News 2019

What is the difference between a planet-satellite system as we have with the Earth and Moon, versus a binary planet — two planets orbiting each other in a cosmic do-si-do? I am an astronomer interested in planets orbiting nearby stars, and gas giants — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in our solar system — are the largest and easiest planets to detect.

The researchers set out to understand where nature contributes the most to people and how many people may be affected by future changes. By 2050, up to 5 billion people could be at higher risk of water pollution, coastal storms and underpollinated crops. Nature supports people in critical ways, often at a highly local level.

Mars may seem to be an alien world, but many of its features look eerily familiar - such as this ancient, dried-up river system that stretches out for nearly 700 kilometres across the surface, making it one of the longest valley networks on the planet. The area of Mars shown in these new images from ESA's Mars Express spacecraft lies just south of the planet's equator, and is known to have been shaped by a mix of flowing water and impacts: events where rocks sped inwards from space to collide with the martian surface.

Researchers show path of zearalenone through the womb using new technology The human foetus is considered to be particularly sensitive to environmental contaminants. A team led by Benedikt Warth from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna and Tina Bürki from the Swiss Materials Science and Technology Institute, Empa, has now been able to demonstrate for the first time how the widespread food estrogen zearalenone behaves in the womb.

Early childhood life in the womb is particularly sensitive to the effects of environmental pollutants. A team from Empa and the University of Vienna has now for the first time been able to show how a pollutant from contaminated food - the environmental estrogen zearalenone - spreads in the womb and is metabolized into harmful metabolites.

A hot, molten Earth would be around 5% larger than its solid counterpart. This is the result of a study led by researchers at the University of Bern. The difference between molten and solid rocky planets is important for the search of Earth-like worlds beyond our Solar System and the understanding of Earth itself.

Researchers from INRA and CNRS have shown for the first time that bee pollination surpasses the use of pesticides in yield and especially in profitability of oilseed rape. The team of researchers analysed data collected over four years in farmers' fields in an agricultural plain in Deux-Sèvres (Nouvelle Aquitaine, western France).

What works best when there is no air-conditioning - it's an issue faced increasingly by residents of densely populated cities. Blackouts during heatwaves are becoming common; a new paper could give comfort and save lives. If there is no power for air-conditioning, and tap water is the only resource available, spreading it across the skin is the best way to prevent the body overheating irrespective of the climate, according to a new study from the University of Sydney.

As we pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world is warming at an alarming rate, with devastating consequences. While our vast oceans are helping to take the heat out of climate change, new research shows that they are absorbing a lot more atmospheric carbon dioxide than previously thought - but these positives may be outweighed by the downsides.

Daphnia, also known as water fleas, play an important role in the food web of lakes: they feed on phytoplankton and are eaten by predators such as fish. Their food resources show marked seasonal variation: in eutrophic waters, the summer is particularly challenging for daphnia, as the phytoplankton community is dominated by cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), which are of poor nutritional quality and often contain toxins.

3.5 million years ago, a supermassive black hole at the heart of our Galaxy spat out an enormous flare. Our researchers worked with an international team to make the discovery. Physicist and astronomy expert, Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn explains how they did it. The supermassive black hole at the heart of our Galaxy spat out an enormous flare of radiation 3.5 million years ago that would have been clearly visible from Earth.

Polluting emissions from Chinese thermal power plants declined significantly between 2014 and 2017, according to research involving UCL. The reductions are important in helping to control China's national emissions which could lead to an improvement in air quality and considerable health benefits. A team of experts from the UK and China analysed emissions from coal, oil, natural gas and biomass power plants, with a focus on coal-fired power plants as the major contributors to ambient air pollution.

Research shows conservation initiatives often spread like diseases, helping scientists and policymakers design programmes more likely to be taken up. The study, led by researchers at Imperial College London, modelled how conservation initiatives are adopted across regions and countries until they reach 'scale' - at a level where they can have real impact on conserving or improving biodiversity.

Scientists at Stanford have identified molecules that tough microbes use to survive in warming waters, opening a window more broadly into studying conditions in ancient seas. Solving a decades-old mystery, Stanford researchers have discovered proteins that enable hardy microbes called archaea to toughen up their membranes when waters are overly warm.

New findings from the ChemCam instrument show a dynamic Martian climate LOS ALAMOS, N.M. Oct. 7, 2019-The surface of Mars was once home to shallow, salty ponds that went through episodes of overflow and drying, according to a paper published today . These findings result from an analysis of rocks enriched in mineral salts in Gale Crater, a 100-mile-wide dry lakebed, performed with the ChemCam instrument, which sits atop NASA's Curiosity rover and shoots Martian rocks with a laser to determine their chemical make-up.

Air pollution is the centre of debate on many fronts, from air protection measures involving road traffic, to technological innovations to reduce harmful emissions.

It can be deformed as required and is three times stronger than natural wood: the wood material developed by Marion Frey, Tobias Keplinger and Ingo Burgert at Empa and ETH Zurich has the potential to become a high-tech material. In the process, the researchers remove precisely the part of the wood that gives it its stability in nature: lignin.

The UK's wildlife is continuing to decline, according to a new report co-authored by a University of Sussex Professor. The State of Nature 2019 report finds that, since rigorous scientific monitoring began in the 1970s, there has been a 13% decline in average abundance across wildlife studied. Butterflies and moths have been particularly hard hit with numbers of butterflies down by 17% and moths down by 25%.

The International Panel on Climate Change has used University of Queensland research to update its National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Guideline for the first time in 13 years. UQ's Advanced Water Management Centre has spent a decade researching greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater systems, both in lab-scale and full-scale, in close collaboration with its many utility partners.

Using macroeconomic modeling, EPFL researchers have identified the most effective carbon tax for Switzerland to meet the Paris Agreement targets: a uniform levy on gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil, rising steadily to 1.70 francs per liter by 2050. The Swiss transport sector has become the country's leading CO2 emitter, accounting for 41% of total emissions.