Painting roofs white or covering them with a reflective coating would be more effective at cooling cities like London than vegetation-covered “green roofs,” street-level vegetation or solar panels, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.
Norway Should Lead the Fight Against Plastic Pollution
Norway’s coastline is littered with plastics from around the world.
Researchers capture never-before-seen view of gene transcription
New tech reveals findings that address long-standing theories about how bacteria begin the process of making RNA from DNA.
Mechanism of bio-inspired control of liquid flow
The more we discover about the natural world, the more we find that nature is the greatest engineer. Past research implied that liquids can only be transported in fixed direction on species with specific liquid communication properties and cannot switch the transport direction. Recently, researchers have shown that an African...
A breakthrough in inexpensive, clean, fast-charging batteries
Scientists have created an anode-free sodium solid-state battery. This brings the reality of inexpensive, fast-charging, high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage closer than ever.
Early-onset El Niño means warmer winters in East Asia, and vice versa
Researchers have found that the early onset of El Nino around June leads to warm winter climates in Japan, while the late onset of El Nino is associated with colder winters. By analyzing 100-ensemble member climate simulations over the past 61 years, the team found that the warming of the...
Giant clams may hold the answers to making solar energy more efficient
Solar panel and biorefinery designers could learn a thing or two from iridescent giant clams living near tropical coral reefs, according to a new study. This is because giant clams have precise geometries -- dynamic, vertical columns of photosynthetic receptors covered by a thin, light-scattering layer -- that may just...
Nuclear spectroscopy breakthrough could rewrite the fundamental constants of nature
Raising the energy state of an atom's nucleus using a laser, or exciting it, would enable development of the most accurate atomic clocks ever to exist. This has been hard to do because electrons, which surround the nucleus, react easily with light, increasing the amount of light needed to reach...
Advancing toward a preventative HIV vaccine
A major challenge in developing a vaccine for HIV is that the virus mutates fast -- very fast. Although a person initially becomes infected with one or a few HIV strains, the virus replicates and mutates quickly, resulting in a 'swarm' of viral strains existing in a single body.
Brazil Is Seeing a Record Number of Wildfires This Year
In the Amazon, Brazil has made huge gains in its battle against deforesters, but it is increasingly losing ground to another threat: climate change.