News 2019

As the decade comes to an end, we reflect on the stories that spiked your interest and topped the 'most read articles' chart this year. Ranked by page views, here are your favourite stories of 2019: 10. Mystery arthritis-linked knee bone three times more common than 100 years ago Imperial News Is it time to adjust the official number of bones in the human body? In April, researchers found that the small fabella bone, once thought to be a relic of the past, has made a comeback over the last century.

The Bedfordshire town of Luton has come bottom of a league table of predicted city-wide air pollution concentrations among UK cities, according to new analysis by the Universities of Birmingham and Lancaster. Although Luton's air pollution emissions are about as expected for its population, the town's compactness limits dispersal of pollution, meaning it drops to last place among the 146 most populous UK places in terms of predicted air pollution concentrations.

The Bedfordshire town of Luton has come bottom of a league table of predicted city-wide air pollution concentrations among UK cities, according to new analysis by the Universities of Birmingham and Lancaster. Although Luton's air pollution emissions are about as expected for its population, the town's compactness limits dispersal of pollution, meaning it drops to last place among the 146 most populous UK places in terms of predicted air pollution concentrations.

Scientists have discovered remnants of the world's oldest fossil forest in a sandstone quarry in Cairo, New York. It is believed the extensive network of trees, which would have spread from New York all the way into Pennsylvania and beyond, is around 386 million years old. This makes the Cairo forest around 2 or 3 million years older than what was thought to be the world's oldest forest at Gilboa, also in New York State and around 40 km away from the Cairo site.

Led by UK Universities, multi-disciplinary researchers from around the globe are joining forces in an innovative new research centre aimed at speeding up the use of radical new cooling solutions to help small-holder farmers, medicine suppliers and others make the most of clean and sustainable chilled distribution systems.

People exposed to higher levels of air pollution are more likely to experience depression or die by suicide, finds a new analysis led by UCL. The first systematic review and meta-analysis of evidence connecting air pollution and a range of mental health problems, published in Environmental Health Perspectives , reviewed study data from 16 countries.

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Understanding what influences the amount of methane in the atmosphere has been identified by the American Geophysical Union to be one of the foremost challenges in the earth sciences in the coming decades because of methane's hugely important role in meeting climate warming targets. Methane is the second most important human-made greenhouse gas and is rising in the atmosphere more rapidly than predicted for reasons that are not well-understood.

Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than in the 1990s, shows a new study by an international research team including Durham University. The rate of ice loss is in line with the more pessimistic climate warming scenario by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which would see 40 million more people exposed to coastal flooding by 2100.

Researchers at Oxford University, together with and international colleagues, have discovered jet stream patterns that could affect up to a quarter of global food production. In a new study published today , scientists show how specific wave patterns in the jet stream strongly increase the chance of co-occurring heatwaves in major food producing regions of Northern America, Western Europe and Asia.

With 2019 on track to be one of the warmest years on record, a major new study reveals the impact of warming temperatures on Arctic vegetation, animal species, and human communities who rely on the stability of the Arctic food chain to survive. The study, published today in Science Advances by an international team of researchers, reports that the Arctic has warmed by 0.

Tropical species are six times more sensitive to forests being broken up for logging or farming than temperate species, says new research. A team led by Oregon State University and including Imperial College London scientists found that sensitivity to forest fragmentation - the breakup of forests by human activities like logging or farming - increased six-fold at low versus high latitudes, putting tropical species at greater risk of extinction.

Greenhouse gas emissions released directly from the movement of volcanic rocks are capable of creating massive global warming effects - a discovery which could transform the way scientists predict climate change, a new study reveals. Scientists' calculations based on how carbon-based greenhouse gas levels link to movements of magma just below earth's surface suggest that such geological change has caused the largest temporary global warming of the past 65 million years.

Antarctic penguins have been on the forefront of climate change, experiencing massive changes to their natural habitat as the world's temperatures and human activity in the region have increased. Now, new research has revealed how penguins have dealt with more than a century of human impacts in Antarctica and why some species are winners or losers in this rapidly changing ecosystem.

Imperial College London scientists have created a new type of membrane that could improve water purification and battery energy storage efforts. The new approach to ion exchange membrane design, which is published today , uses low-cost plastic membranes with many tiny hydrophilic ('water-attracting') pores.

Biodiversity across the globe could be in a worse state than previously thought as current biodiversity assessments fail to take into account the long-lasting impact of abrupt land changes, a new study has warned. The study by PhD graduate Dr Martin Jung , Senior Lecturer in Geography Dr Pedram Rowhani and Professor of Conservation Science Jörn Scharlemann , all at the University of Sussex, shows that fewer species and fewer individuals are observed at sites that have been disturbed by an abrupt land change in past decades.

Young fish can be drawn to degraded coral reefs by loudspeakers playing the sounds of healthy reefs, according to new research published today [29 November] . An international team of scientists from the UK's Universities of Exeter and Bristol, and Australia's James Cook University and Australian Institute of Marine Science, say this "acoustic enrichment" could be a valuable tool in helping to restore damaged coral reefs.

A unique group of dogs helped the Inuit conquer the tough terrain of the North American Arctic, a major new analysis of the remains of hundreds of animals shows. The results of a major new study on the remains of Artic sledge dogs reveals that the Inuit brought specialised dogs with them when they migrated from Siberia over the Bering Strait into North America.

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Wind speeds across the globe have increased rapidly over the past decade signalling good news for the renewable energy industry, scientists say. New findings have shown that a worrying trend of decreasing wind speeds since the 1970s, a phenomenon known as global terrestrial stilling, has now been reversed with a significant increase observed since 2010.