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Environment
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Environment

Scientists clarify how much metal in soil is “too much” for people and the environment​

Heavy metals in soil are often measured in bulk, but those totals can badly overestimate the real risk to crops, ecosystems and human health, according to a new scientific review. The article, published in Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes, explains that only a fraction of the metal present in soil is actually accessible to plants, microbes and people – a concept known as bioavailability. “Metal pollution in soil is a genuine global concern, but decisions about food safety, clean‑up and land reuse need to be based on ...

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Environment

Evaluating building materials for climate impact and noise suppression

HONOLULU, Dec. 3, 2025 — Many modern buildings are “green buildings,” adhering to a complex set of standards to ensure they are environmentally friendly and sustainably designed, with minimal impact on nature and the humans that inhabit them. These standards can govern everything from energy efficiency to construction materials used for acoustic privacy between rooms. The sheer number of factors to consider when designing such a building can make even veteran architects stumble. Even deciding which construction material to use requires accounting for cost, lifetime carbon emissions, and acoustic performance. Acoustic consultant George Edgar will present ...

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Environment

SPHERE’s debris disk gallery: tell-tale signs of dust and small bodies in distant solar systems

Observations with the instrument SPHERE at ESO’s Very Large Telescope have produced an unprecedented gallery of “debris disks” in exoplanetary systems. Gaël Chauvin (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), project scientist of SPHERE and co-author on the paper publishing the results, says: “This data set is an astronomical treasure. It provides exceptional insights into the properties of debris disks, and allows for deductions of smaller bodies like asteroids and comets in ...

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Environment

Terrestrial biodiversity grows with tree cover in agricultural landscapes

URBANA, Ill. — Farmers plant or preserve riparian buffers for various reasons, such as improving water quality, controlling erosion, or maintaining hunting habitat. Now, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign underscores the benefits of riparian buffers to terrestrial biodiversity, finding that for every 10% increase in forest cover, an additional species is present. “We found raccoon and common snapping turtle DNA all over the place,” said senior study ...

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Environment

New study offers a glimpse into 230,000 years of climate and landscape shifts in the Southwest

Atmospheric dust plays an important role in the way Earth absorbs and reflects sunlight, impacting the global climate, cloud formation, and precipitation. Much of this dust comes from the continuous reshaping of Earth’s surface through the erosion of rocks and sediments, and understanding how this process has shaped landscapes can help us decipher our planet’s history – and its future. Although an ephemeral phenomenon by nature, dust emissions through ...

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Environment

Gender-specific supportive environment key to cutting female athletes’ injury risks

Creating a safe, gender-specific, supportive environment—one that is free of body shaming and idealised female forms, for example—is key to minimising female athletes’ future risks of injury and protecting their health, emphasises the Female/woman/girl Athlete Injury pRevention (FAIR) Consensus Statement—the first of its kind—published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Women and girls have increasingly been taking part in sports, which has led to a concomitant rise in their risk of injury. But how best to minimise this risk has been hampered by a lack of comprehensive and practical gender-specific evidence. In a bid ...

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Environment

Flood risks in delta cities are increasing, study finds

New research shows how the combination of extreme climate events, sea-level rise and land subsidence could create larger and deeper floods in coastal cities in future. The study focused on Shanghai, in China, which is threatened with flooding by large and strong typhoons, or tropical storms, producing storm surge and waves. When these events coincide with other causes of flooding, such as high water flows in the Yangtze River, they can combine to create even more catastrophic floods, as happened with Typhoon Winnie in 1997. The study was carried ...

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Environment

November research news from the Ecological Society of America

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of six research articles recently published across its 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 urban pollinator navigation, the relationship between aging tree roots and soil fungi, sea urchin “halos”, gaps in international agreements for migratory birds, the impacts of an introduced prawn and the power of environmental education. From Ecological Applications: A long and winding road for ...

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Environment

Researchers confirm new rickettsia species found in dogs

Researchers from North Carolina State University have confirmed that a species of Rickettsia first seen in dogs in 2018 is a new species of bacteria. The new species, dubbed Rickettsia finnyi, is associated with symptoms similar to those of Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) in dogs, but has not yet been found in humans. Rickettsia pathogens are categorized into four groups; of those, spotted-fever group Rickettsia (which is transmitted by ticks) is the most commonly known ...

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Environment

Scientists call for greater focus on conserving whole ecosystems instead of charismatic species

Conservation programs are often too focused on a single charismatic species, Hai-Tao Shi at Hainan Normal University in China and colleagues warn in a perspective article publishing December 2nd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. With many species worldwide experiencing population declines, there is an urgent need for conservation initiatives to support their recovery. However, this urgency, combined with insufficient scientific knowledge about endangered species, means that conservationists have often relied on oversimplified measures of success. For example, historical conservation efforts often ...

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Environment

Crickets munch on microplastics — especially if they have a big mouth

To a human, microplastics are very small at less than 5 millimeters (mm) wide. But to an insect, microplastics might be the same size as the food they usually eat. Researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology have shown that crickets can and will consume polyethylene microplastics if their mouth is larger than the plastic particle. The study suggests that crickets — and likely many other insects — cannot distinguish plastic from food. Previous research has shown that consuming microplastics negatively affects small animals like insects, snails and earthworms. These plastic particles, ranging in size from 1 micrometer (around the width ...

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Environment

Fossils reveal anacondas have been giants for over 12 million years

A University of Cambridge-led team has analysed giant anaconda fossils from South America to deduce that these tropical snakes reached their maximum size 12.4 million years ago and have remained giants ever since. Many animal species that lived 12.4 to 5.3 million years ago, in the period known as the ‘Middle to Upper Miocene’, were much bigger than their modern relatives due to warmer global temperatures, extensive wetlands and an abundance of food. While other Miocene giants - like the 12-metre caiman (Purussaurus) and the 3.2-metre giant freshwater turtle (Stupendemys) - have since gone extinct, anacondas (Eunectes) bucked the trend by surviving as a giant species. Anacondas ...

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Environment

Studies reevaluate reverse weathering process, shifts understanding of global climate

Two new publications remap the understanding of reverse weathering in the scientific community. The Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Senior Marine Scientist, Dr. Jeffrey Krause, played a key role in both projects, which include several collaborating institutions. Reverse weathering is one of the ocean’s most important yet least understood geochemical processes. During this natural process, dissolved minerals and chemicals combine to form new clay minerals in seafloor sediments. These reactions greatly influence the marine silicon cycle and Earth’s climate because they take dissolved ...

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Environment

Renewable lignin waste transformed into powerful catalyst for clean hydrogen production

Researchers have unveiled a new catalyst made from renewable plant waste that could significantly accelerate clean hydrogen production. The innovative material, created by embedding nickel oxide and iron oxide nanoparticles into lignin-derived carbon fibers, boosts the efficiency and stability of the oxygen evolution reaction, a key step in water electrolysis. The study, published in Biochar X, demonstrates that the new catalyst achieves a low overpotential of 250 mV at 10 mA cm² and maintains strong performance for over 50 hours at high current density. These results suggest a promising path toward cost-effective and sustainable ...

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Environment

Everyday repellent, global pollutant

N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide, better known as DEET, is one of the world’s most widely used insect repellents – and it is now turning up in rivers, lakes, groundwater and even drinking water around the globe, according to a new review by an international research team. The authors warn that while DEET helps protect millions of people from mosquito-borne diseases, its growing footprint in aquatic environments raises questions about long‑term ecological and health risks. “We shouldn’t wait for a crisis” “DEET has been a public‑health success story for decades, but our analysis shows it is also becoming a quiet, global water contaminant,” said lead ...

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Environment

Coral reefs have stabilized Earth’s carbon cycle for the past 250 million years

Coral reefs have long been celebrated as biodiversity hotspots – but new research shows they have also played a much deeper role: conducting the rhythm of Earth’s carbon and climate cycles for more than 250 million years. Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study reveals that the rise and fall of shallow-water reef habitats have governed how quickly the planet recovered from major carbon dioxide (CO₂) shocks. Researchers from the University of Sydney and Université Grenoble Alpes combined plate-tectonic reconstructions, global surface processes and climate simulations, with ecological modelling to reconstruct ...

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Environment

Roadmap for reducing, reusing, and recycling in space

Every time a rocket is launched, tons of valuable materials are lost, and huge amounts of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting chemicals are released into the atmosphere. Publishing December 1 in the Cell Press journal Chem Circularity, sustainability and space scientists discuss how the principles of reducing, reusing, and recycling could be applied to satellites and spacecraft—from design and manufacturing to in-orbit repair and end-of-life repurposing. “As space activity ...

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Environment

Group 13 elements: the lucky number for sustainable redox agents?

Osaka, Japan – Catalysts are vital substances that speed up many chemical reactions fundamental to modern life, including fertilizer, pharmaceutical, and energy production. However, many catalysts depend on expensive transition-metal elements, and their supply damages the environment and is vulnerable to geopolitical disruption. Recently, a team in Japan has developed a way to achieve a crucial type of chemical transformation without relying on transition-metal element resources. In an article due to be published in the Journal ...

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Environment

Africa’s forests have switched from absorbing to emitting carbon, new study finds

Groundbreaking new research warns that Africa’s forests, once vital allies in the fight against climate change, have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source. A new international study published in Scientific Reports and led by researchers at the National Centre for Earth Observation at the Universities of Leicester, Sheffield and Edinburgh reveals that Africa’s forests, which have long absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, are now releasing more carbon than they remove. This alarming shift, which happened after 2010, underscores the urgent need for stronger global action to protect forests, ...

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Environment

Scientists develop plastics that can break down, tackling pollution

Yuwei Gu was hiking through Bear Mountain State Park in New York when inspiration struck. Plastic bottles littered the trail and more floated on a nearby lake. The jarring sight in such a pristine environment made the Rutgers chemist stop in his tracks. Nature makes plenty of long-stranded molecules called polymers, including DNA and RNA, yet those natural polymers eventually break down. Synthetic polymers such as plastics don’t. Why? “Biology uses polymers everywhere, such as proteins, DNA, RNA and cellulose, ...

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Environment

Satellite data reveal the seasonal dynamics and vulnerabilities of Earth’s glaciers

Using nearly a decade of satellite data, researchers show how glaciers worldwide speed up and slow down with the changing of the seasons – annual rhythms that reveal how Earth’s ice may respond to long-term climate warming. The findings show that glaciers in regions that reach above-freezing temperatures experience the largest seasonal swings in ice flow, and rising temperatures may amplify these movements and shift their timing worldwide. Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets have been rapidly ...

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Environment

Climate change: Major droughts linked to ancient Indus Valley Civilization’s collapse

Successive major droughts, each lasting longer than 85 years, were likely a key factor in the eventual fall of the Indus Valley Civilization, according to a paper in Communications Earth & Environment. The findings may help explain why this major ancient civilization — a contemporary of ancient Egypt located around the modern India-Pakistan border — slowly declined, and highlights how environmental factors could shape ancient societies. The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was one of the ...

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Environment

Plastic pollution is worsened by warming climate and must be stemmed, researchers warn

A new review published in Frontiers in Science is calling for urgent action to avoid irreversible ecological damage by stemming the tide of microplastics entering the environment. Climate change conditions turn plastics into more mobile, persistent, and hazardous pollutants. This is done by speeding up plastic breakdown into microplastics - microscopic fragments of plastic - spreading them considerable distances, and increasing exposure and impact within the environment. This is set to worsen as both plastic manufacturing and climate effects increase. Global annual plastic ...

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Environment

New electrochemical strategy boosts uranium recovery from complex wastewater

Researchers have unveiled a promising new method that could transform how uranium is recovered from challenging wastewater streams. By combining a specially engineered covalent organic framework with an indirect electrochemical process, the approach delivers high efficiency, long term stability, and strong tolerance to chemically complex environments. The findings provide fresh insight into how advanced functional materials and optimized operating conditions can work together to support cleaner and more sustainable nuclear energy development. Uranium is a vital resource ...

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Environment

The Galapagos and other oceanic islands and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) may be "critical" refuges for sharks in the Tropical Eastern Pacific, as predatory fish appear depleted in more coastal MPAs t

The Galapagos and other oceanic islands and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) may be "critical" refuges for sharks in the Tropical Eastern Pacific, as predatory fish appear depleted in more coastal MPAs through fishing pressure Article URL: https://plos.io/3JOKoiY Article title: Relative abundance and diversity of sharks and predatory fishes across Marine Protected Areas of the Tropical Eastern Pacific Author countries: Ecuador, Colombia, U.S. Funding: We are grateful to the funding provided: To ...

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