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| PHYS.ORG,PHYS.ORG - Earth,PHYS.ORG - Technology,PHYS.ORG - Biology |
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Microsoft makes renewable energy deal with Canada's Brookfield - PHYS.ORG - Technology (May 2) |
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May 2 · Microsoft and Canada's Brookfield Asset Management have struck an agreement for the development of renewable energy that could make one of the biggest corporate purchases of green energy to date, the companies said on Tuesday.
Under the "first of its kind" agreement, Brookfield said it plans to develop over 10.5 gigawatts of new wind and solar farms for Microsoft as the tech giant looks to power its data centers and operations globally with carbon-free electricity by 2030.
The deal underscores how some of the world's biggest companies are making major investments in clean energy to meet climate goals while also remaining competitive in the race to roll out artificial ... Read more ...
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Morocco's farming revolution: Defying drought with science - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 2) |
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May 2 · In the heart of sun-soaked Morocco, scientists are cultivating a future where tough crops defy a relentless drought, now in its sixth year.
"Look at these beautiful ears of wheat," said Wuletaw Tadesse Degu, the head of wheat breeding at the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA).
"The difference in quality between our field and others is striking," he said, pointing towards a lush expanse in Marchouch, south of Rabat, that stood in stark contrast with the barren lands elsewhere.
By 2040, Morocco is poised to face "extremely high" water stress, a dire prediction from the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research ... Read more ...
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Electric vehicles are usually safer for their occupants - but not necessarily for everyone else, says researcher - PHYS.ORG - Technology (May 1) |
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May 1 · Public opinion about EV crash safety often hinges on a few high-profile fire incidents. Those safety concerns are arguably misplaced, and the actual safety of EVs is more nuanced.
EVs and internal combustion vehicles undergo the same crash-testing procedures to evaluate their crashworthiness and occupant protection. These tests are conducted by the National Highway Safety Administration's New Car Assessment Program and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
These analyses use crash test dummies representing midsize male and small female occupants to evaluate the risk of injuries. The tests can evaluate fire hazard either caused by thermal runaway—when ... Read more ...
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A new roadmap to close the carbon cycle - PHYS.ORG - Technology (May 1) |
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May 1 · Led by chemist Wendy Shaw of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a multi-institutional effort has produced a new roadmap to reducing emissions in hard-to-electrify segments of the economy. The multifaceted approach includes developing non-carbon fuels, finding non-fossil sources of carbon, and keeping carbon in play once it enters the cycle, ideally resulting in multiple uses of each carbon atom.
Single-use carbon can no longer be widespread, the roadmap authors assert. The carbon must be kept in play through a circular economy where each carbon atom is used numerous times. The carbon can be reused within the same industrial sector or act as a feedstock for a new ... Read more ...
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Amazon reports strong 1Q results driven by its cloud-computing unit and Prime Video ad dollars - PHYS.ORG - Technology (May 1) |
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May 1 · Amazon on Tuesday reported strong results for the first quarter, driven by growth in its cloud-computing unit and new advertising dollars from its Prime Video streaming service.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said it brought in $143.31 billion in revenue in the first three months of this year, a 13% jump compared to the same period last year. Net income came out to $10.43 billion, or 98 cents per share. That soundly beat Wall Street analysts' expectations for 84 cents a share, according to FactSet.
"It was a good start to the year across the business, and you can see that in both our customer experience improvements and financial results," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said ... Read more ...
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April temperatures in Bangladesh hottest on record - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Bangladesh's weather bureau said Wednesday that last month was the hottest April on record, with the South Asian nation and much of the region still enduring a suffocating heat wave.
Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
Punishing heat last month prompted Bangladesh's government to close schools across the country, keeping an estimated 32 million students at home.
"This year the heat wave covered around 80 percent of the country. We've not seen such unbroken and expansive heat waves before," Bangladesh Meteorological Department senior forecaster Muhammad Abul Kalam Mallik told AFP. Read more ...
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EPA underestimates methane emissions from landfills and urban areas, researchers find - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · "Methane is the second largest contributor to climate change behind carbon dioxide so it's really important that we quantify methane emissions at the highest possible resolution to pinpoint what sources it is coming from," said Hannah Nesser, a former Ph.D. student at SEAS and first author of the paper. Nesser is currently a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow in the Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The EPA estimates that landfills are the third-largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the U.S., but the EPA uses a bottom-up accounting method that often doesn't match observations of atmospheric methane.
The EPA methane ... Read more ...
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Every breath you take: Following the journey of inhaled plastic particle pollution - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Led by Senior Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering Dr. Suvash Saha, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) research team has used computational fluid-particle dynamics (CFPD) to study the transfer and deposition of nano and microplastic particles of different sizes and shapes depending on the rate of breathing.
The results of the modeling, published in the journal Environmental Advances, have pinpointed hotspots in the human respiratory system where plastic particles can accumulate, from the nasal cavity and larynx and into the lungs. The paper is titled, "Transport and deposition of microplastics and nanoplastics in the human respiratory tract."
Dr. Saha said evidence ... Read more ...
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Floods strand dozens of tourists in Kenya's Maasai Mara - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Nearly 100 tourists were among people marooned after a river overflowed in Kenya's famed Maasai Mara wildlife reserve following a heavy downpour, a local administrator said Wednesday, as the death toll from flood-related disasters neared 180.
Torrential rains, amplified by the El Niño weather pattern, have lashed much of the East African country and destroyed roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
"Approximately 100 or more tourists" were stranded in more than a dozen lodges, hotels and camps, Narok West sub-county administrator Stephen Nakola told AFP.
"That is the preliminary number as of now because some of the camps are unaccessible," he said.
The ... Read more ...
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Fungal resistance in plants associated with heritable differences in microbiota abundances - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Sunflowers can be harvested for a number of products including seeds and oil, for which consumer demand has increased significantly in recent years. They may also contribute to climate resilience, researchers note, since they can adapt to various weather conditions, and sunflower sprouts contain nutrients that can promote human health.
Unfortunately, like many other plants, sunflowers are susceptible to disease, which can cause significant crop losses. For example, white mold, which is caused by the fungal pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, is responsible for average annual sunflower crop losses of more than 1%. It can also affect beans, eggplants, lettuce, peanuts, potatoes ... Read more ...
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Investigating coal emissions reductions and mortality in China - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Annual coal consumption fell between 2013 and 2017, which led to observed dramatic decreases in mean daily fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels.
In 2018, a new program, known as "Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense Battle," began, and in the same year, PM2.5 concentrations were further reduced by 9.3% from 2017 levels.
In this context, Xiaoming Shi and colleagues used accountability analysis to assess whether the acute health effects of PM2.5 changed from 2013 to 2018 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, which was the most heavily polluted region. The study is published in the journal PNAS Nexus.
The acute effects of PM2.5 were significantly ... Read more ...
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Is bioenergy ever truly green? It depends on five key questions - PHYS.ORG - Technology (May 1) |
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May 1 · But is it environmentally sound? The annoying answer is: it depends.
Trees and other plants soak up carbon from the atmosphere and store it as biomass. When they are burnt for electricity production the same carbon is released. This would suggest bioenergy is "carbon-neutral."
But it's not that simple. Many things can change the environmental credentials of a bioenergy project. Every project is unique and must be considered independently.
So let's break down the five key questions we should ask about every bioenergy project.
1. What is the source of the biomass?
The bewildering array of plants on our planet means a huge amount of biomass "feedstock" is ... Read more ...
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Kenya's devastating floods expose decades of poor urban planning and bad land management - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Floods are the natural consequence of storm rainfall and have an important ecological role. They inundate flood plains where silts settle, riverbed aquifers are recharged and nutrients are gathered. Annual rainfall in Kenya varies from 2,000 mm in the western region to less than 250 mm in the drylands covering over 80% of Kenya. But storm rainfalls are widespread. This means that floods can occur in any part of the country.
The impact of floods has become more severe due to a number of factors.
The first is how much water runs off. In rural areas, changes to the landscape have meant that there's been an increase in the amount of storm runoff generated from rainfall. This ... Read more ...
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Mass fish die-off in Vietnam as heat wave roasts Southeast Asia - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 1) |
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May 1 · Hundreds of thousands of fish have died in a reservoir in southern Vietnam's Dong Nai province, with locals and media reports suggesting a brutal heat wave and the lake's management are to blame.
Like much of Southeast Asia - where schools have recently been forced to close early and electricity usage has surged - southern and central Vietnam have been scorched by devastating heat.
"All the fish in the Song May reservoir died for lack of water," a local resident in Trang Bom district, who identified himself only as Nghia, told AFP.
"Our life has been turned upside down over the past 10 days because of the smell."
Pictures show residents wading and boating ... Read more ...
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Mystery behind huge opening in Antarctic sea ice solved - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · A study published in Science Advances reveals a key process that had eluded scientists as to how the opening, called a polynya, was able to form and persist for several weeks. The paper is titled "Ekman-Driven Salt Transport as a Key Mechanism for Open-Ocean Polynya Formation at Maud Rise."
The team of researchers from the University of Southampton, the University of Gothenburg and the University of California San Diego studied the Maud Rise polynya—named after the submerged mountain-like feature in the Weddell Sea, over which it grows.
They found the polynya was brought on by complex interactions between the wind, ocean currents, and the unique geography of the ... Read more ...
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New climate study shows cloud cover is easier to affect than previously thought - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Clouds are among the least understood entities in the climate system and the largest source of uncertainty in predicting future climate change. To describe clouds, you need to understand weather systems on the scale of up to hundreds of kilometers and microphysics down to the scale of molecules.
The new study sheds new light on what happens at the molecular scale, focusing on cloud condensation nuclei in marine stratus clouds—low-level, horizontally layered clouds. The study, "Supersaturation and Critical Size of Cloud Condensation Nuclei in Marine Stratus Clouds," is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
It is well-known that cloud formation depends on two ... Read more ...
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New computer algorithm supercharges climate models and could lead to better predictions of future climate change - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · However, climate modelers have long faced a major problem. Because Earth System Models integrate many complicated processes, they cannot immediately run a simulation; they must first ensure that it has reached a stable equilibrium representative of real-world conditions before the industrial revolution. Without this initial settling period—referred to as the "spin-up" phase—the model can "drift," simulating changes that may be erroneously attributed to manmade factors.
Unfortunately, this process is extremely slow as it requires running the model for many thousands of model years which, for IPCC simulations, can take as much as two years on some of the world's most ... Read more ...
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New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · "It is difficult for manganese oxide to form on the surface of Mars, so we didn't expect to find it in such high concentrations in a shoreline deposit," said Patrick Gasda, of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Space Science and Applications group and lead author on the study.
"On Earth, these types of deposits happen all the time because of the high oxygen in our atmosphere produced by photosynthetic life, and from microbes that help catalyze those manganese oxidation reactions.
"On Mars, we don't have evidence for life, and the mechanism to produce oxygen in Mars's ancient atmosphere is unclear, so how the manganese oxide was formed and concentrated here is really ... Read more ...
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Pet dogs and strays suffer in Asia heat wave - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 1) |
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May 1 · Soaring temperatures across Kolkata have brought life in much of the Indian megacity to a standstill, but veterinarian Partha Das cannot recall a time when he was more busy.
His clinic has been swamped by distressed members of the public carrying in beloved pets suffering nosebleeds, severe skin rashes and lapses into unconsciousness in a relentless heat wave suffocating much of South and Southeastern Asia over the past week.
"Many pets are also hospitalized for three or four consecutive days, and they are taking a long time to get back to normal," the 57-year-old told AFP from his surgery.
"We are getting several heatstroke cases in a day. It's ... Read more ...
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Precipitation may brighten Colorado River's future, says modeling study - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Precipitation falling in the river's headwaters region is likely to be more abundant than during the prior two decades. The work, published in the Journal of Climate, comes as policymakers, water managers, states, and tribes look for answers on how to govern the Colorado River's flows beyond 2025.
"It's a sort of nuanced message," said Balaji Rajagopalan, CIRES Fellow and co-author of the study. "Yes, the temperature is warming, but that's not the full story—you add precipitation and you get a fuller picture."
CIRES affiliate Martin Hoerling and Fellow Balaji Rajagopalan worked with colleagues from several other institutions to analyze data from a suite of models, ... Read more ...
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Satellite images of plants' fluorescence can predict crop yields - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · In many parts of the world, crop yields are dropping, largely due to the effects of climate change. According to a recent Cornell study, over the last four decades, for every 1 degree Celsius of warming, net farm income decreased by 66%.
Farmers in developed countries can often rely on big datasets and risk management tools to help reduce the impacts of extreme heat on their yield and income. But in developing countries, data is scarce, and it is often difficult to accurately measure crop yield.
In a paper appearing in Environmental Research Letters, the scientists suggest using satellite photos to remotely measure solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) as a way of ... Read more ...
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Scientists find five new hydrothermal vents in Pacific Ocean - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · The pace of discovery in the oceans leaped forward thanks to teamwork between a deep-sea robot and a human occupied submarine leading to the recent discovery of five new hydrothermal vents in the eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean.
A team of ocean scientists, led by chief scientist and Lehigh faculty member Jill McDermott, returned to port March 26 in San Diego from a research expedition in the eastern Pacific Ocean where they discovered the new deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites on the seafloor at 2,550 meters (8,366 feet, or 1.6 miles) depth.
The venting fluids are all hotter than 300°C (570°F). The discovery was supported, and in many ways accelerated, by making use of the ... Read more ...
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Some communities are more vulnerable to weather-related power outages in New York State - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Weather-related power outages in the United States have become nearly twice as common in the last 10 years compared to the previous decade. These outages, which can last most of a day, are more than an inconvenience: lack of power and related indoor temperature discomfort can exacerbate health conditions; lack of power also endangers the lives of people who are reliant on electricity-powered medical devices and/or elevators.
A study led environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of Washington examines the link between various types of extreme weather and outages in New York State between 2017 and 2020 and who is ... Read more ...
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Study reveals uniqueness of naturally occurring monodominant forests in the Republic of Congo - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 1) |
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May 1 · A recent study published in the journal Plant Ecology and Evolution gives valuable insights into forest stands of Gilbertiodendron dewevrei (G. dewevrei) in the Sangha Trinational region.
G. dewevrei, known as "Bemba" or "Limbali" forest by Indigenous peoples and local communities, is a tree species endemic to the Congo Basin that is unusual in forming large stands where it is almost the only species present. The study focuses on the comparative analysis of the structure and composition of this G. dewevrei forest type compared to adjacent forest types.
Using data from plot inventories and herbarium specimens, researchers evaluated several parameters, including stem ... Read more ...
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Study says El Nino, not climate change, was key driver of low rainfall that snarled Panama Canal - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · The climate phenomenon known as El Niño - and not climate change - was a key driver in low rainfall that disrupted shipping at the Panama Canal last year, scientists said Wednesday.
A team of international scientists found that El Niño - a natural warming of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide - doubled the likelihood of the low precipitation Panama received during last year's rainy season. That dryness reduced water levels at the reservoir that feeds freshwater to the Panama Canal and provides drinking water for more than half of the Central American country.
Human-caused climate change was not a primary driver of the Central American country's unusually ... Read more ...
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Texans encouraged to turn off nighttime lights during bird migration - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 1) |
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May 1 · Texas residents who look up at the night sky over the next few weeks might catch a glimpse of an avian superhighway.
Migratory birds like whooping cranes and tiny songbirds are making their seasonal flights over Texas to northern breeding grounds, with peak migration occurring from April 22 to May 12, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. Nearly two billion birds of around 400 different species travel over the state each spring.
To help ensure their safe passage, the National Audubon Society is asking Texans to dim their lights as part of "Lights Out, Texas!"
The biannual campaign was launched as a statewide effort in 2020 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and ... Read more ...
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Texans should prepare for hotter temperatures, greater risk of fire and flooding - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · The newly updated assessment of extreme weather in Texas draws on data from 1900 to 2023 to predict trends through the year 2036, and shows a significant uptick in extreme temperatures and droughts, wildfire conditions and urban flooding risks, among other changes. The report was authored by Nielsen-Gammon, a Regents Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, in collaboration with the nonprofit public policy organization Texas 2036.
"We have national climate assessments, but they can't do justice to Texas' specific climate conditions," Nielsen-Gammon said. "With this Texas-specific study, we focused on observed trends as much as possible rather than emphasizing ... Read more ...
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Wondering what Australia might look like in a hotter world? Take a glimpse into the distant past - PHYS.ORG - Earth (May 1) |
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May 1 · Wouldn't it be useful to go back in time and see what Australia looked like during those periods in the distant past? Well, scientists—including us—have done just that.
These studies, which largely involve examining sediments and fossils, reveal a radically different Australia to the one we inhabit.
The continent was warmer and wetter, and filled with unfamiliar plant and animal species. It suggests Australia may be much wetter, and look very different, in centuries and millennia to come.
Then and now: Measuring CO₂
Atmospheric CO₂ is measured in "parts per million"—in other words, how many CO₂ molecules are present in each ... Read more ...
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New study looks at US Drought Monitor to see how it has reflected climate change since 2000 - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Though generated by experts and informed by data, it is in some ways a subjective interpretation of drought conditions. And it carries significant political and economic ramifications—the USDM informs state declarations of emergency, as well as drought relief payments issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The USDM classifies localities into six drought categories, ranging from "none" to "exceptional." Each category is based on thresholds of event rarity. Some weeks, the placid white representing normal conditions blankets much of the country; other weeks, splotchy maroon pockets of exceptional drought pop off the map like blistered burns.
In a study ... Read more ...
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'Bloodsicles', baths keep Philippine zoo animals cool as heat wave hits - PHYS.ORG - Biology (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · A Philippine zoo is giving tigers frozen treats made of animal blood and preventing lions from mating during the hottest time of the day as a heat wave scorches the country.
Unusually hot weather has sent temperatures in the capital Manila to a record high in recent days and forced schools across the archipelago nation to suspend in-person classes.
As people flock to air-conditioned shopping malls and swimming pools for relief from the extreme heat, animals at Manila Zoo are also trying to cool off.
Preventing heat stroke, particularly among the big cats, was the "main priority", zoo veterinarian Dave Vinas told AFP on Tuesday when the mercury hit 37 degrees ... Read more ...
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A rare and little-known group of monkeys could help save Africa's tropical forests - PHYS.ORG - Biology (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · At a time when hunting of wildlife and habitat loss are driving long-term changes to ecosystems, including stark wildlife population declines and greater vulnerability to climate change and zoonotic disease transmission, the scientists identified red colobus monkeys as key indicators of tropical forest health and flagships for local and international conservation initiatives.
Writing in the journal Conservation Letters, the authors focus on five priority action areas:
The above actions build on the Red Colobus Conservation Action Plan, initiated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group and the ... Read more ...
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A virus could help save billions of gallons of wastewater produced by fracking - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · In a new study published in the journal Water, researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have identified a novel means of treating the wastewater generated by oil and gas production: bacteriophages.
Ramón Antonio Sánchez, a doctoral candidate within UTEP's chemistry program, is the first author on the publication, detailing how bacteriophages, viruses that are often highly specific and lethal to a single species of bacteria, can be used as a rapid and cost-effective method to treat produced water on an industrial scale.
Sánchez said if the work is successful, it would give the oil and gas industry a means of treating, reusing and recycling ... Read more ...
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Abrupt permafrost thaw found to intensify warming effects on soil CO₂ emission - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · According to a recent study published in Nature Geoscience, scientists have found that soil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are more sensitive to climate warming in permafrost-collapsed areas than in non-collapsed areas.
This study, based on field warming experiments combined with laboratory incubation of soils from a large-scale sampling, provides new insights about permafrost carbon–climate feedback in the context of future climate warming.
Warmer temperatures have led to rapid permafrost thawing in high-latitude and high-altitude permafrost regions. Abrupt permafrost thaw, known as thermokarst, occurs in approximately 20% of the northern permafrost region, but this ... Read more ...
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An AI model to reduce uncertainty in evapotranspiration prediction - PHYS.ORG - Biology (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · ET includes evaporation from soil and open water pools such as lakes, rivers, and ponds, as well as transpiration from plant leaves. The difference between precipitation and ET indicates the water balance available for societal needs, including agricultural and industrial production. However, measuring ET is challenging. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presents a computer model that uses artificial intelligence (AI) for ET prediction based on remote sensing estimates.
"Ground-based ET estimates capture the local fluxes of water transferred to the atmosphere but are limited in scale. In contrast, satellite data provide ET information on a global ... Read more ...
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Atmospheric 'teleconnections' sustain warm blobs in the northeast Pacific Ocean - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · The first warm patch discovered in the northeast Pacific Ocean was the "Blob" event of 2013–2016, followed by another warm blob in 2019–2020.
The Blob stretched from coastal Alaska to the Baja region of California, with sea surface temperatures as much as 6°C above normal. Vital fish stocks such as sockeye salmon and Pacific cod were impacted, and the event saw geographical shifts of a number of species, including phytoplankton, as well as the closures of important fisheries and mass strandings of marine mammals and seabirds. But some species increased in numbers, such as pyrosomes, bioluminescent colonies of millimeter-sized individuals and commonly called ... Read more ...
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Believing environmental damage is done by others can cause 'race to the bottom' - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Common-pool resources, such as forests, fisheries, and groundwater, need to be managed effectively to reduce over-harvesting and environmental damage. Researchers knew that strong boundaries around a community's common-pool resource could promote effective management, but they weren't exactly sure why.
The new research—in collaboration with mangrove-dependent communities in Tanzania—reveals that boundaries don't just keep others out, but also promote good conservation practices by community members.
Without effective boundaries, communities can be subject to theft from neighbors. The study reveals that if they then believe that this theft is causing ... Read more ...
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Big data reveals true climate impact of worldwide air travel - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · When countries signed the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty, high-income countries were required to report their aviation-related emissions. But 151 middle and lower income countries, including China and India, were not required to report these emissions, although they could do so voluntarily.
This matters because the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change relies on country reports of emissions during negotiations on country-specific emissions cuts.
"Our work fills the reporting gap, so that this can inform policy and hopefully improve future negotiations," says Jan Klenner, a Ph.D. candidate at NTNU's Industrial Ecology ... Read more ...
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Climate change lengthens, intensifies the blooming of holm oak and other Quercus species: Study - PHYS.ORG - Biology (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · How does climate change affect pollen allergy? Relating the effects of global warming to variations in the blooming patterns of species of the genus Quercus in Andalusia was the objective of one of the latest efforts by the Systemic and Applied Botany research group at the University of Cordoba.
"We chose Quercus because it is the most representative tree in Andalusia in the natural environment, and it is an anemophilic tree (pollinated by the wind) found where there are very high concentrations of pollen in the atmosphere, so it is a good bioindicator to study the impact of climate change on blooming," said researcher Pura Alcázar, who co-authored the work with fellow ... Read more ...
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Clouds blanket the night side of the hot exoplanet WASP-43b - PHYS.ORG - Earth (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · Violent winds transport the searing hot air to the nightside, where it cools to 600°C, allowing clouds to form and blanket the entire hemisphere. These tempests impair chemical reactions so much that methane can barely form, even though it should be abundant under calmer conditions.
Hot Jupiters are extreme gas giant exoplanets that orbit their host stars in close proximity, leading to several exotic properties regarding temperature, density, composition, chemistry, and weather. With the advent of groundbreakingly sensitive telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have begun to study their atmospheres in great detail.
An international ... Read more ...
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Electric cars pile up at European ports as Chinese firms struggle to find buyers - PHYS.ORG - Technology (Apr 30) |
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Apr 30 · However, Chinese cars are facing difficulties in finding buyers in Europe. Imported cars, many of which are Chinese electric vehicles, are piling up at European ports, with some spending up to 18 months in port car parks as manufacturers struggle to get them onto people's driveways.
Why is this, though? Chinese electric vehicles in particular are getting positive reviews. Having driven them myself, I can attest to them matching, or even exceeding, the well-known European brands in range, quality and technology.
But entering an established market as a challenger is a complex operation. Chinese makers will have to contend with buyer wariness, a lack of brand image, trade ... Read more ...
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