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Environment

Scientists are exploring the possibilities of turning mycelium, the fungus that produces mushrooms, into a new type of building material. Image credit - Rob Hille/Wikimedia, licensed under CC SA3.0
environment
14 January 2021

Why future homes could be made of living fungus

In the summer of 2014 a strange building began to take shape just outside MoMA PS1, a contemporary art centre in New York City. It looked like someone had started building an igloo and then got carried away, so that the ice-white bricks rose into huge towers. It was a captivating sight, but the truly impressive thing about this building was not so much its looks but the fact that it had been grown. 

environment | industry
11 January 2021

Carrot cement: How root vegetables and ash could make concrete more sustainable

Concrete has become our building material of choice for countless structures such as bridges, towers and dams. But it also has a huge environmental footprint mostly due to carbon dioxide emissions from the production of cement – one of its main constituents. Researchers are now experimenting with root vegetables and recycled plastic in concrete to see whether this can make it stronger – and more sustainable – and even power streetlights or air pollution sensors.

interview | energy | environment | industry
05 January 2021

Q&A: ‘We need to reduce the ‘embodied energy’ of buildings

Retrofitting Europe’s buildings for energy efficiency is not enough to slash the carbon footprint of the construction sector and cut emissions in time to meet the Paris climate agreement goals, according to Dr Catherine De Wolf, assistant professor of design and construction management at TU Delft in the Netherlands.

With a 2020 that focused on coronavirus, we asked some of our interviewees from the year what they expect to see happen in their scientific field in 2021. Image credit - Gabriella Clare Marino/Unsplash
health | coronavirus outbreak | environment
04 January 2021

2021: Beyond coronavirus - what’s in store for science in the year ahead?

There was one science story that dominated 2020 and coronavirus is likely to remain a dominant theme in 2021. But from vaccine rollout to lessons for future pandemics and – that other big challenge that we’re facing – climate change, how will the year in science play out? We asked a selection of our interviewees about lessons from 2020 and what needs to happen in their fields in the coming year.

environment | health | space | coronavirus outbreak
17 December 2020

Twenty surprising scientific facts we learned in 2020

From corals bunkering down in deeper waters to wait out climate change stress, to how vaccines can boost our immune system beyond a specific disease – here are the 20 most surprising scientific facts that we discovered this year. 

Clouds that form in a polluted area will have different properties from those that form around natural particles such as desert dust. Image credit: Pixabay/Pixabay Licence
environment | frontier research
30 November 2020

Black carbon and other pollution seeds clouds. We’re just starting to understand the climate implications

Particles swirling around our atmosphere add to climate change, yet much about how they interact with sunlight and influence the seeding of clouds remains puzzling. Studies are lifting the lid on how these tiny particles influence something as big as climate by analysing them from jet aircraft, satellites and ground measurements. 

The structure of coral polyps provide an ideal habitat for colonies of Symbiodinium sp. algae to grow. Image credit - Dr Wangpraseurt
energy | environment
23 November 2020

3-D printed corals, new bioreactors to boost microalgae production for biofuels

Using light as an energy source, photosynthetic microalgae can be used to produce products like biofuels and cosmetics. But algae grown in a reactor block out the light on which they feed. New reactor designs could solve this problem and help the industry move forward.

A complex system of clouds and aerosols forms over much of South Asia as part of the monsoon - the challenge was to find out what it contains. Image credit - Sparsh Karki/Pexels, licenced under CC0
environment | frontier research
19 November 2020

The mission to decipher a mysterious aerosol layer above Himalayan monsoon clouds

For Stephan Borrmann, a day of high altitude detective work begins early. He wakes at about 05:30am in a hotel in the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal. After a quick breakfast, he and his team are driven to the city’s airport. Their job is to prepare a converted Russian espionage plane so that it can investigate one of the biggest mysteries of the atmosphere.

Mushroom growing matter makes great compost but contains a lot of water, making it heavy and unprofitable to transport, so it currently goes to waste. Image credit - needpix.com//licenced under CC0
environment | agriculture
18 November 2020

Mushroom cultivation produces three times its weight in waste. It’s now being turned into burgers and fertiliser

Cultivating mushrooms produces a lot of waste. For every kilogram of mushrooms produced, about three kilograms of soil-like material containing straw, manure and peat is left behind. In the EU, this results in more than 3 billion kilograms of waste per year.

Researchers are trying to determine if different song dialects in groups of S. bilineata bats is driving genetic change and ultimately to them becoming two different species. Image credit - Karin Schneeberger/Wikimedia, licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0
environment | frontier research
17 November 2020

Bats have different song cultures and chatter about food, sleep, sex and other bats

A slow drive in the dead of night through the forests of northwestern Costa Rica helped home in on the target. Dr Mirjam Knörnschild and her team had equipment with a microphone hooked to the top of their car to take recordings of bats.

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