, a biological census in which citizen scientists contribute photographs or audio of living organisms they can see or hear in a designated area over a particular period, creating a snapshot of an area’s biodiversity. In a recently published article in the journal BioScience, Dr. Esti Palma (University of Melbourne) ...

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Environment29 Apr 2024

NYS solar work: Good for climate, but are they good jobs?

ITHACA, N.Y. -- New York state solar construction workers – whose numbers are expected to grow rapidly to meet climate goals – are transient, may not receive benefits and are subject to racial disparities in pay, finds a new report from the Climate Jobs Institute (CJI) at Cornell University. “Exploring the Conditions of the New York Solar Workforce” was funded by the New York State Department of Labor and surveyed more than 260 solar installation and maintenance workers. The exploratory study is the first to focus on workers’ experiences, seeking to bridge gaps in government and industry ...

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Environment29 Apr 2024

Hornets found to be primary pollinators of two Angelica species

Researcher Ko Mochizuki of the University of Tokyo discovered that two species in the genus Angelica are pollinated primarily by hornets. This overturns the conventional belief that Angelica species are “generalists,” meaning that there is not one primary pollinator but a variety of species. As hornets are rarely primary pollinators, the discovery also impacts future ecological research and conservation efforts. The findings were published in the journal Ecology. White, small, open, secretes nectar and produces pollen: these are the kinds of flowers that many types of insects can reach ...

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Environment29 Apr 2024

How can forests be reforested in a climate-friendly way?

Europe's forests have already been severely affected by climate change. Thousands of hectares of trees have already died due to drought and bark beetles. Scientists from the University of Vienna and the Technical University of Munich TUM have now investigated which trees can be used for reforestation. Their findings: only a few tree species are fit for the future, such as English oak in the UK. However, mixed forests are important for the survival of forests, otherwise the forest ecosystem as a whole could be weakened. The results of the study were recently published in the renowned journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Although European forests are naturally home to a ...

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Environment29 Apr 2024

Details of hurricane Ian’s aftermath captured with new remote sensing method

Category 4 Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida’s Lee County on Sept. 28, 2022, battering the region with wind speeds of 155 miles per hour and storm surge up to 13 feet – the highest storm surge documented in Southwest Florida in the past 150 years. In the aftermath of a disaster, rapidly assessing damage is critical for rescue, recovery and emergency planning. Damage assessments are typically conducted through field reconnaissance deployments, which can be labor-intensive, costly and risky. Moreover, field-based emergency response ...

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Environment26 Apr 2024

New circuit boards can be repeatedly recycled

A recent United Nations report found that the world generated 137 billion pounds of electronic waste in 2022, an 82% increase from 2010. Yet less than a quarter of 2022’s e-waste was recycled. While many things impede a sustainable afterlife for electronics, one is that we don’t have systems at scale to recycle the printed circuit boards (PCBs) found in nearly all electronic devices. PCBs — which house and interconnect chips, transistors and other components — typically consist of layers of thin glass fiber sheets coated ...

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Environment26 Apr 2024

April research news from the Ecological Society of America

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of four research articles recently published across its six esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores fire hazards in Mediterranean cork oak woodlands, putting theory to work predicting where cold-blooded organisms will occur under climate change, barriers to going high-tech in rangeland management and more, showcasing the Society’s commitment to promoting cutting-edge research that furthers our understanding of the natural world. From Ecological ...

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Environment26 Apr 2024

Mobile device location data is already used by private companies, so why not for studying human-wildlife interactions, scientists ask

When did you last go anywhere without your cell phone? From maps and weather apps to social media platforms, we give consent for our phones to trace our footsteps and behavior. These curated mobility data are often used for personalized advertisements. In a commentary, published April 26 in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability, scientists argue mobility data can offer so much more—it is key to understanding human-wildlife interactions for guiding policy decisions on sustainability-related issues and should be free and accessible for research. As ...

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Environment26 Apr 2024

AMS Science Preview: Hawaiian climates; chronic pain; lightning-caused wildfires

The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Many of these articles are available for early online access–they are peer-reviewed, but not yet in their final published form. Below is a selection of articles published early online recently. Some articles are open-access; to view others, members of the media can contact kpflaumer@ametsoc.org for press login credentials. Routine Climate Monitoring in the State of Hawai‘i: Establishment of State Climate Divisions Bulletin of the American Meteorological ...

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Environment26 Apr 2024

Could fishponds help with Hawaiʻi’s food sustainability?

Indigenous aquaculture systems in Hawaiʻi, known as loko iʻa or fishponds, can increase the amount of fish and fisheries harvested both inside and outside of the pond. This is the focus of a study published by a team of researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB). Today, aquaculture supplies less than 1% of Hawaiʻi’s 70 million pounds of locally available seafood, but revitalization of loko i‘a has the potential to significantly increase locally available seafood. According to historical accounts, loko ...

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Environment26 Apr 2024

Anthropologist documents how women and shepherds historically reduced wildfire risk in Central Italy

In the last several decades, large forest fires have increasingly threatened communities across the Mediterranean. Climate change is expected to make these fires larger, hotter, and more dangerous in the future. But fire management lessons from the past could help to improve the resilience of local landscapes. The latest research paper from environmental anthropologist and University of California, Santa Cruz Professor Andrew Mathews explores these issues in the Monte Pisano region of Central Italy. In particular, Mathews found that peasant women, who historically collected ...

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Environment25 Apr 2024

Conservation actions have improved the state of biodiversity worldwide

A global meta-analysis of 186 studies reveals that conservation actions – particularly those targeted at species and ecosystems – yield significant positive impacts on biodiversity, according to a new study. Each year, billions of dollars are spent globally on conservation actions designed to halt and/or reverse the loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems. Despite this, many international conservation goals, including those set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, remain unmet. While it could be concluded that current actions are insufficient or ineffective, researchers lack an understanding of how conservation actions ...

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Environment25 Apr 2024

Corporate emission targets are incompatible with global climate goals

In a Policy Forum, Yann Robiou du Pont and colleagues argue that any method to derive company-level emissions targets inherently distorts competition in favor of existing companies and penalizes emerging or growing businesses. According to du Pont et al., despite their growing importance, companies’ emissions targets are not meaningful indicators to assess the ambition of their decarbonization plans and their alignment with the Paris Agreement. To meet international climate goals, it’s well understood that the ...

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