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Environmental

A collection of 1046 articles

Microplastic drifting down with the snow: In the Alps and the Arctic, experts confirm the presence of plastic in snow

The fact that our oceans are full of plastic litter has by now become common knowledge: year after year, several million tonnes of plastic litter find their way into rivers, coastal waters, and even the Arctic deep sea. Thanks to the motion of waves, and even more to UV radiation

Fracking prompts global spike in atmospheric methane, study suggests

The research suggests that this methane has less carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 (denoting the weight of the carbon atom at the centre of the methane molecule) than does methane from conventional natural gas and other fossil fuels such as coal. This carbon-13 signature means that since the use of high-volume

Jurassic world of volcanoes found in central Australia

The Cooper-Eromanga Basins in the north-eastern corner of South Australia and south-western corner of Queensland is Australia's largest onshore oil and gas producing region of Australia.

Stardust in the Antarctic snow: Iron-60 discovery in the Antarctic provides information on the environment of solar system

The quantity of cosmic dust that trickles down to Earth each year ranges between several thousand and ten thousand tons.

Rising summer heat could soon endanger travelers on annual Muslim pilgrimage

Hajj, or Muslim Pilgrimage, is one of the five pillars of the Muslim faith.It is an annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that involves living in the hot weather conditions of Saudi Arabia.

More 'reactive' land surfaces cooled the Earth down: Higher reactivity could explain temperature drop before last ice age

In a new study, Jeremy Caves-Rugenstein from ETH Zurich, Dan Ibarra from Stanford University and Friedhelm von Blanckenburg from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam were able to show that this paradigm cannot be upheld. According to the paper, weathering was constant over the period under consideration.

Hear them roar: How humans and chickadees understand each other: High-arousal vocalizations are understood by both humans and other species in the animal kingdom, study says

The researchers examined the elements within vocalizations that indicate a level of arousal such as fear or excitement..

Wood products mitigate less than one percent of global carbon emissions

An analysis across 180 countries found that global wood products offset 335 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2015, 71 million tons of which were unaccounted for under current United Nations standards. Wood product carbon sequestration could rise more than 100 million tons by 2030, depending on the level of

Coral reefs shifting away from equator: New research reveals a dramatic rebalancing of young corals from tropical to subtropical waters during the last 40 years

"Climate change seems to be redistributing coral reefs, the same way it is shifting many other marine species," said Nichole Price, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and lead author of the paper. "The clarity in this trend is stunning, but we don't yet know whether

How trees could save the climate

The Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich investigates nature-based solutions to climate change.

Our brains appear uniquely tuned for musical pitch

"We found that a certain region of our brains has a stronger preference for sounds with pitch than macaque monkey brains," said Bevil Conway, Ph.D., investigator in the NIH's Intramural Research Program and a senior author of the study published in Nature Neuroscience. "The results raise the possibility that

Using artificial intelligence to better predict severe weather: Researchers create AI algorithm to detect cloud formations that lead to storms

Now, there is a computer model that can help forecasters recognize potential severe storms more quickly and accurately, thanks to a team of researchers at Penn State, AccuWeather, Inc., and the University of Almería in Spain. They have developed a framework based on machine learning linear classifiers -- a

Evolution of life in the ocean changed 170 million years ago

Until that point, the success of organisms living within the marine environment had been strongly controlled by non-biological factors, including ocean chemistry and climate.

Scientists discover the biggest seaweed bloom in the world

They confirmed that the belt of brown macroalgae called Sargassum forms its shape in response to ocean currents, based on numerical simulations.

Can we feed 11 billion people while preventing the spread of infectious disease?

But a new article published in Nature Sustainability describes how the increase in population and the need to feed everyone will also, ultimately, give rise to human infectious disease, a situation the authors of the paper consider "two of the most formidable ecological and public health challenges of the 21st