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Environment - 14.04.2021

Ocean temperature reconstructed over the last 700,000 years
Researchers from the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern reconstructed for the first mean ocean temperatures over the last 700,000 years using ice core data. The new knowledge serves to improve our understanding of the climate system. Bern's ice core researchers were already able to demonstrate in 2008 how the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has changed over the past 800,000 years.

Environment - 13.04.2021

Tree hydraulics and water relations: why trees die as a result of drought
When trees die during a period of drought, they die of thirst. Researchers from the University of Basel have demonstrated in a field study that a rapid collapse in the hydraulic system is responsible for tree death. And they found out that the trees possibly die more rapidly than previously thought.

Environment - Health - 13.04.2021

U.S. Power Sector is Halfway to Zero Carbon Emissions
– By Kiran Julin and Bentham Paulos Concerns about climate change are driving a growing number of states, utilities, and corporations to set the goal of zeroing out power-sector carbon emissions. To date 17 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have adopted laws or executive orders to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity in the next couple of decades.

Health - Environment - 12.04.2021

Volcanic pollution link to respiratory disease increase
Respiratory disease increased markedly following one of Iceland's largest volcanic eruptions, a new study has found. The findings could have significant implications for actions taken to protect the health of the 800 million people living near active volcanoes. Only last month, lava burst through a crack in Iceland’s Mount Fagradalsfjall in the first eruption of its type for more than 800 years.

Environment - Life Sciences - 09.04.2021

We don’t know how most mammals will respond to climate change
Researchers at the University of Oxford, alongside international collaborators, have found that there is a significant knowledge gap in the risks posed by climate change to mammals. In their systematic review, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, the scientists identify that there are significant blanks about the risks to mammals in regions most vulnerable to climate change, including boreal and tropic areas.

Environment - Politics - 09.04.2021

Research from Vrije Universiteit Brussel and KU Leuven on Ethiopian mega-dam
Solar and wind power could mitigate geopolitical conflict in Northeast Africa Friday, April 9, 2021 — A new study shows that several disagreements between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt around Africa's largest hydropower plant, the new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), could be alleviated by massively expanding solar and wind power across the region.

Environment - Politics - 09.04.2021

Solar and wind power could mitigate conflict in northeast Africa
A new study shows that several disagreements between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt around Africa's largest hydropower plant, the new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), could be alleviated by massively expanding solar and wind power across the region. Adapting GERD operation to support grid integration of solar and wind power would provide tangible energy and water benefits to all involved countries, creating regional win-win situations.

Environment - Life Sciences - 08.04.2021

Illuminating a sea turtle mystery
North Pacific loggerhead turtles' years-long oceanic journeys remain poorly understood. Using data from satellite tracking and other techniques, scientists reveal a unique phenomenon that may explain the endangered migrants' pathway. By Rob Jordan Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment "Not all those who wander are lost...

Astronomy / Space Science - Environment - 08.04.2021

More than 5,000 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth each year
Every year, our planet encounters dust from comets 1 and asteroid 2 . These interplanetary dust particles pass through our atmosphere and give rise to shooting stars. Some of them reach the ground in the form of micrometeorites. An international program 3 conducted for nearly 20 years by scientists from the CNRS, the Université Paris-Saclay and the National museum of natural history 4 with the support of the French polar institute, has determined that 5,200 tons per year of these micrometeorites reach the ground.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 07.04.2021

Scientists Map "Pulse" of Groundwater Flow through California’s Central Valley
Advances in remote sensing are providing a first glimpse of groundwater recharge in the San Joaquin Valley Groundwater is a key resource for water users in California's Central Valley, a major agricultural hub with an economic output of tens of billions of dollars annually. Surface deformation in the Central Valley has long been linked to changes in groundwater storage, but the timing and movement of water flow beneath the surface has been poorly understood due to a lack of reliable data.

Astronomy / Space Science - Environment - 02.04.2021

From stardust to pale blue dot: Carbon’s interstellar journey to Earth
We are made of stardust, the saying goes, and a pair of studies including University of Michigan research finds that may be more true than we previously thought. The first study, led by U-M researcher Jie (Jackie) Li and published in Science Advances, finds that most of the carbon on Earth was likely delivered from the interstellar medium, the material that exists in space between stars in a galaxy.

Environment - Pharmacology - 01.04.2021

Citizen scientists urged to get out into nature to support bee-spotting project this Easter
Citizen scientists are being encouraged to escape the house and help University scientists in their quest to track bees this Easter. As lockdown restrictions ease across Wales, scientists at Cardiff University are asking the public to take part in a biodiversity monitoring project called Spot-a-bee.

Environment - 31.03.2021

Lakes on Greenland Ice Sheet can drain huge amounts of water, even in winter
Using satellite data to 'see in the dark', researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a finding with implications for the speed at which the world's second-largest ice sheet flows to the ocean.

Life Sciences - Environment - 31.03.2021

Analysis of ancient bones reveals Stone Age diet details
Fish was not on the menu of the hunter-gatherers of southern Europe 27,000 years ago. Surprisingly, people on the Iberian Peninsula in the Late Gravettian period mostly ate plants and land animals such as rabbits, deer and horses. An international team of researchers has been able to determine this for the first time on the basis of an isotope study of human fossils from the Serinyà caves in Catalonia.

Environment - 31.03.2021

Carbon-neutral Biofuel from Lakes
Lakes store huge amounts of methane. In a new study, environmental scientists at the University of Basel offer suggestions for how it can be extracted and used as an energy source in the form of methanol. Discussion about the current climate crisis usually focuses on carbon dioxide (CO2). The greenhouse gas methane is less well known, but although it is much rarer in the atmosphere, its global warming potential is 80 to 100 times greater per unit.

Life Sciences - Environment - 31.03.2021

African elephants only occupy a fraction of their potential range | University of Oxford
Many wildlife species are threatened by shrinking habitat. But according to new research published today, the potential range of African elephants could be more than five times larger than its current extent. Because of human pressure over the last two millenia, African elephants have suffered dramatic population declines, and their range has shrunk to just 17 percent of what it could be, say researchers - including members of Oxford University's Department of Zoology - behind the new study in Current Biology .

Environment - Economics / Business - 31.03.2021

How much are invasive species costing us’
A + A Scientists from the CNRS, the IRD, and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle have just released the most comprehensive estimate to date of the financial toll of invasive species: nearly $1.3 trillion over four decades. Published in Nature (31 March 2021), their findings are based on the InvaCost database, which is financed by the BNP Paribas Foundation and the Paris-Saclay University Foundation's AXA Chair of Invasion Biology.

Innovation - Environment - 31.03.2021

Earlier evidence of human rituals and innovation found in ancient rocks
The discovery of unexpected artefacts in Africa's Kalahari Basin has challenged conventional knowledge about the beginnings of human culture and innovation. A Queensland-led research team found crystals and ostrich shell fragments at Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter - one of only a few well-preserved archaeological sites in the interior of southern Africa.

Environment - 31.03.2021

Extra 100 million years before Earth saw permanent oxygen rise
The permanent rise of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, which fundamentally changed the subsequent nature of Earth's habitability, occurred much later than thought, according to new research. And the study, from an international team led by the University of Leeds and including researchers from the University of California-Riverside, Harvard University, the University of Southern Denmark and the University of St Andrews, also provides an explanation for some of the most extreme climate episodes to have affected the Earth, when the planet was repeatedly covered with ice.

Environment - 31.03.2021

Soil Moisture Drives Year-to-Year Change in Land Carbon Uptake
Earth's land ecosystems absorb a large portion of all the carbon dioxide emissions produced by human activities, helping to slow global warming. On average for a given year, plants and soil take up, or fix, about 30 percent of human emissions. But from one year to the next, that number can be as high as 40 percent or as low as 20 percent.