news 2018

New research from the University of Oxford and collaborators at several other institutions provides compelling evidence that meeting the global warming target of 1.5°C may not be enough to limit the damage caused by extreme weather. The paper, published today , demonstrates that higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations directly increase temperature and rainfall extremes, meaning there could be dangerous changes in these extremes even if the global mean temperature rise remains within 1.5°C.

For the first time in our planet's 4.5 billion-year history a single species, humans, is increasingly dictating its future, according to a new book by UCL scientists. The new epoch known as the Anthropocene - assessed in 2015 by Professors Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin in a report published in Nature - marks the period when human impacts on our home planet have become global and sustained.

Palaeontologists from University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland have discovered 125 million-year-old dandruff preserved amongst the plumage of feathered dinosaurs and early birds, revealing the first evidence of how dinosaurs shed their skin. UCC's Dr Maria McNamara and her team studied the fossil cells, and dandruff from modern birds, with powerful electron microscopes for "The fossil cells are preserved with incredible detail - right down to the level of nanoscale keratin fibrils.

A new study, led by scientists at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing, China, including University of Bristol PhD student Zhang Hanwen, examined the feeding habits of ancient elephant relatives that inhabited Central Asia some 17 million years ago. Professor Wang Shiqi from IVPP, the study's senior author, said: "We found ancient elephant teeth in the Junggar Basin, in China's far North West and they belong to two species, Gomphotherium connexum , and the larger G .

The seas around the West Antarctic Peninsula have experienced some of the fastest global warming in recent decades, increasing the rate and richness of biological activity in the region. Innovative analytical techniques and collaborative research projects involving scientists from around the world are helping to improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of environmental change.

Iconic and intelligent creatures, elephants continue to fascinate curious onlookers and scientists alike. Now, a new Oxford University collaboration with Save The Elephants, has shown that elephant behaviour can be determined in a new way: through the vibrations they create. The findings of the study, published in the journal Current Biology, offer a new way to detect elephants and discern their behaviour without having them in sight.

A 2013 CNES/Airbus satellite image of a new site that could be identified because looting pits over the site are visible on high-resolution satellite imagery. Map data ©2018 Google. New Oxford University research has called for an 'open-skies policy' around the availability of high resolution satellite imagery of Israel and Palestine.

New research, led by the University of Bristol, has provided fresh insight into how huge volcanic ash plumes, which can critically disrupt aviation and cause major impact on the ground, are transported in the atmosphere. In 2010, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano EyjafjallajÓ§kull caused widespread travel chaos, with the cancellation of more than 100,000 flights and economic losses of $200 million per day.

The answer to the question 'What's in a shape?' hinges on this memory property. Megan Davies Wykes Crescent dunes and meandering rivers can 'forget' their initial shapes as they are carved and reshaped by wind and water while other landforms keep a memory of their past shape, suggests new research. "Asking how these natural sculptures come to be is more than mere curiosity because locked in their shapes are clues to the history of an environment," said Leif Ristroph from New York University and the senior author of the paper , which is published in the journal Physical Review Fluids .

An earthquake in South Korea which injured close to 100 people and caused tens of millions of pounds of damage was plausibly the result of nearby hydraulic fracturing works, scientists say. In a new paper published today (Thursday 26 April) , researchers from the University of Glasgow, ETH-Zurich in Switzerland, and GFZ-Potsdam in Germany report on detailed seismological analysis of the magnitude 5.5 earthquake which occurred near the city of Pohang in November 2017.

It is commonly understood that the dinosaurs disappeared with a bang - wiped out by a great meteorite impact on the Earth 66 million years ago. But their origins have been less understood. In a new study, scientists from MUSE - Museum of Science, Trento, Italy, Universities of Ferrara and Padova, Italy and the University of Bristol show that the key expansion of dinosaurs was also triggered by a crisis - a mass extinction that happened 232 million years ago.

 North Atlantic circulation is weaker today than it has been for over a thousand years, and leading climate change models could be overestimating its stability, according to a team of scientists led by UCL and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, US. In the first comprehensive study of ocean-based records scientists have observed a marked weakening of Atlantic circulation over the past 150 years.

Researchers have measured CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use in California and compared them to reported emissions. This is the first time fossil fuel emissions have been independently checked for such a large area. Carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel combustion is the primary driver of climate change, and many governments, companies and citizens are making efforts to curb their emissions.

Imperial experts have found a 'breadcrumb trail' of debris from an 800,000 year old meteor impact Around 800,000 years ago, a 20 kilometre meteor collided with the earth, producing a zone of debris in Australasia which covers a tenth of the Earth's surface. However, despite the impact's relatively young age in geological terms, and the meteor's size, the resulting crater's location eludes us.

Imperial experts have found a 'breadcrumb trail' of debris from an 800,000 year old meteor impact Around 800,000 years ago, a 20 kilometre meteor collided with the earth, producing a zone of debris in Australasia which covers a tenth of the Earth's surface. However, despite the impact's relatively young age in geological terms, and the meteor's size, the resulting crater's location eludes us.

Just hours after the 7.8 magnitude Kaikoura earthquake hit New Zealand in 2016 research by Dr Tom Robinson , Department of Geography , was helping to inform the work of first responders in the area. At the time of the earthquake Dr Robinson was collaborating with colleagues from the universities of Canterbury and Otago in New Zealand, to test a computer modelling approach to predict earthquake-related landslides.

Memories of the largest lava flood in the history of Iceland, recorded in an apocalyptic medieval poem, were used to drive the island's conversion to Christianity, new research suggests. With a firm date for the eruption, many entries in medieval chronicles snap into place as likely consequences. Clive Oppenheimer A team of scientists and medieval historians, led by the University of Cambridge, has used information contained within ice cores and tree rings to accurately date a massive volcanic eruption, which took place soon after the island was first settled.

Researchers got a rare opportunity to study an underwater volcano in the Caribbean when it erupted while they were surveying the area. The research, published today in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems , provides new insight into the little-studied world of underwater volcanoes. It investigated a volcano named Kick-'em-Jenny (KeJ), which is thought to be named after the turbulent waters nearby.

Fossils of six new species of pterosaurs, giant flying reptiles that flew over the heads of the dinosaurs, have been discovered by a team of researchers led by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath. Pterosaurs, prehistoric reptiles popularly known as pterodactyls, were flying cousins of the dinosaurs.

The risk of man-made earthquakes due to fracking is greatly reduced if high-pressure fluid injection used to crack underground rocks is 895m away from faults in the Earth's crust, according to new research. The recommendation, from the ReFINE (Researching Fracking) consortium, is based on published microseismic data from 109 fracking operations carried out predominantly in the USA.