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Environment

Placing heat tolerant corals in reefs won’t save them indefinitely but only buy us more time, says Dr James Guest. Image credit - Dr James Guest
interview | frontier research | environment
16 December 2019

Matchmaking corals from different colonies could reduce bleaching events

Breeding together corals that have naturally high heat tolerance and planting them on coral reefs could increase the reefs’ resilience to climate change and reduce the impact of bleaching events, according to Dr James Guest, a coral reef ecologist from Newcastle University, UK. He is studying this ‘assisted evolution’ approach to coral conservation and examining the risks associated with it.

Unlike regular earthquakes, which can cause visible damage, slow earthquakes cannot be felt at the Earth's surface. Image credit - Pixabay/ marcellomigliosi1956, licensed under pixabay license
environment | frontier research
10 December 2019

The ‘slow earthquakes’ that we cannot feel may help protect against the devastating ones

Earthquakes are sudden and their shaking can be devastating. But about 20 years ago, a new type of earthquake was discovered. We cannot feel them, and geologists still know very little about them, such as how often they occur.

Peatlands occupy roughly 2% or 3% of the land’s surface but we don’t know how deep they go. Image credit - Marisa04/ Pixabay
environment
28 November 2019

Why bogs may be key to fighting climate change

There are, arguably, only two interesting facts about bogs. The first is that some people have a jolly good time swimming through them, notably at the World Bog Snorkelling Championships held each year in central Wales, UK. The second is that they could help save the world.

Transparent wood is created by stripping out lignin from wood and replacing it with a polymer. Image credit - WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
industry | frontier research | environment
26 November 2019

Transparent wood: the building material of the future?

When Timothée Boitouzet studied architecture in Japan, where buildings need to survive earthquakes, he realised the next smart material might be one that humans have used for thousands of years – wood.

The volatility of seasons is affecting the breeding patterns of Brent geese, a migratory bird species. Image credit - Flickr/milo bostock, licensed under CC BY 2.0
environment | frontier research
07 November 2019

Changing climate is narrowing options for migrating birds

Across an entire desert or ocean, migratory birds make some of the most extreme journeys found in nature, but there are still huge gaps in our understanding of how they manage to travel these vast distances and what a changing climate means for their migration patterns.

The peat fire in the field experiment in Dumai, South Sumatra, continued to burn after three days of torrential rain. Video/image credit - Yulianto Sulistyo Nugroho
interview | environment | frontier research | security
31 October 2019

In a picture: ‘Not enough people are aware of this monster’

Professor Guillermo Rein, a fire scientist, tells Horizon why smouldering peatland fires are so dangerous and why we know so little about them.

In poorer countries, using raw wastewater to irrigate urban farms could be an underlying cause of antibiotic resistance. Image credit - SuSanA Secretariat, licensed under CC BY 2.0
environment | health
28 October 2019

Sewage, rivers and soils provide missing link in antibiotic resistance story

If you think that the key to beating antibiotic resistance is only for doctors to prescribe less and scientists to find new drug candidates, you are probably wrong. The fundamental solutions may lie far from medicine – in managing our rivers and soils.

Scientists are speeding up the natural selection process of yeasts to help develop beer and wine that is low in alcohol content. Image credit - U3144362, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
industry | environment
10 October 2019

Scientists speed up the evolution of yeast to create tastier and healthier alcohol

Researchers across Europe have started to speed up the evolutionary process of yeast to develop new or better flavours for wine and beer. The objective is for beer and wine producers to better accommodate changing consumer tastes and trends, such as anti-GMO sentiments and demand for low-alcohol products.

There is still uncertainty around the knock-on effects of abrupt ocean changes. Image credit - Pixnio, CC0
environment | policy
25 September 2019

‘The biggest threat to our oceans is that we’ve taken them for granted’

People need to be persuaded that the ocean is not a problem or dangerous for humans, but that we are a problem for the oceans, according to former WTO trade chief Pascal Lamy, who kicked off discussions on Europe’s ambitions for protecting oceans over the next decade at a major research event in Brussels, Belgium.

‘As Greta Thunberg would say, I would like people to panic and take action,' said Prof. Schellnhuber. Image credit - PlanetMallika/ Pixabay
environment | policy
24 September 2019

‘I would like people to panic’ – Top scientist unveils equation showing world in climate emergency

A new equation showing that the world is ‘deep in a climate emergency’ was unveiled on 24 September by Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, one of the world’s leading authorities on climate change, who said that people still don’t want to see the truth about the state we’re in.

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