A look at our changing environment.
According to a study published in the journal Jama Network Open last fall, the COVID-19 pandemic has tripled the rate of depression in U.S. adults in all demographic groups. Previous studies have demonstrated that greenspaces in urban areas can have a positive effect on those people experiencing mental ill health. But most of those studies […]
Scientists from the University of Bath in the UK have developed a sustainable polymer using xylose, a sugar found in wood. The new polymer is a member of the polyether family. It could be used in a variety of applications, including being a building block for polyurethane, used for example in mattresses and shoe soles. […]
At any given time, there are thousands of icebergs adrift in Antarctica that are hundreds or even thousands of feet across. For at least fifty years, there has been speculation about whether such icebergs could be towed from the Antarctic to places experiencing freshwater shortages. The feasibility of such a scheme is still the subject […]
The heat beneath the earth represents a vast repository of energy that in principle could provide for a significant part of our needs. In some places, geothermal energy is easy to get to and is already being exploited. California and Nevada operate dozens of geothermal electric generating plants. Boise Idaho heats 92 of its biggest […]
The world has been heading toward climate disaster with the effects of greenhouse gas-induced warming looming larger and larger. But recent analysis published in Nature Climate Change offers hope that rapidly eliminating emissions could stabilize global temperatures just within a couple of decades. For quite some time, it has been assumed that further global warming […]
Norwegian energy company Equinor and its strategic partner bp have been selected by New York State to build several offshore wind power installations that will be one of the largest renewable energy projects in the United States to date. When completed, the projects will provide 1,260 megawatts of offshore wind power from Empire Wind 2 […]
Over the previous four years, the Trump administration weakened or rolled back more than 100 rules and regulations on air, water, public lands, endangered species, and climate change. The Biden administration has vowed to review these changes and restore the environmental protections that were removed or weakened. The process of restoring environmental protections generally fall […]
Desalination is the process of removing mineral components – notably salt – from saline water, generally seawater. Over 16,000 desalination plants operate across 177 countries, generating 25 billion gallons of fresh water each year. Currently, desalination accounts for about 1% of the world’s drinking water. The leading process for desalination in terms of installed capacity […]
A tipping point is a moment when a small change triggers a large and possibly irreversible response. There has been much discussion of various tipping points that could accelerate climate change in catastrophic ways. A recent paper from researchers at the University of Exeter in the UK discusses a couple of tipping points that could […]
The worsening severity of wildfires across the globe is a major public health concern. The pulmonary and cardiovascular consequences of wildfire smoke inhalation have been well researched and have been an increasing focus for officials in places like California, other western states, and Australia. More recently, another public health concern has emerged related to the […]
The dramatic worldwide decline in bees and other pollinating insects represents a serious threat to the global food supply, but it isn’t really getting much attention in the mainstream news. Close to 75% of the world’s crops for human consumption depend, at least in part, on pollinators for sustained production, yield, and quality. A new […]
A recent study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, found that one-third of large American rivers have had significant changes of color over the past 30 years. Rivers can appear to be shades of blue, green, and yellow and we tend to expect healthy rivers to have colors in shades of blue. According to the new […]
Crocodiles today look very similar to ones from the Jurassic period some 200 million years ago. In fact, there are very few species of crocodilians alive today – approximately two dozen to be exact. Many other species have achieved a diversity of many thousands of species in the same amount of time. During prehistoric times, […]
We have heard about laboratory meat for a number of years, generally in terms of something that may happen at some point in the indeterminate future. But at least for a couple of California companies, that future is now. These high-tech companies are producing products – real meat and seafood – that are originally cultured […]
Freshwater fish populations have declined by more than 80% over the past forty years across the globe. This is in part due to hundreds of thousands of dams, weirs, and barriers stopping their movements. These river barriers have disrupted fish reproduction cycles the world over by preventing river fish from migrating to spawn. Fishways or […]
Driven by steeply falling prices and improving technology, grid-scale battery storage systems are seeing record growth in the U.S. and around the world. Battery storage is a way to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to renewable energy: the cycling between oversupply when the sun shines or the wind blows, and shortage when the sun […]
Queen conchs are large sea snails belonging to the same taxonomic group as clams, oysters, and squid. They live on coral reefs or seagrass meadows in warm, shallow waters. Queen conchs are found throughout the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, ranging as far north as Bermuda and as far south as Brazil. Reaching up […]
The battle to prevent oil and gas drilling rights from being sold in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has been going on for 40 years. The Trump administration spent nearly four years pushing to auction off those drilling rights and finally accomplished it in early January. The ANWR was created in 1960 and […]
Research published by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, examined the positive effects of restoration efforts for coastal ecosystems in terms of biodiversity, local economies, and human wellbeing. Coastal ecosystems include saltmarshes, mangroves, seagrasses, oyster reefs, kelp beds, and coral reefs. All of these have suffered declines of up to 85% over recent decades. The research […]
A new study at the University of Massachusetts Amherst looked at the resilience of Hudson River Estuary marshes to rising sea levels. They observed that these marshes are growing upward at a rate two or three times faster than sea level rise, suggesting that they should be resilient to accelerated sea level rise in the […]