Environment
press releases.

Environment14 Jan 2025

The Dark Side of the ocean: New giant sea bug species named after Darth Vader

Giant isopods of the genus Bathynomus, which can reach more than 30 cm in length, are known as bọ biển or “sea bugs” in Vietnam. For the first time, one such species was described from Vietnamese waters and named Bathynomus vaderi. The name “vaderi” is inspired by the appearance of its head, which closely resembles the distinctive and iconic helmet of Darth Vader, the most famous Sith Lord of Star Wars. Bathynomus vaderi belongs to a group known as “supergiants,” reaching lengths of 32.5 cm and weighing over a kilogram. So far, this ...

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Environment14 Jan 2025

Direct discharge electrical pulses for carbon fiber recycling

The world is hurtling rapidly towards a developed future, and carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) play a key role in enabling technological and industrial progress. These composite materials are lightweight and highly strong, making them desirable for applications in various fields, including aviation, aerospace, automotive, wind power generation, and sports equipment. However, recycling CFRPs presents a significant challenge, with waste management being a pressing issue. Conventional recycling methods ...

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Environment14 Jan 2025

HKU ecologist highlights critical gaps in global wildlife trade monitoring

Wildlife trade poses one of the greatest threats to the survival of numerous species. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) at least 50,000 species are involved in trade. However, while this figure already seems huge, it risks overlooking less traditional sectors of wildlife trade, such as the pet or fashion trade. For instance, recent data shows that the number of butterflies traded exceeds the total number of terrestrial arthropods in the IPBES assessment. This raises a critical question: How many ...

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Environment13 Jan 2025

From microplastics to macro-impact: KTU expert explains plastic recycling challenges

“Microplastic particles are currently found almost everywhere – in water, food, fish, and even breast milk,” says Artūras Torkelis, a PhD student at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU). He emphasises that proper waste management is essential for reducing these risks. The use of plastic in Europe has skyrocketed over the past decade. Recent statistics reveal that in 2021, each person in the European Union (EU) generated an average of 36 kg of plastic packaging waste. Of the more than 16 million tonnes of plastic packaging generated that year, only 6.5 million tonnes were recycled. Plastic recycling remains a serious problem. ...

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Environment12 Jan 2025

HKU ecologists reveal key genetic insights for the conservation of iconic cockatoo species

Ecologists at the School of Biological Sciences of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) have made valuable discoveries that could transform the conservation of two iconic cockatoo species: the Sulphur-crested cockatoos and the critically endangered Yellow-crested cockatoos – with only 2,000 individuals remaining in the wild for the latter. Until now, no whole-genome research had been conducted on either species, which were identified solely by subtle morphological differences. Through two innovative studies, the team ...

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Environment11 Jan 2025

An eye-opening year of extreme weather and climate

From the persistent droughts of southern Africa and Central America in the early part of the year to the more recent devastating extreme rainfall in Spain and the deadly Hurricane Helene along America’s east coast, 2024 has been a year of climate events that affected the lives of billions of people. In a recent paper published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, an international team of scientists led by Dr Wenxia Zhang at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, provide an overview of the characteristics and impacts of the most notable extreme events of the year, including rainfall and flooding, ...

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Environment10 Jan 2025

Breakthrough study reveals unexpected cause of winter ozone pollution

Researchers from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, alongside mainland collaborators, have uncovered an unexpected phenomenon: severe wintertime ozone (O₃) pollution in Lanzhou, China, driven primarily by alkene emissions from local petrochemical industries. Traditionally associated with warm weather and strong solar radiation, hourly O₃ levels exceeding 100 ppbv were recorded during cold January days in 2018, peaking at an alarming 121 ppbv. Using an advanced photochemical box model, the study identified alkene ozonolysis as ...

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Environment10 Jan 2025

New fossil discovery sheds light on the early evolution of animal nervous systems

Embargoed until Friday 10-Jan-2025 14:00 ET (10-Jan-2025 19:00 GMT/UTC) An international team of scientists has uncovered a fascinating piece of the evolutionary puzzle: how the ventral nerve cord, a key component of the central nervous system, evolved in ecdysozoan animals, a group that includes insects, nematodes, and priapulid worms. Their findings, published in Science Advances, provide valuable insights into the origins of these structures in the basal Cambrian period. The research team, comprising Dr Deng Wang (Northwest University), Dr Jean Vannier (Université ...

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Environment10 Jan 2025

Climate fee on food could effectively cut greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture while ensuring a social balance

Agriculture accounts for 8 percent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Germany. “However, emissions within this sector, could be reduced by 22.5 percent or over 15 million tonnes of GHG annually, if the social cost of carbon were reflected in food prices,” says Julian Schaper, guest scientist at PIK and lead author of the study published in the journal Food Policy. In the Federal Climate Change Act passed in 2019, the government set itself the goal of reducing annual emissions from the current 62 million tonnes to 56 Mt GHG by 2030. The social cost of carbon is an estimate of the economic damages that would result from emitting one additional tonne of carbon into the ...

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Environment10 Jan 2025

Sustainable building components create a good indoor climate

Whether it’s the meeting room of an office building, the exhibition room of a museum or the waiting area of a government office, many people gather in such places, and quickly the air becomes thick. This is partly due to the increased humidity. Ventilation systems are commonly used in office and administrative buildings to dehumidify rooms and ensure a comfortable atmosphere. Mechanical dehumidification works reliably, but it costs energy and – depending on the electricity used – has a negative climate impact. Against this backdrop, a team of researchers from ETH Zurich investigated a new approach to passive dehumidification of indoor spaces. Passive, in this context, means ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Don’t write off logged tropical forests – converting to oil palm plantations has even wider effects on ecosystems

A research team led by the University of Oxford has carried out the most comprehensive assessment to date of how logging and conversion to oil palm plantations affect tropical forest ecosystems. The results demonstrate that logging and conversion have significantly different and cumulative environmental impacts. The results have been published today (10 January) in Science. Understanding how different aspects of tropical forests are affected by logging and conversion to oil palm plantations is important for identifying priority habitats for conservation and restoration. It can also help aid decisions on land use – for instance, whether a logged forest should be ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Changes to building materials could store carbon dioxide for decades

Replacing conventional building materials with materials modified to store carbon dioxide could move the planet closer to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study by Elisabeth Van Roijen and colleagues. The researchers calculate that full replacement of conventional building materials with these CO2-sequestering alternatives could store as much as 16.6 ± 2.8 gigatons of CO2 each year – an equivalent to about 50% of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions in 2021. Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, along with decreasing emissions, is important for slowing ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

EPA finalized rule on greenhouse gas emissions by power plants could reduce emissions with limited costs

In this Policy Forum, John Bistline and colleagues analyze the potential impacts of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s finalized power plant rules regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Using nine models of the U.S. electric sector and energy systems, the researchers found that the rules would speed up the reduction of emissions in the power sector. Under the rules, the levels of carbon dioxide emitted by the sector would be 61%-81% below 2005 levels by 2040. Under current policies, emission levels would be 51% to 83% below 2005 levels by 2040, ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Storing carbon in buildings could help address climate change

Construction materials such as concrete and plastic have the potential to lock away billions of tons of carbon dioxide, according to a new study by civil engineers and earth systems scientists at the University of California, Davis and Stanford University. The study, published Jan. 10 in Science, shows that combined with steps to decarbonize the economy, storing CO2 in buildings could help the world achieve goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “The potential is pretty large,” said Elisabeth Van ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Researchers use lab data to rewrite equation for deformation, flow of watery glacier ice

AMES, Iowa – Neal Iverson started with two lessons in ice physics when asked to describe a research paper about glacier ice flow that has just been published by the journal Science. First, said the distinguished professor emeritus of Iowa State University’s Department of the Earth, Atmosphere, and Climate, there are different types of ice within glaciers. Parts of glaciers are at their pressure-melting temperature and are soft and watery. That temperate ice is like an ice cube left on a kitchen counter, with meltwater ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

A Sustainable Development Goal for space?

Scientists have called for the designation of a new United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) with the aim to conserve and sustainably use Earth's orbit, and prevent the accumulation of space junk. There are currently 17 SDGs, adopted by UN members in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet for future generations, and ensure all people enjoy peace and prosperity. But with growing numbers of satellites and other objects now orbiting our planet, there is growing concern that without some form of global consensus ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Bridging oceans: A US-Japan approach to flood risk and climate resilience

An innovative project jointly funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) brings together a team of scientists from Florida Atlantic University and Lehigh University, along with a team from Japan that includes researchers from Kyoto University, University of Tokyo and Kumamoto University. The project, titled “NSF-JST: An Inclusive Human-Centered Risk Management Modeling Framework for Flood Resilience,” is supported by a three-year, $1 million award split evenly between the U.S. and Japanese teams, with the U.S. team receiving $499,271. ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Science educator calls for climate change to be taught more in US schools

Given that today’s children will inherit the consequences of climate change, schools are instrumental in mobilizing a global response to the climate crisis, a science educator argues. Climate literacy advocate Kelley T. Lê argues that climate change is the defining issue of our time, and in her new book, Teaching Climate Change for Grades 6–12: Activating Science Teachers to Take on the Climate Crisis Through NGSS, Lê provides teachers, administrators, and global leaders with practical tools to empower ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Realistic emission tests for motorbikes, mopeds and quads

The emissions scandal in the automotive industry that came to light in 2015 has set many things in motion. Last but not least, the discussion about the need for realistic tests for vehicles in order to correctly determine their pollutant emissions instead of just testing on test rigs. Such tests and the applicable emission limits are now required by law for cars, but not for so-called category-L vehicles (mopeds, motorbikes, tricycles and quads). As part of the “LENS” project (L-vehicles Emissions and Noise mitigation Solutions) funded by the European ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

States struggle to curb food waste despite policies

The United States generates more food waste than all but two countries. To address this, the federal government set a goal to cut food waste in half by 2030 compared to 2016 levels, to about 164 pounds per person annually. But a new study published in Nature Food and led by University of California, Davis, reveals that current state policies are falling short. Since 2016, per capita food waste has increased instead of decreasing. “We’re just five years away from 2030 so it’s quite alarming how ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Floods, droughts, then fires: Hydroclimate whiplash is speeding up globally

Key takeaways Hydroclimate whiplash – rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather – has already increased globally due to climate change, with further large increases expected as warming continues, according to a team of researchers led by UCLA’s Daniel Swain. The “expanding atmospheric sponge,” or the atmosphere’s ability to evaporate, absorb and release 7% more water for every degree Celsius the planet warms, is a key driver of the whiplash. Co-management of extreme rainfall or extreme droughts, ...

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Environment9 Jan 2025

Scientists fuel sustainable future with catalyst for hydrogen from ammonia

Scientists have created a catalyst for hydrogen generation from ammonia that becomes more active with time, and by counting atoms revealed changes that boost the catalyst’s performance. A research team from the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and Cardiff University, has developed a novel material consisting of nanosized ruthenium (Ru) clusters anchored on graphitized carbon. These Ru nanoclusters react with ammonia molecules, catalysing splitting ammonia into ...

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Environment8 Jan 2025

Discovery of 'Punk' and 'Emo' fossils challenges our understanding of ancient molluscs

Researchers have unearthed two fossils, named Punk and Emo, revealing that ancient molluscs were more complex and adaptable than previously known. Molluscs are one of life’s most diverse animal groups and analysis of the rare 430 million year old fossils is challenging long-held views on their early origins. The fossils dating from the Silurian period were retrieved from Herefordshire and shed light on the molluscs’ complex evolutionary history and how they moved. The discovery challenges the longstanding ...

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Environment8 Jan 2025

New study assesses wildfire risk from standing dead trees in Yellowstone National Park

Standing dead trees in Yellowstone National Park are growing wildfire hazards, especially near park infrastructure. A new study published in Forest Ecosystems explores how these dead trees contribute to fire risk and threaten roads, buildings, and trails. Dead trees, particularly those that remain standing, are a significant fire hazard. These trees—often caused by pests, diseases, and climate change—create a large amount of dry, combustible material. As temperatures rise and droughts intensify, the risk of wildfires increases, making it essential to understand how dead trees contribute to fire danger. The team used a random forest classification model, a powerful ...

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Environment8 Jan 2025

Climate change linked with worse HIV prevention and care

Toronto, ON – New challenges in HIV prevention and care are emerging due to climate change, according to a review published earlier this month in Current Opinions in Infectious Disease. Researchers from the University of Toronto analyzed 22 recent studies exploring HIV-related outcomes in the context of climate change and identified several links between extreme weather events and HIV prevention and care. Climate change-related extreme weather events, such as drought and flooding, were associated with poorer HIV prevention outcomes, including ...

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