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We're used to seeing the humble midge around the Scottish countryside, but now scientists are asking people in Scotland to be on the lookout for mosquitoes, as new research shows they can be found in many locations across the country. Mosquito Scotland - a collaborative project between the University of Glasgow, the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) - has established a surveillance project across the country, and has been collecting data on Scottish mosquitoes for a year.

The privatisation of land for renewable energy infrastructure in Brazil is leading to the appropriation of once-public and common lands by large international corporations because of poor oversight and lack of transparency, finds a new study involving UCL researchers. The study, published in Nature Sustainability, found that land privatisation is the dominant means for solar and wind companies to secure land for their power generation infrastructure, which includes the transfer of control of formerly public and common lands to often international companies.

Current methods to count plastic pollution in rivers are insufficient and do not account for the fragments which sink below the surface, a team of scientists have warned. These 'invisible' plastic particles can be suspended below the water line or sink to the riverbed where they are potentially harmful to the ecology of the river.

Climate tipping points can either result from a slow but linear development, or can "flicker" between two stable climatic states that alternate before a final, permanent transition occurs, finds a new study featuring a UCL researcher. The study, published in Nature Communications , confirms this alternating transition for the end of the African Humid Period, a time between about 14,000 and 5,000 years ago when northern Africa was much wetter, as it shifted to the pronounced aridity that is typical today.

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.