Hydrothermal vents have been identified as a previously undiscovered source of dissolved black carbon in the oceans, furthering the understanding of the role of oceans as a carbon sink. The ocean is one of the largest dynamic carbon sinks in the world, and is susceptible to increased carbon emissions from human activities. There are even proposals to use the ocean to sequester carbon in an effort to reduce the carbon emissions. However, much of the processes by which the ocean…
Detailed knowledge about whales in European waters will be provided by the Biodiversa+ project “eWHALE”, which started in January and is led by molecular ecologist Bettina Thalinger from the University of Innsbruck. The transnational research project brings together partners from science, industry and the public to establish a far-reaching, non-invasive cetacean and biodiversity monitoring system using water samples. To effectively protect whales and other endangered marine species, it is necessary to emphasize conservation measures for entire marine areas. This is…
Stainless steel recycling is considered to be a sustainable way to save CO2 in the globally growing steel production. As early as 2010, Fraunhofer UMSICHT researchers determined a savings potential of more than 4.5 t CO2 per ton of blend on behalf of the Oryx Stainless Group. More recent calculations by the UMSICHT team even come to savings of over 6.7 t CO2 -eq. per ton of blend for the reference year 2021. The results show: The recycling of stainless…
– including Germany. AWI researchers have analysed the origins of plastic debris on the shores of Svalbard. “Citizen Science” gives interested citizens the chance to actively engage in scientific research. A citizen-science project conducted by AWI in the Arctic now shows just how successful this can be. In the course of five years, citizens who went on sailing cruises to the Arctic surveyed and collected plastic debris that had washed up on the shores of Svalbard. This has now been…
A special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment lays the foundation for pursuing structural diversity as a new research direction in ecology. The issue, funded by the National Science Foundation, also describes the digital data collection methods that enable the new research direction, and the applications of the work in various ecosystems. “Structural diversity is thinking about what elements occupy a space and how they have been arranged in the space,” said the special issue’s lead editor, Songlin…
Fraunhofer-Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF and the Fraunhofer-Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST jointly coordinates a Support and Coordinated Action aiming at defining and harmonising a commonly accepted and applied single Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach for zero-emission vehicles ZEV. 44 key stakeholders along the full value chain of zero-emission vehicles covering, among others, vehicle and battery manufactures, the supply industry, energy providers and recyclers are working together. The European Commission supports the unique initiative…
Insect numbers have been declining over the past decades in many parts of the world. Protected areas could safeguard threatened insects, but a team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the University of Queensland now found that 76% of globally assessed insect species are not adequately covered by protected areas worldwide. In the journal One Earth, the researchers encourage decision-makers to…
A new Horizon Europe project led by IIASA, called Urban ReLeaf, leverages citizen science for public sector innovation. Urban ReLeaf aims to co-create citizen-powered data ecosystems to support climate change adaptation, green infrastructure, and urban design planning. The project, coordinated by Inian Moorthy and Gerid Hager from the IIASA Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability (NODES) Research Group, is a collaboration between academic and private sector partners as well as six cities: Athens, Greece; Cascais, Portugal; Dundee, UK; Mannheim, Germany; Riga,…
Synthesis of fumaric acid by a new method of artificial photosynthesis, using sunlight. In recent years, environmental problems caused by global warming have become more apparent due to greenhouse gases such as CO2. In natural photosynthesis, CO2 is not reduced directly, but is bound to organic compounds which are converted to glucose or starch. Mimicking this, artificial photosynthesis could reduce CO2 by combining it into organic compounds to be used as raw materials, which can be converted into durable forms…
Increase in disease severity has implications for fish farms, marine life, human health. Microplastics—tiny particles generated as plastics weather and fragment—pose a growing threat to ecosystem and human health. A new laboratory study shows these threats extend beyond direct physical or chemical impacts, revealing that the presence of microplastics increases the severity of an important viral fish disease. Lead author on the study, published in Science of the Total Environment, is Dr. Meredith Evans Seeley, who conducted the research as part…
Researchers at Göttingen University investigate attractiveness of wheat-bean crop mixtures for pollinating insects. There are often too few flowering plants in agricultural landscapes, which is one reason for the decline of pollinating insects. Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now investigated how a mixture of crops of faba beans (broad beans) and wheat affects the number of pollinating insects. They found that areas of mixed crops compared with areas of single crops are visited equally often by foraging bees….
New testing technologies to support global effort to reduce health risks to people, wildlife. New research from the University of Nevada, Reno, is expected to play an important role in the global battle against airborne mercury pollution, a serious health threat to people and wildlife alike. The researchers have verified that new technologies, including some developed at the University, measure airborne mercury pollution far more accurately than the older systems that have been in widespread use for decades. In fact,…
The water-filtering abilities of farmed kelp could help reduce marine pollution in coastal areas, according to a new University of Alaska Fairbanks-led study. The paper, published in the January issue of Aquaculture Journal, analyzed carbon and nitrogen levels at two mixed-species kelp farms in southcentral and southeast Alaska during the 2020-21 growing season. Tissue and seawater samples showed that seaweed species may have different capabilities to remove nutrients from their surroundings. “Some seaweeds are literally like sponges — they suck…
Ecologists are increasingly using traces of genetic material left behind by living organisms left behind in the environment, called environmental DNA (eDNA), to catalogue and monitor biodiversity. Based on these DNA traces, researchers can determine which species are present in a certain area. Obtaining samples from water or soil is easy, but other habitats – such as the forest canopy – are difficult for researchers to access. As a result, many species remain untracked in poorly explored areas. Researchers at…
UV light from the sun slowly breaks down plastics on the ocean’s surfaces. Floating microplastic is broken down into ever smaller, invisible nanoplastic particles that spread across the entire water column, but also to compounds that can then be completely broken down by bacteria. This is shown by experiments in the laboratory of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, NIOZ, on Texel. In the latest issue of Marine Pollution Bulletin, PhD student Annalisa Delre and colleagues calculate that about…
The climate-friendly NECOC process produces carbon out of the CO2 from ambient air. Germany is progressing on its way to climate neutrality – and has to close carbon cycles in its industries as soon as possible to get there. To reach the 1.5-degree target, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests to remove and permanently store already emitted CO2. “We have to find completely new technological solutions if we want to keep up industrial production,” says Dr. Benjamin Dietrich…
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