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Environment
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Environment

Boron isotopes reveal how nuclear waste glass slowly dissolves over time

A new study has uncovered how tiny differences in boron atoms can help scientists better predict the long-term behavior of glass used to store hazardous waste. The findings, published in Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes, could improve forecasts of how radioactive materials are released from storage over thousands of years. Glass is often used to immobilize contaminants such as radionuclides and heavy metals, locking them safely inside a stable structure. However, when groundwater seeps into disposal sites, the glass can gradually dissolve. Understanding this process is crucial for ensuring the safety of geological ...

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Environment

Critical raw materials are a vital new currency; Europe’s e-waste is the vault

BRUSSELS -- With European demand for critical raw materials growing alongside geopolitical tensions and supply risks, a major analysis offers fundamental new data on the rapidly expanding size and value of Europe’s “urban mine” of electronic waste. Discarded phones, laptops, servers, cables, appliances and other e-products in the EU27+4 (EU, UK, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway) annually now contain roughly 1 million tonnes of critical raw materials (CRMs), the report says, essential metals and minerals for powering green technologies, digital infrastructure, and modern defence. The Critical Raw Materials Outlook for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment report ...

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Environment

‘Far from negligible’: New Australian fossil fuel site will have major impact on people and the planet

A new fossil fuel site approved for development off Western Australia’s coast is estimated to contribute 876 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the course of its lifetime, according to new research led by The Australian National University (ANU) in collaboration with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st century. The level of emissions from the Scarborough project – with liquified natural gas production from the site expected to start in 2026 and continue for at least the next 31 years – will cause, on average, 0.00039 degrees Celsius of additional global warming. The ...

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Environment

UK heatwaves overwhelm natural ecological safeguards to increase wildfire risk

Heatwaves in the UK have led to unseasonable drying of vegetation bypassing natural ecological processes that limit the spread of wildfires, a new study has found. In a paper published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, a team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham have been studying moisture levels in plant life and carbon-rich soil around the UK to understand variations that affect the risk of wildfire. Alongside their three-year sampling period, the first long term survey ...

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Environment

‘New reality’ as world reaches first climate tipping point

Widespread mortality of warm-water coral reefs under way, as world reaches first tipping point With global warming set to breach 1.5°C, world dangerously close to further catastrophic tipping points These include melting ice sheets, Amazon rainforest dieback and collapse of vital ocean currents Tipping points pose a new type of threat that current international structures and agreements are not designed to counter Key to averting catastrophe is to act urgently, by supporting societal transformation and triggering ‘positive tipping points’ such as the self-propelling rollout of green technologies The world ...

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Environment

Chemobiological platform enables renewable conversion of sugars into core aromatic hydrocarbons of petroleum

With growing concerns over fossil fuel depletion and the environmental impacts of petrochemical production, scientists are actively exploring renewable strategies to produce essential industrial chemicals. A collaborative research team—led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee, Senior Vice President for Research, from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, together with Professor Sunkyu Han from the Department of Chemistry at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)—has developed an integrated ...

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Environment

Biochar and plants join forces to clean up polluted soils and boost ecosystem recovery

Soil pollution from pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals is a growing threat to global food security and public health. With nearly 80 percent of agricultural soils containing traces of organic contaminants, researchers are looking for sustainable ways to restore damaged land. A new study in Biochar highlights an emerging solution that pairs plant-microbe partnerships with biochar, an engineered carbon-rich material, to detoxify polluted soils while supporting plant growth and economic resilience. The review, led by Nandita Das and Piyush Pandey, explores how combining biochar with ...

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Environment

Power plants may emit more pollution during government shutdowns

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Power plants may emit higher amounts of pollution during lapses in federal monitoring and enforcement, such as during a government shutdown, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. The study, published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, details the short-term effects of enforcement of federal environmental laws and regulations on power plant air emissions. Using data from the 2018-19 federal government shutdown, which lasted 35 days, as a natural experiment, the researchers found ...

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Environment

MXene current collectors could reduce size, improve recyclability of Li-ion batteries

The vast majority of consumer electronics use lithium-ion batteries, and with each generation, these devices are designed smaller, lighter and with longer battery life to meet the growing demands of consumers. Each new iteration also brings the batteries that power the devices closer to the limits of their size, weight and performance. Researchers are constantly testing new approaches and materials for making lightweight, high-performance components. The latest contender is MXene, a type of metallically conductive two-dimensional nanomaterial discovered by Drexel University researchers ...

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Environment

Solar-powered method lights the way to a ‘de-fossilized’ chemical industry

Researchers have demonstrated a new and sustainable way to make the chemicals that are the basis of thousands of products – from plastics to cosmetics – we use every day. Hundreds of thousands of chemicals are manufactured by the chemical industry, which transforms raw materials – usually fossil fuels – into useful end products. Due to its size and its use of fossil fuel feedstocks, the chemical industry is responsible for roughly 6% of global carbon emissions. But researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, are developing new methods ...

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Environment

A new method to build more energy-efficient memory devices for a sustainable data future

Fukuoka, Japan—Publishing in npj Spintronics, a research team led by Kyushu University have developed a new fabrication method for energy-efficient magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) using a new material called thulium iron garnet (TmIG) that has been attracting global attention for its ability to enable high-speed, low-power information rewriting at room temperature. The team hopes their findings will lead to significant improvements in the speed and power efficiency of high-computing hardware, such as those used to power generative AI. The rapid spread of generative ...

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Environment

Lessons from Ascension’s shark troubles could help boost conservation

Understanding people’s attitudes to interactions with sharks could help halt the global decline of shark numbers, according to new research carried out on Ascension Island. In 2017, there were two non-fatal shark attacks at Ascension – a UK territory in the South Atlantic with a population of about 800 people. Large numbers of sharks – mostly silky and Galapagos sharks – have affected the island’s recreational fishers, who often lose tackle and hooked fish before they can be landed. The research team, led by the University of Exeter and ZSL, interviewed 34 islanders to assess perceptions of sharks. “We found that human-shark conflict ...

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Environment

Biochar helps composting go greener by cutting greenhouse gas emissions

A global study has found that adding biochar to organic waste composting can significantly reduce emissions of potent greenhouse gases, offering a promising pathway for sustainable waste recycling and climate change mitigation. Researchers from Nanjing Agricultural University and Sichuan University of Arts and Science analyzed data from 123 published studies covering more than 1,000 composting experiments worldwide. Their meta-analysis revealed that biochar reduced methane emissions by an average of 54 percent, nitrous oxide by 50 percent, and ammonia by 36 percent, while showing no significant effect on carbon dioxide release. “Biochar acts like a sponge that improves aeration, ...

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Environment

Researchers solve model that can improve sustainable design, groundwater management, nuclear waste storage, and more

In an approach reminiscent of the classic board game Battleship, Stanford researchers have discovered a way to characterize the microscopic structure of everyday materials such as sand and concrete with high precision. Heterogeneous, or mixed, materials have components in random locations. For example, concrete – the most abundant human-made material – is composed of cement, water, sand, and coarse stone. Predicting where a particular component appears in a jumbled mosaic of concrete or in Earth’s subsurface ...

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Environment

Parched soils can spark hot drought a nation away

WASHINGTON — Dry soils in northern Mexico may trigger episodes of simultaneous drought and heatwave hundreds of miles away in the southwestern United States, such as Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, according to a new study. These “hot droughts” in the region increasingly persist through consecutive days and nights rather than easing up after sundown, the research also found, leaving no window for afflicted areas to recover. Hot drought can kill crops, worsen wildfire risk, and shock workers and outdoor enthusiasts with unexpectedly high temperatures, all ...

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Environment

Total solar eclipse triggers dawn behavior in birds

When the April 2024 “Great American Eclipse” plunged midday into near-night, the daily rhythms and vocal behaviors of many bird species shifted dramatically; some fell silent, others burst into song, and many erupted into a “false dawn chorus” after the Sun returned, singing as if a new day had begun. In a new study, merging citizen science, machine learning, and a continent-wide natural experiment, researchers reveal the immediate effects of light disruption on bird behavior. The daily and seasonal rhythms of birds are tightly governed by shifts between light and ...

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Environment

New study finds gaps in REDD+ forest carbon offsets with most overstating climate impacts

Most REDD+ forest carbon offset projects significantly overstate their climate benefits, according to a new study published in Science. The findings come from an international team of researchers, primarily based at the Guangdong Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy (SZ), China, with contributions from Prof. Dr. Jonathan Chase of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The study analysed 52 REDD+ initiatives, ...

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Environment

Fossil fuel companies control a mere 1% of renewable energy projects worldwide

The fossil fuel industry is falling far short of its pledge to lead the energy transition, according to new research from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). The study shows that the world’s largest oil and gas companies are responsible for only 1.42% of renewable energy projects worldwide. The research, recently published in Nature Sustainability, challenges the dominant narrative promoted by the fossil fuel industry that positions itself as a key player in tackling climate ...

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Environment

Method to assess the status of wild reindeer may help with conservation efforts

Reindeer are iconic in the Arctic and subarctic, but their numbers are declining. As described in research published in Wildlife Monographs, investigators developed an environmental quality standard, or norm, for reindeer populations to evaluate their overall status, and gave them simple status categories of poor, medium, and good. The standard has indices for the status of population performance, lichen resources, and human-related habitat loss and fragmentation. The scientists implemented their environmental quality standard for 10 national and 14 smaller wild reindeer areas in Norway. They found that only 1 population had a good status; 11 populations ...

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Environment

Record-breaking 2024 Amazon fires drive unprecedented carbon emissions and ecosystem degradation

A new study by researchers at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre reveals that the Amazon rainforest has just undergone its most devastating forest fire season in over two decades, which triggered record-breaking carbon emissions and exposed the region’s growing ecological fragility despite a slowing trend in deforestation. The 2024 fires released an estimated 791 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which roughly equates to the annual emissions of Germany. This marks a sevenfold increase ...

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Environment

Birds thrive despite pollution from ‘forever’ chemicals

A new paper in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, published by Oxford University Press, indicates high levels of exposure to “forever” chemicals in the environments of many tree swallow bird groups in the United States. Despite this, chemical exposure did not seem to affect the reproductive health of the birds. Manufactured materials made of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, often referred to as “forever chemicals,” are a worldwide environmental contaminant. These chemicals come into ecosystems through manufacturing plant discharges or areas where ...

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Environment

Biochar from invasive weed shields rice from toxic nanoplastics and heavy metals

A team of scientists has found that biochar made from an aggressive invasive plant can protect rice from two modern pollutants that threaten global food security: nanoplastics and cadmium. The study, published in Biochar, reveals how biochar biofilters derived from Mikania micrantha, an invasive vine spreading across Asia, can reduce the combined toxicity of these contaminants by regulating plant metabolism and strengthening rice’s natural defense systems. Nanoplastics, the tiny fragments of degraded plastics, and cadmium, a persistent heavy metal, frequently coexist in agricultural ...

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Environment

Repurposing gemstone polishing waste to create smart cement

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2025 – Cement is one of the most-used materials in the world, and one of the highest emitters of global CO2 emissions. As demand for cement continues to grow, researchers are looking for alternatives to help reduce its environmental impacts. One alternative could be silicon carbide, an inert substance used as a grit in gemstone polishing. It’s used across the industry at every level of processing, including in hobbyist rock tumblers and industrial-scale saws, grinders, sanding belts, and polishing wheels. Large amounts of silicon carbide ...

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Environment

Climate change may create ‘ecological trap’ for species who can’t adapt

CLEVELAND—Even as autumn days grow shorter, a warming climate means Ohio winters aren't as cold as they were just a few decades ago, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. This increasing mismatch between hours of daylight and temperature could spell trouble for animals that thrive by relying on seasonal cues to prepare their bodies for winter, according to new research from Case Western Reserve University. Scientists studying gray tree frogs—a species that survives freezing temperatures by storing “antifreeze” compounds in their bodies—have discovered that these amphibians naturally begin to prepare for winter by responding ...

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Environment

2023 ocean heatwave ‘unprecedented but not unexpected’

The June 2023 heatwave in northern European seas was “unprecedented but not unexpected”, new research shows. During the heatwave, temperatures in the shallow seas around the UK (including the North Sea and Celtic Sea) reached 2.9°C above the June average for 16 days. While unprecedented since observations began, the study warns that rapid climate change means there is now about a 10% chance of a marine heatwave of this scale occurring each year. The June 2023 marine heatwave significantly disrupted phytoplankton blooms. Although its full impact ...

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