SciGlow | All Science News In One Place
SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
Scientists have combined analyses from honey and salmon to show how lead from natural and industrial sources gets distributed throughout the environment. By analysing the relative presence of differing lead isotopes in honey and Pacific salmon, Vancouver-based scientists have been able to trace the sources of lead (and other metals) throughout the region. Scientists in … Read more
Even though Earth is habitable (has surface liquid water and some crust) for 4.3 billion years, and the oldest putative traces of life suggested go back up to 4.1 billion years, the presence of a microbial biosphere is solidly demonstrated only since 3.4 billion years ago. The challenges are numerous: the preserved rock record starts … Read more
A good rainstorm can make a city feel clean and revitalized. However, the substances that wash off of buildings, streets and sidewalks and down storm drains might not be so refreshing. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology have analyzed untreated urban stormwater from 50 rainstorms across the U.S., finding a wide variety of contaminants … Read more
Injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) deep below the seabed could be an important strategy for mitigating climate change, according to some experts. However, scientists need a reliable way to monitor such sites for leakage of the greenhouse gas. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology have studied natural sources of CO2 release off the coast of … Read more
For the first time scientists have been able to reconstruct the chemical composition of rainwater from 300 million year old minerals, allowing them to unpick some of the history of Brittany and Western France since the rain fell in the late Carboniferous period, just before the time of the dinosaurs. The results point to the … Read more
Sea temperature and ocean acidification have climbed during the last three decades to levels beyond what is expected due to natural variation alone, a new study led by Princeton researchers finds. Meanwhile other impacts from climate change, such as changes in the activity of ocean microbes that regulate the Earth’s carbon and oxygen cycles, will … Read more
Heatwaves are the deadliest natural disaster in Europe and have become increasingly frequent and intense in recent years. So far this summer, Western Europe has already been hit by two severe heatwaves that have shattered numerous temperature records. In a recent study funded by the European Research Council (ERC), researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands … Read more
Europe, North America and parts of Asia can expect not just more intense but also longer lasting periods of heat, drought and rain during summer as the planet warms, worsening impacts on health and agriculture, according to a study led by researchers from Climate Analytics and Humboldt University of Berlin. The study, “Summer weather becomes … Read more
In 2005, INTERFACE (An Integrated Network for Terrestrial Ecosystem Research on Feedbacks to the Atmosphere and ClimatE) created and released a global distribution map of GCMEs (Fig. 1). The map showed a clear message that compared with the United States and Europe, China is relatively backward in global change research using the methodology of manipulative … Read more
Bacteria found in muddy marshes, estuaries and coastal sediment synthesise one of the Earth’s most abundant climate cooling gases – according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is an important nutrient in marine environments with billions of tonnes produced annually by marine phytoplankton (microscopic plant-like cells), seaweed, corals and … Read more