news 2022

Research from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and UC Louvain warns of the effects of global warming on the fragile ecosystems of one of Africa's largest lakes. A rise of a few degrees in the water temperature can unbalance the ecosystem, with a major impact on local habitats as a result. "For our research, we combined a 3D hydrodynamic model of Lake Tanganyika made using SLIM-3D by Professor Eric Deleersnijder's research group at UC Louvain, with our own VUB expertise on climate modelling," says lead author Kevin Sterckx of VUB's Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering.

Agriculture is one of the leading causes of human induced land-use change globally. Our food consumption and production, especially in industrialised countries, is thereby damaging the planet.

Phosphorus use in the UK needs to be better managed and used in a much more sustainable way to reduce river pollution and increase resilience over rising fertiliser prices, say researchers. Despite phosphorus being a key nutrient in the agricultural sector for which there is no alternative, the food and feedstock industries rely on imports from a small number of countries including China, Russia and Morocco.

Researchers will work with Virgin Atlantic to launch the world's first transatlantic flight powered solely by sustainable aviation fuel. The passenger flight from London to New York will be fuelled by 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), combined with carbon removal through biochar credits - a material that traps and stores carbon taken from the atmosphere - making the flight net zero.

Heidelberg geographers use new methods to capture large dune shapes in time and space and to explain their origin Star dunes are among the largest dune formations on Earth and - due to their changing shape over time - they can be important indicators for understanding the effects of climate change. Scientists from Heidelberg University's Institute of Geography have examined such a dune in the Erg Chebbi sandy desert in Morocco by means of state-of-the-art laser scanning.

Global warming is leading to longer growing seasons worldwide, with many plants growing earlier in spring and continuing longer in autumn thanks to warmer temperatures-so the general opinion. Now, however, plant ecologists at the University of Basel have been able to show that this is not the case for the most common type of alpine grassland in the European Alps, where an earlier start leads to earlier aging and leaves the grassland brown for months.

A consortium of bacteria form on the microfibers of the Mediterranean Sea, becoming "floating homes for bacteria". Maria Luiza Pedrotti, a CNRS researcher at the Villefranche-sur-Mer oceanography laboratory  has reported the presence of a pathogenic bacterium on the tiny textile fibers found in the deep blue sea.

Science, Health & Technology Lou Corpuz-Bosshart Chronic ship noise can lead to stress, hearing loss and feeding problems for marine mammals like whales, dolphins and porpoises. UBC researchers are diving in to help address the issue. According to project lead Dr. Rajeev Jaiman , an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering, propeller noise accounts for much of the acoustic barrage from ships.

Sediment cores obtained from Eifel maar sites provide insight into the presence of large Ice Age mammals in Central Europe over the past 60,000 years / Overkill hypothesis not confirmed Herds of megafauna, such as mammoth and bison, have roamed the prehistoric plains in what is today's Central Europe for several tens of thousands of years.

Climate change, rather than competition, played a key role in the ascendancy of dinosaurs through the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods. According to new research, changes in global climate associated with the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction - which wiped out many large terrestrial vertebrates such as the giant armadillo-like aetosaurs - actually benefitted the earliest dinosaurs.

Dr Alexander Piel and Dr Fiona Stewart (both UCL Anthropology) discuss their new study in The Conversation which reveals the ability for humans to walk upright on two legs may have evolved in trees, and not on the ground as previously thought. There's no trait that distinguishes humans from all other mammals more clearly than the way we walk.

This week, the biodiversity conference takes place in Montreal, after it was postponed by Covid-19 in the Chinese city of Kunming last May. That postponement was worrying, says Professor of Land Use and Biodiversity Merel Soons , because time is running out for nature conservation. The reason our biodiversity is declining so much is well known.

Meta-analysis of scientific literature shows decline of interactions with nature due to growing urbanisation, but systematic studies are rare Humans are living further and further away from nature, leading to a decline in the number of our interactions with nature. This is the finding of a meta-study conducted by a Franco-German research team at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University and the Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station (SETE - CNRS).

Researchers find tropical forests that have been logged still retain good ecological health, and should be protected from conversion to plantations. Logged forests that have had some trees removed are often labelled as 'degraded', meaning they are lower priority for protection and can be cleared to make way for agriculture such as oil palm plantations.

Bifacial thin film solar cells based on copper indium gallium diselenide or CIGS can collect solar energy from both their front and their rear side - and thus potentially yield more solar electricity than their conventional counterparts. So far, however, their fabrication has led to only modest energy conversion efficiencies.

Using enhanced halide perovskite in place of silicon could produce less expensive devices that stand up better to light, heat Using enhanced halide perovskite in place of silicon could produce less expensive devices that stand up better to light, heat Amid all of the efforts to convert the nation's energy supply to renewable sources, solar power still accounts for a little less than 3% of electricity generated in the U.S. In part, that's because of the relatively high cost to produce solar cells.

To better understand the evolution of flowers, researchers from Montreal are harnessing photogrammetry - a technique commonly used by geographers to reconstruct landscape topography. This is the first time scientists have used the technique to study flowers. The team, including researchers from McGill University, Université de Montréal, and the Montreal Botanical Garden, published the results of their work in the journal New Phytologist .

Human bipedalism - walking upright on two legs - may have evolved in trees, and not on the ground as previously thought, according to a new study involving UCL researchers. In the study, published today in the journal Science Advances, researchers from UCL, the University of Kent, and Duke University, USA, explored the behaviours of wild chimpanzees - our closest living relative - living in the Issa Valley of western Tanzania , within the region of the East African Rift Valley.

A team of UT researchers from the Faculties of ITC, BMS and ET has recently published a new study published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation that found using digital twins can improve planning and coordination in cities. Digital twins are digital representations of physical objects or systems, and have been widely used in manufacturing, construction, and maintenance to improve planning and coordination.

TU Delft Dream Team Epoch has achieved ninth place in their first competition of the year, the CityLearn Challenge. Engaged in a battle with 110 other teams from around the world, including Microsoft, the TU Delft students developed a new AI algorithm that contributes to better and smarter energy systems.