Environment
press releases.

Environment1 Nov 2023

The secret to enhancing consumer valuation and addressing the climate crisis at once: introduce circular take-back programs

Researchers from Boston University published a Journal of Marketing study showing that tapping into consumers’ sense of ownership prompts them to place a higher value on products from a circular economy. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Affording Disposal Control: The Effect of Circular Take-Back Programs on Psychological Ownership and Valuation” and is authored by Anna Tari and Remi Trudel. Governments worldwide view a circular economy as part of the solution to the climate crisis. In the U.S., several states such as California, Connecticut, Maine, Oregon, and ...

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Environment1 Nov 2023

Marine oxygen landscape shaped by plate movement and biological innovation

The oxygen content of seawater has a profound impact on the cycling of bioessential elements and the habitability of Earth. But how and why the marine oxygen landscape (i.e., the spatial pattern of oxygen levels) evolved since the start of the Phanerozoic 538 million years ago is not well established. To tackle this problem, researchers led by Prof. WANG Xiangli from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) and Prof. LI Chao from the Chengdu University of Technology, along with collaborators from the University of Cincinnati and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, have reconstructed a nearly continuous record of ...

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Environment1 Nov 2023

Microbiology: River plastics may harbour potential pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes

Microbial communities growing on plastic debris in rivers may have the capacity to harbour potentially pathogenic microbes and act as reservoirs of antimicrobial resistance genes, according to a study published in Microbiome. The findings also highlight differences in the potential pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes that new and degraded plastics may have the capacity to harbour. Vinko Zadjelovic, Elizabeth Wellington, Joseph Christie-Oleza and colleagues characterised the microbial communities found on the surface ...

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Environment31 Oct 2023

New database shines spotlight on decades of solar mirror research

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is preparing to unveil a database containing the results of exposure experiments on solar reflectors conducted over more than four decades. The publicly available Solar Mirror Materials Database (SMMD) will contain information from thousands of solar mirror samples from more than a hundred suppliers that have been subjected to outdoor tests and laboratory environments. Typically used for concentrating solar-thermal power, these mirrors were installed and tested in Phoenix, ...

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Environment31 Oct 2023

Climate-smart cows could deliver 10-20x more milk in Global South

URBANA, Ill. — A team of animal scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is set to deliver a potential game changer for subsistence farmers in Tanzania: cows that produce up to 20 times the milk of indigenous breeds. The effort, published in Animal Frontiers, marries the milk-producing prowess of Holsteins and Jerseys with the heat, drought, and disease-resistance of Gyrs, an indigenous cattle breed common in tropical countries. Five generations of crosses result in cattle capable of ...

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Environment31 Oct 2023

Study examines financial sustainability of affordable housing-with-services models for older adults

A groundbreaking study published in the journal Research in Aging sheds light on the financial challenges of housing-with-health-services models for low-income older adults. The report explores strategies for ensuring the sustainability of these beneficial efforts. The study was conducted in partnership with Hebrew SeniorLife, a Harvard Medical School-affiliated nonprofit organization serving older adults in the Greater Boston area. It drew on insights from 31 key informational interviews and three focus groups ...

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Environment31 Oct 2023

Australasia’s hidden pollination crisis could threaten biodiversity and food security

Australasia has likely overlooked a pollination crisis, according to new research published today in the journal Ecology and Evolution. The research, led by Macquarie University, also underscores a pressing need for intervention to avoid biodiversity loss and long-term food insecurity in the region. The authors analysed thousands of research papers on human-induced pollinator decline globally, and found despite only a tiny portion mentioning Australasia, the causes of pollinator decline in the northern hemisphere were mirrored in this region. Research in Europe and North America finds threats that include ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

Microplastics’ shape determines how far they travel in the atmosphere

ITHACA, N.Y. –Micron-size microplastic debris can be carried by the jet stream across oceans and continents, and their shape plays a crucial role in how far they travel. A Cornell University collaboration has developed a model to simulate the atmospheric transport of microplastic fibers and shows that flat fibers travel farther in the lower atmosphere, and are more prevalent, than spherical fibers. Previous studies assumed these fibers to be spherical. The modeling has the potential to help scientists determine the sources of the pervasive waste – which could inform policy efforts to reduce it. The ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

Research Brief: Study uncovers hundred-year lifespans for three freshwater fish species in the Arizona desert

A recent study found some of the oldest animals in the world living in a place you wouldn’t expect: fishes in the Arizona desert. Researchers found the second genus of animal ever for which three or more species have known lifespans greater than 100 years, which could open the doors to aging studies across disciplines, such as gerontology and senescence (aging) among vertebrates. The study centers around a series of fish species within the Ictiobus genus, known as buffalofishes. Minnesota has native populations of each of the three species studied: bigmouth buffalo, smallmouth buffalo and black buffalo. The importance of this research is underscored ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

UMaine, UVM researchers conduct first-ever study of cultural adaptation to climate change

As the impacts of climate change grow, society and people struggle to adapt to the challenges of the new reality. Change, however, is difficult, and adapting to new ways of life or new ways of doing business often requires a change in culture. To determine how culture and society adapt to a changing climate, a team of researchers from the University of Maine and the University of Vermont (UVM) have conducted the first-ever study of cultural adaptation to climate change. Using the science of cultural evolution to examine data on which crops farmers plant across the U.S., their work can help inspire more effective policy solutions to survive in ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

Amazon deforestation linked to long distance climate warming

Deforestation in the Amazon causes land surfaces up to 100 kilometres away to get warmer, according to a new study. The research, by a team of British and Brazilian scientists, led by Dr Edward Butt at the University of Leeds, suggests that tropical forests play a critical role in cooling the land surface - and that effect can play out over considerable distances. It is known that when tropical forests are cleared, the climate in the immediate vicinity gets warmer. In this latest study, the researchers wanted to know if deforestation in the Amazon was resulting in climate warming further afield, and the study examined the impact of forest loss on sites up to ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

Offset markets: New approach could help save tropical forests by restoring faith in carbon credits

A new approach to valuing the carbon storage potential of natural habitats aims to help restore faith in offset schemes, by enabling investors to directly compare carbon credit pricing across a wide range of projects. Current valuation methods for forest conservation projects have come under heavy scrutiny, leading to a crisis of confidence in carbon markets. This is hampering efforts to offset unavoidable carbon footprints, mitigate climate change, and scale up urgently needed investment in tropical forest conservation. Measuring the value of carbon storage is not easy. Recent research revealed that as little as 6% of carbon credits ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

Window to avoid 1.5°C of warming will close before 2030 if emissions are not reduced

**CORRECTION** We have identified an error in this press release. The fifth paragraph of the release originally read: The researchers warn that if carbon dioxide emissions remain at 2022 levels of about 40 billion gigatonnes per year, the carbon budget will be exhausted by around 2029, committing the world to warming of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. However, this should read: The researchers warn that if carbon dioxide emissions remain at 2022 levels of about 40 gigatonnes per year, the carbon budget will be exhausted ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

Gilleaudeau conducting geochemical analysis of carboniferous carbonates & implications for ocean oxygenation

Geoffrey Gilleaudeau, Assistant Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences (AOES), received funding for the project: "Geochemical Analysis of Carboniferous Carbonates and Implications for Ocean Oxygenation." He and his collaborators aim to generate a new composite carbon record through the lower Mississippian in the Williston Basin. They also aim to generate a new record that tests the hypothesis that carbon excursion was related to an expansion of global ocean anoxia, ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

New species of mosasaur named for Norse sea serpent

Scientists have discovered a new species of mosasaur, large, carnivorous aquatic lizards that lived during the late Cretaceous. With “transitional” traits that place it between two well-known mosasaurs, the new species is named after a sea serpent in Norse mythology, Jormungandr, and the small North Dakota city Walhalla near to where the fossil was found. Details describing Jǫrmungandr walhallaensis are published today in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. “If you put flippers on a Komodo dragon and made it really big, that’s basically what it would have looked like,” said the study’s lead ...

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Environment30 Oct 2023

NSF funds holistic approach to help farmers adapt to climate change

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Emily Burchfield, Emory assistant professor of environmental sciences, $1.6 million to lead efforts to identify emerging pressures on agriculture in Georgia, Iowa and Ohio and to develop predictive models to help farmers and policymakers weather these changes. “In a nutshell, we’re trying to understand what climate change will mean for agriculture in these three states,” Burchfield says. “We’ll be integrating biophysical projections based on environmental data with insights ...

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Environment28 Oct 2023

Increasing risk of invasive species colonization on marine debris

A groundbreaking scientific study conducted along the Southeast coast of India has unearthed a pressing environmental concern -the increasing risk of invasive species colonization on marine debris. The research, published recently in Marine Pollution Bulletin, delves into the critical interplay between plastic pollution and the introduction of non-indigenous organisms into Indian waters. In recent years, the surge in anthropogenic litter in the ocean has provided an extensive array of substrates for marine ...

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Environment27 Oct 2023

Interdisciplinary research team works to mitigate climate change effects in Texas Gulf Coast communities

Experts in the Texas A&M University Department of Geography are teaming up with civil and chemical engineers and water resource, disaster recovery and public health researchers across the campus in a collaborative effort to better safeguard Texas Gulf Coast communities against climate-related emergencies, fueled by a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Academies Gulf Research Program (GRP). The project, titled "Climate-LEAD: Climate Effects on Localized Environmental Health Disparities in Overburdened Texas Communities along Gulf Coast," is ...

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Environment27 Oct 2023

Clear holographic imaging in turbulent environments

Holographic imaging has always been challenged by unpredictable distortions in dynamic environments. Traditional deep learning methods often struggle to adapt to diverse scenes due to their reliance on specific data conditions. To tackle this problem, researchers at Zhejiang University delved into the intersection of optics and deep learning, uncovering the key role of physical priors in ensuring the alignment of data and pre-trained models. They explored the impact of spatial coherence and turbulence on holographic ...

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Environment27 Oct 2023

Meltwater flowing beneath Antarctic glaciers may be accelerating their retreat

A new Antarctic ice sheet modeling study from scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggests that meltwater flowing out to sea from beneath Antarctic glaciers is making them lose ice faster. The model’s simulations suggest this effect is large enough to make a meaningful contribution to global sea-level rise under high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The extra ice loss caused by this meltwater flowing out to sea from beneath Antarctic glaciers is not currently accounted for in the models generating major sea-level ...

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Environment27 Oct 2023

Hybrid nanomaterials promise a sustainability boost across multiple industries

Polyoxometalate (POM)-based nanohybrids potentially offer a step-change in sustainability across a wide variety of industries, but research into the substances is in its infancy. A group of researchers has produced a comprehensive review of the sector’s progress and challenges yet to be overcome. A new class of nanoscale hybrid materials has the potential to improve sustainability across energy systems, transport, biosensors, water purification and even 3D printing, but the field is still very young. A group of researchers has produced a detailed overview ...

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Environment26 Oct 2023

Scientists find two ways that hurricanes rapidly intensify

Contacts: David Hosansky, UCAR/NCAR Manager of Media Relations hosansky@ucar.edu 720-470-2073 Audrey Merket, UCAR/NCAR Science Writer and Public Information Officer amerket@ucar.edu 303-497-8293 Hurricanes that rapidly intensify for mysterious reasons pose a particularly frightening threat to those in harm’s way. Forecasters have struggled for many years to understand why a seemingly commonplace tropical depression or tropical storm sometimes blows up into a major hurricane, packing catastrophic winds and driving a potentially deadly surge of water ...

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Environment26 Oct 2023

Politecnico di Milano and Università di Milano-Bicocca awarded an ERC Synergy Grant on next-generation numerical methods for sustainability challenges

Developing new-generation numerical methods for the technological challenges of the 21st century, mainly in sustainability. This is the objective underpinning NEMESIS (NEw GEneration MEthods for Numerical SImulationS), an international researchproject involving Politecnico di Milano and Università di Milano-Bicocca, which today has been awarded one of the 37 Synergy Grants by the European Research Council (ERC). ERC Synergy Grants fund research on topics that are ambitious and complex ...

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Environment26 Oct 2023

Marine protected areas and climate change

An international team has developed the first comprehensive framework for designing networks of marine protected areas that can help vulnerable species survive as climate change drives habitat loss. In a paper published Oct. 26 in One Earth, the researchers outlined guidelines for governments to provide long-distance larval drifters, like urchins and lobsters, as well as migratory species, like turtles and sharks, with protected stopovers along coastal corridors. Led by Stanford marine conservation scientist Nur Arafeh-Dalmau, the team included 50 scientists and practitioners ...

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Environment26 Oct 2023

Early whaling eradicated species from local waters

The industrial whaling of the 19th and 20th centuries almost wiped out several species. However, even though whaling took place on a much smaller scale before this period, it was enough for at least two species to disappear completely from European waters. These two species used to be among the most common, but now one of these species is on the verge of extinction. “Whaling was widespread from a very early time. This had major consequences for species in Europe,” says Youri van den Hurk, a ...

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