Environmental Science News

January 29, 2020

Top Headlines

Earth (stock image). | Credit: (c) robert / stock.adobe.com

Driven by Earth's Orbit, Climate Changes in Africa May Have Aided Human Migration

Jan. 27, 2020 — New research describes a dynamic climate and vegetation model that explains when regions across Africa, areas of the Middle ... read more

Graphene sheet model (stock image). | Credit: (c) nobeastsofierce / stock.adobe.com

Lab Turns Trash Into Valuable Graphene in a Flash

Jan. 27, 2020 — Scientists are using high-energy pulses of electricity to turn any source of carbon into turbostratic graphene in an instant. The process promises environmental benefits by ... read more

View of Earth's atmosphere (stock image). | Credit: (c) studio023 / stock.adobe.com

Emissions of Potent Greenhouse Gas Have Grown, Contradicting Reports of Huge Reductions

Jan. 21, 2020 — Despite reports that global emissions of the potent greenhouse gas were almost eliminated in 2017, an international team of ... read more

Illustration of meteor entering Earth's atmosphere (stock image). | Credit: (c) Vadimsadovski / stock.adobe.com

Meteorite Contains the Oldest Material on Earth: 7-Billion-Year-Old Stardust

Jan. 13, 2020 — Scientists have discovered the oldest solid material on Earth: 7-billion-year-old stardust trapped inside a meteorite. This ... read more

Latest Headlines

updated 12:53am EST

Air Pollution Impacts Can Be Heart-Stopping

Jan. 28, 2020 — There is an increased risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest even from short-term exposure to low concentrations of dangerously small particulate matter PM2.5, an international study has found, ... read more

For Cheaper Solar Cells, Thinner Really Is Better

Jan. 28, 2020 — Researchers have outlined a pathway to slashing costs further, this time by slimming down the silicon cells ... read more

Earth's Most Biodiverse Ecosystems Face a Perfect Storm

Jan. 27, 2020 — A combination of climate change, extreme weather and pressure from local human activity is causing a collapse in global biodiversity and ecosystems across the tropics, new research shows. The study ... read more

Cutting Road Transport Pollution Could Help Plants Grow

Jan. 27, 2020 — Cutting emissions of particular gases could improve conditions for plants, allowing them to grow faster and capture more carbon, new research ... read more

Buildings Can Become a Global CO2 Sink If Made out of Wood Instead of Cement and Steel

Jan. 27, 2020 — A material revolution replacing cement and steel in urban construction by wood can have double benefits for climate stabilization. First, it can ... read more

Oceanographers Predict Increase in Phytoplankton by 2100

Jan. 27, 2020 — A neural network-driven Earth system model has led oceanographers to a surprising conclusion: phytoplankton populations will grow in low-latitude waters by the end of the 21st ... read more

Current Model for Storing Nuclear Waste Is Incomplete

Jan. 27, 2020 — The materials the United States and other countries plan to use to store high level nuclear waste will likely degrade faster than anyone previously knew, because of the way those materials interact, ... read more

Researchers Advance Solar Material Production

Jan. 27, 2020 — A team has developed a more efficient, safer, and cost-effective way to produce cadmium telluride (CdTe) material for solar cells or other applications, a discovery that could advance the solar ... read more

More Rain and Less Snow Means Increased Flood Risk

Jan. 27, 2020 — By analyzing more than two decades of data in the western US, scientists have shown that flood sizes increase exponentially as a higher fraction of precipitation falls as rain, offering insight into ... read more

Sea Level Rise to Cause Major Economic Impact in the Absence of Further Climate Action

Jan. 27, 2020 — Rising sea levels, a direct impact of the Earth's warming climate, is intensifying coastal flooding. The findings of a new study show that the ... read more

Earlier Headlines

Summaries
Headlines

Rethinking Land Conservation to Protect Species That Will Need to Move With Climate Change

Jan. 28, 2020 — A new study finds that many species of animals and plants likely will need to migrate under climate change, and that conservation efforts will also need to shift to be ... read more

Children to Bear the Burden of Negative Health Effects from Climate Change

Jan. 27, 2020 — The grim effects that climate change will have on pediatric health outcomes was the focus of a recent ... read more

New Portable Tool Analyzes Microbes in the Environment

Jan. 27, 2020 — Imagine a device that could swiftly analyze microbes in oceans and other aquatic environments, revealing the health of these organisms - too tiny to be seen by the naked eye - and their response to ... read more

High Air Pollution Exposure in 1-Year-Olds Linked to Structural Brain Changes at Age 12

Jan. 24, 2020 — A new study suggests that significant early childhood exposure to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) is associated with structural changes in the brain at the age of ... read more

The Skin of Earth Is Home to Pac-Man-Like Protists

Jan. 24, 2020 — The most common groups of soil protists behave exactly like Pac-Man: moving through the soil matrix, gobbling up bacteria according to a new ... read more

Assessing Risk of Chemicals to Wildlife Is Huge Challenge That Requires New Approach

Jan. 24, 2020 — Computer modelling and long-term ecological monitoring will be essential to assess the environmental risks of the rapidly growing number of chemicals across the world, according to a new review ... read more

Principles for a Green Chemistry Future

Jan. 24, 2020 — Researchers show how green chemistry is essential for a sustainable ... read more

The Blue Acceleration: Recent Colossal Rise in Human Pressure on Ocean Quantified

Jan. 24, 2020 — Human pressure on the world's ocean accelerated sharply at the start of the 21st century and shows no sign of slowing, according to a comprehensive new analysis on the state of the ocean. ... read more

Living Near Major Roads Linked to Risk of Dementia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and MS

Jan. 23, 2020 — Living near major roads or highways is linked to higher incidence of dementia, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis (MS), suggests new ... read more

2018's Four Corners Drought Directly Linked to Human-Caused Climate Change

Jan. 23, 2020 — The western United States has experienced such intense droughts over the past decade that technical descriptions are becoming inadequate. In many places, conditions are rocketing past ... read more

Mapping the Cumulative Health Effects of Environmental Exposures

Jan. 23, 2020 — The genomics revolution has provided powerful insights into genetic risk factors for human disease while also revealing the limits of genetic determinants, which account for only a fraction of total ... read more

Acetone Plus Light Creates a Green Jet Fuel Additive

Jan. 23, 2020 — Take biomass-derived acetone -- common nail polish remover -- use light to upgrade it to higher-mass hydrocarbons, and, voila, you have a domestically generated product that can be blended with ... read more

Chemicals in the Environment: A Focus on Mixtures

Jan. 23, 2020 — The real world is marked by multiple stressors, among them cocktails of chemicals. The review article presents methodological approaches to isolating, characterizing and tracking chemicals of concern ... read more

Exposure to Diesel Exhaust Particles Linked to Pneumococcal Disease Susceptibility

Jan. 23, 2020 — A new study shows that exposure to diesel exhaust particles (DEPs) can increase an individual's susceptibility to pneumococcal ... read more

Climate-Friendly Food Choices Protect the Planet, Promote Health, Reduce Health Costs

Jan. 22, 2020 — Increased uptake of plant-based diets in New Zealand could substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions while greatly improving population health and saving the healthcare system billions of dollars ... read more

Despite Less Ozone Pollution, Not All Plants Benefit

Jan. 22, 2020 — Policies and new technologies have reduced emissions of precursor gases that lead to ozone air pollution, but despite those improvements, the amount of ozone that plants are taking in has not ... read more

What's in Puget Sound? New Technique Casts a Wide Net for Concerning Chemicals

Jan. 22, 2020 — Using a new 'non-targeted' approach, researchers screened samples from multiple regions of Puget Sound to look for potentially harmful compounds that might be ... read more

Deep Diving Scientists Discover Bubbling CO2 Hotspot

Jan. 22, 2020 — Hydrologists diving off the coast of the Philippines have discovered volcanic seeps with some of the highest natural levels of C02 ever recorded. The scientists were working in Verde Island Passage, ... read more

Mapping the Path of Climate Change

Jan. 22, 2020 — Predicting a major transition, such as climate change, is extremely difficult, but a new probabilistic framework is the first step in identifying the path between a shift in two environmental ... read more

Signals from Inside Earth: Borexino Experiment Releases New Data on Geoneutrinos

Jan. 22, 2020 — The Borexino collaboration has presented new results for the measurement of neutrinos originating from the interior of the Earth. With this update, the researchers have now been able to access 53 ... read more

Tuesday, January 28, 2020