science wire

Imagine a heavy book resting on a table. If you try to gently push the book across the table with the tip of your finger, it may first appear to remain motionless-it needs a lot more force to start sliding visibly. Similarly, if you slowly start tilting the table upward, the book still appears to remain motionless, sticking to the table through friction until the table's tilt reaches some critical angle and the book suddenly slides down.

Industrial wastewater, slurry, microplastics and heavy metals-the list of pollutants that end up in water bodies is long.

Waste generated by human activities has now reached the deepest point in the Mediterranean: the 5,112-metre-deep Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea.

By weakening the North Atlantic overturning circulation, the ocean absorbs less carbon dioxide - resulting in consequential costs and further warming of the climate The ocean is the largest CO2 reservoir on earth.

A weakening of the North Atlantic overturning circulation would cause the ocean to absorb less carbon dioxide - this is associated with economic costs and the climate continues to heat up In Brief Hi

The Fraser River is unique among the world's great rivers - a huge, relatively natural, undammed, mountain river running through a dense urban area.

Glaciers are melting around the world. Last decade, the loss of ice in the more populated regions, such as Europe, increased at ever-faster rates.

On 2 February 2025, in the midst of the Arctic winter, the temperature at the North Pole was a tad over freezing.

Microplastic and fibre pollution is a global threat that also affects marine ecosystems in the Antarctic.

Researchers have generated the first dataset of water flow beneath the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet, which will lead to more accurate projections of sea level rise.

Research by Meenakshi Shankar Poti (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Université libre de Bruxelles) delves into the environmental policies and governance structures in small islands, with further emphasis on the mangrove ecosystems of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is cracking open more rapidly as it responds to climate change. Dr Tom Chudley, in our Department of Geography, led a new large-scale study of crevasses - wedge-shaped fractures or cracks - on the world's second largest body of ice.

Research findings highlight potential impacts on biodiversity, challenge current conservation policies  The Arctic's "Last Ice Area" (LIA) - a vital habitat for ice-dependent species - might disappear within a decade after the central Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free in summer, which is expected to occur sometime around mid-century, a new study by McGill researchers using a high-resolution model has found.

Belgian scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) have returned from Antarctica with samples and data that could help them determine where to find million-year old ice, which in turn can provide information about Earth-s climate in the past.

As we burn fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is gradually rising, and with it, the planet's average temperature.

Scotland must do more to help hydropower facilities maximise their output and prevent negative impacts on wildlife in the face of the challenges posed by climate change, according to a new report.

New analysis of marsquakes, which are similar to earthquakes, could offer clues into how Mars has evolved over billions of years, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory used radar data taken by ESA's Sentinel-1A satellite before and after the 2015 eruption of the Calbuco volcano in Chile to create this interferogram showing land deformation.

Using the Earth itself as a chemical reactor could reduce the need for fossil-fuel-powered chemical plants.

The CAMMM Atlas is a digital platform used to analyze disparities in accessibility and promote better distribution of services in cities.

Earth's air conditioner is on the blink, and a University of Miami researcher, using a "toolbox" of state-of-the-art scientific instruments, has been delving deeper into the reasons why.

Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham have uncovered a huge expanse of quarry floor filled with hundreds of different dinosaur footprints.

New research has provided fresh insights into the dramatic events surrounding the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The extinction of the Dinosaur was a tumultuous time that included some of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth's history, as well as the impact of a 10-15 km wide asteroid.

Deep geothermal energy is climate-friendly and base-load capable - but how can this heat be tapped safely? researchers are working on minimizing the earthquake risk and developing completely new systems, for example with closed CO2 cycles.

Braving winds well over 150 miles an hour in some instances, a group of scientists flew into the heart of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season's most destructive storms.

It's now officially over, leaving in its wake a trail of devastation, death, and massive economic losses.

A small fleet of autonomous surface vessels forms a large sonar array for finding submerged objects.

Haystack Observatory researchers and citizen scientists team up to map the aurora. As seen across North America at sometimes surprisingly low latitudes, brilliant auroral displays provide evidence of solar activity in the night sky. More is going on than the familiar visible light shows during these events, though: When aurora appear, the Earth's ionosphere is experiencing an increase in ionization and total electron content (TEC) due to energetic electrons and ions precipitating into the ionosphere.

Antarctica is one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. Climate change, invasive species and the impact of human activities are threats to a delicate balance of biodiversity and natural systems on this continent.

Cookie policy."},"navigation":{"major":[{"asset_name":"University News","asset_url":"https://news.stanford.edu/university-news","asset_assetid":"141464","children":[{"asset_name":"Distin

The north polar region of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io was captured by NASA's Juno during the spacecraft's 57th close pass of the gas giant on Dec. Data from recent flybys is helping scientists understand Io's interior. Credit: Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Gerald Eichstädt" A new study points to why, and how, Io became the most volcanic body in the solar system.

Watersheds on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard will be among the areas most affected by underground saltwater intrusion by the year 2100 due to sea level rise and changes in groundwater supplies, according to a NASA-DOD study.

One Earth satellite can see plankton that photosynthesize. The other measures water surface height. Together, their data reveals how sea life and the ocean are intertwined.

Amid all the changes in Earth's climate, sea ice in the stormy Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica was, for a long time, an odd exception.

Various minerals are revealed in vibrant detail in this sample mineral map of Cuprite, Nevada, following processing of imaging spectrometer data.