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.
The river may rage or gently roll, but in the end the sand and silt will have their way. Rice University Earth scientists and their colleagues have defined a surprising breakpoint at which the grain size of riverbed sediment exercises extraordinary control over how much material will be transported downstream, nourishing deltas and coastlines. New … Read more
In first-of-its-kind research, NOAA scientists and academic partners used 100 years of microscopic shells to show that the coastal waters off California are acidifying twice as fast as the global ocean average — with the seafood supply in the crosshairs. California coastal waters contain some of our nation’s more economically valuable fisheries, including salmon, crabs … Read more
The bushfires raging across Australia are a distressing example of connections between global environmental problems that amplify human impacts on the Earth System, says ANU scientist Dr Steven Lade. He and other authors, including ANU Emeritus Professor Will Steffen, write about this concerning phenomenon in Nature Sustainability, using the ‘planetary boundaries’ framework to analyse these … Read more
The University of British Columbia has joined communities and organizations around the world in declaring a climate emergency. “UBC acknowledges the urgency of the climate crisis and we must directly face the coming challenges. At this pivotal moment, the decisions and actions we take will reverberate beyond our own borders and lifetimes,” said UBC President … Read more
A new paper to be published on 16 December provides a significant new insight into our understanding of uranium biogeochemistry and could help with the UK’s nuclear legacy. Conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Manchester, Diamond Light Source and Radioactive Waste Management, their work shows for the first time how uranium … Read more
Climate change is not being taken into account in the design and management of marine parks, according to research featuring University of Queensland scientists. UQ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences’ Dr Daniel Dunn said there was no repository of information showing which of the world’s marine protection plans have been adapted for climate change. “Simply – we … Read more
Scientists have identified systematic meanders in the globe-circling northern jet stream that have caused simultaneous crop-damaging heat waves in widely separated breadbasket regions—a previously unquantified threat to global food production that, they say, could worsen with global warming. The research shows that certain kinds of waves in the atmospheric circulation can become amplified and then lock in place for extended periods, … Read more
New research from The Australian National University (ANU) and Geoscience Australia could provide a much clearer picture of the Australian landscape, and how to better manage it under a changing climate. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows the Australian continent at its ‘barest’ – or least vegetated. Dr Dale Roberts designed a new mathematical … Read more
Earth’s breathable atmosphere is key for life, and a new study suggests that the first burst of oxygen was added by a spate of volcanic eruptions brought about by tectonics. The study by geoscientists at Rice University offers a new theory to help explain the appearance of significant concentrations of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere about … Read more
A University of California, Irvine-led team of glaciologists has unveiled the most accurate portrait yet of the contours of the land beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet – and, by doing so, has helped identify which regions of the continent are going to be more, or less, vulnerable to future climate warming. Highly anticipated by the global … Read more