Scientists discover how to restore carbon-rich peatlands

A new study by Monash University researchers has applied the Rapid Evidence Review method for the first time to peatland conservation and suggests the technique can be applied to other environmental problems.

Study: Ability to produce humor linked to higher intelligence levels in schoolchildren

Children with higher levels of general knowledge and verbal reasoning are better able to produce humor, new research carried out on Turkish schoolchildren suggests.

Amazonian river winds unraveled by air pollution observations

River winds are induced by the daily thermal contrast between the land and the river. During the daytime, warmer temperatures over the land lead to lighter air masses that are lifted. The air masses in turn drive onshore air movement from the river toward the land. Subsequently, the air subsides over the river. The result is a closed local air circulation cell in the vertical plane (Figure 1). At night, the land cools more rapidly, and the air circulation reverses because the river is warmer. Because these driving forces combine with larger and smaller atmospheric flows of trade winds and local topography, the combined river winds remain elusive and difficult to understand, measure and simulate. A key question then arise: How to obtain accurate observational evidence of these river wind circulations?

First European map of the insulating effect of forests

To cool off in summer, there's nothing better than a walk in the woods. Trees act as a buffer that cools the air beneath their foliage in summer and warms it in winter. This phenomenon is caused not only by the protection that the forest canopy provides, but also by the transpiration of trees in summer: trees absorb cooler water from the soil, and this water is then transported up to the leaves, ending up in the atmosphere and thus cooling the surrounding air. The insulating effect of forests has now been mapped for the first time in Europe by an international research team, including a CNRS researcher.

Almost one-in-three people globally will still be mainly using polluting cooking fuels in 2030

In 2030, almost 1 in 3people around the world will still be mainly using polluting cooking fuels and technologies, a major source of disease and environmental destruction and devastation, new research warned. This rises to more than 4 in 5 in sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of people mainly using polluting fuels is growing at an alarming rate.

Electricity consumption reveals proactive community response to COVID-19 progression

Successful mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic requires effecting massive behavioral change in individuals across the world. For policymakers to evaluate the success of public health interventions, the ability to accurately and quickly assess a population's response is imperative.

When intuition fails, how to use probability and statistics to find the real answers

Imagine there's a bus that arrives every 30 minutes on average and you arrive at the bus stop with no idea when the last bus left. How long can you expect to wait for the next bus? Intuitively, half of 30 minutes sounds right, but you'd be very lucky to wait only 15 minutes.

Seabirds successfully nesting in Oʻahu neighborhoods

ʻUaʻu kani, or wedge-tailed shearwater, is a seabird species common in Hawaiʻi. Though historically found nesting along coastlines, human development in these areas has likely reduced the availability of nesting habitats, pushing the seabird colonies to nest in undeveloped islets.

Social science for algorithmic societies

Machine learning algorithms pervade modern life. They shape decisions about who gets a mortgage, who gets a job, and who gets bail, and have become so enmeshed in our political and economic processes that some scientists argue we are witnessing the emergence of "algorithmically infused societies."

Stellar winds and evaporating exoplanet atmospheres

Most stars including the sun generate magnetic activity that drives a fast-moving, ionized wind and also produces X-ray and ultraviolet emission (often referred to as XUV radiation). XUV radiation from a star can be absorbed in the upper atmosphere of an orbiting planet, where it is capable of heating the gas enough for it to escape from the planet's atmosphere. M-dwarf stars, the most common type of star by far, are smaller and cooler than the sun, and they can have very active magnetic fields. Their cool surface temperatures result in their habitable zones (HZ) being close to the star (the HZ is the range of distances within which an orbiting planet's surface water can remain liquid). Any rocky exoplanets that orbit an M-dwarf in its HZ, because they are close to the star, are especially vulnerable to the effects of photoevaporation which can result in partial or even total removal of the atmosphere. Some theorists argue that planets with substantial hydrogen or helium envelopes might actually become more habitable if photoevaporation removes enough of the gas blanket.

Video: We asked a NASA technologist – is there oxygen on Mars?

Is there oxygen on Mars? Technically yes, but it's nothing like the amount we have on Earth. So breathing is out of the question. However, there is a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2) on Mars.

Domesticated salmon have smaller eyes in the farm but not in the wild

The domestication of Atlantic salmon through years of fish farming has led to farmed Atlantic salmon developing smaller eyes according to a new piece of research published in the journal Evolutionary Applications.

Cool oasis for Cretaceous feathered dinosaurs

The Jehol Biota, an ancient ecosystem in Liaoning province in northeastern China, includes a dense and diverse array of Cretaceous flora and fauna and is a hot spot of feathered dinosaur fossils. A new study reconstructs a cool climate and high elevation at the site, providing critical environmental context for the wide array of dinosaurs preserved there.

New research reveals need for flexible, tailored support for domestic abuse survivors

A four-year evaluation led by academics at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), in partnership with Bangor University, the University of East London and Manchester Metropolitan University, has revealed the need for flexible domestic violence and abuse services that are more tailored and responsive to survivors' changing needs.

Image: Hubble views galaxy NGC 5728

Meet NGC 5728, a spiral galaxy around 130 million light-years from Earth. This image was acquired using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which is extremely sensitive to visible and infrared light. Therefore, it beautifully captures the regions of NGC 5728 that are emitting light at those wavelengths. However, there are many other types of light that galaxies such as NGC 5728 emit, which WFC3 can't see.

US duo win Nobel Medicine Prize for heat and touch work

US scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch, the jury said.

Half a degree makes a big difference in a warming world

Half a degree Celsius may not seem like much, but climate experts say a world that has warmed 1.5 degrees Celsius above 19th-century levels compared to 2C could be the difference between life and death.

Senegal's old capital on the frontline against rising sea

In the northern Senegalese city of Saint-Louis, excavators are ripping up the beach to lay giant blocks of basalt, in an eleventh-hour effort to keep the sea at bay.

California authorities rush to mitigate impact of major oil spill

Authorities in California's beachfront Orange County cities scrambled Sunday to mitigate the fallout from a major oil spill off the coast that caused "substantial ecological impacts."

1.5C is the climate goal, but how do we get there?

The science is painfully clear: to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius—given that we're already at 1.1C—means slashing carbon pollution in half by 2030, and to zero by mid-century.

Fires, floods, flying insects: 10 recent climate-fuelled disasters

From a summer of fire and record floods, to freak frosts and locusts invasions, experts say man-made climate change is wreaking havoc on the world's weather.

Research reveals how much plastic debris is currently floating in the Mediterranean Sea

A team of researchers have developed a model to track the pathways and fate of plastic debris from land-based sources in the Mediterranean Sea. They show that plastic debris can be observed across the Mediterranean, from beaches and surface waters to seafloors, and estimate that around 3,760 metric tons of plastics are currently floating in the Mediterranean.

Artificial intelligence makes it faster, easier to analyze hockey video

Researchers have made a key advancement in the development of technology to automatically analyze video of hockey games using artificial intelligence.