Researchers are developing a living material that actively extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Photosynthetic cyanobacteria grow inside it, forming biomass and solid minerals and thus binding CO2 in two different manners. In brief The idea seems futuristic: At ETH Zurich, various disciplines are working together to combine conventional materials with bacteria, algae and fungi….
It’s a plant that can build your house, fuel your body, and clothe you. It’s also a plant that looks almost exactly like its notorious cousin, marijuana. This is the heart of a complex puzzle facing Papua New Guinea right now: what to do about industrial hemp? Or should we even be talking about it?…
Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies. Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp….
Two major environmental shifts have triggered global transformations in large herbivore communities. A new study with researchers from the University of Gothenburg show how these ecosystems remained remarkably resilient despite extinction and upheaval. From mastodons to ancient rhinos and giant deer, large herbivores have been shaping Earth’s landscapes for millions of years. A new study,…
New research from Colorado State University and Cornell University shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado’s grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and – particularly during dry years – increase plant growth by about 20% or more compared to open fields. The findings were published in Environmental Research Letters this…
While many farmers are continuing to wait for rain during record-dry conditions, some in the far west of New South Wales are focused on being rain-ready. As part of the Perennial Pastures Resilient Rangelands project, a small group of farmers are working with Local Land Services NSW at a site on a remote station north…
In a review in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Stephen Long, a professor of crop sciences and of plant biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, describes research efforts to “future-proof” the crops that are essential to feeding a hungry world in a changing climate. Long, who has spent decades studying the…
Replanting forests can help cool the planet even more than some scientists once believed, especially in the tropics. But even if every tree lost since the mid-19th century is replanted, the total effect won’t cancel out human-generated warming. Cutting emissions remains essential. In a new modeling study published in Communications Earth & Environment, researchers at…
Cannabis has been a globally important crop for millennia. While best known today as marijuana for its psychoactive cannabinoid THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), historically, cannabis has been a cornerstone of human civilization, providing seed oil, textiles, and food for more than 10,000 years. Today, cannabis remains an understudied and underutilized resource, but United States legislation passed in…
Abandoned mine in Pernik, Bulgaria – © trabantos/Shutterstock The EU Just Transition Fund supports the European regions most affected by the abandonment of fossil fuels, financing green innovation, job retraining and environmental clean-ups. Its implementation, however, is proceeding very slowly The European Union’s transition to climate neutrality, as outlined in the Green Deal, is one…