news 2022

The world's first urban state societies developed in Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, some 5500 years ago. No other artefact type is more symbolic of this development than the so-called Beveled Rim Bowl (BRB), the first mass produced ceramic bowl. BRB function and what food(s) these bowls contained has been the subject of debate for over a century.

Rock coasts, which make up over half the world's coastlines, could retreat more rapidly in the future due to accelerating sea level rise. This is according to new research led by Imperial College London and supported by researchers from the University of Glasgow. The researchers modelled likely future cliff retreat rates of two rock coasts in the UK, based on forecasts of sea level rise for different greenhouse gas emissions and climate change scenarios.

The risks pesticides pose to insects and other small animals in waters in protected areas are almost comparable to those in waters outside protected areas - even if the concentrations of pesticides in waters in protected areas are lower. This was found by scientists at the University of Koblenz-Landau in a recent study.

Social media engagement with climate policy events is vital to reducing building emissions and ensuring environmental justice, research led by Cambridge suggests To build for tomorrow fairly, global climate action has to incorporate and empower diverse public voices Ramit Debnath Negativity on Twitter about decarbonising the built environment has increased by around a third since 2014, according to a new analysis of more than 250,000 tweets featuring #emissions and #building between 2009 and 2021.

Drylands are experiencing increasingly levels of degradation and desertification, changes that could put already vulnerable populations at greater risk. A research team, including Natasha MacBean , conducted an examination of dryland productivity and its important role in global carbon and water cycling, to understand the impact of climate change and human activity on future dryland ecosystem functioning.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and UC Santa Cruz scientists have detected a previously hypothesized class of nitrogen fixation in the surface ocean. Nitrogen scarcity limits the growth of ocean phytoplankton, a globally important carbon sink and the base of the marine food web.

Increasing melt threatens to saturate the firn layer that covers the Greenland ice sheet. Saturation of this layer will dramatically increase global sea level rise, adding about 9 mm a year from the Greenland ice sheet alone (the current sea level rise from all sources is about 4 mm per year). A new study by researchers from Utrecht University, the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, and University of Colorado Boulder now shows that this threshold could be reached as early as the first half of the 22 century.

Juvenile Eastern Blue Gropers ('blue groper'), the state fish of New South Wales, have been recorded living on endangered oyster reefs for the first time. University of Sydney researchers spotted the juvenile blue gropers in four remnant oyster reefs in NSW, including Bermagui and Crookhaven in south NSW, and Towra Point and Port Hacking in south Sydney.

Over 10,000 people in both the French and Swiss parts of the Lake Geneva region have been surveyed on their transportation habits, as the first element of a broader EPFL study on consumer lifestyles and behavior. The study is being spearheaded by EPFL's School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), working in association with the Canton of Vaud, the Canton of Geneva and Greater Geneva.

Scientists have confirmed that a "stabilizing feedback" on 100,000-year timescales keeps global temperatures in check. The Earth's climate has undergone some big changes, from global volcanism to planet-cooling ice ages and dramatic shifts in solar radiation. And yet life, for the last 3.7 billion years, has kept on beating.

Biophysicists from the University of Luxembourg have uncovered how microplankton - key photosynthetic organisms which produce nearly 50% of the oxygen we breathe - adopt a thrifty lifestyle when nutrients turn limiting. They strategically harness internal lipids to regulate swimming properties to maximise their fitness.

Researchers at Eawag recommend setting up a monitoring system for antibiotic resistance in the synthesis report of the National Research Programme NRP 72 Antimicrobial resistance, similar to the wastewater monitoring for Sars-CoV-2. Antibiotic resistance endangers human and animal health worldwide. In order to be able to introduce effective measures against antibiotic-resistant pathogens, it is important to have detailed knowledge of the current situation and how resistances are spreading in the environment.

International research team led by Göttingen University use advanced machine learning to model biodiversity Why are there more plant species in some places than in others? Why is diversity highest in the tropics? What is the connection between biodiversity and environmental conditions? To help answer these questions, an international team led by researchers at the University of Göttingen has reconstructed the distribution of plant diversity around the world and made high-resolution predictions of where and how many plant species there are.

A University of Queensland project to mass-produce a more genetically diverse and resilient species of the native Australian emu bush will boost vital land restoration and revegetation efforts across the country. The ARC Linkage project led by UQ's Dr Robyn Cave from the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences , aims to improve seed germination of the hardy shrub, important to the ecosystem.

New results show average sea level rise approaching the 1-foot mark for most coastlines of the contiguous U.S. by 2050. The Gulf Coast and Southeast will see the most change. By 2050, sea level along contiguous U.S. coastlines could rise as much as 12 inches (30 centimeters) above today's waterline, according to researchers who analyzed nearly three decades of satellite observations.

A new technique for studying liver cells within an organism could shed light on the genes required for regeneration. The liver's ability to regenerate itself is legendary. Even if more than 70 percent of the organ is removed, the remaining tissue can regrow an entire new liver. Kristin Knouse, an MIT assistant professor of biology, wants to find out how the liver is able to achieve this kind of regeneration, in hopes of learning how to induce other organs to do the same thing.

Study is first to predict impact of climate change on mangrove distribution in South Africa A team of scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Nelson Mandela University, the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the University of the Western Cape has been able to show for the first time that ocean currents and coastal geomorphology may continue to hold back the spread of mangrove forests along the South African coast, even as global warming creates a more ideal climate for them.

Cyclists in Brisbane don't take the shortest or flattest routes, but rather plan their journeys to minimise traffic stress according to research from The University of Queensland. Researchers Tmnit Halefom and Dr Dorina Pojani from UQ's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences said the findings suggest barriers to bike use in the city may have been misunderstood.

Scientists from Simon Fraser University are part of an international team of researchers that has developed a new science-based indicator to assess the state of health of the oceans-and the possible risk of extinction of their species. Recent biodiversity studies show an unprecedented loss of species, ecosystems and genetic diversity on land, but the extent to which these patterns are widespread in the oceans is not yet known.

Researchers did not detect any SARS-CoV-2 in Thames water after raw sewage discharge, suggesting it is unlikely to be a route of transmission. SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, has been detected in wastewater and can be used to track outbreaks in populations. This has led researchers to question whether wastewater can also be a source of disease transmission.