A new study published in Global Change Biology reports that in the last 60 years, the UK’s plankton population, which includes microscopic algae and animals supporting the entire marine food web, has undergone tremendous changes.
Scientists are aiming to determine the most optimal valorization paths for restaurant food scraps. Among the potential lives for restaurant scraps, the group is trying to find which one offers the most value and which one is highly effective.
Predictions have been made that extreme weather events such as heatwaves, severe drought, and storms will become more prevalent and have already started to occur.
University of Technology Sydney. Authors of a new study published in Nature Climate Change say the threat of ocean deoxygenation has largely been ignored and asks the question: 'Are our coastal coral reefs slowly suffocating?'
King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST). An international study recently published in the journal Nature that was led by KAUST professors Carlos Duarte and Susana Agustí lays out the essential roadmap of actions required for the planet's marine life to recover to full abundance by 2050.
Oregon State University. A study that included the first-ever winter sampling of phytoplankton in the North Atlantic revealed cells smaller than what scientists expected, meaning carbon sequestration models may be too optimistic.
California Institute of Technology. A new Caltech-JPL study determines the impact of the severe 2019 floods, and offers scientists a new tool for measuring regional-scale carbon dioxide absorption by plants.
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. An international team of scientists has published a new study proposing an optimization methodology for designing climate-resilient energy systems and to help ensure that communities will be able to meet future energy needs given weather and climate variability. Their findings were recently published in Nature Energy.
University of Delaware, A new study led by the University of Delaware's Pinki Mondal recommends that in addition to using large swaths of coarse satellite data to evaluate forests on a national scale, it is important for countries to prioritize areas such as national parks and wildlife refuges and use finer scale data in those protected areas to make sure that they are maintaining their health and are being reported on accurately.
UC Berkeley chemists have created a hybrid system of bacteria and nanowires that captures energy from sunlight and transfers it to the bacteria to turn carbon dioxide and water into organic molecules and oxygen. On Earth, such a biohybrid could remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. On Mars, it would provide colonists with raw material to manufacture organic compounds ranging from fuels to drugs. The efficiency is greater than the photosynthetic efficiency of most plants.
University of Sydney. Agave tequilana, the plant native to Mexico used to make tequila, could prove to be an efficient alternative to sugarcane and corn to make biofuels in semi-arid regions. This research is the first to look at the plants lifecycle and model the economics.
Along with the changing climate, the world’s forests are also changing. Right from the Blue Ridge forest of Appalachia to the misty redwoods in the west, several sylvan ecosystems are acclimatizing to drier environments.
What is common about flood control, pandas, chocolate, and migratory birds? Several countries are gaining profit from ecosystem services offered outside their nations.
Scientists have created a set of three novel tools to design Issatchenkia orientalis, a low-pH-tolerant yeast, for synthesizing valuable bioproducts from renewable biomass.
In a paper published earlier this year in the scientific journal Remote Sensing of Environment, a team from Water Mapping, in collaboration with scientists at other institutes across the US and Canada, describes how using multiple remote sensors allows for the rapid estimation of the thickness and nature of oil spills.
By Sarah Moore
30 Mar 2020