Environment
press releases.

Environment23 May 2025

Numerical simulations reveal the origin of barred olivine crystals in early solar system

Researchers from Nagoya City University, Tohoku University, and other institutions have used numerical simulations to replicate how a peculiar mineral texture called barred olivine forms inside chondrules—millimeter-sized spherical particles found in meteorites. These chondrules are considered time capsules from the early solar system, and barred olivine is a rare mineral texture not seen in Earth rocks. Associate Professor Hitoshi Miura of Nagoya City University and the team was the first to reproduce this texture using numerical simulations and ...

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Environment23 May 2025

How marine plankton adapts to a changing world

The study, a collaboration between MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), reanalyzed massive datasets of large-scale distributions of plankton-derived lipids in the ocean, which were initially published by WHOI in 2022. “This study shows the value of open science,” says first author Dr. Weimin Liu from MARUM. “Using new methods on open-access data, we uncovered previously hidden patterns of plankton adaptation.” The datasets, totaling over 200 GB ...

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Environment23 May 2025

Study shows how El Niño and La Niña climate swings threaten mangroves worldwide

A new international study led by researchers at Tulane University shows that the El Niño and La Niña climate patterns affect nearly half of the world's mangrove forests, underscoring the vulnerability of these vital coastal ecosystems to climatic shifts. Mangroves are shrubs or trees that grow in dense thickets mainly in coastal saline or brackish water. The research, published in Nature Geoscience, is based on nearly two decades of satellite data from 2001 to 2020 and is the first study to demonstrate global-scale patterns in how El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences ...

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Environment23 May 2025

Mystery of “very odd” elasmosaur finally solved: one of North America’s most famous fossils identified as new species

A group of fossils of elasmosaurs – some of the most famous in North America – have just been formally identified as belonging to a “very odd” new genus of the sea monster, unlike any previously known. Long-necked and measuring in at 12 metres, Traskasaura sandrae – as it is officially named today in this new study – possessed heavy, sharp, robust teeth, ideal for crushing. Findings, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, highlight Traskasaura as having a strange mix of primitive and derived traits unlike any other elasmosaur. Its unique suite ...

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Environment23 May 2025

Half the remaining habitat of Australia's most at-risk species is unprotected

Australia needs to urgently prioritise state and national conservation policies according to a new study, with the findings warning more than 220 critically endangered species are at risk of being lost due to their small distributions coupled with uneven protections. In the first known study of its kind, the team led by Griffith University, assessed how much of each species’ habitat in Australia was outside protected areas and considered to have agricultural capability, potentially elevating risk of conversion. They ...

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Environment23 May 2025

Satellites offer new view of Chesapeake Bay’s marine heat waves

Heat waves destroy crops, drive wildfires, and kill humans and wildlife, but these extreme weather events aren’t just limited to land. Large bodies of water can also be hit by heat waves that linger for weeks, months and sometimes years—much like “The Blob,” a sprawling hot spot off the U.S. West Coast that wreaked havoc on Pacific Ocean ecosystems from 2013 to 2016. New University of Maryland-led research reveals that the Chesapeake Bay has seen “significant increases” in annual marine heat waves, defined in the study as “prolonged periods of anomalously warm water.” Published in the journal Estuaries and Coasts, the study leveraged ...

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Environment22 May 2025

Future risk of wildfire and smoke in the South

Wildfire risks will continue to evolve as both society and forests change across the southeastern United States, according to a new report. The report is one part of the Southern Forest Outlook, a project undertaken by the USDA Forest Service in partnership with the Southern Group of State Foresters to help forest managers and the public understand changing forest conditions in the South over the coming decades. USDA Forest Service researcher Lars Pomara and his team first modeled and mapped current wildfire risks across the South, including risks to people from direct fire exposure ...

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Environment22 May 2025

Climate change: Penguin guano may help reduce effects of climate change in Antarctica

Ammonia released from penguin guano may help to reduce the effects of climate change in the Antarctic by contributing to increased cloud formation, according to an analysis published in Communications Earth & Environment. The conclusion is the result of measurements taken downwind of a colony of Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). Antarctic ecosystems are facing significant pressures because of human-driven climate change, including a recent decreasing trend in the area covered by sea ice. Penguins are key species in the Antarctic ecosystem whose habitat is threatened by this ongoing ice loss. They are also, along with other ...

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Environment22 May 2025

Study: Climate change may make it harder to reduce smog in some regions

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Global warming will likely hinder our future ability to control ground-level ozone, a harmful air pollutant that is a primary component of smog, according to a new MIT study. The results could help scientists and policymakers develop more effective strategies for improving both air quality and human health. Ground-level ozone causes a host of detrimental health impacts, from asthma to heart disease, and contributes to thousands of premature deaths each year. The researchers’ modeling ...

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Environment22 May 2025

How property owners can work to prevent flooding

The risk of heavy rainfall and severe flooding increases with climate change. But property owners – regardless of size – often underestimate their own responsibility and are unaware of what preventive measures they can take themselves. In a new scientific article, researchers from Linköping University, Sweden, show how to go about preventive work. Many property owners believe that it is the municipality’s responsibility to ensure that their houses do not get flooded in heavy rain. However, in many countries, including Sweden, owner-responsibility is a cornerstone of the adaption governance, and property owners ...

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Environment22 May 2025

Ox-eye daisy, bellis and yarrow: Flower strips with at least two sown species provide 70 percent more natural enemies of pests

They may look good in the landscape, but are they, in fact, useful? This is a subject of frequent debate. In recent years, flower strips along fields and ditches have become popular both in Denmark and abroad. One of the purposes of the strips is to attract more predatory insects that can naturally control pests in the fields, rather than relying on pesticides. The EU aims to reduce pesticide use by 50 percent by 2030. A meta-analysis from the University of Copenhagen shows that flower strips are effective. At least if they have two or more flower species. ...

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Environment22 May 2025

Green ammonia powered by sunlight

Ammonia is a chemical essential to many agricultural and industrial processes, but it’s mode of production comes with an incredibly high energy cost. Various attempts have, and are, being made to produce ammonia more efficiently. For the first time, a group including researchers from the University of Tokyo combined atmospheric nitrogen, water and sunlight, and using two catalysts, produced sizable quantities of ammonia without a high energy cost. Their processes mirror natural processes found in plants utilizing ...

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Environment22 May 2025

Frequent large-scale wildfires are turning forests from carbon sinks into super‑emitters

Richmond Hill, Canada – 6 May 2025 — Forests once hailed as reliable carbon sinks are rapidly becoming “super‑emitters” as record‑breaking wildfires sweep boreal, Amazonian, and Australian landscapes. Today’s climate policies and voluntary carbon markets seldom account for the sharp rise in fire‑driven emissions. A new publication by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU‑INWEH), Beyond Planting Trees: Taking Advantage of Satellite Observations to Improve Forest Carbon Management and Wildfire Prevention, warns about the unintended consequences of current ...

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Environment21 May 2025

Fuel breaks for forest fires could be more effective in reducing potential risks and impacts if planned using a new optimization approach, which accounts for uncertain wildfire behavior in fire-prone

Fuel breaks for forest fires could be more effective in reducing potential risks and impacts if planned using a new optimization approach, which accounts for uncertain wildfire behavior in fire-prone landscapes of Alberta, Canada Article URL: https://plos.io/42Oi8ni Article title: Evaluating fuelbreak strategies for compartmentalizing a fire-prone forest landscape in Alberta, Canada Author countries: Canada, U.S. Funding: Funding for this work was provided by Natural Resource Canada’s Canadian Forest Service Wildfire Risk Management ...

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Environment21 May 2025

Climate change has affected wine regions worldwide, but with uneven impacts

All of the world’s winegrowing regions have been impacted by climate change, but with unequal impacts that vary across the growing season, reports a new study by E.M. Wolkovich of the University of British Columbia and colleagues, published May 21 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate. Winegrapes are an important perennial crop that has been highly affected by climate change. Studies show that warmer temperatures are shifting the regions suitable for winegrowing toward the poles, while traditional regions are yielding grapes that ripen faster ...

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Environment21 May 2025

Scientists reveal how deep-earth carbon movements shape continents and diamonds

A new study published in Science Advances by researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIG-CAS), along with international collaborators, reveals that deeply subducted carbonates can cause significant variations in the redox states of Earth's mantle. This process influences the formation of sublithospheric diamonds and plays a role in the long-term evolution of cratons—ancient stable parts of the continental lithosphere. The research team conducted high-pressure experiments simulating depths between ...

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Environment21 May 2025

Discovering the rich biodiversity of coral reefs using a comprehensive new system

Just a few meters beneath the clear, blue waters of Okinawa, reef-building corals known as Scleractinia have quietly lived for centuries. Slowly, layer by layer, they have constructed intricate, rigid structures made of calcium carbonate to form the vibrant coral reefs of today. Now, researchers have developed a comprehensive system to identify the diversity of these hard corals using only a sample of surface seawater. This environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding system can successfully detect 83 of the 85 genera of reef-building corals known in Japan, enabling their effective and high-precision ...

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Environment21 May 2025

Wind-related hurricane losses for homeowners in the southeastern U.S. could be nearly 76 percent higher by 2060

Herndon, VA, May 21, 2025 -- Hurricane winds are a major contributor to storm-related losses for people living in the southeastern coastal states. As the global temperature continues to rise, scientists predict that hurricanes will get more destructive -- packing higher winds and torrential rainfall. A new study, published in the journal Risk Analysis, projects that wind losses for homeowners in the Southeastern coastal states could be 76 percent higher by the year 2060 and 102 percent higher by 2100. University of Illinois civil engineer ...

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Environment21 May 2025

Biodiversity in Antarctic soils may be greatly underestimated after surprising discovery

Two important concepts in evolutionary biology, mutualism and altruism, were first made famous by the colorful anarchist prince Peter Kropotkin. He argued that cooperation could be an equally powerful driver of evolution as competition. Crucially, he was inspired by his youth as a geographer in the Russian Far East, where he observed how in particular the harsh climate favored cooperation, both within and between species. Now, researchers have shown that previously unknown apparent mutualisms allow biodiversity to flourish to ...

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Environment20 May 2025

From tiny worms to giant squid: new global database reveals the hidden power of body size in the ocean

The ocean runs on size. Until now, we didn’t have the numbers. A new open-access resource, the Marine Organismal Body Size (MOBS) Database, is giving scientists, conservationists, and the public an unprecedented look at the true scale of ocean life—literally. Released this month alongside a peer-reviewed publication, MOBS 1.0 catalogs size data for over 85,000 marine animal species, from microscopic zooplankton to massive whales, offering a vital tool for understanding biodiversity and ecosystem function across the world’s oceans. “Body size isn’t ...

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Environment20 May 2025

Commercially available peroxide binds incompatible polymers for recycling

ITHACA, N.Y. -Cornell University researchers have developed an inexpensive and potentially scalable approach that uses a commercially available peroxide to bind polyethylene and polypropylene together, thereby creating a more useful, high-quality plastic recycling additive. The findings were published May 19 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The co-lead authors were postdoctoral researcher Moritz Kränzlein and doctoral student Shilin Cui. The project was led by Geoffrey Coates, professor of chemistry and chemical biology. The ...

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Environment20 May 2025

Green tea, turmeric, and berries may help reverse epigenetic aging in men

“These findings suggest that consuming foods categorized as methyl adaptogens may reduce markers of epigenetic aging.” BUFFALO, NY — May 20, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Aging (Aging-US) Volume 17, Issue 4, on April 17, 2025, titled “Dietary associations with reduced epigenetic age: a secondary data analysis of the methylation diet and lifestyle study.” In this study, researchers led by first author Jamie L. Villanueva from the University of Washington and the National University of Natural Medicine, along ...

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Environment20 May 2025

Thousands of animal species threatened by climate change, novel analysis finds

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A novel analysis suggests more than 3,500 animal species are threatened by climate change and also sheds light on huge gaps in fully understanding the risk to the animal kingdom. The study was published today in BioScience. “We’re at the start of an existential crisis for the Earth’s wild animals,” said Oregon State University’s William Ripple, who led the study. “Up till now, the primary cause of biodiversity loss has been the twin threats of overexploitation and habitat alteration, but as climate change intensifies, we expect it to become a third ...

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Environment20 May 2025

Climate change emerges as third major threat to global wildlife, scientists warn

New research published in BioScience reveals that climate change is rapidly emerging as a third major threat to Earth's wild animals, joining habitat alteration and overexploitation in what scientists call a shift from "twin to triple threats." The research team, led by William J. Ripple of Oregon State University, analyzed data for 70,814 animal species from 35 classes, using two publicly available biodiversity datasets to assess climate change vulnerability among the world's wild animal populations. Their ...

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Environment20 May 2025

1.5°C Paris Climate Agreement target too high for polar ice sheets and sea level rise

Efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C under the Paris Climate Agreement may not go far enough to save the world’s ice sheets, according to a new study. Research led by Durham University, UK, suggests the target should instead be closer to 1°C to avoid significant losses from the polar ice sheets and prevent a further acceleration in sea level rise. The team reviewed a wealth of evidence to examine the effect that the 1.5°C target would have on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which together store enough ice to raise global sea levels by almost 65 metres. The mass of ice lost from these ice ...

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