news 2024

Heavy pooling meltwater can fracture ice, potentially leading to ice shelf collapse When air temperatures in Antarctica rise and glacier ice melts, water can pool on the surface of floating ice shelves, weighing them down and causing the ice to bend. Now, for the first time in the field, researchers have shown that ice shelves don't just buckle under the weight of meltwater lakes - they fracture.

A study shows that if communities think outsiders are stealing their forest resources, they are more likely to want to increase their own harvest. The research, led by Imperial College London and Max Plank Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology researchers, shows why effective boundaries around a community's common-pool resource are key to sustainable management of that resource.

Scientists have shed light on a new, transformative approach that could help resolve a dispute over the Nile river's water resources. The Nile is one of the longest rivers globally and spreads over 11 countries in East Africa, supplying water, energy production, environmental quality and cultural wealth.

A new algorithm is making it easier for ecologists and conservationists to find bat roost locations - reducing search areas by nearly 375 times their previous size. The technology combines microphone detector data with a bat movement model to identify optimal searching regions and predict roost locations.

Citizens will need greater financial support and advice as they make the switch to decarbonised heat sources, research from Cardiff University shows. Published in the journal Nature Energy , this is the first paper to examine in-depth householder perceptions across a diverse range of low carbon heating technologies including heat pumps, hydrogen, hybrid heating and heat networks, as well as upgrades to home insulation and energy networks that will be needed to make each technology work.

Researchers have discovered the missing piece of the puzzle behind a rare opening in the sea ice around Antarctica, which was nearly twice the size of Wales and occurred during the winters of 2016 and 2017. A study published today [1 May 2024] 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.

In response to the escalating fire crises in the Amazon, a timely study has revealed alarming shortcomings in the emergency fire bans implemented by the Brazilian Government. Initially seen as a promising solution in 2019, these bans have consistently fallen short in subsequent years, revealing a pressing need for strategies that address the underlying causes of each type of fire.

Competition between species played a major role in the rise and fall of hominins, and produced a "bizarre" evolutionary pattern for the Homo lineage. This is almost unparalleled in evolutionary science Laura van Holstein Climate has long been held responsible for the emergence and extinction of hominin species.

A new study shows that ocean acidification is changing the mix of microbes in coral reef systems, which can be used to assess ecosystem health. The study, published today in Microbiome , looked at coral reefs specifically, but the researchers say it could be widely applicable as a method for measuring how ecosystems are responding to human activities.

Nineteen out of 34 countries surveyed failed to fully meet their 2020 climate commitments set 15 years ago in Copenhagen, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in Nature Climate Change , compared the actual net carbon emissions of more than 30 nations to their 2009 pledged emission reduction targets set during the Copenhagen Climate Summit.

Outsourcing energy-intensive industrial processes to Global South is creating problems for our planet Manufacturing nations in the Global North are stockpiling energy and emission problems by outsourcing energy-intensive industrial processes to countries in the Global South, a new study reveals. Global North countries use their advantages in capital and technology to grab a large amount of energy through outsourcing - creating a 'false decoupling' of energy consumption from economic growth.

In a new study, researchers from Oxford's Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health have found that pregnant mothers' exposure to air pollution from indoor stoves did not affect the development of their babies in any statistically significant way, challenging conventional wisdom regarding the impact of household air pollution on fetal growth.

A study by the University of Southampton has found that market forces have provided good food price stability over the past half century, despite extreme weather conditions. Research into US wheat commodities by economists at Southampton, in collaboration with UCL, also suggests high uncertainty about the state of future harvests hasn't destabilised the market.

Farmers don't have to choose between lowering environmental impact and improving welfare for their pigs, a new study has found: it is possible to do both. But this is not reflected in the current food labelling schemes relied on by consumers. The way we classify farm types and label pork isn't helpful for making informed decisions when it comes to buying more sustainable meat.

For the first time, signs of the rainbow-like 'glory effect' have been detected on a planet outside our solar system. Glory are colourful concentric rings of light that occur only under peculiar conditions. Glory occurs when light is reflected off clouds made up of a perfectly uniform, but so far unknown, substance.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford has found that birds that are more social are more likely to use novel sources of food. The findings have been published in iScience . The findings suggest that highly social birds may alleviate the costs of competition for food by foraging more broadly and exploiting novel food sources, but future research could explore whether there are additional reasons which explain why more social individuals are more likely to tolerate new foods.

Researchers at Imperial College London have genetically engineered bacteria to grow animaland plastic-free leather that dyes itself. In recent years, scientists and companies have started using microbes to grow sustainable textiles or to make dyes for industry - but this is the first time bacteria have been engineered to produce a material and its own pigment simultaneously.

Scientists from the Milner Centre have published the largest ever evolutionary tree for birds as part of the Bird 10,000 Genomes Project (B10K). Published on Monday 1 April 2024 Last updated on Tuesday 9 April 2024 Bird brains have got bigger relative to their body sizes over evolutionary time, according to research by an international team of scientists, which has published the most comprehensive and detailed family tree of bird species as part of the Bird 10,000 Genomes Project (B10K) in the prestigious journal Nature .

Analysing the diversity of organic compounds dissolved in freshwater provides a reliable measure of ecosystem health, say scientists. Our technique is a very simple way to get a comprehensive overview of what's going on in a particular river or lake. Jérémy Fonvielle The source of pollutants in rivers and freshwater lakes can now be identified using a comprehensive new water quality analysis, according to scientists at the University of Cambridge and Trent University, Canada.

Smaller and newer homes use less energy than larger, older ones, confirms a new report by UCL researchers that offers unique insights into household energy consumption across the country. The report, published by UCL's Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL), analysed the gas and electricity use of more than 13,000 representative households across Great Britain over two years.