Environment
press releases.

Environment17 Dec 2025

Paleontologists find first fossil bee nests made inside fossil bones

Key points Paleontologists working in a cave on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola have discovered the first-known instance of ancient bees nesting inside pre-existing fossil cavities. Burrowing bees generally prefer to make their nests out in the open. There is only one other documented case of burrowing bees making their nests inside caves. In this case, the likely cause for this aberrant behavior is a lack of topsoil outside the cave and an abundance of accumulated silt within. Many of the fossils were likely transported to the cave by giant barn owls. Evidence, ...

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Environment17 Dec 2025

These fossils were the perfect home for ancient baby bees

About 20,000 years ago, a family of owls lived in a cave. Sometimes, they would cough up owl pellets containing the bones of their prey, which landed on the cave floor. And, researchers have just discovered, ancient bees would use the bones’ empty tooth sockets as nests. A new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science documents this discovery, which represents the first time bees have ever been known to use bones as places to lay their eggs. The Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which contains Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is full of limestone caves. “In some areas, you’ll find a different sinkhole every 100 meters,” says ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

Rising heat reshapes how microbes break down microplastics, new review finds

As microplastics accumulate in soils, waters, and even the human body, scientists are racing to understand how these persistent pollutants can be safely removed from the environment. A new review published in New Contaminants highlights a critical but often overlooked factor in this challenge: temperature. The study examines how high and extreme temperatures influence the ability of microorganisms to degrade microplastics. Drawing on evidence from laboratory studies, natural hot environments, and industrial systems, the authors show that heat can both accelerate and suppress microbial breakdown of plastic particles, depending on conditions ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

Roots reveal a hidden carbon pathway in maize plants

Plants do not rely only on their leaves to feed on carbon dioxide. A new study in Carbon Research reveals that maize roots can act as an active “second mouth” for carbon, taking up CO2 from the soil and helping regulate the carbon cycle between soil, plants and the air. A new look at plant carbon For decades, biology textbooks have emphasized that plants absorb CO2 only through chlorophyll containing leaves. The new research challenges this simplified view by showing that roots can also absorb CO2 from the soil atmosphere under certain conditions. This underground carbon intake ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

The perfect plastic? Plant-based, fully saltwater degradable, zero microplastics

Researchers led by Takuzo Aida at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have one-upped themselves in their quest to solve our microplastic problem. In a recent study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society they report a new type of plastic made from plant cellulose, the world’s most abundant organic compound. The new plastic is strong, flexible, and capable of rapid decomposition in natural environments, setting it apart from other plastics marketed ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

A stormy ocean voyage yields insights on the global carbon cycle

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — In the midst of the COVID pandemic, scientists embarked on an ambitious research expedition to the North Atlantic to investigate the inner workings of the ocean’s carbon cycle. A series of storms hammered the three vessels, among the most advanced research ships in the world, while bureaucratic mayhem threatened to scrub the voyage entirely. Despite these challenges, the multinational, interdisciplinary team and able crew were wildly productive. A resulting study, led by UC Santa Barbara’s David Siegel, published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, reveals important insights for our understanding of ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

A new fossil face sheds light on early migrations of ancient human ancestor

PRESS RELEASE MEDIA EMBARGO UNTIL: DEC 16, 2025 (10 am London / 3 am Arizona) A New Fossil Face Sheds Light on Early Migrations of Ancient Human Ancestor A 1.5-million-year-old fossil from Gona, Ethiopia reveals new details about the first hominin species to disperse from Africa. Summary: Virtual reassembly of teeth and fossil bone fragments reveals a beautifully preserved face of a 1.5-million-year-old human ancestor—the first complete Early Pleistocene hominin cranium from the Horn of Africa. This fossil, from Gona, Ethiopia, hints at a surprisingly archaic face in the earliest human ancestors to migrate ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

Contrails are a major driver of aviation’s climate impact

Aviation’s climate impact extends beyond carbon dioxide emissions. A new study from Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Imperial College, UK, reveals that contrails can represent a significant portion of aviation’s overall climate cost. The study also shows that climate impact can be reduced by optimising flight routes. In a new article in Nature Communications, The social costs of aviation CO₂ and contrail cirrus, the researchers demonstrate that both CO₂ emissions and contrail formation contribute materially to aviation’s climate impact – and that the associated societal costs differ substantially depending on weather ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

Storms in the Southern Ocean mitigates global warming

Intense storms that sweep over the Southern Ocean enable the ocean to absorb more heat from the atmosphere. New research from the University of Gothenburg shows that today’s climate models underestimate how storms mix the ocean and thereby give less reliable future projections of our climate. The Southern Ocean is a vast expanse of ocean encircling the Antarctic continent, regulating Earth’s climate by moving heat, carbon, and nutrients out in the world’s oceans. It provides a critical climate service by absorbing over 75 per cent of the excess heat generated by humans globally. The Southern Ocean’s capacity to reduce climate warming depends on how efficiently ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

Research shows informed traders never let a good climate crisis go to waste

It’s serious business for the world establishing a framework to limit the impact of climate change, but for some, market responses to the annual United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) climate negotiations are also a chance to make some serious money. In a paper recently published in the journal Energy Economics, an Australian research team has analysed the activity around COP meetings of “informed traders”, referring to any investor acting on non-public information that enables them to trade ahead of the market. “We found that fossil ...

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Environment16 Dec 2025

New framework reveals where transport emissions concentrate in Singapore

Compact, mixed-use districts are often assumed to naturally produce cleaner travel patterns, but the reality on the ground is far more complex. In Singapore, for instance, two adjacent employment hubs—One-North and Science Park—share similar locations but differ sharply in how people move through them. A new study from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) reveals why and offers a high-resolution approach to understanding where emissions accumulate within districts rather than across entire cities. Published in a research paper titled “A spatial framework for estimating transport emissions at the district scale: A ...

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Environment15 Dec 2025

Unlock the power of nature: how biomass can transform climate mitigation

You're invited! Join us for a free, live online webinar featuring Prof. Dato’ Dr. Agamutu Pariatamby FASc, Senior Professor and globally recognized expert in sustainable waste and climate solutions from the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development at Sunway University, Malaysia. When: December 17 (Wednesday), 2025 Malaysia Time (MYT): 10:00 AM China Standard Time (CST): 10:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT): 2:00 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST, US & Canada): 9:00 PM (Dec 16) Where: Your screen! (Live via Zoom) Hosted by: Prof. Siming You, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom Topic: Bio-based ...

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Environment15 Dec 2025

Biochar reshapes hidden soil microbes that capture carbon dioxide in farmland

Soils do more than store carbon from plant residues. Beneath our feet, vast communities of microbes quietly pull carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into organic matter, helping regulate climate and sustain agricultural productivity. A new study reveals that this overlooked microbial process is strongly influenced by soil type, plant roots, and biochar, a carbon rich material increasingly promoted for sustainable farming. In research published in Biochar, scientists examined how autotrophic soil microbes ...

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Environment15 Dec 2025

Manta rays create mobile ecosystems, study finds

MIAMI, FL – A new study from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Marine Megafauna Foundation finds that young Caribbean manta rays (Mobula yarae) often swim with groups of other fish, creating small, moving ecosystems that support a variety of marine species. South Florida—particularly along Palm Beach County—serves as a nursery for juvenile manta rays. For nearly a decade, the Marine Megafauna Foundation has been studying these rays and documenting the challenges they face from human activities near the coast, such as boat strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, which ...

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Environment15 Dec 2025

The Alps to lose a record number of glaciers in the next decade

In brief: In a groundbreaking study, an international team led by ETH Zurich researchers has for the first time calculated how many glaciers worldwide are likely to remain until the end of the century and for how long. Depending on how sharply the planet warms, the study shows that in a scenario with a global temperature rise of +4.0 °C, only about 18,000 glaciers would remain, whereas at +1.5 °C there would be around 100,000. The researchers coined the term, “Peak Glacier Extinction”, the point when annual glacier loss hits its maximum. At +1.5 °C it occurs around 2041 with 2,000 glaciers lost; at +4 °C ...

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Environment12 Dec 2025

China’s ecological redlines offer fast track to 30 x 30 global conservation goal

A new commentary in Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes proposes a practical pathway for countries to meet the global goal of protecting 30 percent of land and sea by 2030, known as the 30 × 30 target, by rethinking how existing ecological policies are counted and governed. Focusing on China, the authors argue that the country’s Ecological Protection Redline policy offers a ready model for turning ambitious maps into real conservation outcomes while balancing development needs. Turning redlines into real protection China’s Ecological Protection Redline system has legally identified about 32 percent of the ...

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Environment12 Dec 2025

Palaeontology: Ancient tooth suggests ocean predator could hunt in rivers

A 66-million-year-old tooth discovered in North Dakota, USA, suggests that some mosasaurs — extinct lizard-like reptiles that could grow up to 12 metres long — may have hunted in rivers as well as seas. The authors suggest that the findings, which are published in BMC Zoology, may represent the first evidence of a mosasaur hunting freshwater prey in Hell Creek at this time. Melanie During, Nathan Van Vranken, and colleagues examined the tooth after it was discovered in 2022 in the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota, USA, in a river-like area formerly connected to an ancient sea known as the Western Interior ...

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Environment12 Dec 2025

Polar bears may be adapting to survive warmer climates, says study

New research reveals a link between rising temperatures and changes in polar bear DNA, which may be helping them adapt and survive in increasingly challenging environments. The study by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) discovered that some genes related to heat-stress, aging and metabolism are behaving differently in polar bears living in southeastern Greenland, suggesting they might be adjusting to their warmer conditions. The finding suggests that these genes play a key role in how different polar bear populations are adapting or evolving in response to their changing local climates ...

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Environment12 Dec 2025

Canadian wildfire smoke worsened pediatric asthma in US Northeast: UVM study

New research from the University of Vermont reveals exposure to smoke from Canadian wildfires in the summer of 2023 led to worsening asthma symptoms in children in Vermont and upstate New York. The study, published today [12/11] in the journal Environmental Health, is the first to examine the relationship between wildfire smoke and asthma in the Northeast—which in recent years has seen a marked increase in poor air quality days due to wildfires. “In 2023 when we couldn’t see New York across the lake, a lot of Vermonters began to worry about wildfire smoke,” says Anna Maassel, a Ph.D. candidate at the Rubenstein School of Environment ...

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Environment11 Dec 2025

High-resolution satellite observations reveal facility-level methane emissions worldwide

High-resolution data from the GHGSat satellite constellation reveal facility-level methane emissions at thousands of individual sites worldwide, according to a new study. The findings provide a far more detailed picture of methane emissions from the energy sector, offering new insights for global inventories and mitigation strategies. Methane is among the most powerful drivers of atmospheric warming a after carbon dioxide, and much of it comes from human activities – often from concentrated “point sources” such as individual oil, gas, and coal facilities. Methane emissions from these industries are generally estimated in two ways: bottom-up ...

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Environment11 Dec 2025

Scientists uncover how Earth’s mantle locked away vast water in early magma ocean

Some 4.6 billion years ago, Earth was nothing like the gentle blue planet we know today. Frequent and violent celestial impacts churned its surface and interior into a seething ocean of magma—an environment so extreme that liquid water could not exist, leaving the entire planet resembling an inferno. Since 70% of Earth's surface is now covered in oceans, the mystery of how water was survived and preserved in our planet from an early molten to a mostly solid state, has long been a subject of scientific study. Recently, a team of researchers led by Prof. DU Zhixue from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIGCAS) ...

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Environment11 Dec 2025

Marine ecology: Killer whales tail dolphins to hunt salmon

Killer whales or orca (Orcinus orca) have been observed hunting with Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) in the waters off British Columbia, Canada and sharing fish scraps with them after making a kill, according to research published in Scientific Reports. The authors suggest that the findings represent the first documented recording of cooperative hunting between orca and dolphins. Pacific white-sided dolphins are often seen hunting along the coastline of British Columbia ...

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Environment11 Dec 2025

Dragon-slaying saints performed green-fingered medieval miracles, new study reveals

UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 19:01 US ET ON WEDNESDAY 10TH DECEMBER 2025 / 00:01 UK (GMT) ON THURSDAY 11TH DECEMBER 2025 The Vatican’s eco-friendly farm, recently inaugurated by the first ever Augustinian pope, echoes his order’s forgotten early history, new research argues. Dr Krisztina Ilko challenges major assumptions about the medieval Catholic Church and early Renaissance. A scorched cherry twig miraculously sprouting; a diseased swamp restored to ‘peak fertility’; ...

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Environment10 Dec 2025

New species of tiny pumpkin toadlet discovered in Brazil highlights need for conservation in the mountain forests of Serra do Quiriri

New species of tiny pumpkin toadlet discovered in Brazil highlights need for conservation in the mountain forests of Serra do Quiriri Article URL: https://plos.io/48orUxO Article title: A new species of Brachycephalus (Anura: Brachycephalidae) from Serra do Quiriri, northeastern Santa Catarina state, southern Brazil, with a review of the diagnosis among species of the B. pernix group and proposed conservation measures Author countries: Brazil, U.S., Germany Funding: The field work was funded by Fundação ...

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Environment10 Dec 2025

Reciprocity matters--people were more supportive of climate policies in their country if they believed other countries were making significant efforts themselves

Reciprocity matters--people were more supportive of climate policies in their country if they believed other countries were making significant efforts themselves, per survey of 4,000 Chinese, Indian, Japanese and US citizens. Article URL: https://plos.io/4pfhbgj Article Title: They reduce, we reduce: Perception of other countries’ climate effort predicts support for climate policies Author Countries: China, Japan, Sweden Funding: The work described in this study was supported by grants awarded to Kim-Pong Tam from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. 16601122 ...

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