Articles on or after 4/16/2024: |
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| Climate Crocks,Huffington Post,DeSmogBlog,Skeptical Science,VOX -Environment,PHYS.ORG - Earth,PHYS.ORG - Technology |
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'Green muscle memory' and climate education promote behavior change: Report - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · A new report, released in time for global attention for Earth Day on April 22, highlights the impact of climate education on promoting behavior change in the next generation.
Despite people's deep connection to their local environment—whether it's blackouts in Toronto caused by raccoons, communities gearing up for a total solar eclipse lasting only minutes, chasing northern lights or hundreds of Manitoba kids excited about ice fishing—there remains inertia in climate action.
Sparking global momentum and energy in young people can go a long way to addressing climate change now and in the near future, says Bryce Coon, author of the report and Earth Day's ... Read more ...
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'Human-induced' climate change behind deadly Sahel heat wave: Study - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · The West African nations of Mali and Burkina Faso experienced an exceptional heat wave from April 1 until April 5, with soaring temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) triggering many deaths.
Observations and climate models used by researchers at the WWA showed that "heat waves with the magnitude observed in March and April 2024 in the region would have been impossible to occur without the global warming of 1.2C to date", which scientists attribute to human-induced climate change.
While periods of high temperatures are common in the Sahel at this time of year, the report said that the April heat wave would have been 1.4C cooler "if humans had not ... Read more ...
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'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Extreme heat scorched the Philippines on Wednesday, forcing schools in some areas to suspend in-person classes and prompting warnings for people to limit the amount of time spent outdoors.
The months of March, April and May are typically the hottest and driest in the archipelago nation, but conditions this year have been exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon.
"It's so hot you can't breathe," said Erlin Tumaron, 60, who works at a seaside resort in Cavite province, south of Manila, where the heat index reached 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.
"It's surprising our pools are still empty. You would expect people to come and take a swim, ... Read more ...
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'Sunny day flooding' increases fecal contamination of coastal waters - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · "Historically we see the highest levels of fecal bacteria contamination in coastal waterways after it rains, because the rain washes contaminants into the waterways," says Natalie Nelson, corresponding author of a paper on the study and an associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at North Carolina State University.
"Due to sea level rise, we're seeing an increase in flooding in coastal areas at high tide—even when there isn't any rainfall. We wanted to see whether sunny day floods were associated with increases in fecal bacteria contamination in waterways."
For the study, researchers collected water samples every day for two summer months at ... Read more ...
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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #16 - Skeptical Science (Apr 21) |
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Apr 21 · Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic publication:
Here we use recent empirical findings from more than 1,600 regions worldwide over the past 40 years to project sub-national damages from temperature and precipitation, including daily variability and extremes7,8. Using an empirical approach that provides a robust lower bound on the persistence of impacts on economic growth, we find that the world economy is committed to an income reduction of 19% within the next 26 years independent of future emission choices (relative to a baseline without climate impacts, likely range of 11–29% accounting for physical climate ... Read more ...
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A better way to predict Arctic riverbank erosion - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · But there's a caveat to this concern: Existing models have predicted a more dramatic rate of Arctic riverbank erosion than has actually been observed. In a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, Madison Douglas and Michael Lamb set out to determine why.
To do this, the team created a model that couples the movement of sediment, such as sand and mud, with permafrost thaw to determine riverbank erosion. The model better reproduces erosion observations on parts of the Yukon River in Alaska. This is because in real-world scenarios, the rate of erosion is slowed by an insulating layer of thawed sediment. Rather than the warmer river water ... Read more ...
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A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of disaster risk due to linkage of residual coal pillars and rock strata - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · In extreme cases, such instability can trigger disasters like mine earthquakes and widespread collapse of goaf areas, potentially leading to casualties. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out monitoring and evaluation research on the risk of instability and disaster caused by the linkage of residual coal pillars and rock strata.
The challenge of instability linkage between residual coal pillars and rock strata is complex, as it not only involves the interaction between these pillars and strata but also engenders a cascade of linkage disasters. Present research efforts mostly lack a holistic assessment of the instability and disaster risks arising from the interaction between ... Read more ...
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A flexible and efficient DC power converter for sustainable-energy microgrids - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · Electric power comes in two kinds, AC (alternating current) and DC (direct current). Famously, the question over which kind should be used for national power grids, the "Current War" of the late 19th century, got settled in favor of AC and most power plants today produce this kind. However, solar power, batteries and in particular those in electric vehicles, and computers all depend on DC, making lossy AC-to-DC conversion necessary.
An alternative to this is the establishment of DC microgrids that integrate various renewable DC energy sources and storage devices and deliver energy directly to data centers and other DC appliances. This eliminates the need for AC-to-DC ... Read more ...
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A hydrocarbon molecule as supplier and energy storage solution for solar energy - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · This could pave the way for entirely new organic solar modules. The fundamentals for conversion and storage using the molecule have now been published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
Hopes remain high that solar energy will be a major driver of the energy transformation. However, as sunlight is a highly volatile source of energy, a solution must be found for storing energy efficiently.
"Until now, we have transferred electricity from solar modules that is not consumed immediately into a battery, where it can be used as and when required," explains Prof. Dr. Julien Bachmann, Chair of Chemistry of Thin Film Materials (CTFM) at FAU. "By repeatedly changing between chemical ... Read more ...
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A new electrochemical approach could reduce ocean acidity and remove carbon in the process - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Only 45 percent of carbon dioxide emissions remain in the atmosphere; the remainder is absorbed through two cycles: 1) the biological carbon cycle stores CO2 in plant matter and soils, and 2) the aqueous carbon cycle absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere into the oceans. Each of these cycles accounts for 25 percent and 30 percent of emitted CO2, respectively.
CO2 that dissolves in the oceans reacts to form chemicals that increase the acidity of the oceans. The dissolution of minerals from rocks along coastlines act to counterbalance this acidity, in a process called geological weathering, but the extreme increase in the rate and volume of CO2 emissions, especially over the last 60 ... Read more ...
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A shade closer to more efficient organic photovoltaics - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Semitransparent photovoltaics are able to convert sunlight into electricity without blocking visible light. This makes them attractive for building integrated applications, such as windows, facades and greenhouses.
Unlike traditional silicon-based cells, organic photovoltaics can be flexible and can also be tailored to be transparent. Yet the more transparent the solar cell, the less light it captures for producing electricity.
Organic solar cells typically rely on an active layer called a bulk heterojunction—comprised of electron donor and acceptor materials—to capture and convert sunlight. Upon contact, sunlight can excite electrons to higher energy states ... Read more ...
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A solar neighborhood census, thanks to NASA citizen science - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Looking to understand more about our neighbors and how they came to be, scientists collaborate with citizen scientists and volunteers from around the world. They have helped professional scientists create a new census of more than 4,000 cosmic objects through the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project.
A new study in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series shows the results of that census within 65 light-years of the sun. Researchers found that there are four times more stars than brown dwarfs in this area but that low-mass objects are more common than high-mass objects. The average mass of an object in this area is 40% of the mass of the sun.
"There is ... Read more ...
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A third of China's urban population at risk of city sinking, new satellite data shows - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Land subsidence is overlooked as a hazard in cities, according to scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Virginia Tech. Writing in the journal Science, Prof Robert Nicholls of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at UEA and Prof Manoochehr Shirzaei of Virginia Tech and United Nations University for Water, Environment and Health, Ontario, highlight the importance of a new research paper analyzing satellite data that accurately and consistently maps land movement across China.
While they say in their comment article that consistently measuring subsidence is a great achievement, they argue it is only the start of finding solutions. Predicting future ... Read more ...
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Accelerated marine carbon cycling forced by tectonic degassing over the Miocene Climate Optimum - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · In a recent publication in Science Bulletin, a multidisciplinary team of authors from Tongji University, the Second Institute of Oceanography (Ministry of Natural Resources), the Institute of Earth Environment (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and Utrecht University reports for the first time that massive carbon inputs from volcanism and seafloor spreading have impacted the orbital phase relationships between carbon cycle and climate change.
Past changes in climate and carbon cycle have been documented by the stable isotope composition of benthic foraminiferal oxygen and carbon, as they are proxies for climate-cryosphere and carbon transfers between the ocean and other ... Read more ...
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Aerogel-based phase change materials improve thermal management, reduce microwave emissions in electronic devices - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Chinese scientists from Beijing Normal University have been working on building shielding for electronic devices using multifunctional composite phase change materials (PCMs) to address these performance issues.
PCMs are man-made materials built by combining different types of elements, allowing the creation of a new material with very specific purpose driven characteristics. In this case, the researchers are looking to improve thermal management, solar-thermal conversion and microwave absorption in the electronic devices.
Using engineering inspired by biological systems, they built a neural network-inspired aerogel that increases the efficiency of thermal management and ... Read more ...
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Africa's megacities threatened by heat, floods, disease - action needed to start greening, adapt to climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · African megacities like Lagos, Nigeria (with 21 million residents) and Cairo, Egypt (with 10 million residents) are experiencing significant temperature increases due to the urban heat island effect and climate change.
Meelan Thondoo is a medical anthropologist and environmental epidemiologist who researches the health impacts of climate change in cities of fast-developing countries. She explains what cities in Africa are doing to mitigate climate change, and what further steps they need to take to protect their populations.
What health effects of climate change do African cities experience?
Currently, 3.3 billion to 3.6 billion people globally live in cities that ... Read more ...
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AI for Earth: How NASA's artificial intelligence and open science efforts combat climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · In 2023, NASA teamed up with IBM Research to create an AI geospatial foundation model. Trained on vast amounts of NASA's widely used Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) data, the model provides a base for a variety of AI-powered studies to tackle environmental challenges. In keeping with open science principles, the model is freely available for anyone to access.
Foundation models serve as a baseline from which scientists can develop a diverse set of applications, enabling powerful and efficient solutions. "Foundation models only know what things are represented in the data," explained Manil Maskey, the data science lead at NASA's Office of the Chief Science Data Officer ... Read more ...
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AI weather forecasts can capture destructive path of major storms, new study shows - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez, who led the study, said, "AI is transforming weather forecasting before our eyes. Two years ago, modern machine learning techniques were rarely being applied to make weather forecasts. Now we have multiple models that can produce 10-day global forecasts in minutes.
"There is a great deal we can learn about AI weather forecasts by stress-testing them on extreme events like Storm Ciarán. We can identify their strengths and weaknesses and guide the development of even better AI forecasting technology to help protect people and property. This is an exciting and important time for weather forecasting."
Promise and pitfalls
To ... Read more ...
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Airborne interferometric radar altimeter shows potential for submesoscale sea surface height anomaly measurements - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Their study was published in Remote Sensing on April 12.
To date, humanity has not been able to observe two-dimensional (2D) oceanic processes at the 0.1–10 km submesoscale in the spatial domain using remote sensing. The SSHA signal at this scale is small and exceeds the resolution limits of the satellite altimeters used to date.
However, oceanic processes at this scale play a critical role in the study of ocean energy transfer, cascading, and dissipation, and are crucial for research on ocean energy balance, nutrient transport, and global climate change studies.
In this study, the researchers provided a detailed analysis of the SSHA and its wavenumber ... Read more ...
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Airborne observations of Asian monsoon sees ozone-depleting substances lofting into the stratosphere - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · The study, led by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) and NASA, found that the East Asian Monsoon delivers more than twice the concentration of very short-lived ozone-depleting substances into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere than previously reported.
"It was a real surprise to fly through a plume with all those very short-lived ozone-depleting substances," said NSF NCAR scientist Laura Pan, the lead author of the study. "These chemicals may have a significant impact on what will happen with the ozone layer, and it's critical to quantify them."
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National ... Read more ...
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Airborne single-photon lidar system achieves high-resolution 3D imaging - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Single-photon lidar uses single-photon detection techniques to measure the time it takes laser pulses to travel to objects and back. It is particularly useful for airborne applications because it enables highly accurate 3D mapping of terrain and objects even in challenging environments such as dense vegetation or urban areas.
"Using single-photon lidar technology on resource-limited drones or satellites requires shrinking the entire system and reducing its energy consumption," said research team member Feihu Xu from University of Science and Technology of China.
"We were able to incorporate recent technology developments into a system that, in comparison to other ... Read more ...
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Amazon removed Just Walk Out from many of its own stores but wants to sell the system to others - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Amazon wants the public and - especially other businesses - to know it's not giving up on its Just Walk Out technology.
Although the company is ditching the cashier-less checkout system at its Amazon Fresh grocery stores, it plans to sell the technology to more than 120 third-party businesses by the end of the year. Reaching that goal would double the number of non-Amazon enterprises that use Just Walk Out compared to last year.
"For us, really making sure that we can service that third-party market is the most important thing," Jon Jenkins, the vice president of Just Walk Out at Amazon, said in an interview. "We've definitely been reassuring people that we are in this ... Read more ...
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Amazon sold a chemical that led to 15 deaths: Who is responsible? - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · In December 2020, 15-year-old Tyler Schmidt took a deadly chemical to a wooded area near his home in Camas, Clark County, Washington.
His body was found two days later. The chemical was determined to be his cause of death.
That year, four more individuals died the same way. In 2021 and 2022, 10 more died after ingesting the same chemical.
All 15 individuals purchased the chemical - a substance that can be used as a food preservative or in medical lab settings in a low purity form - from Amazon. It was sold there with 99% purity.
The families of those 15 people have sued Amazon in six separate cases since 2022 - including one filed last month - alleging the ... Read more ...
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Amazonia's fire crises: Emergency fire bans insufficient, strategic action needed before next burning season - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Dr. Manoela Machado, a postdoctoral researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and also at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, and the lead author of the study, said, "Emergency fire bans are not a standalone solution for the fire crises; they can be effective when strategically implemented and rigorously enforced during critical periods to prevent ignitions, but to solve the crises, we need measures that address the motivations behind different types of fires and, most crucially, focus on stopping deforestation."
The Amazon plays an essential role in regulating global climate patterns, supporting biodiversity, and sustaining local and ... Read more ...
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An ultralow-concentration electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Lithium salts make batteries powerful but expensive. An ultralow-concentration electrolyte based on the lithium salt LiDFOB may be a more economical and more sustainable alternative. Cells using these electrolytes and conventional electrodes have been demonstrated to have high performance, as reported by a research team in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. In addition, the electrolyte could facilitate both production and recycling of the batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) provide power to smartphones and tablets, drive electric vehicles, and store electricity at power plants. The main components of most LIBs are lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) cathodes, ... Read more ...
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Animals deserve to be included in global carbon cycle models as well, say researchers - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · A new theoretical framework, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences by Matteo Rizzuto and colleagues, offers a road map for including animals in carbon cycle models. Their work shows that adding both herbivores and predators to such models significantly alters both the amount and the dynamics of carbon cycling.
Future modeling of carbon dynamics, important for understanding climate change and designing nature-based carbon sequestration projects, should take animals into consideration as well, researchers argue.
Animals affect carbon cycling directly by eating plants or by eating other animals that eat plants. By producing waste, respiring, and ... Read more ...
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Anthropocene activities dramatically alter deep underground fluid flux, researchers find - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Mining, oil and gas production, water wells, and other human activities involve extracting various fluids from or injecting them into the ground. Much attention has been paid to the toll these processes take on shallow groundwater and the water cycle. But less is known about how these activities affect the deep subsurface (500 meters to several kilometers deep), much of which was previously isolated for very long periods of geologic time.
In a new study in Earth's Future, Ferguson and colleagues illustrate how deep subsurface fluid flow rates associated with human activities such as oil and gas production most likely already exceed natural fluxes at these depths on a global ... Read more ...
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Artificial intelligence helps scientists engineer plants to fight climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · To design these climate-saving plants, scientists in Salk's Harnessing Plants Initiative are using a sophisticated new research tool called SLEAP—an easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) software that tracks multiple features of root growth. Created by Salk Fellow Talmo Pereira, SLEAP was initially designed to track animal movement in the lab. Now, Pereira has teamed up with plant scientist and Salk colleague Professor Wolfgang Busch to apply SLEAP to plants.
In a study published in Plant Phenomics, Busch and Pereira debut a new protocol for using SLEAP to analyze plant root phenotypes—how deep and wide they grow, how massive their root systems become, and other ... Read more ...
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Astronomers discover the most metal-poor extreme helium star - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), astronomers have performed high-resolution observations of a recently detected extreme helium star designated EC 19529–4430. It turned out that EC 19529–4430 is the most metal deficient among the population of known extreme helium stars. The finding was reported in a research paper published April 5 on the pre-print server arXiv.
Extreme helium (EHe) stars are supergiants much larger and hotter than the sun, but less massive. They are almost devoid of hydrogen, which is unusual, as hydrogen is the most abundant chemical element in the universe.
EHes are characterized by relatively sharp and strong lines of ... Read more ...
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At a glance - Is the science settled? - Skeptical Science (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "Is the science settled?". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
Science, in all of its aspects, is an ongoing matter. It is based on making progress. For a familiar example, everyone knows that the dinosaurs died ... Read more ...
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At a glance - The difference between weather and climate - Skeptical Science (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "The difference between weather and climate". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
How do you go about weather forecasting by yourself? Study the computer models. With experience, you will become familiar with the ... Read more ...
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Australia's Great Barrier Reef struggles to survive - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 20) |
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Apr 20 · Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef is suffering one of the most severe coral bleaching events on record, leaving scientists fearful for its survival as the impact of climate change worsens.
For 33 years marine biologist Anne Hoggett has lived and worked on Lizard Island, a small slice of tropical paradise off Australia's northeast tip.
She affectionately dubs it "Blizzard Island". The only relief from the wind and teeming showers is in the powder blue waters, where sea turtles and tiger sharks rove along the Great Barrier Reef.
As Hoggett snorkels, schools of fish swim gracefully, feeding on the coral or darting between it. Some are as small as her little finger, ... Read more ...
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Baby white sharks prefer being closer to shore, scientists find - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Now, marine scientists have shown for the first time that juvenile great white sharks select warm and shallow waters to aggregate within one kilometer from the shore. These results, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, are important for conservation of great white sharks—especially as ocean temperatures increase due to climate change—and for protecting the public from negative shark encounters.
Baby great white sharks ("pups") don't receive any maternal care after birth. In the studied population off Padaro Beach near Santa Barbara in central California, pups and juveniles gather in "nurseries," unaccompanied by adults.
"This is one of the largest and ... Read more ...
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Balancing AI and physics: Toward a learnable climate model - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Previous studies have demonstrated that Pangu-Weather can accurately replicate certain climate patterns like tropical Gill responses and extra-tropical teleconnections through qualitative analysis. However, quantitative investigations have revealed significant differences in wind components, such as divergent winds and ageostrophic winds, within current AI weather models. Despite these findings, there are still concerns that the importance of physics in climate science is sometimes overlooked.
"The qualitative assessment finds AI models could understand and learn spatial patterns in weather and climate data. On the other hand, the quantitative approach highlights a limitation: ... Read more ...
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Beyond higher temperatures: Preparing for national security risks posed by climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · But also at stake is the security of the United States and other nations. What if people become desperate for food? What if long-dormant microbes come to life due to thawing permafrost? What if water and electricity become scarce?
These are the sorts of questions that researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) are asking as they take part in a series of national forums. Scientists have raised these questions and more at recent gatherings of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Meteorological Society, and the U.S. military.
This week, as the world celebrates Earth Day, more than a dozen PNNL scientists and others ... Read more ...
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Biden administration set to deny 200-mile Ambler mining road through Alaska wilderness - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · The U.S. Department of the Interior is expected to issue an environmental report that recommends denying a permit needed to build a 200-mile access road to the Ambler mining district, according to national news reports on April 16.
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority applied for the permit to develop the road to access the mining district in Northwest Alaska. The Trump administration had approved the right-of-way permit in 2020.
Conservation groups and Alaska tribal entities, including the Tanana Chiefs Conference, sued to overturn the decision. The Biden administration also said it identified legal flaws in the process related to subsistence impacts ... Read more ...
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Biden Finalizes Plan To Overhaul Dirty Power Grid And Reduce Blackouts - Huffington Post (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · The Biden administration rolled out its plan Thursday to overhaul the United States’ aging patchwork of fossil-fueled electrical grids, finishing work on a suite of regulations designed to rein in rising utility bills and stem worsening blackouts while cutting planet-heating pollution from power plants.
The regulatory package includes the nation’s first-ever limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, tighter restrictions on mercury gas and coal ash, and a new way to speed up construction of badly needed transmission lines.
Paired with the billions of dollars in carrots for manufacturing, building and buying modern energy equipment that came with President Joe ... Read more ...
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Biden targets fossil fuel power sector with tough new carbon rules - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · The United States on Thursday announced sweeping new rules requiring coal-fired plants to eliminate nearly all their carbon emissions or commit to shutting down altogether, a keystone of President Joe Biden's agenda to confront the climate crisis.
Hailed by environmental groups as a "gamechanger," the regulations take effect from 2032 and will also mandate that new, high capacity gas-fired plants slash their carbon dioxide output by the same amount - 90 percent - a target that would require the use of carbon capture technology.
It comes as Democratic incumbent Biden faces a tough election rematch against Republican Donald Trump in November, with climate action seen as ... Read more ...
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Biden Thwarts Trump And Blocks Mining Road, Oil Drilling In Alaska - Huffington Post (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday safeguarded millions of acres in Alaska from fossil fuel drilling and mining - the latest in a frenzy of environmental actions in recent weeks that have drawn praise from green groups and condemnation from industry and Republican lawmakers.
The Interior Department finalized a rule that bars oil and gas development across more than 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope. Established in 1923, the 23 million-acre reserve is the largest tract of federal land in the country and home to vast oil and gas deposits.
Interior also moved to block construction of the Ambler Road, a proposed 211-mile ... Read more ...
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Can bismuth prevent oil leaks and save Norwegians billions? - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Over the next 25 years, as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, the oil and gas wells that have sustained the fossil fuel age will have to be plugged.
No big deal, you might think, drilling those wells was the hard part. Plugging them should be no problem. But think again.
The Norwegian Continental Shelf, as an example, is punctured by more than 2,000 wells. Harald Linga, center director for SWIPA, a Center for Research Based Innovation based at SINTEF, Scandinavia's largest independent research institute, estimates that plugging them using today's technology will cost upwards of NOK 800 billion - that's USD 73 billion.
And while oil companies are responsible ... Read more ...
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Can climate change accelerate transmission of malaria? New research sheds light on impacts of temperature - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · In tropical and subtropical regions where malaria is prevalent, scientists are concerned that climate warming might increase the risk of malaria transmission in certain areas and contribute to further spread. However, there is still much to learn about the relationship between temperature and the mosquito and parasite traits that influence malaria transmission.
In "Estimating the effects of temperature on transmission of the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum," a study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Florida, Pennsylvania State University and Imperial College, combined novel experimental data within an innovative ... Read more ...
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Car giants vie for EV crown at Beijing's Auto China show - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Chinese car giants locked in a cut-throat price war descended on the capital for the start of the Auto China show Thursday, vying to draw consumers and headlines in the world's biggest electric vehicle market and abroad.
China's EV sector has exploded in recent years, and firms are now engaged in a no-holds-barred battle to offer customers the coolest accessories at the lowest prices.
EV makers from China have made inroads into markets from Europe to Southeast Asia and Tesla's Elon Musk described them in January as "the most competitive car companies in the world".
Beijing's Auto China show, which lasts until May 4, sees dozens of firms square off in a bid to draw ... Read more ...
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Chemists invent a more efficient way to extract lithium from mining sites, oil fields, used batteries - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · "It's a low-cost, high-lithium-uptake process," said Parans Paranthaman, an ORNL Corporate Fellow and National Academy of Inventors Fellow with 58 issued patents. He led the proof-of-concept experiment with Jayanthi Kumar, an ORNL materials chemist with expertise in the design, synthesis, and characterization of layered materials.
"The key advantage is that it works in a wider pH range of 5 to 11 compared to other direct lithium extraction methods," Paranthaman said. The acid-free extraction process takes place at 140 degrees Celsius, compared to traditional methods that roast mined minerals at 250 degrees Celsius with acid or 800 to 1000 degrees Celsius without ... Read more ...
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Chinese automakers redefine the car as a living space at Beijing Auto Show - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · How about turning a car's front bucket seats 180 degrees so they face the rear seats and extending out a table so the occupants can play cards or eat a meal? Or a 43-inch (109 centimeter) screen for the passengers in the back seat?
The seemingly never-ending efforts of China's electric car makers to redefine the automobile went on display Thursday at the opening of the nation's largest annual auto show. They are forcing established makers such as Volkswagen and Nissan to change the way they develop cars to remain players in what is the world's largest auto market.
Nissan joined Toyota in announcing a tie-up at the Beijing Auto Show with a major Chinese technology company ... Read more ...
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Climate change could become the main driver of biodiversity decline by mid-century, analysis suggests - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Global biodiversity has declined between 2% and 11% during the 20th century due to land-use change alone, according to a large multi-model study published in Science. Projections show climate change could become the main driver of biodiversity decline by the mid-21st century.
The analysis was led by the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and is the largest modeling study of its kind to date. The researchers compared thirteen models for assessing the impact of land-use change and climate change on four distinct biodiversity metrics, as well as on nine ecosystem services.
Land-use change is ... Read more ...
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Climate change expected to increase wildfire danger - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · There is likely to be a significant increase in the danger of wildfires through the 21st century. Indeed, the expectation is that by 2100 the danger will be high even in regions where it is very low today. Those are the findings of a study by Julia Miller, a Ph.D. student in the SLF's Hydrology & Climate Impacts in Mountain Regions research group, published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
Forecasts show that the potential danger will continue to increase, but from 2040 onwards it will exceed the natural range of climate fluctuations and so will be attributed to climate change from then on. Taking the example of the Bavarian Alpine Foreland, this means that the ... Read more ...
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Climate change is disrupting our sense of home - VOX -Environment (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Climate change is personal. It is not abstract. The warming climate impacts our economies, influences our politics and culture, threatens the food we eat and the water we drink; it even affects our love lives.
As climate change accelerates and extreme heat and climate disasters displace more people around the world, the crisis is increasingly disrupting our fundamental sense of where we belong and what we consider home.
We saw that last summer, in Maui, Hawaii, when the deadliest wildfire in the US in more than a century leveled the historic town of Lahaina, killed more than 100 people, and displaced thousands of residents from their homes.
In the immediate wake of ... Read more ...
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Climate change supercharged a heat dome, intensifying 2021 fire season, study finds - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · A new study has revealed the extent to which human-caused climate change intensified the extraordinary event, with researchers theorizing the heat dome was 34% larger and lasted nearly 60% longer than it would have in the absence of global warming. The heat dome, in turn, was associated with up to a third of the area burned in North America that year, according to the study, published in Communications Earth & Environment.
"What happens is you get a stagnated weather pattern—it's very hot and very dry," said study author Piyush Jain, research scientist with Natural Resources Canada. "And it dries out all the vegetation and makes whatever is on the ground extremely ... Read more ...
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Climate change will increase value of residential rooftop solar panels across US, study finds - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · Climate change will increase the future value of residential rooftop solar panels across the United States by up to 19% by the end of the century, according to a new University of Michigan-led study.
The study defines the value of solar, or VOS, as household-level financial benefits from electricity bill savings plus revenues from selling excess electricity to the grid - minus the initial installation costs.
For many U.S. households, increased earnings from residential rooftop solar could total up to hundreds of dollars annually by the end of the century, say the authors of the study, which is scheduled for publication April 19 in the journal Nature Climate ... Read more ...
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Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 20) |
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Apr 20 · Climate change caused by CO2 emissions already in the atmosphere will shrink global GDP in 2050 by about $38 trillion, or almost a fifth, no matter how aggressively humanity cuts carbon pollution, researchers said Wednesday.
But slashing greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible remains crucial to avoid even more devastating economic impacts after mid-century, they reported in the journal Nature.
Economic fallout from climate change, the study shows, could increase tens of trillions of dollars per year by 2100 if the planet were to warm significantly beyond two degrees Celsius above mid-19th century levels.
Earth's average surface temperature has already ... Read more ...
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CO₂ worsens wildfires by helping plants grow, model experiments show - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · The worldwide surge in wildfires over the past decade is often attributed to the hotter, drier conditions of climate change. However, the study found that the effect of increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) on plants may be a bigger factor.
"It's not because it's hotter that things are burning, it's because there's more fuel, in the form of plants," said UCR doctoral student in Earth and planetary sciences and study author James Gomez.
This conclusion, and a description of the eight model experiments that produced it, have been published in Communications Earth & Environment.
To convert light into food in a process called photosynthesis, plants require CO2. ... Read more ...
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Coal train pollution increases health risks and disparities, research warns - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · The study, published in the journal Environmental Research, focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area and is the first health impact assessment of coal train pollution in the world.
It found that coal train pollution has significant health effects that disproportionately impact communities of color and people who are young, old, or have low incomes.
While centered on East Bay neighborhoods, the study carries implications for communities worldwide living alongside passing coal trains. At least 80 countries use coal power, which generates about 40% of the world's electricity.
"These trains run all over the world, exposing the poorest populations who often live close to ... Read more ...
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Control of temperature dependent viscosity for manufacturing of Bi-doped active fiber - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · The work could guide the development of heavily doped Bi active fibers, which exhibit great potential for application in the next-generation optical amplifiers.
Bi-dopants exhibit multi-chemical states and can transform into a deactivated state when the bulk is drawn into the fiber at high temperature, which limits the development of high-performance Bi-active fibers.
"From the viewpoint of thermodynamics, the deactivation of Bi dopants cannot be prevented during the fiber drawing process, since the Bi-active center is not the thermodynamics stable at such temperatures," said Shifeng Zhou, corresponding author on the paper and professor at the South China University of ... Read more ...
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Cooler transformers could help electric grid - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Transformers are aging and approaching an average of being 30 to 40 years old. Plus, they face more stress than ever before brought on by factors such as renewable energy and by extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves, and winter storms. Case in point—the 2021 event in Texas that left millions powerless.
That is when University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) researchers decided to look inside grid transformers to see if they could make them better. Grid transformers are filled with copper windings, other metallic components, and cellulose-based electrical insulation like kraft paper. The cellulose insulation is a great electrical insulator essential in the ... Read more ...
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Cosmic rays streamed through Earth's atmosphere 41,000 years ago: New findings on the Laschamps excursion - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · Earth's magnetic field protects us from the dangerous radiation of space, but it is not as permanent as we might believe. Scientists at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly present new information about an 'excursion' 41,000 years ago where our planet's magnetic field waned, and harmful space rays bombarded the planet.
Earth's magnetic field cocoons our planet from the onslaught of cosmic radiation streaming through space while also shielding us from charged particles hurled outward by the sun. But the geomagnetic field is not stationary. Not only does magnetic north wobble, straying from true north (a geographically defined location), but occasionally, it flips. ... Read more ...
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Czechs 3D-print Eiffel Tower from ocean waste for Olympics - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · A Czech company is 3D-printing a giant Eiffel Tower model for a local Olympics event, using recycled ocean waste as the primary material.
The 14-meter-high (46-foot) model will be installed at an Olympic festival in the north of the Czech Republic, where the public can try different Olympic sports during the Paris Games in July and August.
Jan Hrebabecky, the owner of the 3DDen printing farm, uses printing filament made from ocean waste.
"The material for the Eiffel Tower comes from the shores of Thailand," he told AFP.
"It has excellent mechanic and chemical qualities, great UV resistance, and it is practically immortal."
Collected by Thai fishermen, ... Read more ...
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Data-driven music: Converting climate measurements into music - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · A geo-environmental scientist from Japan has composed a string quartet using sonified climate data. The 6-minute-long composition - titled "String Quartet No. 1 "Polar Energy Budget" - is based on over 30 years of satellite-collected climate data from the Arctic and Antarctic and aims to garner attention on how climate is driven by the input and output of energy at the poles.
The backstory about how the composition was put together is published April 18 in the journal iScience as part of a collection "Exploring the Art-Science Connection."
"I strongly hope that this manuscript marks a significant turning point, transitioning from an era where only scientists handle data ... Read more ...
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Dating the solar system's giant planet orbital instability using enstatite meteorites - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Space scientists led by the University of Leicester have combined evidence from simulations, observations and analysis of meteorites to recreate the orbital instability caused as the giant planets of our solar system moved into their current locations, known for 20 years as the Nice model.
The findings are published in the journal Science and presented at the European Geological Union General Assembly in Vienna.
At the beginning of the solar system, the giant planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—had more circular and more compact orbits than they do today. Previous research has established that orbital instability in the solar system changed that ... Read more ...
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Decarbonization scenario model analyzes ambitious pathways to net-zero carbon emissions - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Scientists are developing multiple strategies to reduce carbon emissions in, and remove them from, the atmosphere—processes known collectively as decarbonization. In fact, the holy grail of climate change research is finding viable decarbonization pathways to achieve the U.S. government's target of net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050.
While decarbonization pathways are complex, varied and specific to individual industries, clean-energy technologies and low- and zero-carbon fuels are integral to all carbon dioxide (CO2) mitigation strategies across the U.S. economy. And as scientists develop strategies, they are also creating tools to assess them.
Now, ... Read more ...
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Deer are expanding north, and that's not good for caribou: Scientists evaluate the reasons why - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Over the past century, white-tailed deer have greatly expanded their range in North America, explains Melanie Dickie, a doctoral student with UBC Okanagan's Wildlife Restoration Ecology Lab.
In the boreal forest of Western Canada, researchers have considered that both changing climate and increased habitat alteration have enabled deer to push farther north. Climate change can create milder winters, while habitat alteration from forestry and energy exploration creates new food sources for deer.
As they conclude their study, researchers caution that what is good for the deer isn't necessarily suitable for other species, such as the threatened woodland ... Read more ...
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Denmark launches its biggest offshore wind farm tender - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · The Danish Energy Agency on Monday launched its biggest tender for the construction of offshore wind farms, aimed at producing six gigawatts by 2030 - more than double Denmark's current capacity.
Offshore wind is one of the major sources of green energy that Europe is counting on to decarbonize electricity production and reach its 2050 target of net zero carbon production, but it remains far off the pace needed to hit its targets.
Denmark's offshore wind parks currently generate 2.7 gigawatts of electricity, with another one GW due in 2027.
The tender covers six sites in four zones in Danish waters: North Sea I, Kattegat, Kriegers Flak II and Hesselo.
"We are ... Read more ...
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Did climate chaos cultivate or constrain 2023's greenery? - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · In a recent publication in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, a research team led by Academician Piao Shilong from the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University delved into the topic. The paper, titled "Vegetation Greenness in 2023," offers a detailed analysis of the interplay between vegetation greening and climate change.
The greening of vegetation is one of the most significant features of changes in the Earth's biosphere during the modern period of climate warming. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, warming climate, and land use changes are the main drivers affecting global vegetation greening.
Under the long-term warming ... Read more ...
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Diversity and productivity go branch-in-branch: Scientists share which forests can adapt to climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Now, a study by an international group, including Kyoto University, found that forests with higher trait diversity not only adapt better to climate change but may also thrive. The work is published in the journal Science Advances.
The study, conducted by researchers from Lakehead University, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, unveiled how tree functional trait diversity—a key aspect of biodiversity—plays a pivotal role in mitigating climate warming.
"In the face of environmental stress, these diverse trees have been shown to maintain higher productivity levels, in contrast to monoculture ... Read more ...
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Dubai airport diverts flights as 'exceptional weather' hits Gulf - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Dubai's major international airport diverted scores of incoming flights on Tuesday as heavy rains lashed the United Arab Emirates, causing widespread flooding around the desert country.
The world's busiest air hub for international passengers confirmed a halt to arrivals at 7:26 pm (1526 GMT) before announcing a "gradual resumption" more than two hours later.
Earlier the airport, which had been expecting more than 100 flight arrivals on Tuesday evening, took the equally unusual step of briefly halting its operations in the chaos caused by the storm.
Dubai, the Middle East's financial center, has been paralyzed by the torrential rain that caused floods across the ... Read more ...
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Dubai reels from floods chaos after record rains - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Dubai's giant highways were clogged by flooding and airport passengers were urged to stay away on Wednesday as the glitzy financial center reeled from record rains.
Huge tailbacks snaked along six-lane expressways after up to 254 millimeters of rain - about two years' worth - fell on the desert United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.
At least one person was killed after a 70-year-old man was swept away in his car in Ras Al-Khaimah, one of the country's seven emirates, police said.
Passengers were warned not to come to Dubai airport, the world's busiest by international traffic, "unless absolutely necessary", an official said.
"Flights continue to be delayed and ... Read more ...
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Earth Day 2024: Four effective strategies to reduce household food waste - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · 1.3 billion tons of food is enough to feed more than 3 billion people.
Food waste contributes to nearly 8% to 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That level of emissions is on the scale of what a large country would produce—just under total emission estimates of the United States and China—posing serious contributions to climate change.
The greatest contributors to food waste are high-income countries, where the average consumer wastes between 95–115 kilograms of food per year. In Canada, approximately 60% of food produced is lost or wasted per year, costing an estimated $49.5 billion. This figure constitutes about half the annual food purchase costs ... Read more ...
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Earth Day: How a senator's idea more than 50 years ago got people fighting for their planet - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Here are answers to some common questions about Earth Day and how it came to be:
WHY DO WE CELEBRATE EARTH DAY?
Earth Day has its roots in growing concern over pollution in the 1960s, when author Rachel Carson's 1962 book "Silent Spring," about the pesticide DDT and its damaging effects on the food chain, hit bestseller lists and raised awareness about nature's delicate balance.
But it was a senator from Wisconsin, Democrat Gaylord Nelson, who had the idea that would become Earth Day. Nelson had long been concerned about the environment when a massive offshore oil spill sent millions of gallons onto the southern California coast in 1969. Nelson, after touring the ... Read more ...
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East coast mussel shells are becoming more porous in warming waters - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · "Mussels are important on so many levels: They provide habitats on reefs, they filter water, they protect coasts during storms, and they are important commercially as well - I love mussels and I know many other people do, too," said Leanne Melbourne, a Kathryn W. Davis postdoctoral fellow in the Museum's Master of Arts in Teaching program and the lead author on the study. "Human-caused environmental changes are threatening the ability of mussels and other mollusks to form their shells, and we need to better understand what risks will come from this in the future."
Previous studies on the blue (common) mussel (Mytilus edulis) have used lab experiments to investigate how ocean ... Read more ...
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Ecosystems are deeply interconnected - environmental research, policy and management should be too - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · We have a lot to learn still, but as we show in our research, using current ecological knowledge more effectively could deliver substantial environmental gains.
Our work focuses on improving links between research and ecosystem management to identify key trigger points for action in a framework that joins land, freshwater and sea ecosystems.
Specifically, we investigate solutions to environmental and societal problems that stem from the disparities between scientific research, policy and management responses to environmental issues.
We need managers and policy makers to consider ecological tipping points and how they can cascade though ecosystems from land into ... Read more ...
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EGU2024 - An intense week of joining sessions virtually - Skeptical Science (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in.
This year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) started on Monday April 15 both on premise in Vienna and online as a fully hybrid conference. This year, I decided to join virtually for the whole week, picking and chosing sessions I was interested in. At the time of publication this blog post was still an evolving compilation - a kind of personal diary - ... Read more ...
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El Nino not climate change driving southern Africa drought: Study - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · A drought that pushed millions of people into hunger across southern Africa has been driven mostly by the El Niño weather pattern - not climate change, scientists said on Thursday.
Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi have declared a national disaster over the severe dry spell that started in January and has devastated the agricultural sector, decimating crops and pastures.
Appealing for almost $900 million in aid this week, Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema linked the lack of rains to climate change.
But scientists at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group found global warming had little to do with it.
"Over the past year, attribution studies have ... Read more ...
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Electric cars and digital connectivity dominate at Beijing auto show - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Global automakers and EV startups unveiled new models and concept cars at China's largest auto show on Thursday, with a focus on the nation's transformation into a major market and production base for digitally connected, new-energy vehicles.
Toyota and Nissan both announced tie-ups with major Chinese technology companies as they strive to meet customer demand for AI-enabled online connectivity in cars, from social media apps to autonomous driving features.
Electric vehicles accounted for about a quarter of all auto sales in China last year. Hybrids, which have trailed EVs, are expected to be a growing segment going forward.
China's largest EV maker, BYD, showed ... Read more ...
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Emperor penguins perish as ice melts to new lows: Study - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Colonies of emperor penguin chicks were wiped out last year as global warming eroded their icy homes, a study published Thursday found, despite the birds' attempts to adapt to the shrinking landscape.
The study by the British Antarctic Survey found that record-low sea ice levels in 2023 contributed to the second-worst year for emperor penguin chick mortality since observations began in 2018.
It follows a "catastrophic breeding failure" in 2022, signaling long-term implications for the population, the study's author Peter Fretwell told AFP.
Emperor penguins breed on sea-ice platforms, with chicks hatching in the winter between late July and mid-August.
The ... Read more ...
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Energy-smart bricks keep waste out of landfill - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · RMIT University engineers collaborated with Visy—Australia's largest recycling company—to make bricks with a minimum of 15% waste glass and 20% combusted solid waste (ash), as substitutes for clay.
Test results indicate that using these bricks in the construction of a single-story building could reduce household energy bills by up to 5% compared to regular bricks, due to improved insulation.
Replacing clay with waste materials in the brick production helped reduce the firing temperature by up to 20% compared with standard brick mixtures, offering potential cost savings to manufacturers.
Team leader Associate Professor Dilan Robert said about 1.4 ... Read more ...
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Engineers uncover key to efficient and stable organic solar cells - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Organic photovoltaics (OPV), which employs cost-effective, printable, and environmentally friendly polymer semiconductors, holds tremendous potential for generating sustainable and renewable energy. However, due to the soft nature of polymers, achieving OPV devices with both high efficiency and long operation stability has been a long-standing research challenge.
By investigating the ultrafast charge dynamics using femtosecond laser pulses, the researchers first discovered that controlling the degree of aggregation of the polymerized Y6 acceptors (Y6-PAs) plays a crucial role in promoting electricity generation.
This nanoscale percolation not only enhances charge ... Read more ...
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Environment recognition technologies for off-road self-driving with improved real-time processing performance - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Off-road environment recognition technologies for detecting extraneous substances such as dust, mud, snow, or rain during off-road autonomous driving of construction machinery, agricultural machines, and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and removing the sensor signals of these substances on a real-time basis, have been developed for the first time in Korea.
It is expected that these newly developed technologies will be applied in the future to industrial machinery such as excavators, dump trucks, and search vehicles and also to military self-driving cars, and will provide workers with a safe working environment.
Among the off-road environment recognition technologies that ... Read more ...
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Estimating emissions potential of decommissioned gas wells from shale samples - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · The findings, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, revealed that methane begins diffusing from the shale formation after a well is decommissioned and that this represents a notable source of methane emissions—comparable to the most significant emissions during drilling and operation of the well.
"Natural gas is an important energy resource that has helped the U.S. lower its carbon dioxide emissions, but we also understand methane can be a potential hazard," said Shimin Liu, professor of energy and mineral engineering at Penn State and a co-author of the study. "What this work does is give us a proactive way to understand what's going on in the ... Read more ...
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EU lawmakers agree to exit energy treaty over climate fears - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · The European Parliament on Wednesday backed the EU's withdrawal from an international energy treaty over concerns it offers too much protection to fossil fuel companies.
The Energy Charter Treaty was signed in 1994, after the end of the Cold War, to offer guarantees to investors in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
But the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said in July it was necessary to withdraw from the treaty in a coordinated manner since it is "no longer compatible" with the bloc's "enhanced climate ambition".
During a parliament vote in Strasbourg, 560 lawmakers gave the green light for a withdrawal, while 43 voted against and 27 ... Read more ...
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Europe suffered record number of 'extreme heat stress' days in 2023: Monitors - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Europe endured a record number of "extreme heat stress" days in 2023, two leading climate monitors said Monday, underscoring the threat of increasingly deadly summers across the continent.
In a year of contrasting extremes, Europe witnessed scorching heat waves but also catastrophic flooding, withering droughts, violent storms and its largest wildfire.
These disasters inflicted billions of dollars in damages and impacted more than two million people, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service and the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a new joint report.
The consequences for health were particularly acute, with heat singled out by these agencies ... Read more ...
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Extreme heat scorches Southeast Asia, bringing school closures and warnings - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Extreme heat scorched parts of South and Southeast Asia Wednesday, prompting schools across the Philippines to suspend classes, heat warnings in the Thai capital and worshippers in Bangladesh to pray for rain.
The high temperatures were recorded just a day after the United Nations said Asia was the region that suffered the most disasters from climate and weather hazards in 2023, with floods and storms the chief causes of casualties and economic losses.
Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
"It's so hot you can't breathe," said Erlin Tumaron, 60, who works at a Philippine ... Read more ...
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Feedback loop that is melting ice shelves in West Antarctica revealed - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · The study, titled "Antarctic Slope Undercurrent and onshore heat transport driven by ice shelf melting" and published in Science Advances, sheds new light on the mechanisms driving the melting of ice shelves beneath the surface of the ocean, which have been unclear until now.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass in recent decades, contributing to global sea level rise. If it were to melt entirely, global sea levels would rise by around five meters.
It's known that Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), a water mass that is up to 4°C above local freezing temperatures, is flowing beneath the ice shelves in West Antarctica and melting them from below. Since so much ... Read more ...
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Field-margin wetlands alone can't fix the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone, say researchers - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Shan Zuidema and colleagues took a whole-system approach to modeling the potential for wetlands to ameliorate the flow of nitrate to the Gulf. The paper is published in the journal PNAS Nexus.
The authors found that wetland restoration through existing federal programs could not, in isolation, reduce nitrate by the 45%–60% needed to prevent the formation of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Even if fully utilized, these programs could, at most, reduce nitrate export to the Gulf by 30%.
One reason for the gap is that many croplands are not suitable for wetland restoration, and the runoff from these croplands enters deeper flow-paths that cannot be intercepted by ... Read more ...
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Five things we learned at the China Auto Show - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · One of China's largest auto shows kicked off in Beijing on Thursday, with electric vehicle makers keen to show off their latest designs and high-tech accessories to consumers in the fiercely competitive market.
Here are the key developments from Auto China's first day of action:
The consumer tech giant is the latest entrant to China's cut-throat EV market, with its new SU7 model the star of the show.
Less than one month after its launch, almost 76,000 pre-orders have been placed, Xiaomi said, an accumulation of orders that will take months to deliver given its current production capacity.
Xiaomi boss Lei Jun was swarmed at Auto China on Thursday by legions of ... Read more ...
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Floating solar's potential to support sustainable development - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · A study, published in Nature Energy, is among the first to explore the floating photovoltaics (FPV) at the continental scale, finding that FPV installed at existing major reservoirs could produce 20–100% of the electricity expected from Africa's planned hydropower dams. Using a state-of-the-art energy planning model covering the continent's entire energy system, the researchers found that FPV is cost-competitive with other renewables and thus a key part of Africa's future energy mix.
"Floating solar is fast becoming cost-competitive with land-based solar, and our results suggest it could conceivably avoid the need to build many of the dams planned for hydropower across ... Read more ...
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From the coast to the deep sea, changing oxygen levels affect marine life in different ways - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Marine species respond to ocean deoxygenation (the decrease of oxygen levels in seawater) differently depending on where they live. With seas under threat from climate change and pollution, both of which contribute to deoxygenation, some marine species are at greater risk than others.
As a marine ecologist, I research how changes in oxygen availability affect marine animals' resistance to climate change. My studies show that coastal marine species exposed to the daily variability of oxygen are more resistant to spikes in deoxygenation than creatures living in the deep that are adapted to consistent oxygen levels.
By the coast
For coastal creatures like cuttlefish, ... Read more ...
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Future hurricanes could compromise New England forests' ability to store and sequester carbon - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Nature-based climate solutions can help mitigate climate change, especially in forested regions capable of storing and sequestering vast amounts of carbon. New research published in Global Change Biology indicates that a single hurricane in New England, one of the most heavily forested regions in the United States, can down 4.6–9.4% of the total above-ground forest carbon, an amount much greater than the carbon sequestered annually by New England's forests.
The work revealed that emissions from hurricanes are not instantaneous - it takes approximately 19 years for downed carbon to become a net emission, and 100 years for 90% of the downed carbon to be emitted.
Models ... Read more ...
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Garbage could replace a quarter of petroleum-based jet fuel every year - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · One way to reduce emissions? Reuse society's waste and turn it into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). In a new paper, a team of researchers from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) found that if waste-to-fuel refineries were built today near major travel hubs, the United States could produce 3–5 billion gallons of SAF from waste every year. Those gallons could replace 15–25% of the nation's annual supply of jet fuel.
"We've identified places in the United States where large airports are close enough to major waste-producing centers where you could build these SAF refineries right now," said Timothy Seiple, a computational ... Read more ...
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Ghost particle on the scales: Research offers more precise determination of neutrino mass - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · What is the mass of a neutrino at rest? This is one of the big unanswered questions in physics. Neutrinos play a central role in nature. A team led by Klaus Blaum, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, has now made an important contribution in "weighing" neutrinos as part of the international ECHo collaboration. Their findings are published in Nature Physics.
Using a Penning trap, it has measured the change in mass of a holmium-163 isotope with extreme precision when its nucleus captures an electron and turns into dysprosium-163. From this, it was able to determine the Q value 50 times more accurately than before. Using a more precise Q-value, ... Read more ...
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Global ocean summit nets $10 bn in pledges: Greek PM - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · An international summit on saving the oceans netted $10 billion in pledges, the prime minister of host country Greece said on Tuesday.
The "Our Oceans" summit was launched in 2014 as the first international event of its kind to address all issues related to oceans, with some 122.3 billion euros pledged since then to protect them.
This year's three-day conference began Monday with delegates from around 120 countries.
"We're heartened by the commitments that have been made during this gathering - over 400 pledges exceeding $10 billion in value," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday.
"Our ocean is literally sending us distress signals. Of ... Read more ...
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Going with the flow: Research dives into electrodes on energy storage batteries - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) have emerged as promising solutions for stationary grid energy storage due to their high efficiency, scalability, safety, near-room-temperature operation conditions, and the ability to size power and energy capacities independently. The redox reactions in a redox flow battery occur at the surfaces of the electrodes in contact with the electrolyte. Any modifications to the electrode surface can affect the electrochemical activity and affect the overall battery performance.
In an effort to extend the lifespans of VRFBs, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ... Read more ...
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Green cement production is scaling up - and it could cut the carbon footprint of construction - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · If you were to pour that amount of concrete to make a paving slab ten centimeters thick, it would cover all of England and about half of Wales. In the US, the same amount would cover the state of New York.
But concrete production releases carbon dioxide (CO₂), one of the greenhouse gases that drives climate change. About 90% of emissions associated with concrete come from the production of Portland cement—this fine gray powder, the part that binds concrete ingredients together, was named after its resemblence to stone from the Isle of Portland, Dorset. Portland cement accounts for 7%–8% of the world's direct CO₂ emissions.
Production of a more ... Read more ...
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Harnessing solar energy for high-efficiency NH3 production - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · Led by Professor Sung-Yeon Jang and Professor Ji-Wook Jang from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST, in collaboration with Professor Thomas F. Jaramillo from Stanford University, the team has developed an eco-friendly perovskite-based photoelectrode system for NH3 production that has surpassed the commercialization standard of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by an impressive 1.7 times, setting a new world record in ammonia production efficiency.
The work is published in the journal Nature Catalysis.
The system operates on the principle of reducing nitrate (NO3-) in water to produce NH3 using solar energy. This method not only offers a more ... Read more ...
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Harvesting vibrational energy from 'colored noise' - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · The most efficient types of harvester are tri-stable energy harvesters, which can convert even low-frequency random vibrations into alternating current (AC) and thence into direct current (DC).
Tingting Zhang and Yanfei Jin from Beijing Institute of Technology in China have now investigated how the properties of these systems can be altered to optimize the power output; their findings are published in the European Physical Journal B.
Tri-stable energy harvesters are examples of non-linear energy harvesters, which can use a wider bandwidth of vibrations than the earlier, linear ones. They convert mechanical energy from random vibrations in the environment directly into AC ... Read more ...
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Heatstroke kills 30 in Thailand this year as kingdom bakes - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Thailand issued fresh warnings about scorching hot weather on Thursday as the government said heatstroke has already killed at least 30 people this year.
City authorities in Bangkok gave an extreme heat warning as the heat index was expected to rise above 52 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit).
Temperatures in the concrete sprawl of the Thai capital hit 40.1 C on Wednesday and similar levels were forecast for Thursday.
A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted parts of South and Southeast Asia this week, prompting schools across the Philippines to suspend classes and worshippers in Bangladesh to pray for rain.
The heat index - a measure of what the ... Read more ...
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Here's why experts don't think cloud seeding played a role in Dubai's downpour - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Cloud seeding, although decades old, is still controversial in the weather community, mostly because it has been hard to prove that it does very much. No one reports the type of flooding that on Tuesday doused the UAE, which often deploys the technology in an attempt to squeeze every drop of moisture from a sky that usually gives less than 4 or 5 inches (10 to 13 centimeters) of rain a year.
"It's most certainly not cloud seeding," said private meteorologist Ryan Maue, former chief scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "If that occurred with cloud seeding, they'd have water all the time. You can't create rain out of thin air per se and get 6 ... Read more ...
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High air pollution in Denmark may impact children's academic performance - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Pollution from traffic, farming and wood stoves may have a negative effect on children's cognitive development, according to a new study published in Environment International on Danish students' performance in the lower secondary school leaving examination.
You probably don't think about it, but in most parts of the country the air we breathe is anything but clean.
In most parts of Denmark air pollution is double the recommended WHO level, with the highest levels found in heavily trafficked cities and southern Denmark, which is affected by polluted air blowing in from the south.
And polluted air can affect our health, previous research has shown. In fact, air ... Read more ...
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High electric bills threaten California's clean future: This plan could help - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · California has some of the nation's highest electricity rates, and power bills are rising fast. That's a problem because it makes it harder for people to afford switching from fossil fuels to clean electric cars and appliances that are essential to combating climate change.
Who wants to invest thousands of dollars in a heat pump or induction stove only to be punished with higher bills?
But there's a proposal by the California Public Utilities Commission that would ease the burden by changing the way customers of the state's big three investor-owned utilities are billed. Rather than being charged for each kilowatt-hour with rates bulked up to cover capital costs and ... Read more ...
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High-energy-density capacitors with 2D nanomaterials could significantly enhance energy storage - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Though the prototype device is just 1-inch by 1-inch, scaled-up versions of this innovation could potentially revolutionize energy storage systems across various industries, including medical, aviation, auto (EV), consumer electronics and defense.
Dielectric capacitors, critical components of electronic devices and energy storage systems, are known for their ability to discharge high amounts of energy quickly, making them crucial for high-power applications.
"High-energy and high-power capacitors are essential for a reliable power supply, especially as we shift to using more renewable energy sources. However, current dielectric capacitors don't store as much energy as ... Read more ...
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Highest-level rainstorm warning issued in south China's Guangdong - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · More than 100,000 people have been evacuated due to heavy rain and fatal floods in southern China, with the government issuing its highest-level rainstorm warning for the affected area on Tuesday.
Torrential rains have lashed Guangdong in recent days, swelling rivers and raising fears of severe flooding that state media said could be of the sort only "seen around once a century".
On Tuesday, the megacity of Shenzhen was among the areas listed as experiencing "heavy to very heavy downpours", the city's meteorological observatory said, adding the risk of flash floods was "very high".
Images from Qingyuan - a city in northern Guangdong that is part of the low-lying ... Read more ...
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Honda announces US$11 bn EV battery and vehicle plant in Canada - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Japanese auto giant Honda announced Thursday the largest automotive investment in Canada's history, worth Can$15 billion (US$11 billion), for a massive new EV battery and vehicle assembly plant.
Honda chief executive Toshihiro Mibe told a joint news conference with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other officials that electric vehicles (EVs) will start rolling off the new assembly line in 2028.
Once fully operational, the factory will have a production capacity of 240,000 vehicles per year, and a batteries output of 36 GWh per year.
"The world is changing rapidly, and we must work toward realizing carbon neutrality to sustain the global environment," Mibe ... Read more ...
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Honda to build major EV plant in Canada: govt source - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Japanese auto giant Honda will open an electric vehicle plant in eastern Canada, a Canadian government source familiar with the multibillion-dollar project told AFP on Monday.
The federal government as well as the province of Ontario, where the plant will be built, will both provide some financial incentives for the deal, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official announcement is due Thursday, though Ontario premier Doug Ford hinted at the deal on Monday.
"This week, we've landed a new deal. It will be the largest deal in Canadian history. It'll be double the size of Volkswagen," he said, referring to a battery plant announced last ... Read more ...
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How Amazon became the largest private EV charging operator in the US - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Amazon's Maple Valley, Washington, warehouse is built for speed. At night, big rigs pull up to one end to unload boxes and padded mailers - some after a short drive from a bigger warehouse down the road, others following a flight in the hold of a cargo plane. Waiting employees scan, sort and load them into rolling racks.
Before 7 a.m. each day, many of those racks are wheeled out to dozens of vans lined up in four painted lanes. It's the starting line at a Formula One race, but for $22-an-hour delivery drivers who ferry bottles of shampoo and packs of batteries to suburban Seattle doorsteps.
Their routes, the last step in a journey that can take products thousands of ... Read more ...
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How creating less-gassy cows could help fight climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · The food system, including grazing animals such as cows, generates major sources of methane mainly due to cattle digestion, manure decomposition and land use for grazing.
To look for solutions, researchers from the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute analyzed 27 academic publications and identified dozens of potential strategies to reduce methane emissions from Australia's beef and dairy sectors. "Meta-Analysis and Ranking of the Most Effective Methane Reduction Strategies for Australia's Beef and Dairy Sector" was published in Climate.
Study lead Merideth Kelliher said the fastest way to lower methane emissions would be to convert farmland into wetlands ... Read more ...
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How electric vehicle drivers can escape range anxiety - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Two of the biggest challenges faced by new and potential electric vehicle (EV) drivers are range anxiety and speed of charging, but these shouldn't have to be challenges at all. That is according to a study by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Delaware, U.S. Researchers discovered that a change in refueling mindset, rather than improving the size or performance of the battery, could be the answer to these concerns.
The transition from filling up at a petrol station to recharging your electric vehicle in the most convenient location for you, requires a whole new way of thinking about refueling a car. However, new EV drivers often remain in their ... Read more ...
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How extreme was the Earth's temperature in 2023 - Skeptical Science (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · In 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something we don’t understand is happening — in other words, we’ve broken the climate.
In this post, I compare the observational temperature record to an ensemble of state-of-the-art CMIP6 models to see exactly how unusual 2023 was. It turns out that 2023 is just not that unusual when compared to the model ensemble.
Let’s start with observations. I’m going to be using the ... Read more ...
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How ideology is darkening the future of renewables in Alberta - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · The ideology of fossil fuels is characterized by an inability to imagine life, or progress, without petroleum products. In politics, this ideology influences the positions of left and right alike. It even encourages those on the center-left to support oil and gas while also endorsing green energy.
In Alberta, we saw this when former Premier Rachel Notley enthusiastically supported the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and increased renewable electricity production.
On the right, conservatives see in this ideology the vindication of their love of business and fossil fuel producers above all else. Project 2025, proposed by the Heritage Foundation, a leading American ... Read more ...
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How light can vaporize water without the need for heat - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · And yet, it turns out, we've been missing a major part of the picture all along.
In a series of painstakingly precise experiments, a team of researchers at MIT has demonstrated that heat isn't alone in causing water to evaporate. Light, striking the water's surface where air and water meet, can break water molecules away and float them into the air, causing evaporation in the absence of any source of heat.
The astonishing new discovery could have a wide range of significant implications. It could help explain mysterious measurements over the years of how sunlight affects clouds, and therefore affect calculations of the effects of climate change on cloud cover and ... Read more ...
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How marketing classes can rescue 'ugly produce' from becoming food waste - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Indeed, some estimates suggest that approximately 40 percent of fruits and vegetables never even leave farms. Much of it gets rejected by wholesalers and retailers based on irregularities in weight, size or shape.
This desire for cosmetically appealing food also extends to consumers, as we often prefer picture-perfect produce. Unsurprisingly, this wanton waste takes a significant environmental toll, with an estimated eight to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions tied to unconsumed food.
Showing ugly produce some love
Some companies have taken strides to counter food waste. A prominent example in the United States is Misfits Market, which launched in ... Read more ...
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How potatoes, corn and beans led to breakthrough in smart windows technology - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · A study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin aims to solve these problems through a new type of electrochromic device and materials. The device uses common, low-cost, sustainable building blocks such as amylose, a natural polymer found in corn, potatoes and beans.
"There's an urgent need to develop novel sustainable electrochromic materials and devices with excellent properties for smart windows," said Guihua Yu, a professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering's Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Texas Materials Institute.
"The biomass materials we extracted from corn, potatoes and other common sources enable the achievement of ... Read more ...
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How spicy does mustard get depending on the soil? - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Can microbes in the soil also contribute to taste?
In a recent study published in New Phytologist, former Ph.D. student Corrine Walsh at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder and CIRES Fellow Noah Fierer have run one of the first experiments to determine whether soil microorganisms like bacteria and fungi influence the flavor of a crop. Their target: the spiciness of mustard seeds.
"I thought that was an interesting question," Walsh said. "We know microbes and plants communicate via chemicals—could those chemicals impact plant flavor?"
Previous research has confirmed that soil properties ... Read more ...
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Ice age climate analysis reduces worst-case warming expected from rising CO2 - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · The open-access study was published April 17 in Science Advances.
"The main contribution from our study is narrowing the estimate of climate sensitivity, improving our ability to make future warming projections," said lead author Vince Cooper, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences. "By looking at how much colder Earth was in the ancient past with lower levels of greenhouse gases, we can estimate how much warmer the current climate will get with higher levels of greenhouse gases."
The new paper doesn't change the best-case warming scenario from doubling CO2—about 2 degrees Celsius average temperature increase worldwide—or the most likely estimate, ... Read more ...
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In Ecuadoran Amazon, butterflies provide a gauge of climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Biologists on a trail in the Ecuadoran Amazon hold their breath as they distribute a foul-smelling delicacy to lure butterflies, critical pollinators increasingly threatened by climate change.
A team has hung 32 traps made of green nets, each baited with rotting fish and fermented bananas. They are meant to blend in with the forest canopy. Their pungent odor clearly does not.
Since last August, a team of biologists and park rangers has been monitoring butterfly numbers in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, a park famed for its abundant flora and fauna.
They catch and document the colorful insects, releasing most with an identifying mark on their wings. Some of them, ... Read more ...
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In south China, silkworm farmers reel from deadly floods - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Hose in hand, 40-year-old Zhu Huangyi cleans a small concrete room once home to his silkworms, two thirds of which were lost in deadly floods hitting southern China this week.
Just two hours from the economic powerhouse and megacity of Guangzhou, surrounded by lush subtropical vegetation, lies the village of Sancun, one of the worst hit by the recent bad weather.
Around a quarter of households in the village make their living from raising silkworms, insects that secrete precious fibers essential to the textile industry.
Although the water levels had dropped by the time AFP arrived, it reached two meters in some areas - with devastating consequences for residents ... Read more ...
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Indian nuclear facilities found to have radioactive influence on Southern Tibetan Plateau - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · A study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters has shed light on the long-range transboundary transport of radioactive iodine-129 (129I) from the Indian nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (NFRPs) to the Southern Tibetan Plateau (STP).
This study, conducted by researchers from the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), provides a new understanding of the transport of airborne radioactive pollutants from low to high altitudes, and may have implications for environmental protection on the Tibetan Plateau.
The Tibetan Plateau, known as the "Third Pole of the Earth" and the "Roof of the World," is a remote, isolated, and ... Read more ...
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Investigating the porosity of sedimentary rock with neutrons - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · At the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Research Neutron Source (FRM II) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the networks of micropores were characterized using small and very small angle neutron scattering.
Dense, dark, compact—at first glance, the sedimentary rock samples that Dr. Amirsaman Rezaeyan has on his lab desk are only slightly different. Pores are not visible to the naked eye.
Nevertheless, it is precisely the pores that give the mudrocks their special properties: The pores, ranging from a few micrometers to sub-nanometers in size, are formed during sedimentation and compacted over time, determining the permeability. These pores are the decisive factor for ... Read more ...
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Ion thermoelectric conversion devices for near room temperature - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Prof. Zeng Wei of the Institute of Chemical Engineering, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, said that at the beginning, the research team mainly carried out study based on the thermal diffusion effect and published a series of research results. In spite of this, their results never realized the expected effect, and the prospect of practical application was not optimistic.
Later, they tried to make a further enhancement on the basis of the thermal current effect; that is, to incorporate the redox reaction of the electrode. The reason for this is that the thermal current effect is redox in the electrolyte, so the gain and loss of electrons mainly occur in the solution, and the ... Read more ...
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Iran Fires At Suspected Israeli Attack Drones Near Isfahan Air Base And Nuclear Site - Huffington Post (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Iran fired air defenses at a major air base and a nuclear site early Friday morning near the central city of Isfahan after spotting drones, which were suspected to be part of an Israeli attack in retaliation for Tehran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country.
No Iranian official directly acknowledged the possibility that Israel attacked, and the Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment. However, tensions have been high since the Saturday assault on Israel amid its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and its own strikes targeting Iran in Syria.
United States officials declined to comment as of early Friday, ... Read more ...
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It never rains but it pours: Intense rain and flash floods have increased inland in eastern Australia - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · But that's changing. Now we get flash floods much further inland, such as Broken Hill in 2012 and 2022 and Cobar, Bourke and Nyngan in 2022. Flash floods are those beginning between one and six hours after rainfall, while riverine floods take longer to build.
Why? Global warming is amplifying the climate drivers affecting where flash floods occur and how often. All around the world, we're seeing intense dumps of rain in a short period, triggering flooding—just as we saw in Dubai this week.
This means these systems, which usually bring most of the east coast's rain during cooler months, are now dumping more rain out at sea. Instead, we're seeing warm, moist air ... Read more ...
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Italy fines Amazon over 'recurring' purchase option - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Italy's competition authority said Wednesday it had fined two Amazon companies 10 million euros ($10.6 million) for unfair commercial practices, for pushing customers into agreeing to "recurring" rather than "one-time" purchases online.
In a statement, the AGCM said the option to set up regular purchases was "pre-selected by default" on a wide selection of products listed on Amazon's Italian website.
"The graphic layout of the pre-selected recurring purchase option may lead consumers to buy products periodically - even when there is no actual need - thereby limiting their ability to choose freely," the AGCM said in a statement.
"Moreover, the conduct implemented by ... Read more ...
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James Webb Space Telescope data pinpoint possible aurorae on a cold brown dwarf - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · More massive than planets but lighter than stars, brown dwarfs are ubiquitous in our solar neighborhood, with thousands identified. Last year, Jackie Faherty, a senior research scientist and senior education manager at the American Museum of Natural History, led a team of researchers who were awarded time on JWST to investigate 12 brown dwarfs.
Among those was CWISEP J193518.59–154620.3 (or W1935 for short)—a cold brown dwarf 47 light years away that was co-discovered by Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, citizen science volunteer Dan Caselden and the NASA CatWISE team. W1935 is a cold brown dwarf with a surface temperature of about 400° Fahrenheit. The mass for W1935 ... Read more ...
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Japan's moon lander wasn't built to survive a weekslong lunar night. It's still going after 3 - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Japan's first moon lander has survived a third freezing lunar night, Japan's space agency said Wednesday after receiving an image from the device three months after it landed on the moon.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the lunar probe responded to a signal from the earth Tuesday night, confirming it has survived another weekslong lunar night.
Temperatures can fall to minus 170 degrees Celsius (minus 274 degrees Fahrenheit) during a lunar night, and rise to around 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) during a lunar day.
The probe, Smart Lander for Investing Moon, or SLIM, reached the lunar surface on Jan. 20, making Japan the fifth country to successfully place ... Read more ...
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LA's water supplies are in good shape: But is the city ready for the next drought? - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · California's second wet winter in a row has left L.A's water supplies in good shape for at least another year, but the inevitable return to dry conditions could once again put the city's residents in a precarious position.
After the state's final snow survey of the season, officials with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced that Eastern Sierra snowpack is measuring 103% of normal, "providing ample supplies through the city's most cost-efficient water supply from the Los Angeles Aqueduct."
The aqueduct - two pipelines that deliver water from the Mono Basin and Owens Valley hundreds of miles away - is the backbone of L.A.'s water system. The recent rain ... Read more ...
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Lakes worldwide are facing a slew of health issues that may become chronic - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · In a new study, published in Earth's Future, researchers suggest using human health terminology and approaches to assess and treat the world's lake system issues. For example, lakes with multiple health problems could be characterized as having "multimorbidity," and regular screenings similar to human checkups could help detect issues in lakes early. These anthropomorphic analogies, the researchers report, may help people better connect with and protect nature.
Some high-income countries have methods to assess lake health, but the team introduced a global classification system modeled after the World Health Organization's human health classification system.
They used ... Read more ...
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Laser-treated cork absorbs oil for carbon-neutral ocean cleanup - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Oil spills are deadly disasters for ocean ecosystems. They can have lasting impacts on fish and marine mammals for decades and wreak havoc on coastal forests, coral reefs, and the surrounding land. Chemical dispersants are often used to break down oil, but they often increase toxicity in the process.
In Applied Physics Letters, researchers from Central South University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev used laser treatments to transform ordinary cork into a powerful tool for treating oil spills.
They wanted to create a nontoxic, effective oil cleanup solution using materials with a low carbon footprint, but their ... Read more ...
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Lightning, downpours kill 65 in Pakistan, as April rain doubles historical average - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · At least 65 people have died in storm-related incidents including lightning in Pakistan, officials said, with rain so far in April falling at nearly twice the historical average rate.
Heavy downpours between Friday and Monday unleashed flash floods and caused houses to collapse, while lightning killed at least 28 people.
The largest death toll was in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 32 people have died, including 15 children, and more than 1,300 homes have been damaged.
"All the casualties resulted from the collapse of walls and roofs," Anwar Khan, spokesman for the province's disaster management authority, told AFP on Wednesday.
Villagers whose homes ... Read more ...
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Long-term research shows herring arrive earlier in the Wadden Sea due to climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 26) |
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Apr 26 · Due to the changing climate, young herring arrive in the Wadden Sea earlier and earlier in spring. That is shown in a new publication by NIOZ ecologists Mark Rademaker, Myron Peck, and Anieke van Leeuwen in Global Change Biology.
"The fact that we were able to demonstrate this was only due to very consistently - for more than 60 years - and continuously sampling the fish every spring and every fall with exactly the same fyke [net] every time," Rademaker says. "Recognizing this kind of change requires extreme precision and endurance."
Since 1960, NIOZ, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, has been measuring the number and species of fish that swim in the ... Read more ...
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Look to deadly Venus to find life in the universe, new paper argues - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · "We often assume that Earth is the model of habitability, but if you consider this planet in isolation, we don't know where the boundaries and limitations are," said UC Riverside astrophysicist and paper first author Stephen Kane. "Venus gives us that."
Though it also features a pressure cooker-like atmosphere that would instantly flatten a human, Earth, and Venus share some similarities. They have roughly the same mass and radius. Given the proximity to that planet, it's natural to wonder why Earth turned out so differently.
Many scientists assume that insolation flux, the amount of energy Venus receives from the sun, caused a runaway greenhouse situation that ruined ... Read more ...
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Malians struggle to cope after deadly heat wave - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 21) |
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Apr 21 · In Mali's capital Bamako, Aboubacar Pamateck runs a scarf under a trickle of water and wraps it around his head to cope with the West African nation's soaring heat.
Africa's Sahel region experienced a deadly heat wave in early April, exceptional both in terms of duration and intensity.
"I drink a lot of water and wear my turban, which I often get wet," Pamateck said. "I even avoid wearing nylon boubous. I prefer to wear small cotton boubous to avoid the heat."
From April 1 to April 5, temperatures in Mali exceeded 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) and peaked at a record 48.5C in the western city of Kayes.
A few days later, the thermometer fell back ... Read more ...
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Mangrove blue carbon at higher risk of microplastic pollution - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Microplastic pollution (particles <5 mm diameter) is one such issue affecting mangroves in particular. These tiny fragments can be of primary origin, such as microbeads used in personal care products like face washes and even toothpaste, or secondary from the decomposition of larger plastic pieces, such as water bottles and plastic bags.
Previous research has estimated that up to 12.7 million tons of plastic pollution entered the oceans in 2010, which is expected to have doubled by 2025 without appropriate intervention, and is carried globally via wind and currents.
Associate Professor Peng Zhang, of Guangdong Ocean University, China, and colleagues investigated the ... Read more ...
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Mapping plant functional diversity from space: Ecosystem monitoring with novel field-satellite integration - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · An international team of researchers, led by Professor Jin Wu from the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has made a promising advancement in mapping plant functional traits from space using time-series satellite data. The study, published in Remote Sensing of Environment, showcases the innovative combination of the Sentinel-2 satellite mission and its dynamic time-series capabilities.
This innovative approach not only unlocks a deeper understanding of essential foliar traits, providing crucial insights into the functional diversity and ecosystem functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, but it also equips us with powerful tools to address ... Read more ...
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Merging nuclear physics experiments and astronomical observations to advance equation-of-state research - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · "In nuclear physics, we are often confined to studying small systems, but we know exactly what particles are in our nuclear systems. Stars provide us an unbelievable opportunity, because they are large systems where nuclear physics plays a vital role, but we do not know for sure what particles are in their interiors," said Lynch, professor of nuclear physics at FRIB and in the Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Physics and Astronomy.
"They are interesting because the density varies greatly within such large systems. Nuclear forces play a dominant role within them, yet we know comparatively little about that role."
When a star with a mass that is 20–30 ... Read more ...
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Mess is best: Disordered structure of battery-like devices improves performance - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Supercapacitors are a key technology for the energy transition and could be useful for certain forms of public transport, as well as for managing intermittent solar and wind energy generation, but their adoption has been limited by poor energy density.
Like batteries, supercapacitors store energy, but supercapacitors can charge in seconds or a few minutes, while batteries take much longer. Supercapacitors are far more durable than batteries, and can last for millions of charge cycles. However, the low energy density of supercapacitors makes them unsuitable for delivering long-term energy storage or continuous power.
"Supercapacitors are a complementary technology to ... Read more ...
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Microsoft and Amazon face scrutiny from UK competition watchdog over recent AI deals - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · British competition regulators said Wednesday they'll scrutinize recent artificial intelligence deals by Microsoft and Amazon over concerns that the moves could thwart competition in the AI industry.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it's looking into Microsoft's partnership with France's Mistral AI and the company's hiring of key staff from another startup, Inflection AI. The watchdog also separately announced that it's investigating Amazon's $4 billion investment in San Francisco-based Anthropic.
Big Tech companies have been pouring money into generative AI startups amid growing public and business interest in the technology, but the investments have also ... Read more ...
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Modeling broader effects of wildfires in Siberia - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · The global effects of increasing wildfires in Siberia have been modeled by researchers at Hokkaido University and colleagues at the University of Tokyo and Kyushu University. The results, published in the journal Earth's Future, suggest significant and widespread effects on air quality, climate, health, and economics under the most extreme wildfire scenarios.
The authors performed global numerical simulation experiments to evaluate how the increased intensity of wildfires in Siberia would affect air quality, premature mortality, and economy through increased atmospheric aerosols (air pollution particles) under the present climate and near-future global warming ... Read more ...
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More climate-warming methane leaks into the atmosphere than ever gets reported - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · The good news is that many of those leaks can be fixed—if they're spotted quickly.
Riley Duren, a research scientist at the University of Arizona and former NASA engineer and scientist, leads Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit that is planning a constellation of methane-monitoring satellites. Its first satellite, a partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Earth-imaging company Planet Labs, launches in 2024.
Duren explained how new satellites are changing companies' and governments' ability to find and stop methane leaks and avoid wasting a valuable product.
Why are methane emissions such a concern?
Methane is the second-most common ... Read more ...
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More support needed to help households transition to green energy, UK research concludes - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · New gas boiler installations need to be phased out before 2050 in order for the UK to meet its climate change targets. There are grants of £7,500 available in England and Wales to help with the cost of installing heat pumps.
The study draws on data from deliberative workshops representing a diversity of geographic and housing contexts across the UK.
Academics found that while participants were open to the fact that there needed to be a move away from fossil fuel use for heating, there were also concerns about the impact such changes might have on their finances as well as the upheaval of retrofitting homes.
No one retrofit measure was seen as preventing ... Read more ...
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Most countries are struggling to meet climate pledges from 2009, emissions tracking study shows - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Nineteen out of 34 countries surveyed failed to fully meet their 2020 climate commitments set 15 years ago in Copenhagen, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, compared the actual net carbon emissions of more than 30 nations to their 2009 pledged emission reduction targets set during the Copenhagen Climate Summit.
The paper led by researchers at UCL and Tsinghua University is the first effort to comprehensively gauge how well countries were able to meet their Nationally Determined Contribution reduction pledges from COP15.
Of the 34 nations analyzed in the study, 15 successfully met their goals while 12 ... Read more ...
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NASA chief warns of Chinese military presence in space - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · China is bolstering its space capabilities and is using its civilian program to mask its military objectives, the head of the US space agency NASA said Wednesday, warning that Washington must remain vigilant.
"China has made extraordinary strides especially in the last 10 years, but they are very, very secretive," NASA administrator Bill Nelson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
"We believe that a lot of their so-called civilian space program is a military program. And I think, in effect, we are in a race," Nelson added.
He said he hoped Beijing would "come to its senses and understand that civilian space is for peaceful uses," but added, "We have not seen that ... Read more ...
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NASA confirms mystery object that crashed through roof of Florida home came from space station - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · The cylindrical object that tore through the home in Naples on March 8 was subsequently taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis.
The space agency said it was a metal support used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. The pallet was jettisoned from the space station in 2021, and the load was expected to eventually fully burn up on entry into Earth's atmosphere, but one piece survived.
The chunk of metal weighed 1.6 pounds (0.7 kilograms) and was 4 inches (10 centimeters) tall and roughly 1 1/2 inches (4 centimeters) wide.
Homeowner Alejandro Otero told television station WINK at the time that he was on vacation when his son ... Read more ...
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NASA is seeking a faster, cheaper way to bring Mars samples to Earth - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · NASA's plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth is on hold until there's a faster, cheaper way, space agency officials said Monday.
Retrieving Mars soil and rocks has been on NASA's to-do list for decades, but the date kept moving forward, as costs ballooned. A recent independent review put the total cost at $8 billion to $11 billion, with an arrival date of 2040, about a decade later than advertised.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that's too much and too late. He's asking private industry and the space agency's centers to come up with other options to revamp the project. With NASA facing across-the-board budget cuts, he wants to avoid gutting other science ... Read more ...
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NASA's CloudSat ends mission peering into the heart of clouds - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · CloudSat, a NASA mission that peered into hurricanes, tallied global snowfall rates, and achieved other weather and climate firsts, has ended its operations. Originally proposed as a 22-month mission, the spacecraft was recently decommissioned after almost 18 years observing the vertical structure and ice/water content of clouds.
As planned, the spacecraft - having reached the end of its lifespan and no longer able to make regular observations - was lowered into an orbit last month that will result in its eventual disintegration in the atmosphere.
When launched in 2006, the mission's Cloud Profiling Radar was the first-ever 94 GHz wavelength (W-band) radar to fly in ... Read more ...
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NASA's Fermi mission sees no gamma rays from nearby supernova - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · On May 18, 2023, a supernova erupted in the nearby Pinwheel galaxy (Messier 101), located about 22 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The event, named SN 2023ixf, is the most luminous nearby supernova discovered since Fermi launched in 2008.
"Astrophysicists previously estimated that supernovae convert about 10% of their total energy into cosmic ray acceleration," said Guillem Martí-Devesa, a researcher at the University of Trieste in Italy.
"But we have never observed this process directly. With the new observations of SN 2023ixf, our calculations result in energy conversion as low as 1% within a few days after the explosion. This doesn't ... Read more ...
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NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter team says goodbye - for now - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · The final downlink shift by the Ingenuity team was a time to reflect on a highly successful mission - and to prepare the first aircraft on another world for its new role.
Engineers working on NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter assembled for one last time in a control room at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Tuesday, April 16, to monitor a transmission from the history-making helicopter.
While the mission ended Jan. 25, the rotorcraft has remained in communication with the agency's Perseverance Mars rover, which serves as a base station for Ingenuity. This transmission, received through the antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network, marked the ... Read more ...
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NASA's Juno gives aerial views of mountain and lava lake on Io - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Scientists on NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter have transformed data collected during two recent flybys of Io into animations that highlight two of the Jovian moon's most dramatic features: a mountain and an almost glass-smooth lake of cooling lava. Other recent science results from the solar-powered spacecraft include updates on Jupiter's polar cyclones and water abundance.
The new findings were announced Wednesday, April 16, by Juno's principal investigator Scott Bolton during a news conference at the European Geophysical Union General Assembly in Vienna.
Juno made extremely close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024, getting within about 930 miles (1,500 ... Read more ...
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NASA's Voyager 1 resumes sending engineering updates to Earth - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · For the first time since November, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).
Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed ... Read more ...
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Neutron scattering study points the way to more powerful lithium batteries - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · The team used quasi-elastic neutron scattering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to set the first benchmark, one-nanosecond—or one billionth of a second—for a mixture of lithium salt and an organic polymer electrolyte.
The work is published in the journal Nature Materials.
"It all comes down to the study of materials," said Eugene Mamontov, ORNL Chemical Spectroscopy group leader. "And polymer electrolytes won't catch fire the way liquid electrolytes do in lithium batteries."
The team used the neutron technique to validate computer simulations, ending a long-standing debate about how long it takes lithium ions to break free from tiny cages created by ... Read more ...
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New dataset sheds light on relationship of far-red sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence to canopy-level photosynthesis - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · One promising method for assessing photosynthetic activity is through the measurement of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, a byproduct of photosynthesis that can be detected from ground-based sensors as well as from satellites in space.
A study led by Genghong Wu, a Ph.D. student advised by Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) director Kaiyu Guan, and colleagues has utilized ground-based instruments to measure far-red sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and various vegetation indices (VIs) that reflect plant health and activity. It compiled 15 site-years of SIF and VIs data from various crops (corn, soybean, and miscanthus) over a span of six years (2016-2021) ... Read more ...
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New Documents Reveal A GOP Senate Candidate’s Blatant Lies - Huffington Post (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Montana businessman Tim Sheehy built his aerial firefighting company, Bridger Aerospace, on certain scientific realities - namely that global climate change is real and driving more extreme wildfires. He even touted it as a leader in the fight against planet-warming emissions.
But when it came time to campaign for the U.S. Senate, the GOP hopeful quickly embraced partisan talking points on climate, repeatedly railing against what he calls the “climate cult” and “radical environmentalists,” while blaming the growing wildfire threat exclusively on forest mismanagement.
And while the Trump-endorsed MAGA conservative flipped his script on climate, his company continues to ... Read more ...
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New geological map reveals secrets of Greenland's icy interior - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · This comprehensive synthesis, published in Geophysical Research Letters, promises to advance our understanding of this critical component of the global climate system.
The new subglacial geology map provides an invaluable modernized framework for interpreting the solid Earth properties that shape the Greenland Ice Sheet's past, present, and future behavior.
Using a wealth of geophysical data, including seismic, gravity, magnetic, and topographic surveys, the researchers have meticulously delineated the boundaries of geological provinces across the island and, crucially, beneath the ice.
Revealing a complex and heterogeneous landscape
This updated map ... Read more ...
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New insights lead to better next-gen solar cells - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Saliba and Malekshahi reached out to researchers at the Molecular Foundry, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
Fast forward several months, and the Berkeley Lab team has applied a set of techniques to reveal changes in the crystalline structures of perovskite solar cell materials in real-time as they were being fabricated with Saliba's process. The results, published in a recent Advanced Materials paper, provide researchers with a deeper understanding of how to make better perovskite solar cells.
"Material fabrication is often a black box," said Carolin Sutter-Fella, a Molecular Foundry ... Read more ...
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New material for hydrogen storage confines this clean yet troublesome fuel - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Finding efficient ways to confine hydrogen is crucial for integrating this promising energy carrier into the sustainable economy of the future. With proper storage technology, hydrogen could one day fuel high-temperature industrial processes and transportation, and serve for balancing supply and demand on the power grid. The study appears in Advanced Energy Materials.
Hydrogen is expected to play a major role in the future low-carbon economy. It can be produced renewably and consumed to generate electricity or heat via fuel cells or combustion. Some of the areas that stand to gain the most from hydrogen energy are steelmaking, production of glass and cement, and the chemical ... Read more ...
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New Photos Show Just How Bad Mass Coral Bleaching Is On The Great Barrier Reef - Huffington Post (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is experiencing one of the most extensive and serious coral bleaching events in recorded history after a summer of extreme temperatures and oceanic heat effectively cooked the delicate corals that make up the iconic structure.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science recently completed an intensive, large-scale survey of the reef, which is a system of about 3,000 individual reefs that stretches nearly 1,500 miles along the coastline. For the first time, extreme levels of bleaching have been seen along all regions of the Great Barrier and around 75% of the reefs surveyed showed signs of prevalent bleaching.
Aerial photos released Wednesday ... Read more ...
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New Report Details Just How Quickly Europe Is Warming - Huffington Post (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · NAPLES, Italy (AP) - Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.
The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.
The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up ... Read more ...
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New report tackles electric vehicle charging payment challenges and offers key recommendations - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Addressing payment issues presents an opportunity for improvements that may speed along EV adoption and improve drivers' time with their EVs, keeping them on the road and not waiting at a charging station.
"We need to make ease of payment a core focus of public EV charging network expansion," said Kristi Moriarty, a senior researcher and ChargeX Consortium lead at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "If we want to build consumer trust around the promise of a reliable national charging network, we need to maintain a seamless charging experience."
To address failures in accepting or processing payments during EV charging sessions, the U.S. Department of Energy's ... Read more ...
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New research could enable more - and more efficient - synthesis of metastable materials - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · In a paper published in Nature Materials, a team of UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering researchers shed new light on this mystery. In researching lithium cathode materials for battery storage, a team from the Liu Lab has shown that there is a general pathway for lithium and sodium ion exchange in layered oxide cathode materials.
"We systematically explored the ion exchange process in lithium and sodium," said first author Yu Han, a Ph.D. candidate at PME. "The ion exchange pathway we revealed is new."
By helping explain how the ion exchange process works, this paper opens the doors for researchers working with metastable materials, meaning materials that ... Read more ...
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New research finds electric vehicles depreciate faster than gas cars, but the trend is changing - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · The study examined more than nine million car listings at over 60,000 dealerships between 2016 and 2022. It found that older battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with shorter driving ranges depreciated at faster rates than conventional cars and hybrid electric cars, the one exception being Tesla, whose older battery electric vehicle model held its value better.
However, the study also showed the trend is changing—as newer model electric vehicles with higher driving ranges come online, they are retaining their value better than the older models with smaller driving ranges. The research also found that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected ... Read more ...
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New Research for Week #16 2024 - Skeptical Science (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:
Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control subsea permafrost distribution and thickness, yet no permafrost model has accounted for glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), which deviates local sea level from the global mean due to changes in ice and ocean loading. Here we incorporate GIA into a pan-Arctic model of subsea ... Read more ...
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New Research for Week #17 2024 - Skeptical Science (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Ice acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:
In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products hampers the detection of inland changes. In-situ measurements using stake surveys or GPS have lower uncertainties. To detect inland changes, we repeated in-situ measurements of ice-sheet surface velocities at 11 historical locations first measured in 1959, located upstream of Jakobshavn Isbræ, west Greenland. Here, we show ice velocities have ... Read more ...
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New research predicts peak groundwater extraction for key basins around the globe - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Scientists at Pacific Northwest and Oak Ridge national laboratories examined water, energy and food systems for 235 basins under 900 scenarios to analyze patterns in nonrenewable groundwater usage over the 21st century, as detailed in an article published in Nature Sustainability.
"The world's not running out of water, but how and where we source it looks likely to shift in the coming decades as major groundwater sources become unviable," said Sean Turner, a water resources analyst at ORNL.
Regions with the greatest current rates of depletion, including some in the United States, are more likely to face higher groundwater and food production costs by mid-century. The ... Read more ...
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New study shows how quickly surface water moves to groundwater reservoirs across Australia - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Groundwater recharge is the rate at which groundwater resources are replenished by rainfall in millimeters per year (mm/y).
The recharge rates estimated for the Darwin area typically ranged between 150 and 420 mm/y, compared to values typically less than 2 mm/y around Alice Springs. In both cases, these values are only a fraction of the total annual rainfall.
The recharge rates estimated for the Beetaloo Sub-basin typically ranged between 1 and 50 mm/y, with an average of 16.5 mm/y.
CDU Ph.D. candidate and lead author Stephen Lee said the study used recently developed approaches to estimate recharge, and several existing datasets, aiming to aid water resource ... Read more ...
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New survey finds positive perceptions of solar projects - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Among these respondents, 42% support additional development in their community, compared to 18% who would oppose further projects. At the same time, more than 80% of the respondents were unaware of the project prior to construction and a third did not know until completing the survey.
Doug Bessette, associate professor for energy systems in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, was one of the leads on the project.
"The responses from residents were generally positive, which is good to see considering the amount of solar that is likely to be developed in the coming years," Bessette said. "At ... Read more ...
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New understanding of energy losses in emerging light source - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · "This insight will help us to reduce efficiency loss, allowing us to design and develop LEC devices that deliver bright emission at high efficiency," says Xiaoying Zhang, a doctoral student at the Department of Physics at Umeå University, and one of the authors of the study that was published in the journal Advanced Materials.
The breakthrough revolves around a detailed understanding and quantification of the internal so-called quenching processes, where collisions between particles in the device lead to energy loss in the form of decreased light production.
"Think of a box with two kinds of tiny balls bouncing around: one kind can glow, and the other kind can't. ... Read more ...
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Nissan says it will make next-generation EV batteries by early 2029 - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Nissan expects to mass produce electric vehicles powered by advanced next-generation batteries by early 2029, the company said Tuesday during a media tour of an unfinished pilot plant.
Japan's legacy automakers have fallen behind newer rivals like America's Tesla and China's BYD in the emerging all-electric auto sector.
But Nissan, like other companies, sees a chance to catch up and perhaps leap ahead with a new kind of battery that promises to be more powerful, cheaper, safer and faster to charge than the lithium-ion batteries in use today.
Solid-state batteries, which replace the corrosive liquids found in conventional batteries with solid metals, are widely seen ... Read more ...
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Novel material supercharges innovation in electrostatic energy storage - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Sang-Hoon Bae, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has addressed this long-standing challenge in deploying ferroelectric materials for energy storage applications.
In a study published April 18 in Science, Bae and his collaborators, including Rohan Mishra, associate professor of mechanical engineering & materials science, and Chuan Wang, associate professor of electrical & systems engineering, both at WashU, and Frances Ross, the TDK Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, introduced an approach to control the relaxation time—an internal material ... Read more ...
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Novel method proposed to design high-efficiency guest components for ternary organic solar cells - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · This work was published in Advanced Materials.
OSCs have attracted considerable attention in the field of organic electronic devices due to their light weight, good mechanical flexibility and transparency. The ternary strategy, in which a guest component is introduced into a host binary system, is considered to be one of the most effective and facile ways to achieve OSCs with excellent power conversion efficiencies (PCEs).
Various efficient guest components have been developed for binary host systems, but there is still no effective way to predict the effectiveness of guest components in improving device efficiency.
Using density functional theory calculations, the ... Read more ...
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Owner Of New York City’s Defunct Nuclear Plant Sues The State - Huffington Post (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · The company that owns the shuttered nuclear plant that once provided the bulk of New York City’s zero-carbon electricity is suing the state over a law passed last year specifically to block the Indian Point power station from carrying out routine releases of treated wastewater into the Hudson River, HuffPost has learned.
Virtually every nuclear power plant all over the world releases tiny volumes of a radioactive isotope known as tritium from its cooling water into surrounding waterways. Unlike the long-lasting and dangerous radioisotopes that form during the atom-splitting process, tritium ? an isotope of hydrogen ? laces into water, making it almost impossible to extract. ... Read more ...
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Philippine settlement submerged by dam reappears due to drought - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 26) |
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Apr 26 · A centuries-old settlement submerged by the construction of a dam in the northern Philippines in the 1970s has reappeared as water levels drop due to a drought affecting swathes of the country.
The ruins in the middle of Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija province are a tourist draw, even as the region swelters in extreme heat.
Parts of a church, municipal hall marker and tombstones began to resurface in March after several months of "almost no rain", said Marlon Paladin, a supervising engineer for the National Irrigation Administration.
It is the sixth time the nearly 300-year-old settlement has resurfaced since the reservoir was created to provide irrigation water ... Read more ...
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Planet sees 10 straight months of record-breaking heat - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 21) |
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Apr 21 · Californians have had weekend after weekend of cool, stormy weather and the Sierra Nevada has been blessed with a healthy snowpack. But the reality is that even the last few months have been more than 2 degrees hotter than average.
The planet is experiencing a horrifying streak of record-breaking heat, with March marking the 10th month in a row that the average global temperature has been the highest ever recorded.
It would be shocking if it wasn't so predictable. Despite everything we know about the effects of burning fossil fuels, humanity is still going in the wrong direction with self-destructive abandon. Last year greenhouse gas pollution climbed to a new high, a ... Read more ...
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Planting trees in grasslands won't save the planet - instead, protect and restore forests - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · They include agroforestry initiatives such as the Great Green Wall in the Sahel, or commercial timber plantations that double as carbon offset projects. These target millions of hectares in countries like Mozambique, Madagascar and Rwanda.
I am part of a team of ecologists and social scientists who are working to highlight the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in 2026. Our goal is to protect and promote rangelands that combat desertification and support economic growth, resilient livelihoods and the sustainable development of pastoralism. In pursuit of this goal, we reviewed all the scientific studies we could find on the effects of planting trees in ... Read more ...
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Plasma treatment enhances electrode material for fuel cells in industry, homes and vehicles - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · These are a promising technology for cleaner and more efficient electrical power generation. Published in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, the study even shows that the cheaper-to-make air plasma is better-suited for processing the carbon material than pure nitrogen or oxygen plasma.
One way to make burning natural gas cleaner is to use fuel cells. These are devices that technically do not burn the fuel but rather oxidize it in a different manner. That process is friendlier to the environment, because it produces more useful power, less greenhouse gases and emits no pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and aerosol particles.
Fuel cells are used ... Read more ...
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Plumbing problem at Glen Canyon Dam brings new threat to Colorado River system - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Plumbing problems at the dam holding back the second-largest reservoir in the U.S. are spurring concerns about future water delivery issues to Southwestern states supplied by the Colorado River.
Federal officials recently reported damage to four tubes known as "river outlet works" at Glen Canyon Dam on the Utah-Arizona border. The dam is responsible for generating hydropower and releasing water stored in Lake Powell downstream to California, Arizona, Nevada and eventually Mexico.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the major dams in the Colorado River system, is evaluating issues related to Glen Canyon Dam when Lake Powell reaches low levels. Those issues ... Read more ...
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Proof-of-concept nanogenerator turns CO2 into sustainable power - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Dr. Zhuyuan Wang from UQ's Dow Center for Sustainable Engineering Innovation says the small, proof-of-concept nanogenerator is carbon negative because it consumes the greenhouse gas. The paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.
"This nanogenerator is made of two components: a polyamine gel that is already used by industry to absorb CO2 and a skeleton a few atoms thick of boron nitrate that generates positive and negative ions," Dr. Wang said.
"We've worked out how to make the positive ions much larger than the negative ions and because the different sizes move at different speeds, they generate a diffusion current which can be amplified into electricity ... Read more ...
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Q&A: B.C.'s 2024 wildfire season has started - here's what to know - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 21) |
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Apr 21 · Dr. Daniels is the Koerner Chair in the Center for Wildfire Coexistence at UBC, focusing on proactive management to increase ecosystem and community resilience to climate change and wildfires. Dr. Bourbonnais is a former wildland firefighter and now assistant professor at UBC Okanagan who employs advanced technologies to study wildfire risk and behavior.
Drs. Daniels and Bourbonnais answer questions on the outlook for wildfire season, and how communities can prepare for a challenging year.
What should we expect in terms of wildfire magnitude and severity this year?
LD: Predicting the fire season is challenging, but we are hoping for spring rains after the dry ... Read more ...
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Q&A: Could automation, electrification of long-haul trucking reduce environmental impacts? - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · For long-haul routes below 300 miles, electrification can reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas damages by 13%, or $587 million annually, according to the study. For long-haul routes above 300 miles, electrification of just the urban segments facilitated by hub-based automation of highway driving can reduce damages by 35%, or $220 million annually.
"It's the first study we know of that simultaneously studies a realistic model of automation and a realistic model of electrification—things that are feasible in the near term—and assesses their environmental benefits," said lead author Parth Vaishnav, assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and ... Read more ...
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Q&A: Why are we drowning in single-use plastics, and what can we do about it? - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Plastic is ubiquitous. It's in the clothes we wear, wrapped around the food we eat and in the toothpaste we use. It floats in the oceans and litters the snow on Mount Everest.
Every year, the world produces nearly 400 million tons of plastic, a 19,000% increase from 1950. The amount is forecast to double by 2050 and 90% is never recycled. Over half of the plastics produced are used only once, for things like packaging, utensils and straws.
"A lot of people have a hard time imagining that," said Phaedra Pezzullo, associate professor in the Department of Communication at CU Boulder. "But we produce an astronomical amount of plastics every day. Most plastic bags are used ... Read more ...
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Queen bumblebees surprise scientists by surviving underwater - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · Bumblebees can surprisingly withstand days underwater, according to a study published Wednesday, suggesting they could withstand increased floods brought on by climate change that threaten their winter hibernation burrows.
The survival of these pollinators that are crucial to ecosystems is "encouraging" amid worrying global trends of their declining populations, the study's lead author Sabrina Rondeau told AFP.
With global warming prompting more frequent and extreme floods in regions around the world, it poses "an unpredictable challenge for soil-dwelling species, particularly bees nesting or overwintering underground", co-author Nigel Raine of the University of Guelph ... Read more ...
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Record electron temperatures for a small-scale, sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch fusion device achieved - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Due to the electrons' ability to rapidly cool a plasma, this feat is a key hurdle for fusion systems and FuZE is the simplest, smallest and lowest cost device to have achieved it. Zap's technology offers the potential for a much shorter and more practical path to a commercial product capable of producing abundant, on-demand, carbon-free energy to the globe.
"These are meticulous, unequivocal measurements, yet made on a device of incredibly modest scale by traditional fusion standards," describes Ben Levitt, VP of R&D at Zap. "We've still got a lot of work ahead of us, but our performance to date has advanced to a point that we can now stand shoulder to shoulder with some of ... Read more ...
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Recycling carbon fiber reinforced plastics waste is a challenge, but researchers find a way to make it work - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Supercritical water has a high polarity, diffusivity, and density that allows it to selectively remove only the epoxy impregnated in the CFRP to obtain recycled carbon fiber. The researchers achieved a highly efficient recycling system using only water without using any catalysts, oxidants, or organic solvents. They also found that adding glycine to supercritical water can upcycle CFRP into recycled carbon fiber doped with nitrogen atoms.
This upcycled carbon fiber has better electrical conductivity than conventional recycled carbon fiber. This is the first time that a single recycling process has been used to simultaneously recycle and upcycle CFRP within tens of minutes, ... Read more ...
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Research group runs simulations capable of describing South America's climate with unprecedented accuracy - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · The work was presented at a panel discussion on climate on April 10, during FAPESP Week Illinois, in Chicago (United States).
"We're now beginning to be able to correctly represent the hydroclimate of South America at the scales needed," said Francina Dominguez, a researcher at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and coordinator of the project.
According to Dominguez, the climate in South America, like in all regions of the world, is changing. Increased droughts have been recorded in the southern Amazon, the Cerrado region, northern Brazil, and Chile. This scenario has affected agricultural yields, water ... Read more ...
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Research showcases Indigenous stewardship's role in forest ecosystem resilience - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Western scientists and land managers have become increasingly cognizant of cultural burning, but its extent and purpose are generally absent from fire modeling research, said Skye Greenler, who led the partnership when she was a graduate research fellow in the OSU College of Forestry.
"We developed this project in collaboration with the Karuk Tribe to explore the impact of cultural burning at a landscape scale in a completely new way," she said. "The information that went into this model is not new at all—it's been held by Karuk Tribal members for millennia—but we developed new methods to bring the knowledge together and display it in a way that showcases the ... Read more ...
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Research suggests that part of India will become a climate hotspot - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · This is the conclusion of a study conducted by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology and the University of Augsburg, which has been published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology.
The study investigated what are referred to as compound extreme events, which experts define as various extreme weather conditions that occur simultaneously or in direct succession. An example is a drought that is accompanied by a heat wave. Conversely, extremely high temperatures may be followed by day or weeklong heavy rainfall.
"The damage caused by the combination of such weather phenomena are usually especially severe," explains Prof. Dr. Harald Kunstmann from the Center of ... Read more ...
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Researcher studies worst western US megadrought in 1,200 years - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Drylands in the western United States are currently in the grips of a 23-year "megadrought," and one West Virginia University researcher is working to gain a better understanding of this extreme climate event.
Steve Kannenberg, assistant professor of biology at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, is using observations from existing networks of scientific instrument stations across the region to inch toward that goal.
The megadrought is an ongoing climate crisis for natural ecosystems, agricultural systems and human water resources, but researchers have a limited understanding of the phenomenon.
Kannenberg is seeking to identify where this drought has been ... Read more ...
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Researchers can help shipowners achieve ambitious climate targets - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Shipowners around the world are in a very difficult position because they are having to order new ships now that will run on fuel and technologies that are not yet fully developed.
A new study suggests that ammonia could be a smart and energy-efficient fuel in the race to achieve net zero in shipping. Researchers at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT) and the Department of Marine Technology (IMT) at NTNU and SINTEF Ocean are behind the study.
Help making choices in uncertain times
Postdoctoral fellow Benjamin Lagemann at the Department of Marine Technology describes the challenges the industry is facing. "They need to ... Read more ...
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Researchers develop forest extent map for Mexico - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · One of the challenges facing researchers when it comes to evaluating the accuracy of forest extent, however, is that models use different remote sensing products that may have different definitions for what determines forest extent. In addition, on the ground surveys may sometimes come into conflict with what remote, satellite-based products are describing as forests.
To help quantify this problem, a group of researchers from the University of Delaware teamed up with an international group of collaborators. Together, they looked at forest extent estimates from seven regional and global land or tree cover remote sensing products across Mexico, using two independent forest ... Read more ...
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Researchers develop high-energy-density aqueous battery based on halogen multi-electron transfer - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Aqueous batteries use water as the solvent for electrolytes, significantly enhancing the safety of the batteries. However, due to the limited solubility of the electrolyte and low battery voltage, aqueous batteries typically have a lower energy density. This means that the amount of electricity stored per unit volume of aqueous battery is relatively low.
In a study published in Nature Energy, a research group led by Prof. Li Xianfeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with Prof. Fu Qiang's group also from DICP, developed a multi-electron transfer cathode based on bromine and iodine, realizing a ... Read more ...
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Researchers develop sodium battery capable of rapid charging in just a few seconds - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · The innovative hybrid energy storage system integrates anode materials typically used in batteries with cathodes suitable for supercapacitors. This combination allows the device to achieve both high storage capacities and rapid charge-discharge rates, positioning it as a viable next-generation alternative to lithium-ion batteries.
However, the development of a hybrid battery with high energy and high power density requires an improvement to the slow energy storage rate of battery-type anodes as well as the enhancement of the relatively low capacity of supercapacitor-type cathode materials.
To account for this, Professor Kang's team utilized two distinct metal-organic ... Read more ...
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Researchers develop technology to improve offshore wind safety - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · A new project at The University of Texas at Dallas' Wind Energy Center, known as UTD Wind, is designed to make the divers' jobs safer through the development of remote-monitoring technology for offshore wind farms.
The project, which began in March, expands UTD Wind research into a new area focusing on safety. Researchers will develop digital twins, or virtual models, to simulate wind turbines, and algorithms to extract information about failures from simulation data.
"We're focusing on something very important: safety. In every industry, you want zero accidents," said Dr. Mario Rotea, professor of mechanical engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and ... Read more ...
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Researchers find oldest undisputed evidence of Earth's magnetic field - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · A new study, led by the University of Oxford and MIT, has recovered a 3.7-billion-year-old record of Earth's magnetic field, and found that it appears remarkably similar to the field surrounding Earth today. The findings have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Without its magnetic field, life on Earth would not be possible since this shields us from harmful cosmic radiation and charged particles emitted by the sun (the 'solar wind'). But up to now, there has been no reliable date for when the modern magnetic field was first established.
In the study, the researchers examined an ancient sequence of iron-containing rocks from Isua, Greenland. Iron ... Read more ...
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Researchers propose a new method for wind turbine blade recycling - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Wind turbine blades play a crucial role in harnessing renewable energy but as these blades reach the end of their operational lifespan, the issue of disposal becomes a serious concern.
Made from composite materials, such as layers of fiberglass or carbon fiber reinforced with epoxy or polyester resin, these wind turbine blades can be used for 20 to 25 years. While these materials ensure the strength, lightness, and stiffness of turbine blades, they also significantly complicate the recycling of the equipment.
Pyrolysis: A promising strategy for wind turbine blade recycling
However, until a few years ago, wind turbine blades were almost impossible to recycle. ... Read more ...
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Researchers realize hydrogen formation by contact electrification of water microdroplets and its regulation - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 18) |
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Apr 18 · Water microdroplets have been shown to possess a high electric field at the interface of microdroplets, which is sufficient to ionize OH- to produce free electrons spontaneously. Subsequent charge transfer can lead to a variety of essential hydrogenation reactions.
In this study, the researchers found marked charge separation between oil-water microdroplets of different sizes through atomization. Compared with pure water microdroplets, the charge separation of oily aqueous microdroplets was improved due to the oil-mediated extraction of electrons from sprayed microdroplets, thus promoting the generation of hydrogen species. The hydrogen formation was proposed to proceed by ... Read more ...
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Researchers reveal oceanic black carbon sink effect driven by seawater microdroplets - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · The chemical signature of black carbon in the oceans differs from pyrogenic carbon in rivers. Specifically, unknown degradations that account for the losses of pyrogenic carbon or carbon-13 enrichment of pyrogenic carbon should exist as terrigenous refractory pyrogenic carbon transits coastal waters. Unveiling this enigma is helpful in verifying the role of oceanic pyrogenic carbon in buffering climate change, but it still needs to be clarified.
In a study published in Journal of the American Chemical Society, Prof. Wang Feng's group from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the collaborators have identified a degradation ... Read more ...
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Researchers reveal sources of black carbon in southeastern Qinghai-Tibet plateau - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is China's most developed cryosphere region, where glaciers are shrinking rapidly due to light-absorbing impurities such as BC. Both modeling and geochemical evidence indicate that BC emitted from this region can be transported across the Himalayas and reach the interior of the QTP, contributing over 60% of its BC.
This mainly affects the southern and central regions of the QTP. However, there is a lack of sufficient online monitoring of BC in the glacier area of the QTP, which requires stronger integration with model simulations.
Prof. Kang Shichang's research team from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the ... Read more ...
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Researchers shine light on rapid changes in Arctic and boreal ecosystems - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · In a study published in Global Change Biology, a team led by Earth system science Ph.D. candidate Jinhyuk Kim from the lab of James Randerson, professor of Earth system science, reveals how wildfires are increasing rates of photosynthesis in Canada and Alaska.
They find that increasing wildfires are wiping out black spruce forests that grow relatively slowly and contribute to the organic layer of the underlying soils. In many areas, deciduous shrubs and trees, like willow and aspen, are moving in after a fire. These plants have a much higher metabolism, meaning they can establish themselves faster than spruce.
In 2023, Canada saw its most devastating wildfire season, ... Read more ...
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Researchers uncover human DNA repair by nuclear metamorphosis - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · The study, published in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, also sheds light on the mechanism of action of some existing chemotherapy drugs.
"We think this research solves the mystery of how DNA double-strand breaks and the nuclear envelope connect for repair in human cells," said Professor Karim Mekhail, co-principal investigator on the study and a professor of laboratory medicine and pathobiology at U of T's Temerty Faculty of Medicine.
"It also makes many previously published discoveries in other organisms applicable in the context of human DNA repair, which should help science move even faster."
DNA double-strand breaks arise when cells are ... Read more ...
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Researchers uncover kinky metal alloy that won't crack at extreme temperatures at the atomic level - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · In this context, strength is defined as how much force a material can withstand before it is permanently deformed from its original shape, and toughness is its resistance to fracturing (cracking). The alloy's resilience to bending and fracture across an enormous range of conditions could open the door for a novel class of materials for next-generation engines that can operate at higher efficiencies.
The team, led by Robert Ritchie at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley, in collaboration with the groups led by professors Diran Apelian at UC Irvine and Enrique Lavernia at Texas A&M University, discovered the alloy's surprising properties and then ... Read more ...
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Retro-reflectors could help future cities keep their cool - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · By outfitting building walls and roadways in dense urban centers with retro-reflective materials, which reflect most incoming light directly back to its source, the researchers found that it could be possible to reduce surface temperatures by up to 36°F, lower surrounding air temperatures by almost 5°F, and cool human skin temperatures by almost a degree Fahrenheit.
Such retro-reflective surfaces could be a key strategy for fending off urban heat in dense, high-rise cities like New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Working with collaborators from the University of Perugia in Italy, the team published their findings, including guidelines for installing retro-reflective ... Read more ...
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RFK Jr. Denounced By Environmental Colleagues, Urged To End Campaign - Huffington Post (Apr 19) |
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Apr 19 · Environmentalists who once worked with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are calling on him to drop his presidential bid, The New York Times was first to report Friday, while a number of green organizations are also denouncing the independent candidate for his anti-science beliefs.
The push for Kennedy to exit the 2024 race comes from his ex-colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose political arm is planning to run full-page newspaper ads in six swing states next week. Kennedy had served as a senior attorney at the climate advocacy group for around 28 years.
The ads describe his campaign as benefiting presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, “the single worst ... Read more ...
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Rubber-like stretchable energy storage device fabricated with laser precision - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · The advent of wearable technology has brought with it a pressing need for energy storage solutions that can keep pace with the flexibility and stretchability of soft electronic devices. Micro supercapacitors (MSCs) have emerged as a promising candidate for deformable energy storage, due to high-power density, rapid charging, and long cycle life.
However, the fabrication of interdigitated electrode patterns capable of maintaining the energy storage performance under repeated stretching and twisting has remained a great challenge, because brittle materials like gold (Au) have been commonly used as an electrode. Meanwhile, though eutectic gallium-indium liquid metal (EGaIn) has ... Read more ...
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Salt battery harvests osmotic energy where the river meets the sea - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 24) |
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Apr 24 · Estuaries - where freshwater rivers meet the salty sea - are great locations for birdwatching and kayaking. In these areas, waters containing different salt concentrations mix and may be sources of sustainable, "blue" osmotic energy.
Osmotic energy can be generated anywhere salt gradients are found, but the available technologies to capture this renewable energy have room for improvement. One method uses an array of reverse electrodialysis (RED) membranes that act as a sort of "salt battery," generating electricity from pressure differences caused by the salt gradient.
To even out that gradient, positively charged ions from seawater, such as sodium, flow through the ... Read more ...
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Samsung returns to top of the smartphone market: Industry tracker - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · Samsung regained its position as the top smartphone seller, wresting back the lead from Apple as Chinese rivals close the gap on both market leaders, industry tracker International Data Corporation (IDC) reported Monday.
South Korea-based Samsung overtook Apple as worldwide smartphone shipments grew nearly 8 percent in the first quarter of this year to 289.4 million, IDC said, citing its preliminary data.
It was the third consecutive quarter of growth in the global smartphone market, signaling that a recovery from a slump in the sector is underway, according to IDC.
IDC Worldwide Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers team vice president Ryan Reith expected top ... Read more ...
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