Recent News (Since March 24)
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Ancient isolation's impact on modern ecology: How deep biogeographic divides drive divergent evolutionary paths - Mar 28, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Earth |
| A new study led by Michigan State University researcher Peter Williams sheds light on the profound influence of deep geographic isolation on the evolution of mammals. Published in Nature Communications, the research reveals how long-lasting separation between continents has shaped distinct mammal communities around the globe. "Today's ecology was not inevitable. If there were different isolating factors long ago, we might have vastly different ecosystems today," said Peter Williams, the lead author of the study. Williams is a research associate in the Integrative Biology department and a postdoctoral researcher in MSU's Ecology, Evolution and Behavior program, or EEB. While environmental factors like climate and vegetation are well-known drivers of biodiversity, the new study highlights the crucial role that isolation played for mammals. "Think tree-dwelling mammals," Williams said. "Despite similar climates, you'll find koalas in Australia and squirrels in ... |
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China's latest EV is a 'connected' car from smart phone and electronics maker Xiaomi - Mar 28, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Technology |
| Xiaomi, a well-known maker of smart consumer electronics in China, is joining the country's booming but crowded market for electric cars. The tech company will start taking orders for the SU7, a sporty four-door sedan, following a launch event with founder Lei Jun in Beijing on Thursday evening. Analysts think it will be priced in the 300,000 yuan ($40,000) range. Government subsides have helped make China the world's largest market for electric vehicles, and a bevy of new makers are locked in fierce competition. Most of the industry's sales have been domestic, but Chinese makers are pushing into overseas markets with lower-priced models, posing a potential challenge to European, Japanese and American auto giants. Lei is not bashful about that challenge, saying at an unveiling of the SU7 in December that Beijing-based Xiaomi aims to become one of the world's top five automakers in the next 15 to 20 years. "I believe that one day, Xiaomi EVs will be a ... |
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He’s Got a Plan for Cities That Flood: Stop Fighting the Water - Mar 28, 2024 New York Times - Climate Section |
| A landscape architect in China has a surprising strategy to help manage surges of water from storms supercharged by climate change. Cities around the world face a daunting challenge in the era of climate change: Supercharged rainstorms are turning streets into rivers, flooding subway systems and inundating residential neighborhoods, often with deadly consequences. Kongjian Yu, a landscape architect and professor at Peking University, is developing what might seem like a counterintuitive response: Let the water in. “You cannot fight water,” he said. “You have to adapt to it.” Instead of putting in more drainage pipes, building flood walls and channeling rivers between concrete embankments, which is the usual approach to managing water, Mr. Yu wants to dissipate the destructive force of floodwaters by slowing them and giving them room to spread out. Mr. Yu calls the concept “sponge city” and says it’s like “doing tai chi with water,” a reference to ... |
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How fashion giants are tackling water risks in cotton supply chains - Mar 28, 2024 Greenbiz |
| Apparel companies are taking action to bolster their water-management commitments and practices. Growing cotton uses 16 percent to 24 percent of insecticides and up to 40 percent of pesticides applied to fields globally. Source: Shutterstock/Kent Weakley This is the second of a four-part series taking a closer look at how 72 companies in four industries - beverage, apparel, food and high-tech - performed in Ceres’ new Valuing Water Finance Initiative Benchmark report, which assesses how companies are valuing and acting on water as a financial risk and driving the systemic changes needed to protect freshwater systems around the world. The fashion industry is a thirsty one - and much of the water it uses to make the clothes we buy is used to grow cotton. The problem is, by 2040, half of the world’s cotton-growing regions will likely be exposed to severe climate threats - including water scarcity and extreme weather - posing significant financial risk to apparel ... |
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Milk on ice: Antarctic time capsule of whole milk powder sheds light on the enduring qualities of dairy products - Mar 28, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Earth |
| Now, a new comparative study in the Journal of Dairy Science has peered back in time to demonstrate that—despite advancements in selective breeding and changes to farm practices—milk of the past and milk today share more similarities than differences and are still crucial building blocks of human nutrition. On New Year's Day in 1908, explorer Ernest Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition aboard the ship Nimrod set sail from Lyttelton, New Zealand, on a quest to be the first to set foot on the South Pole. While the wharf was packed with well-wishers, the ship was packed with dairy: 1,000 pounds of dried whole milk powder, 192 pounds of butter, and two cases of cheese. Shackleton and his crew would make it farther south than anyone before them—within 100 nautical miles of the Pole—and leave behind their base camp. A century later, one remaining container of Defiance brand whole milk powder was discovered during the Antarctic Heritage ... |
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New Research for Week #13 2024 - Mar 28, 2024 Skeptical Science |
| A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change: The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased concentrations of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost, and alterations in the key high latitude physical systems spurred many authors, and more recently international agencies and supra-state actors, to investigate “emergency measures” that might help conserve the frozen North. However, the efficacy and feasibility of many of these ideas remains highly uncertain, and some might come with significant risks, or could be even outright dangerous to the ecosystems and people of the North. To date, no review has evaluated all suggested schemes. The objectives of this first phase literature survey (which can be found in a separate compendium (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10602506), are ... |
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Saudi Aramco CEO calls energy transition strategy a failure - Mar 28, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Earth |
| Pointing to the still paltry share of renewable energy in global supply, the head of Saudi Aramco described the current energy transition strategy as a misguided failure on Monday. "In the real world, the current transition strategy is visibly failing on most fronts," Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Amin Nasser said at the CERAWeek conference in Houston. Fossil fuels accounted for 82 percent of global consumption last year, according to a report from consultancy KPMG cited by Nasser, who noted that the International Energy Agency has said oil demand could hit a record this year. "This is hardly the future picture some have been painting," Nasser said. "All this strengthens the view that peak oil and gas is unlikely for some time to come, let alone 2030," added Nasser, alluding to a medium-term target that has been seen as a potential phaseout date for crude. Joining Nasser in speaking skeptically of an imminent energy revolution was ExxonMobil Chief ... |
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Schools in the path of April's total solar eclipse prepare for a natural teaching moment - Mar 28, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Earth |
| Seventh-grade student Henry Cohen bounced side to side in time to the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" playing in teacher Nancy Morris' classroom, swinging his arms open and closed across the planets pictured on his T-shirt. Henry and other classmates at Cleveland's Riverside School were on their feet, dancing during a session of activities tied to April's total solar eclipse. Second-graders invited in for the lessons sat cross-legged on the floor, laughing as they modeled newly decorated eclipse viewing glasses. Dioramas with softball-sized model earths and moons and flashlight "suns" occupied desks and shelves around the room. Henry said his shirt reflected his love of space, which he called "a cool mystery." The eclipse, he said, "is a one in a million chance and I'm glad I get to be here for it." For schools in or near the path of totality of the April 8 eclipse, the event has inspired lessons in science, literacy and culture. Some schools also are ... |
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Walmart funds almost 1 gigawatt in new U.S. solar power - Mar 28, 2024 Greenbiz |
| Half the power needed by the world’s largest retailer now comes from clean energy projects. Walmart is funding almost two dozen new community solar projects and three long-term purchase agreements that will add almost 1 gigawatt of zero-carbon energy to the U.S. grid. That’s roughly enough energy to power 750,000 U.S. homes. The new installations include Walmart’s first investments in projects for Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi - almost half the amount in the new contracts. They are in addition to the more than 600 onsite and offsite renewable energy projects the retailer has supported in the past, representing 2 more gigawatts in clean electricity generation. Walmart’s goal, announced in January, is to add 10 gigawatts of clean energy globally by 2030. Walmart is not the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy - that distinction goes to Amazon - but the collective impact of these contracts is substantial. As of February 2023 Walmart was the ... |
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A guide to electric car misinformation (part 1) - Mar 27, 2024 Heated World |
| The closer we get to the 2024 presidential election, the more sketchy information you’re going to hear about electric cars. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have decided to make electric cars central to their campaigns. Biden is doing this by promoting his administration’s efforts to expand EV production and ownership, and Trump is doing this by attacking those efforts. GOP polling has shown that attacking electric vehicle policy has been “amazing” for Republicans, former Trump energy advisor Michael McKenna recently told the New York Times. And Biden’s EV policies have drawn praise from both green groups and the United Auto Workers union - two important political constituencies. So the EV political discourse isn’t likely to die down soon, which is generally bad news for public understanding. Because political actors aren’t primarily motivated by helping you understand reality; they’re primarily motivated by inflaming or exciting you into making a certain ... |
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A solar cell you can bend and soak in water - Mar 27, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Technology |
| One of the potential uses of organic photovoltaics is to create wearable electronics—devices that can be attached to clothing that can monitor medical devices, for example, without requiring battery changes. However, researchers have found it challenging to achieve waterproofing without the use of extra layers that end up decreasing the flexibility of the film. Now, in work published in Nature Communications, a group of scientists have been able to do precisely that. They took on the challenge of overcoming a key limitation of previous devices, which is that it is difficult to make them waterproof without reducing the flexibility. Photovoltaic films are typically made of several layers. There is an active later, which captures energy of a certain wavelength from sunlight, and uses this energy to separate electrons and "electron holes" into a cathode and anode. The electrons and holes can then reconnect through a circuit, generating electricity. In previous ... |
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Advancing towards sustainability: Turning carbon dioxide and water into acetylene - Mar 27, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Earth |
| Such is the case of acetylene (C2H2), an essential hydrocarbon with a plethora of applications. This highly flammable gas is used for welding, industrial cutting, metal hardening, heat treatments, and other industrial processes. In addition, it is an important precursor in the production of synthetic resins and plastics, including PVC. Since the production of C2H2 requires fossil fuels as feedstock, a more environmentally friendly synthesis route is urgently needed. Against this backdrop, a research team based on an academia–industry collaboration between Doshisha University and Daikin Industries, Ltd., Japan, has been developing a new and promising strategy to produce C2H2 using carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) as raw materials. Their latest study, which included Assistant Professor Yuta Suzuki from Harris Science Research Institute and Professor Takuya Goto from the Department of Science of Environment and Mathematical Modeling of Graduate School of ... |
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After a hurricane or wildfire, communities can be overwhelmed by debris - Mar 27, 2024 Yale Climate Connections - Weather |
| Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections After a hurricane, flood, or wildfire, communities face a long process of rebuilding. But in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, there’s a lot of debris lying around - sometimes more waste than a community would typically produce all year. Townsend: “You get buildings that are destroyed. You get lots and lots of earth and trees and other debris which now need to be cleaned up and moved somewhere.” Timothy Townsend is an environmental engineer at the University of Florida. He says some of this debris can be dangerous. For example, some of the ash from last year’s Maui fires has high levels of toxic arsenic - likely from volcanic soils, old building materials, and herbicides that were once commonly used on nearby farms. Townsend: “All of a sudden, you’re faced with not only is this just normal debris that would go ... |
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Amazon pours an additional $2.75 billion into AI startup Anthropic - Mar 27, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Technology |
| Amazon said Wednesday it is pouring an additional $2.75 billion into Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the artificial intelligence startup to $4 billion. Amazon will maintain a minority stake in San Francisco-based Anthropic, a rival of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. "Generative AI is poised to be the most transformational technology of our time, and we believe our strategic collaboration with Anthropic will further improve our customers' experiences, and look forward to what's next," said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of data and AI at AWS, Amazon's cloud computing subsidiary. The Seattle-based tech giant made an initial investment of $1.25 billion in Anthropic in September and indicated then it had plans to invest up to $4 billion. The two companies are collaborating to develop so-called foundation models, which underpin the generative AI systems that have captured global attention. Under the deal, Anthropic will use AWS as its ... |
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Amazon's pharmacy will offer same-day delivery in LA and NYC and plans to expand - Mar 27, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Technology |
| Amazon will soon offer same-day delivery of several prescription medications in Los Angeles and New York, yet another example of the online shopping giant's bet on consumers' growing dependence on ease and speed. As Amazon Pharmacy expands into the nation's two biggest markets, Angelenos and New Yorkers will be able to order several common medications, including those used to manage high blood pressure, diabetes and the flu, online and have them delivered on their doorstep within hours, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Amazon plans to offer the service in more than a dozen U.S. cities by the end of the year, the company said, noting that it already offers same-day medication delivery in a handful of cities, including Phoenix, Seattle and College Station, Texas, where it said deliveries are made within an hour by drone. Although the service won't begin in the L.A. metro area until April, a company spokesperson said in an email that the service became ... |
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An eco-lodge in Baja California Sur teaches guests how to live sustainably. Can it survive rising seas and storms? - Mar 27, 2024 Yale Climate Connections - Arts |
| Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Driving to La Duna Ecology Center, you typically lose cell connection before turning off Mexico’s coastal Highway 1. You’re bound to question some turns and follow one or two wrong forks in the road weaving between towering cardon cactuses that reach for the sky. La Duna’s rustic welcome sign and palm-frond-topped casitas remain invisible until you arrive. Once inside the gate, you’re tucked into a lumpy blanket of shrubs, earthy shelters, and the namesake wall of dunes. These sandy coastal barriers of the Baja California peninsula buffer the wind and keep the lapping waters of the Gulf of California at bay. On a windy day at La Duna, the temperature shift is dramatic when you cross from the retreat center to the waterfront side of these mounds of sand. Founder and director of La Duna Gabriela Flores has been living out here on and off for ... |
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Anthropocene or not, it is our current epoch that we should be fighting for - Mar 27, 2024 PHYS.ORG - Earth |
| Does this mean that humans haven't actually changed the planet? Not at all and while we may not officially be in a geological Anthropocene, the term will likely persist in reference to human environmental interference in years to come. As such, the wake of this vote is perhaps the best moment to consider a more essential question: what will we do next? Can we take the official rejection on an Anthropocene epoch as an implicit vote of confidence in our ability to return the planet to Holocene-like conditions? Is climate change reversible? As a limnologist, I can share insights from long-term research on lakes. And as one Canadian lake, Crawford Lake, had been selected as the candidate "golden spike" of the Anthropocene epoch, what lakes tell us of human impacts, and recoveries from those impacts, may be worth considering. There are elements of our future which cannot be undone. Although we can reduce future extinction rates, there is no coming back for the ... |
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Berkeley Will Repeal Its Landmark Ban on Natural Gas in New Homes - Mar 27, 2024 New York Times - Climate Section |
| The decision, which came after a legal challenge, throws into question the fate of dozens of similar measures across the United States. The city of Berkeley, Calif., has agreed to repeal a landmark climate rule that would have banned natural gas hookups in new homes, throwing into question the fate of dozens of similar restrictions on gas in cities across the country. Berkeley’s gas ban, which was the first of its kind when it passed in 2019, had been challenged in court by the California Restaurant Association and was struck down last year by a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The city settled the lawsuit last week by agreeing to immediately halt enforcement of the rule and eventually repeal it altogether. “To comply with the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, we have ceased enforcement of the gas ban,” Farimah Brown, the city attorney for Berkeley, said in an email. However, she added, “Berkeley will continue to be a ... |
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Biden administration announces $6 billion in clean energy funding - Mar 27, 2024 Greenbiz |
| Historic amount signals what companies might expect from another four years of Biden. The Biden administration announced $6 billion in funding for projects that will decarbonize and modernize the U.S. industrial sector this week. The Department of Energy (DOE) will manage the funds, disseminating them to recipients in some of the highest emitting industries, including aluminum, cement and concrete, chemicals, iron and steel and food. The DOE estimates that the projects will cut the equivalent of 14 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year, once completed. "Heavy industry like steel, cement and concrete account for nearly one-third of all U.S. emissions, and the sector’s emissions are some of the hardest to abate," said Angela Seligman, senior carbon-capture policy manager at Clean Air Task Force, in a statement. The funding also appears to signal the potential financial opportunities available to the private sector if Biden is reelected in ... |
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Climate change is altering Earth’s rotation enough to mess with our clocks - Mar 27, 2024 Washington Post - Climate and Environment |
| Climate change is messing with time itself. The melting of polar ice due to global warming is affecting Earth’s rotation and could have an impact on precision timekeeping, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The planet is not about to jerk to a halt, nor speed up so rapidly that everyone gets flung into space. But timekeeping is an exact science in a highly technological society, which is why global authorities more than half a century ago felt compelled by the slight changes in Earth’s rotation to invent the concept of the “leap second.” Climate change is now making these calculations even more complicated: In just a few years it may be necessary to insert a “negative leap second” into the calendar to get the planet’s rotation in sync with Coordinated Universal Time. “Global warming is managing to actually measurably affect the rotation of the entire Earth,” said study author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the University of ... |
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