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Environment

Smart windows that darken or lighten according to temperature to control the amount of heat entering a building could reduce the need for energy-intensive air conditioners. Image credit - Isaac Benhesed / Unsplash
energy | environment | frontier research
11 March 2021

Smart windows could reduce the need for energy-hungry air conditioners

Smart windows that control the amount of heat that enters or leaves a building can reduce the need for energy-intensive air conditioning units and help efforts to retrofit Europe’s buildings to make them more energy efficient.  

Demolition waste is turned into new concrete and used to make sturdy concrete alternatives, energy reducing components, and aerogel insulation material. Image credit - Brandon Hoogenboom / Unsplash
environment
09 March 2021

Building from old buildings: demolition waste is being turned into new concrete

Concrete can perform just as well if three-quarters of its content has been recycled, a team has found.

Bee and wasp hotels can tell scientists about the fitness of different populations - how many are born, how many die and how many have parasites in their nest. Image credit - Markus Winkler / Unsplash
environment
08 March 2021

What urban nature really means for insect biodiversity

Parks and green spaces in cities provide health and wellness benefits to human inhabitants, but they’re not necessarily beneficial for other urban dwellers – like insects. Researchers are investigating urban biodiversity with approaches such as ‘bee hotels’ to see how cities can better foster insect life.

We need to learn more about insects to correct our biased view of the world, says Dr Alexey Solodovnikov. Image credit: Alexey Solodovnikov
interview | environment
01 March 2021

Q&A: Climate monitoring, pandemic insight, decomposition – what insects do for us

Insects are vital to the health of our planet but they can also reveal a lot about climate change and help us fight future vector-borne disease outbreaks, says Alexey Solodovnikov, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, who runs the rove beetle-dedicated Solodovnikov Lab and is a curator at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. 

New techniques aim to help Mediterranean wine makers and olive oil producers become resilient against climate change. Image credit: Łukasz Czechowicz/Unsplash
environment | agriculture
24 February 2021

Mediterranean wineries are in a climate hotspot. Climatologists are helping them adapt

From the possible demise of Merlot grapes in Bordeaux to loss of olive trees in north Africa, the impacts of climate change will be felt by farmers across the Mediterranean region, say climatologists.

There is still limited scientific knowledge about how animals feel pain, or whether they all do. Image credit - Christoph Polatzky/Unsplash
environment | frontier research
16 February 2021

How does it feel to be a bee? The quest to understand animal sentience

What is it like to be a bee? Or a spider? Does a crab feel pleasure or pain? Behavioural and welfare science have moved on considerably in the past 20 years, but there is still a huge amount we don’t know about how animals actually feel – or, indeed, whether they all do.

According to Marcel Huschebeck, the physical internet could improve the speed of shipments, resulting in faster deliveries. Image credit - CHUTTERSNAP/Unsplash
transport | environment
15 February 2021

How the ‘physical internet’ could revolutionise the way goods are moved

Shipping goods from furniture to food could be transformed by a new transport network called the ‘physical internet.’ It is built on similar principles to the internet, which revolutionised the way information flows around the word, including open access and global interconnectedness. Researchers hope to make it a reality by 2040, when a fully autonomous network should be in place.

European demand for goods and services creates environmental impacts outside the borders of the EU, which has implications for the EU's climate goals. Image credit - Hugh Nelson/Wikimedia, licensed under CC 3.0
environment | frontier research
08 February 2021

To confront climate change, we need to understand the environmental footprint of global supply chains

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic upended international trade. Countries shut their borders, breaking the webs of supply chains that crisscross the globe. These systems of people, organisations and companies work to supply consumers with products, such as mobile phones, or services, like transportation. While some supply chains have since returned to a semblance of normality, understanding their extent – and how they interact – may be vital if humanity wants to confront its other great challenge: climate change.

Living with people means that dogs and humans experience similar social and environmental influences on a daily basis. Image credit - Alvan Nee/Unsplash
health | science in society | environment
03 February 2021

Why dogs can teach humans about healthier ageing

Our pet dogs could help extend human lives beyond their documented effects on people’s wellbeing. Increasingly, studies are looking at how the domestic dog, Canis familiaris, is key to understanding cognition and processes involved in ageing – something that could improve both animal and human wellbeing.

For a month, Dr Weimerskirch team's only contact with the outside world was a daily one-minute sat phone call with their base in the Kerguelen Islands'capital. Image credit - Henri Weimerskirch/CNRS
environment
28 January 2021

In the Antarctic, a scientist recruits albatrosses to pinpoint illegal fishing boats

Albatross expert Dr Henri Weimerskirch, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), turned his favourite seabirds into spies two years ago by fixing them up with loggers that could detect the radar of illegal fishing vessels. The information from this project, known as OCEAN SENTINEL, has helped governments select which parts of the ocean to patrol. But Dr Weimerskirch wanted to recruit another, possibly better, species to stealth operations. In late 2020, he returned to the remote Kerguelen Islands, in the southern Indian Ocean, to see if they would cooperate. He told Horizon about his expedition.

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