Environment

Establishing Key Biodiversity Areas in the Southern Ocean will be vital for safeguarding the ecosystem from the impact of human activities, researchers say. A team of scientists led by the University of Colorado Boulder has identified 30 new areas critical for conserving biodiversity in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. In a study published Aug. 15

As global warming intensifies, people increasingly suffer from extreme heat. For those working in a high-temperature environment indoors or outdoors, keeping thermally comfortable becomes particularly crucial. A team has now developed thermally-insulated and breathable soft robotic clothing that can automatically adapt to changing ambient temperatures, thereby helping to ensure worker safety in hot environments. As

Decades after his voyage on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin became fascinated by why plants move as they grow -- spinning and twisting into corkscrews. Now, more than 150 years later, a new study may have solved the riddle. In a new study, physicists from the United States and Israel may have gotten to the

New international research found that food webs are becoming less complex in warmer, nutrient-rich waters. The effect of rising water temperatures on ecosystems is likely to interact with pre-existing pressures, such as excess nutrients from pollution, resulting in a dangerous combination, according to a new study. New international research, conducted by the University of Sheffield

A new article concludes that current climate standards are not sufficiently incentivizing the big picture innovations necessary to deliver net zero, and must be expanded to include a company's broader influence on climate action. A new paper from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford concludes that current climate standards are

For a long time, scientists assumed that jellies (commonly known as jellyfish) were a dead-end food source for predatory fish. However, a team has now discovered that fish in Greenland waters do indeed feed on jellyfish. In two of the analyzed species, they even made up the majority of the food. The results suggest that

In 2017, the Minamata Convention on Mercury went into effect, designed to help curb mercury emissions and limit exposure across the globe. However, a new study of mercury levels in soil suggests that the treaty's provisions might not be enough. The study estimates that soil stores substantially more mercury than previously thought, and it predicts

A new technique will make it much easier for researchers to discover the traits or activities encoded by genes of unknown function in microbes, a key step toward understanding the roles and impact of individual species within the planet's diverse microbiomes. A new technique developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will make it

An international research team has discovered that comammox bacteria, first identified by them in 2015, can grow using guanidine, a nitrogen-rich organic compound, as their sole energy and nitrogen source. This unique ability opens new avenues for targeted cultivation of these enigmatic microbes and could also provide a key to reducing agricultural nitrous oxide emissions.

The distribution of species around the globe is not a random process but an outcome resulting from several evolutionary mechanisms as well as past and current environmental limitations. As a result, since the mid-19th century, biologists have identified several main regions, called biogeographic realms, that depict these large ensembles of species around the world. These

Parent size and the conditions in which actively spawning adults lived are the most influential factors affecting growth of Lake Erie walleye, a new study has found. Parent size and the conditions in which actively spawning adults lived are the most influential factors affecting growth of Lake Erie walleye, a new study has found. The

A high-sugar diet is seen as a risk factor for obesity and chronic illness. Researchers have analyzed data on sugar intake among children and adolescents in a long-term study, finding that intake has been declining steadily since 2010 -- but is still above the level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). A high-sugar diet