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Environment
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Environment

Alaska: Ancient cave sediments provide new climate clues

Paul Wilcox, a geologist at the University of Innsbruck, has discovered the first land-based evidence of meltwater pulses from the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during the last ice age about 20,000 years ago. The age of the cave sediments was constrained via optical dating techniques, which is crucial to help piece together the sequence of climate events leading to a warming planet. The results were published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Around 20,000 years ago, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet in western North America reached its maximum extent. This was followed by warming climate conditions, causing the ice-sheet to melt. While it is generally accepted ...

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Environment

New marine-biodegradable polymer decomposes by 92% in one year, rivals nylon in strength

Nylon-based products such as clothing and fishing nets are notoriously slow to degrade, especially in marine environments, contributing significantly to global ocean pollution. A Korean research team has now developed an innovative material that can be produced using existing manufacturing infrastructure and effectively addresses this problem. A joint research team led by Dr. Hyun-Yeol Jeon and Dr. Hyo-Jeong Kim at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), Senior Researcher Sung-Bae Park, Professor Dong-Yeop Oh at Inha University, and Professor Je-Young ...

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Environment

CT scanning helps reveal path from rotten fish to fossil

Scientists have found that X-Ray scanning reveals secrets of fossil formation without disturbing the decay of buried carcasses A new study published in Palaeontology has confirmed that X-ray computed tomography (XCT scanning) can be used to monitor decomposing organisms without altering the natural decay process – a vital step for understanding how fossils form. A research team from the University of Birmingham entombed dead zebrafish within sediment to test whether repeatedly zapping decaying specimens with X-rays would change how they decompose. Their findings suggest this non-invasive imaging technique allows scientists to watch decay happen in real-time without disturbing ...

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Environment

Oyster fossils shatter myth of weak seasonality in greenhouse climate

An international research team studying fossilized oyster shells has revealed substantial annual temperature variation in sea water during the Early Cretaceous. The finding overturns the assumption that Earth's greenhouse periods are marked by universally warmer and uniformly stable temperatures. The team, led by Prof. DING Lin from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with researchers from the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate ...

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Environment

Civil defense units must invest in professionalization and own resources to face climate risks

As the effects of climate change intensify in urban areas, it is essential to strengthen the organizational capacity of civil defense units to implement disaster risk management, including prevention and mitigation. To contribute to this debate, a study conducted by researchers from the Brazilian National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN) proposes a public policy focused on five fronts. These are: 1) professionalization of managers and officials in the area; 2) development of capacities adapted to regional specificities and to each biome; 3) allocation of their own budget to municipalities; 4) continuous ...

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Environment

The kids are hungry: Juvenile European green crabs just as damaging as adults, WSU study finds

LONG BEACH, Wash. — Scientists at Washington State University have found that juvenile European green crabs can do as much damage as adults to shellfish and native sea plants, calling into question current methods to eradicate the invasive crustaceans. Green crabs are a massive threat to Washington state’s shellfish industry as well as its native eelgrass, a plant vital to local seawater ecology. For several years, shellfish growers have been trapping green crabs in huge numbers. Trappers traditionally target ...

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Environment

Helping birds and floating solar energy coexist

From a small California winery to a large-scale energy project in China, floating photovoltaics — or “floatovoltaics”— are gaining in popularity. Commonly installed over artificial water bodies, from irrigation ponds and reservoirs to wastewater treatment plants, floating solar projects can maximize space for producing clean energy while sparing natural lands. But where there is water, there are waterbirds. Little is known about the impacts — positive or negative — floating solar projects may have on birds and other wildlife. A paper from the University of California, Davis, published in the journal Nature Water, ...

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Environment

Ultrasound unlocks a safer, greener way to make hydrogels

Researchers at McGill University, in collaboration with Polytechnique Montréal, pioneered a new way to create hydrogels using ultrasound, eliminating the need for toxic chemical initiators. This breakthrough offers a faster, cleaner and more sustainable approach to hydrogel fabrication, and produces hydrogels that are stronger, more flexible and highly resistant to freezing and dehydration. The new method also promises to facilitate advances in tissue engineering, bioadhesives and 3D bioprinting. Hydrogels are gels composed of polymers ...

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Environment

First fossil evidence of endangered tropical tree discovered

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For the first time, scientists have discovered fossil evidence of an endangered, living tropical tree species. The unprecedented find was made in Brunei, a country on the large island of Borneo, and reveals a critical piece of the ancient history of Asia’s rainforests, highlighting the urgent need for conservation in the region, according to researchers at Penn State who led the discovery. The research team published their findings in the American Journal of Botany. The fossils, at least two million years old, represent the first direct ...

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Environment

Stability solution brings unique form of carbon closer to practical application

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Carbyne, a one-dimensional chain of carbon atoms, is incredibly strong for being so thin, making it an intriguing possibility for use in next-generation electronics, but its extreme instability causing it to bend and snap on itself made it nearly impossible to produce at all, let alone produce enough of it for advanced studies. Now, an international team of researchers, including from Penn State, may have a solution. The research team has enclosed carbyne in single-walled carbon nanotubes — tiny, tube-shaped ...

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Environment

Urine, not water for efficient production of green hydrogen

Researchers have developed two unique energy-efficient and cost-effective systems that use urea found in urine and wastewater to generate hydrogen. The unique systems reveal new pathways to economically generate ‘green’ hydrogen, a sustainable and renewable energy source, and the potential to remediate nitrogenous waste in aquatic environments. Typically, hydrogen is generated through the use of electrolysis to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. It is a promising technology to help address ...

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Environment

North Korea’s illegal wildlife trade threatens endangered species

The North Korean government engages in unsustainable and illegal wildlife trade, which includes species protected under its own laws and poses a threat to biodiversity recovery in the region, finds a groundbreaking new study by UCL researchers. The report, published in Biological Conservation, found that although North Korea has a regulatory system of protected areas and protected species, these are regularly breached by people hunting and trapping wild animals for personal consumption or black market trade, either domestically or for sale to buyers in China. Additionally, the North Korean state itself is implicated in, and actively profiting from, harvesting and trade of endangered ...

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Environment

Simple, effective interventions reduce emissions from Bangladesh’s informal brick kilns

Simple and inexpensive interventions aimed at making changes in how Bangladesh’s informal brink kilns operate could dramatically cut emissions and boost profits for producers, according to a new study. The findings may offer a scalable model for tackling pollution in hard-to-regulate informal industries, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In many LMICs, weak regulatory systems limit the effectiveness of pollution control, especially in informal industries that tend to operate outside formal governance and ...

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Environment

Durham University scientists solve 500-million-year fossil mystery

-With images- A peculiar spiny fossil, once thought to represent one of the earliest molluscs, has now been conclusively reclassified by scientists from Durham University and Yunnan University as something entirely different – a distant relative of sponge-like creatures known as chancelloriids. This striking revelation is set to reshape our understanding of early animal evolution. The fossil, named Shishania aculeata, hails from 500-million-year-old Cambrian deposits in Yunnan Province, southern China, ...

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Environment

Community science helps reveal population growth among SoCal’s endangered giant sea bass

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Nicknamed the “king of the kelp forest,” giant sea bass are among scuba divers’ favorite characters to spot off the California Coast. But very few of these charismatic fish remain. A team led by researchers at UC Santa Barbara has conducted the first direct population estimate of this critically endangered species in Southern California. Using photos sourced from the diving community, they found slightly more than 1,200 adult giant sea bass within Southern California waters from 2015 to 2022. The results, published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series represent an increasing trend in their numbers, suggesting ...

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Environment

How to reduce global CO2 emissions from industry

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from industry can be reduced by five per cent. But that requires companies and policy makers to take a holistic approach to energy efficiency and energy management and not solely focus on technological development. This is the conclusion of researchers, including from Linköping University, in the journal Nature Communications. “We have a far too narrow view of energy efficiency. Many people think that investments in new energy-efficient equipment are enough. But then you can’t fulfil the full potential of energy efficiency,” says Patrik Thollander, Professor ...

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Environment

Satellites observe glacier committing “ice piracy”

Under embargo until: 00.01am BST on Thursday May 8, 2025 (19.01 ET, Wednesday May 7) WITH PICS via https://www.dropbox.com/t/oL4yD9tjQpkChoLL A glacier in Antarctica is committing “ice piracy” - stealing ice from a neighbour – in a phenomenon that has never been observed in such a short time frame, say scientists. This activity was previously believed to take place over hundreds or even thousands of years. However, high-resolution satellite observations reveal one ...

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Environment

Global study finds political left more trusting of climate scientists than right

A sweeping 26-country study reveals a consistent gap in trust toward climate scientists based on political ideology, with right-leaning individuals reporting lower trust than their left-leaning counterparts. The divide is especially stark in wealthier democracies and English-speaking nations, according to the research, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology (link is external and opens in a new window). The findings expand on past studies focused primarily on Western, English-speaking contexts. “While climate scientists ...

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Environment

In Reddit posts about climate change, just 1 in 25 links are to scientific sources - versus mass media and social media sources - evidencing the lack of science-based debate

In Reddit posts about climate change, just 1 in 25 links are to scientific sources - versus mass media and social media sources - evidencing the lack of science-based debate. #### Article URL: https://plos.io/4jZKIYA Article Title: The role of science in the climate change discussions on Reddit Author Countries: Austria, Italy Funding: The authors acknowledge support from the Lagrange Project of the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation (ISI Foundation, to PC, MT, KK, DP, YM) funded by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino (Fondazione CRT), Italy. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, ...

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Environment

Only 0.001% of the deep seafloor visually observed in seventy years, revealing gaps and bias in ocean exploration and global biodiversity understanding

(Saunderstown, RI — May 7, 2025) In a groundbreaking study published today in Science Advances, researchers from Ocean Discovery League reveal that only a minuscule fraction of the deep seafloor has been imaged. Despite covering 66% of Earth's surface, the deep ocean remains largely unexplored. The study, "How Little We've Seen: A Visual Coverage Estimate of the Deep Seafloor," is the first to document that, in decades of deep-sea exploration, humans have observed less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor. This total area is roughly the size of Rhode Island or one-tenth the size of ...

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Environment

Could conserving tigers in forests be an integral part of climate change solutions?

Forests without top predators (such as tigers) risk being overgrazed by large herbivore prey, depleting vegetation carbon stocks and their capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, an essential ecosystem function for mitigating climate change. Therefore, just as forest protection and restoration can support top predator recovery “bottom-up,” large carnivore conservation likely promotes vegetation recovery “top-down” and represents an understudied component in nature-based solutions to climate change. Research published in Global Change Biology provides new ...

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Environment

Study of velvet worm slime could revolutionize sustainable material design

A new discovery about the slime ejected by velvet worms could revolutionize sustainable material design, according to a study by McGill University researchers. Their findings outline how a naturally occurring protein structure, conserved across species from Australia, Singapore and Barbados over nearly 400 million years of evolution, enables the slime’s transformation from liquid to fibre and back again. It’s a discovery that could inspire next-generation recyclable bioplastics. "Nature has already figured out a way to make materials ...

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Environment

New drone-assisted 3D model offers a more accurate way to date dinosaur fossils

A new study from McGill University is reshaping how scientists date dinosaur fossils in Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park (DPP). Using advanced drone-assisted 3D mapping, researchers have uncovered significant variations in a key geological marker, challenging long-standing methods of determining the ages of dinosaur fossils. The researchers say their findings, published in Palaeontologia Electronica, could lead to more accurate reconstructions of ancient ecosystems, helping us better understand Earth's history and how past biodiversity changes inform present and future life. “We’ve ...

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Environment

New study reveals how inter-species interactions control structure and mechanics of double networks materials

A new study, “Inter-Species Interactions in Dual, Fibrous Gels Enable Control of Gel Structure and Rheology” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), uncovers how fine-tuning the interactions between two distinct network-forming species within a soft gel enables programmable control over its structure and mechanical properties. The findings reveal a powerful framework for engineering next-generation soft materials with customizable behaviors, inspired by the complexity of biological tissues. The study uses simulations to investigate how varying the strength and geometry of interactions between two colloidal species impacts network formation and ...

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Environment

Researchers identify two new crocodile species

McGill University researchers, in collaboration with Mexican scientists, have discovered two previously unknown species of crocodiles, one living on the island of Cozumel and the other on the atoll of Banco Chinchorro, both off the Yucatán Peninsula. The findings challenge long-held assumptions about the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) and highlight the urgent need for conservation efforts, the researchers say. "Biodiversity is disappearing faster than we can discover what we’re losing," said Biology Professor Hans Larsson, the principal investigator. ...

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