news 2023

For decades, science fiction authors have imagined scenarios in which life thrives on the harsh surfaces of Mars or our Moon, or in the oceans below the icy surfaces of Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa. But the study of habitability-the conditions required to support and sustain life-is not just confined to the pages of fiction.

A low carbon abundance in planetary atmospheres, which the James Webb Space Telescope can detect, could be a signature of habitability. Scientists at MIT, the University of Birmingham, and elsewhere say that astronomers' best chance of finding liquid water, and even life on other planets, is to look for the absence, rather than the presence, of a chemical feature in their atmospheres.

Publication involving a former ENS de Lyon PhD candidate and the EVS laboratory, in the journal Marine Geology . Earliest Evidence of Port-Related lead pollution in Bronze Age Greece First discovery of brown coal in a stratigraphic context at the end of the Bronze Age Lechaion's harbour archaeological chronology pushed back by at least 5 centuries New perspectives on regional economy and trade during the LBA/EIA transition Lechaion in Corinth, Greece, is the largest ancient port in Greece.

Researchers at TU Graz have developed a new measuring system that can statically and dynamically monitor the condition of buildings using just a few antennas. From the outside, the Kölnbrein water dam, operated by Verbund in Carinthia, which is Austria's highest dam, and the DC Tower in Vienna, Austria's tallest building, do not have much in common, but for a research group around Caroline Schönberger and Werner Lienhart from the Institute of Engineering Geodesy and Measurement Systems at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), they are equally interesting from a scientific point of view.

Nearly a quarter of the Earth's land surface is permanently frozen. These areas, known as permafrost, are found in northern polar regions and at high altitudes.

A new way to monitor the flow of rivers from satellites could provide a valuable early warning system for flood risk. A new way to monitor the flow of rivers from satellites could provide a valuable early warning system for flood risk, scientists say. University of Glasgow researchers have developed the first method of measuring the speed of river flows by analysing video footage captured from orbit.

Geologists from Heidelberg and Frankfurt simulate thermo-mechanical behaviour of a white schist from the Alps Movements of rocks from deep in the Earth to the surface could occur under different circumstances than previously thought, challenging our current understanding of plate tectonics and mountain-building.

For the first time ever, research led by one of Utrecht University's earth scientists - Dr  Dan Palcu - has earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. His fascinating research shows the immense proportions of the largest lake the Earth has ever seen: the Paratethys. Guinness World Records published a whole page about the 'Largest lake ever' on their website, as well as a highlight in the print edition.

University of Sydney researchers have found 25 percent of Australia's coral islands, land masses formed by reefs, currently face high to very high risk of being wiped out by climate change. The findings, published in the latest edition of the journal Science of the Total Environment , identified that all of the 56 investigated Australian coral islands are exposed to some degree of climate risk but that three small, unvegetated coral islands in Western Australia, on Scott, Clerke and Imperieuse reefs, are the most vulnerable.

Plants emit odours for a variety of reasons, such as to communicate with each other, to deter herbivores or to respond to changing environmental conditions. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Leipzig University, the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) carried out a study to investigate how biodiversity influences the emission of these substances.

Field studies by Eawag researcher David Janssen in southern Greenland show that the heavy metals in the rivers are largely of natural origin, and that the influence of mining and agriculture is negligible, at least during the period observed. The rivers in Greenland can transport unusually high concentrations of heavy metals, including copper, zinc, gold, silver, platinum, lead and mercury.

A major, international research report is released today at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai: the Global Tipping Points Report. The report shows that crucial tipping points in the Earth's climate system are getting closer. These tipping points occur when a small change triggers an irreversible transformation.

The thick layer of sediment accumulated at the bottom of this lake could be used to study climate change, environmental changes and earthquakes that have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years .

The ocean's capacity to store atmospheric carbon dioxide is some 20% greater than the estimates contained in the latest IPCC report 1 . These are the findings of a study to be published in the journal Nature on December 6, 2023, led by an international team including a biologist from the CNRS 2 . The scientists looked at the role played by plankton in the natural transport of carbon from surface waters down to the seabed.

With increasing temperatures, more heatwaves and less snowfall, glacier melt is accelerating. Whether we will still have water reserves in the form of frozen ice by 2100 depends heavily on efforts to contain the climate crisis.

Scientific model shows striking correlation to how life evolved over 500m years In groundbreaking research published in Nature, Dr Tristan Salles and colleagues show that sediment flows have set the limits to species diversity on Earth over the past half billion years. Movement of rivers, mountains, oceans and sediment nutrients at the geological timescale are the central drivers of Earth's biodiversity, new research has revealed.

An accordion-textured clay called smectite efficiently traps organic carbon and could help buffer global warming over millions of years. MIT geologists have found that a clay mineral on the seafloor, called smectite, has a surprisingly powerful ability to sequester carbon over millions of years. Under a microscope, a single grain of the clay resembles the folds of an accordion.

Affordable, effective and sustainable "fog nets" to capture droplets and combat water scarcity in deserts. An article by Denis Terwagne, Professor and Chairman of the Centre de Recherche en Physique, Faculty of Science, in The Conversation. In 2022, 2.2 billion people still have no access to drinking water services.

Nineteen million years ago, during a time known as the early Miocene, massive ice sheets in Antarctica rapidly and repeatedly grew and receded. The Miocene is widely considered a potential analog for Earth's climate in the coming century, should humanity remain on its current carbon emissions trajectory.

Researchers led by Göttingen University determine factors for chemical development in crater lakes on Earth In southern Germany just north of the Danube, there lies a large circular depression between the hilly surroundings: the Nördlinger Ries. Almost 15 million years ago, an asteroid struck this spot.