Materials scientists can now use insight from a very common mineral and well-established earthquake and avalanche statistics to quantify how hostile environmental interactions may impact the degradation and failure of materials used for advanced solar panels, geological carbon sequestration and infrastructure such as buildings, roads and bridges.
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Bio-Based Fibres Could Pose Greater Threat to the Environment Than Conventional Plastics
Bio-based materials may pose a greater health risk to some of the planet’s most important species than the conventional plastics they are designed to replace, a new study has shown.
A Week of Rain Across Spain
On October 29, 2024, a period of intense rainfall inundated Valencia province in eastern Spain.
The egg or the chicken? An ancient unicellular says egg
Chromosphaera perkinsii is a single-celled species discovered in 2017 in marine sediments around Hawaii. The first signs of its presence on Earth have been dated at over a billion years, well before the appearance of the first animals. A team has observed that this species forms multicellular structures that bear...
Microbes in mouth reflect lifestyle choices
According to a new study, the composition of beneficial microorganisms within the mouth differs over a range of subsistence strategies -- from nomadic hunter gatherers to farmers to industrialized groups.
Testing thousands of RNA enzymes helps find first ‘twister ribozyme’ in mammals
A new method can test the activity of thousands of RNA enzymes, called ribozymes, in a single experiment.
Groundbreaking study provides new evidence of when Earth was slushy
At the end of the last global ice age, the deep-frozen Earth reached a built-in limit of climate change and thawed into a slushy planet. Results provide the first direct geochemical evidence of the slushy planet -- otherwise known as the 'plume-world ocean' era -- when sky-high carbon dioxide levels...
Domino Effect in the Amazon Region
The Amazon region is a global hotspot of biodiversity and plays a key role in the climate system because of its ability to store large amounts of carbon and its influence on the global water cycle.
AI-powered system detects toxic gases with speed and precision
Researchers have developed an AI-powered system that mimics the human sense of smell to detect and track toxic gases in real time. Using advanced artificial neural networks combined with a network of sensors, the system quickly identifies the source of harmful gases like nitrogen dioxide that poses severe respiratory health...
Bio-based fibers could pose greater threat to the environment than conventional plastics
New research has shown that bio-based fibers caused higher mortality, and reduced growth and reproductivity, among earthworms -- a species critical to the health of soils globally -- than conventional plastics. It has led scientists to suggest that materials being advocated as alternatives to plastic should be tested thoroughly before...