Environment
press releases.

Environment11 Feb 2026

Air pollution and the progression of physical function limitations and disability in aging adults

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that reducing air pollution levels may help to delay and mitigate physical disability in aging adults. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Sara D. Adar, ScD, email sadar@umich.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.58699) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support. # # ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

7,000 years of change: How humans reshaped Caribbean coral reef food chains

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (2/11/2026) – Human activity has lessened the resilience of modern coral reefs by restricting the food-fueled energy flow that moves through the food chains of these critical ecosystems, an international team of researchers report in the journal Nature. Examining otoliths – fish ear stones that are preserved in marine sediments across millennia – the team developed and applied a nitrogen isotope method to 7,000-year-old fossils in order to reconstruct ancient reef food webs directly for the first time, according to Boston College Senior Research Associate Jessica Lueders-Dumont, a lead researcher on the project. The new analysis highlights underappreciated ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

Keeping an eagle eye on carbon stored in the ocean

As Norway and other nations begin to scale up the storage of CO2 in undersea geologic reservoirs, research from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) is helping answer two important questions about this storage. “Where has my CO2 gone? Is it leaking or not?” says Martin Landrø, an NTNU geophysicist and director of the university’s Centre for Geophysical Forecasting (CGF). “Those are the basic questions actually.” This is like a revolution in visualization and understanding of what's happening. Norway ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

Flagship whales facing climate-driven decline in Australia

The tide has turned on the conservation success story of the southern right whale. Once considered a global conservation success story, the species is now emerging as a warning signal of how climate change is impacting threatened marine life, according to new research led by scientists from Flinders University and Curtin University with international collaborators in the US and South Africa. Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis), a sentinel species for climate change, provide critical insight into ecosystem changes occurring in the Southern Ocean, warn the marine mammal experts. In ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

Pulsed dynamic water electrolysis: Mass transfer enhancement, microenvironment regulation, and hydrogen production optimization

As the global demand for clean hydrogen continues to grow, the limitations of conventional steady-state water electrolysis in terms of energy efficiency, mass transfer, and system stability become more pronounced. Now, researchers from the School of Energy Science and Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology, led by Professor Wei Zhou and Professor Jihui Gao, have presented a comprehensive review on pulsed dynamic electrolysis (PDE) and its potential applications in enhancing water electrolysis performance. This work offers valuable insights into the development of next-generation hydrogen production technologies that can ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

Shandong Agricultural University researchers redefine green revolution genes to boost wheat yield potential

As global population growth and environmental pressures intensify, ensuring stable food supplies has become increasingly difficult and urgent. Wheat is a cornerstone of global food security, providing a major source of calories for nearly 40% of the world's population. Yield improvement, however, depends not only on agronomic inputs but also on plant architecture, which governs light interception, space competition, and performance under dense planting. Traits such as plant height, tiller number, and tiller angle collectively shape canopy structure and resource-use efficiency. ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

Noise pollution is affecting birds' reproduction, stress levels and more. The good news is we can fix it.

New research led by the University of Michigan is painting a more comprehensive picture of how noise pollution is impacting birds around the world. "The major takeaway from this study is that anthropogenic noise affects many aspects of bird behavior, with some responses more directly tied to fitness," said Natalie Madden, lead author of the new study. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was supported by federal funding from the NASA Biodiversity and Ecological ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

New study improves accuracy in tracking ammonia pollution sources

Ammonia is one of the most abundant alkaline gases in the atmosphere. When released into the air, it reacts with acidic compounds to form fine particulate matter known as PM2.5, which contributes to air pollution, climate effects, and human health risks. Identifying where ammonia originates from is essential for designing effective emission control strategies. Researchers have long relied on nitrogen isotope signatures, commonly expressed as δ15N, to distinguish between ammonia released from sources such as fertilizers, livestock waste, and agricultural activities. ...

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Environment11 Feb 2026

Scientists turn agricultural waste into powerful material that removes excess nutrients from water

Excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are among the leading causes of water pollution worldwide, fueling harmful algal blooms and degrading aquatic ecosystems. Now, researchers have developed a sustainable solution by transforming agricultural waste into an advanced biochar material capable of removing these pollutants from wastewater. The new study introduces a calcium hydroxide modified biochar produced from discarded shells of Camellia oleifera, an oil producing tree widely cultivated in China. The research demonstrates that this low cost material can effectively remove ammonium and phosphate from water, two major drivers of eutrophication and ecosystem imbalance. Camellia ...

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Environment10 Feb 2026

Wastewater reveals increase in new synthetic opioids during major New Orleans events

In early 2025, the party-loving city of New Orleans, Louisiana, hosted two major events within the span of a month: Super Bowl LIX and Mardi Gras. And, as with many major events, it appears there was an increase in recreational drug use during this time. Researchers publishing in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters show how monitoring wastewater revealed an increase in the use of relatively new dangerous synthetic opioids during these two events. “Our study reveals the growing trend of synthetic opioid use in communities and our non-invasive approach ...

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Environment10 Feb 2026

New study reveals floods are the biggest drivers of plastic pollution in rivers

Plastic pollution has become a major global environmental concern as modern societies rely increasingly on plastic products. Much of this plastic waste eventually reaches the ocean, with rivers acting as the main transport routes from urban, agricultural, and other landscapes, thereby affecting the lives of marine organisms. Over time, larger plastic items break down into smaller pieces known as microplastics (less than 5 millimeters) and mesoplastics (between 5 and 25 millimeters). These particles can spread ...

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Environment10 Feb 2026

Dogs and cats help spread an invasive flatworm species

A study published in the journal PeerJ, conducted by a researcher from the Institute of Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity (ISYEB) at the French National Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with a researcher from James Cook University in Australia, reveals that domestic animals are involved in the transport of an invasive flatworm species in France. Terrestrial flatworms (Platyhelminthes) are invasive species that primarily spread through the transport of plants, largely driven by human activities. However, one question remained unanswered: how do these very slow-moving animals manage to colonize ...

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Environment10 Feb 2026

Half of the world’s coral reefs suffered major bleaching during the 2014–2017 global heatwave

Benefits to society from coral reefs, including fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, pharmaceutical discovery and more, are estimated at about $9.8 trillion per year. For the first time, an international team led by Smithsonian researchers estimated the extent of coral bleaching worldwide during a global marine heatwave, finding that half of the world’s reefs experienced significant damage. Another heatwave began in 2023 and is ongoing. The analysis was published today in Nature Communications. It takes two partners to make a coral: a tiny animal related to a jellyfish that secretes the hard ...

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Environment10 Feb 2026

Football-sized fossil creature may have been one of the first land animals to eat its veggies

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with backbones to join them. But for tens of millions of years, these early land-dwelling creatures only ate their fellow animals, rather than grazing on greenery. In a new paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, scientists describe the 307-million-year-old fossil of one of the earliest known land vertebrates that evolved the ability to eat plants. “This is one of the oldest known four-legged animals to eat its veggies,” ...

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Environment10 Feb 2026

Bison hunters abandoned long-used site 1,100 years ago to adapt to changing climate

On the Great Plains of North America, bison were hunted for thousands of years before populations collapsed to near extinction due to overexploitation in the late 1800s. But long before then, bison hunters used various strategies and different types of sites, sometimes switching between sites. Now, researchers sought to understand why hunting stopped when bison continued to be present at the Bergstrom site in central Montana, where bison were hunted intermittently for around 700 years before the site fell into disuse. The results were published in Frontiers in Conservation Science. “We found that bison ...

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Environment9 Feb 2026

Climate change could halve areas suitable for cattle, sheep and goat farming by 2100

A new study conducted at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that grassland-based grazing systems – currently covering a third of the Earth’s surface and representing the world’s largest production system – will see a severe contraction as global temperatures rise. Depending on the scenario analysed, 36-50 percent of the land with suitable climatic conditions for grazing today will experience a loss of viability by 2100, affecting more than 100 million pastoralists and up to 1.6 billion grazing animals. The study, published in the scientific journal PNAS today, identifies a ‘safe climatic space’ for cattle, sheep and goat grazing. ...

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Environment9 Feb 2026

Adrienne Sponberg named executive director of the Ecological Society of America

Washington, D.C., February 9, 2026 — The ESA Governing Board announced today that Dr. Adrienne Sponberg will become its new executive director effective March 2. Following an extensive search, the Governing Board unanimously selected Sponberg from an outstanding field of candidates because of her deep experience within the ecological community. She is being promoted from the ESA director of publications into the leadership position. Sponberg brings over 25 years of executive-level association experience, with a proven record of ...

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Environment9 Feb 2026

Glaciers in retreat: Uncovering tourism’s contradictions

As glaciers around the world melt at unprecedented rates, tourism in these icy landscapes is booming, adding pressure to vulnerable regions and disrupting delicate ecosystems. A collective effort, led by UNIL and published in Nature Climate Change, points to ways of balancing tourism with conservation, awareness, and social equity. Since the 18th century, glaciers have captivated mountaineers, scientists, and nature enthusiasts alike. In recent years, this tourist interest has surged, fueled by media coverage of their decline due to climate change. Each year, over 14 million visitors (drawn by fascination, scientific curiosity, and ecological mourning) travel to ...

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Environment9 Feb 2026

Why melting glaciers are drawing more visitors and what that says about climate change

Why melting glaciers are drawing more visitors and what that says about climate change As glaciers around the world continue to shrink and disappear, they are drawing more visitors than ever, not only for their beauty but for what they have come to represent in an era of climate change. A new study co-authored by Rice University anthropologist Cymene Howe examines this phenomenon, showing how melting glaciers have become powerful destinations for tourism, sites of collective grief and symbols of political meaning even as their loss threatens the communities that depend on them. Published in Nature Climate Change, the paper draws on global case studies to examine how glaciers now ...

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Environment9 Feb 2026

People are more helpful when in poor environments

People are more likely to act helpfully in situations where there are poorer choices to give to others, according to a new study that tested willingness to help others in different contexts. The paper, published in Nature Communications today (Monday 9 February), is the culmination of three studies involving more than 500 participants and led by academics from the University of Birmingham. The team, which also included academics from Oxford University and the University of East Anglia, found that when people were in a poor environment they were surprisingly more likely to help compared to the richer environment. Dr ...

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Environment9 Feb 2026

How to “green” operating rooms: new guideline advises reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink

Reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink can be applied in Canadian operating rooms (ORs) to increase environmental sustainability, advises a new guideline published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) ​https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.251192​. As the Canadian health care system produces almost 5% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and 200 000 tonnes of other pollutants, many generated in ORs, it makes sense to focus on reducing these harms. An evidence-based ...

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Environment6 Feb 2026

Seabirds ingest large quantities of pollutants, some of which have been banned for decades

In her 1962 book, Silent Spring, American biologist Rachel Carson revealed that DDT, a widely used pesticide at the time, was responsible for the mass death of birds, including the iconic bald eagle. One reason was that the pesticide made eggshells thinner, causing mothers to break them when sitting on them to incubate. Silent Spring is considered the founding work of the modern environmental movement. Most rich countries had banned DDT by the 1970s. In Brazil, the agricultural ban did not take effect until 1985; however, the poison was still permitted for controlling disease vectors, such as Aedes aegypti. In 2009, a law prohibiting ...

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Environment6 Feb 2026

Scientists debunk claim that trees in the Dolomites anticipated a solar eclipse

Around 14 hours before a partial solar eclipse passed over the Dolomites in Northern Italy, a group of spruce trees showed a sudden, synchronized increase in electrical activity. A widely publicized paper by Chiolerio et al. claimed that the trees were anticipating and preparing for the impending solar eclipse. In an opinion paper publishing February 6 in the Cell Press journal Trends in Plant Science, researchers debunked this claim by examining the evidence and offering a simpler explanation: a local thunderstorm coincided with the trees’ increased electrical activity, during which a cluster of lightning strikes struck near the study site. “To ...

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Environment6 Feb 2026

The internet names a new deep-sea species, Senckenberg researchers select a scientific name from over 8,000 suggestions.

The Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance (SOSA), in partnership with the scientific publisher Pensoft Publishers and famous science YouTuber Ze Frank, have let the Internet name a newly discovered deep-sea chiton (a type of marine mollusk). The formal description of the species was published today in the open-access Biodiversity Data Journal. From over 8,000 name suggestions submitted via social media, the research team responsible for describing the species selected the name Ferreiraella populi. The specific epithet populi is a Latin singular noun in the genitive case meaning “of the people”. Curiously, the name was independently suggested by 11 different contributors ...

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Environment6 Feb 2026

UT San Antonio-led research team discovers compound in 500-million-year-old fossils, shedding new light on Earth’s carbon cycle

February 6, 2026 -- A UT San Antonio-led international research team has identified chitin, the primary organic component of modern crab shells and insect exoskeletons, in trilobite fossils more than 500 million years old, marking the first confirmed detection of the molecule in this extinct group. The findings, led by Elizabeth Bailey, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at UT San Antonio, offer new insight into fossil preservation and Earth’s long-term carbon cycle. Chitin is one of the most abundant organic polymers produced by life on Earth, second only to ...

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