A Disastrous Summer in the Arctic

Record heat is hastening the dissolution of Siberian permafrost, perennially frozen ground that, when thawed, unleashes greenhouse gases and dramatically destabilizes the land.

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The World Destroyer in Your Shampoo

Palm oil is an environmental scourge. Plant biology has a solution.

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VW factory produces last ever combustion engine car, shifts to EVs only

Volkswagen’s Zwickau factory produces its last ever combustion engine vehicle, closing a 116-year chapter on fossil-fuelled cars and switching to EV production, only.

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Plastic rain is the new acid rain

Plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain.

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New polymer easily captures gold extracted from e-waste

One thing holding back e-waste recycling is the actual recycling process itself. We need cheaper, safer, cleaner, or more effective methods of separating and recovering the valuable elements from electronics before we can make the whole endeavor more attractive and profitable. Some current methods use large amounts of energy to melt components down, but chemistry could provide some tempting alternatives.

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Cotton fields could soon be pink, black or gold, thanks to CSIRO breakthrough

A few dozen petri dishes in a high-tech greenhouse in Canberra hold the potential to transform the global textiles industry. They contain plant tissue, which within days will grow into cotton plants: not standard, everyday white cotton, but ones with a dazzling array of colours.

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Hundreds of dead dolphins washing up on French coast

Dead dolphins are washing up on France’s Atlantic coast in such high numbers that local populations of the mammals are at risk, according to marine biologists. The overwhelming majority of dolphins are found drowned in the nets of fishing trawlers, and post mortems often show fractures, broken tails and flippers, and deep incisions cut into their skin by the nets.

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Major Automakers Choose Not To Back Trump On Fuel Economy Standards Rollback

The Trump administration wants to require automakers to improve fuel economy standards by only about 1.5% per year, less than the previously required roughly 5% per year. An influential group of automakers won't take a side but wants a say.

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New electrolyte design may lead to better batteries for electric vehicles

Stanford researchers have designed a new electrolyte for lithium metal batteries that could increase the driving range of electric cars.

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Why are plants green?

When sunlight shining on a leaf changes rapidly, plants must protect themselves from the ensuing sudden surges of solar energy. To cope with these changes, photosynthetic organisms have developed numerous tactics. Scientists have been unable, however, to identify the underlying design principle. An international team of scientists, led by a University of California, Riverside, physicist, has now constructed a model that reproduces a general feature of photosynthetic light harvesting, observed across many photosynthetic organisms.

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Satellites reveal major new gas industry methane leaks

Last fall, European Space Agency satellites detected huge plumes of the invisible planet-warming gas methane leaking from the Yamal pipeline that carries natural gas from Siberia to Europe.

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New DNA Analysis Reveals Ancient Scythian Warrior Was a 13-Year-Old Girl

In a time of ancient gods, warriors and kings, the tale of a tribe of warrior women was established in Greek mythology. Said to be daughters of the gods, these fierce female fighters from Asia Minor have caught people's imaginations for centuries and

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‘Murder hornets’: race to protect North America's honeybees from giant invader

Amateur beekeepers and scientists do ‘the whole CSI thing’ to stem the feared onslaught

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Facebook's new Fact-Checking policies have carved out an exemption for climate deniers

A "conservative" Facebook employee quietly intervened, overturning the fact check, and the misinformation was no longer labeled as false. Facebook will consider it "opinion" and therefore immune to fact-checking.

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New research reveals how water in the deep Earth triggers earthquakes and tsunamis

In a new study, published in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists provide the first conclusive evidence directly linking deep Earth’s water cycle with magmatic productivity and earthquake activity.

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A Siberian town hit 100 degrees, setting a new record for the Arctic Circle

Verkhoyansk’s high temperature, which has yet to be confirmed, follows a six-month period of record heat in the region.

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Oldest Viking settlement possibly unearthed in Iceland

It dates back decades before Vikings are supposed to have settled the island.

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Amazon pledges $2 billion fund to invest in clean energy

Amazon, which delivers about 10 billion items a year and has a massive transportation and data center footprint, has faced protests from environmental activists.

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Supporting your dog’s psychological needs can boost your own well-being and reduce distress

A study found that dog owners show heightened well-being not only when their pets meet their psychological needs, but when they make an effort to meet ...

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Game-Changing New Smart Sponge Soaks Up Oil Spills, Saving Water And Wildlife

A team from Northwestern University has developed a highly porous smart sponge that can selectively soak up oil spills in water. With an ability to absorb more than 30 times its weight in oil, the sponge could be used to inexpensively and efficiently clean up spills without harming marine life. After squeezing the oil out of the sponge, it can be reused many dozens of times without losing its effectiveness.

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The Worrisome Link Between Deforestation And Disease

In 2013, an 18-month old boy got sick after playing near a hollow tree in his backyard, in a remote West African village. He developed a fever and started vomiting. His stool turned black. Two days later, he died. Two years and more than 11,000 deaths later, the World Health Organization put out a report saying the Ebola outbreak that likely emanated from that hollow tree may have been caused in part by deforestation, led by "foreign mining and timber operations."

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Almost a fifth of Earth's ocean floor has been mapped

Scientists have mapped nearly a fifth of the Earth's ocean floor, taking a big step forward for everything from biological studies to internet access.

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A Canadian grocery store is growing organic veggies on its rooftop

Required by the Montreal borough of Saint Laurent to install a green roof to offset carbon emissions, IGA, a grocery store started growing 30+ kinds of organic veggies on its roof to sell it in the produce section downstairs. The project is not only profitable but truly 'local' in nature. The idea saves the nutritional value of the produce lost in transportation, improved the water usage by utilizing the water from the store's dehumidification system...

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'Into The Wild' bus removed from Alaska wilderness

Tourists hiking to the remote area to visit the bus were getting into difficulties, officials said.

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The Ancient History of Board Games

What did game night look like thousands of years ago? Before Monopoly and Candy Crush, ancient people were playing mehen and the Game of Twenty Squares.

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President Trump signs animal cruelty bill into law, making it a federal felony

Animal cruelty has officially become a federal felony after President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on Monday afternoon.

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What it means when animals have beliefs

Humans are not the only ones who have beliefs; animals do too, although it is more difficult to prove them than with humans. Dr. Tobias Starzak and Professor Albert Newen from the Institute of Philosophy II at Ruhr-Universität Bochum have proposed four criteria to understand and empirically investigate animal beliefs in the journal Mind and Language.

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Blue Whales Make Rare Appearance Off San Francisco Coast, Prompting Warning For Ships

The Northern California coast tends to get its fair share of sightings of humpback whales and gray whales, but the largest mammals on earth, blue whales, don't do swim-bys quite so often as other species. This year, all rules are out the window.

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Great white shark diet surprises scientists

You'd be surprised where great white sharks spend a lot of their time hunting prey. Understanding how these predators feed is important for managing human-shark interactions. World-first research into shark stomach contents from University of Sydney and NSW Government scientists.

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Fish Have Feelings, Too: The Inner Lives Of Our 'Underwater Cousins'

When you think about fish, it's probably at dinnertime. Author Jonathan Balcombe, on the other hand, spends a lot of time pondering the emotional lives of fish. Balcombe, who serves as the director of animal sentience for the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy, tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that humans are closer to understanding fish than ever before.

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Special Report: Millions of abandoned oil wells are leaking methane, a climate menace

In May 2012, Hanson and Michael Rowe noticed an overpowering smell, like rotten eggs, seeping from an abandoned gas well on their land in Kentucky. The fumes made the retired couple feel nauseous, dizzy, and short of breath.

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There Are So Many Ways Of Capturing Carbon Dioxide: We Must Start Using Them Now

A new study highlights the need for a crash program to develop Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology and to agree on targets for each country, if we are to have any chance of avoiding the worst effects of the climate emergency, which are likely to occur much sooner than expected.

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Fossil footprints show some crocodile ancestors walked on two legs

The 106-million-year-old tracks suggest that other puzzling nearby fossils were also likely made by a bipedal croc ancestor, not a giant pterosaur.

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Wild hummingbirds can see colors that humans can't — study

Hummingbirds can see more colors than humans, and new research suggests the skills give them an advantage in foraging and communication.

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Seismic waves reveal giant structures deep beneath Earth’s surface

Seismic waves travelling through Earth have revealed a giant structure between Earth's molten core and solid mantle under the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific

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Engineers find neat way to turn waste carbon dioxide into useful material

Making catalysts to convert waste carbon dioxide into useful industrial products has been expensive and complicated – until now. UNSW engineers show it’s as easy as playing with Lego.

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Big Money Bought the Forests. Small Logging Communities Are Paying the Price.

Wall Street investment funds took control of Oregon’s private forests. Now, wealthy timber corporations reap the benefits of tax cuts that have cost rural counties billions.

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UK considers ending financial support for fossil fuels overseas

The UK government is considering steps to end its ongoing financial support for fossil fuels overseas after using £3.5bn of public funds to support polluting projects since signing the Paris climate agreement. Senior civil servants are understood to be planning a new climate strategy that would phase out financial support for oil and gas infrastructure in developing countries ahead of the UN’s Cop26 international climate talks next year.

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Plastic Rain Is the New Acid Rain

Researchers find that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic fall on 11 protected areas in the US annually, equivalent to over 120 million plastic water bottles.

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The U.S. can get to 90% clean electricity in just 15 years

Until recently, climate experts projected that it wouldn’t be possible to decarbonize the electric grid until 2050—and that moving to fully renewable energy could raise the price of electricity for consumers. But the cost of wind, solar, and battery storage has fallen so quickly that in just 15 years, the U.S. could feasibly run on 90% clean electricity, with no increase in electric bills. And adding new renewable infrastructure could create more than half a million new jobs each year. By 2045, the entire electric grid could run on renewables.

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Crabs feel pain

Plunge a live crab into a pot of boiling water, and it’s likely to try to scramble out. Is the crab’s behavior simply a reflex, or is it a sign of pain? Many scientists doubt that any invertebrate (or fish) feels pain because they lack the areas in the brain associated with human pain.

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Plunging Renewable Energy Prices Mean U.S. Can Hit 90% Clean Electricity By 2035

Renewable energy has historically been considered too expensive and too unreliable to power our grid, but new research has overturned that trope for good. Plummeting wind, solar, and storage prices have fallen so fast that the United States can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 – without raising customer costs at all from today’s levels, and actually decreasing wholesale power costs 10%.

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Another consequence of climate change: dinky little trees

Anyone who has stood at the base of a redwood or visited Sequoia National Park knows the beauty of giant, old trees. But future generations may not get to experience that same sense of wonder. We’ve already lost a minimum of 30% of the world’s old-growth forests since 1900, and as trees face a host of environmental threats, their forests may be made up exclusively of younger, shorter trees.

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Double sided solar panels have arrived and they’re 35% more effective

Double sided solar panels which collect light on both sides and move to follow the sun’s position produce over a third more energy than standard systems. Most solar panels installed around the world are fixed in one position, without the ability to adapt to where the sun is in the sky. Therefore, research has previously been focused on how to make these systems more efficient instead of looking at how the electricity produced could be increased in other ways.

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Climate Change, Coronavirus Could Cause Summer Misery

With the mercury set to soar to unprecedented levels in 2020, climate experts fear that record-high temperatures will make lingering coronavirus restrictions far more challenging. Scientists are increasingly concerned that the combination of global warming, a deepening economic crisis, and pandemic lockdowns could make for a long and sweltering season.

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Last Month Was the Hottest Ever Recorded

More than 100,000 Americans have died from a pandemic that remains uncontained and — given the recent upsurge in economic reopenings and public gatherings — seems poised to worsen in the coming weeks. Our nation’s unemployment rate remains higher than at any time since the Great Depression, and experts warn a second wave of layoffs may soon wash through America’s white-collar workplaces. All across the country, police forces are revealing themselves to be unbound by law or civilian control. The conscientious among us are still trapped inside our homes for most of our waking hours.

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German gas stations will have to provide electric car charging under new rules

Gas stations in Germany will be required to provide charging for electric vehicles as part of the country’s €130 billion coronavirus stimulus package, Reuters reports. In addition, the government is also increasing its subsidy for electric vehicles by €3,000 to €6,000 for cars costing less than €40,000. Combined, these measures could be a big boost for electric car adoption in a country where many of the world’s biggest automakers are headquartered.

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Building the Perfect Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder

Squirrel ninja obstacle course

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A new device can produce electricity using shadows

Even under low light, this new technology exploits the contrast between light and shade to produce a current that can power small electronics.

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Snake eels burst through the stomach of predators in bid to escape being eaten alive

Creatures’ attempts are in vain, and as they are unable to burrow through the fish’s ribcage, the eels become trapped in the gut of their captor

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