The Greenland Ice Sheet covers an area approximately seven times the size of the UK, is in places more than three kilometres thick and currently plays an important role in rising global sea levels. Subglacial lakes are bodies of water that form beneath ice masses. Meltwater is derived from the pressure of the thick overlying…

Thousand-year-old tropical soil unearthed by accelerating deforestation and agriculture land use could be unleashing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to a new study from researchers at Florida State University. In an investigation of 19 sites in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, researchers discovered that heavily deforested areas leach organic carbon that is…

Globally, scientists believe habitat loss is associated with emerging infectious diseases, or EIDs, spreading from wildlife to humans, such as Ebola, West Nile virus, SARS, Marburg virus and others. The Auburn team developed a new hypothesis, the coevolution effect, which is rooted in ecology and evolutionary biology, to explain the underlying mechanisms that drive this…

A nanomaterial made from phosphorus, known as phosphorene, is shaping up as a key ingredient for more sustainable and efficient next-generation perovskite solar cells (PSCs). PSCs which are one of the fastest developing new solar technologies and can achieve efficiencies comparable to more commonly used commercially available silicon solar cells. For the first time, an…

With increasing demand for food from the planet’s growing population and climate change threatening the stability of food systems across the world, University of Minnesota research examined how the diversity of crops at the national level could increase the harvest stability of all crops in a nation. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature,…

New strategies for river management are needed to maintain water supplies and avoid big crashes in populations of aquatic life, researchers argue in a perspective piece published today in Nature. The scientists say a fresh approach is necessary as the climate warms, which has led to historic die-offs like the January 2019 event in the…

Researchers in Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) this week showed they could boost the efficiency of their solar-powered desalination system by more than 50% simply by adding inexpensive plastic lenses to concentrate sunlight into “hot spots.” The results are available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The typical way to boost…

Oxygen concentrations in both the open ocean and coastal waters have declined by 2-5% since at least the middle of the 20th century. This is one of the most important changes occurring in an ocean becoming increasingly modified by human activities, with raised water temperatures, carbon dioxide content and nutrient inputs. Through this, humans are…

“Understanding of the complexity of social behavior in both wild and captive populations has greatly expanded over recent years,” says Shifra Goldenberg, Ph.D., Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute ecologist and San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research fellow. “This information offers valuable insight into the social processes underpinning species’ demography and behavior, and should be applied…

Intensifying climate change will increase the future risk of violent armed conflict within countries, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Synthesizing views across experts, the study estimates climate has influenced between 3% and 20% of armed conflict risk over the last century and that the influence will likely increase dramatically. In…