A global library – full of hailstones instead of books – is helping researchers to better understand and predict damaging storms. A University of Queensland library – full of hailstones instead of books – is helping researchers to better understand and predict damaging storms. Dr Joshua Soderholm, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow from UQ’s School of the Environment, and lead researcher PhD candidate Yuzhu Lin from Penn State in the US, have found storm modelling outcomes change significantly when using…

Utah geophysicists find link between seismic waves called PKP precursors and anomalies in Earth’s mantle. For the decades since their discovery, seismic signals known as PKP precursors have challenged scientists. Regions of Earth’s lower mantle scatter incoming seismic waves, which return to the surface as PKP waves at differing speeds. The origin the precursor signals, which arrive ahead of the main seismic waves that travel through Earth’s core, has remained unclear, but research led by University of Utah geophysicists sheds…

– a European monitoring project at ZMT. Biodiversity is difficult to observe and assess in the open ocean, which is vast and difficult to access. The European research project “Monitoring the Open-Ocean Biodiversity with Fishers” (MOOBYF) is now pursuing a new strategy for which it draws on ZMT’s deep-rooted collaboration with the local population that lives from fishing in the Indian Ocean. “Fish Aggregating Device” (FAD) made of bamboo off Gondol on the north coast of Bali. © MOOBYF The…

IOW researchers investigate causes and effects. Marine heatwaves – periods in which the upper water layers in the sea temporarily become exceptionally warm – are occurring with increasing frequency worldwide. Recent studies by the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) have now confirmed this trend also for the Baltic Sea. IOW researchers analysed very large meteorological and hydrographic data sets and identified the specific wind and weather conditions that cause Baltic Sea heatwaves. They also analysed for the…

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Giessen report in a new study in Communications Biology, that the adaptation of antlion larvae to their ecological niche has also changed their venom. Antlions inject a complex venom mixture into their prey that differs in composition and effectiveness from the venom of related lacewing larvae and reflects the specific ecology of the species. In a new study published in Communications Biology, researchers from the Max Planck…

The oxygen fugacity (fO2) of the mantle controls the speciation and mobility of volatiles within it, influencing the composition of volatiles released during mantle-derived magmatic activity, and thereby regulating the composition of the atmosphere. Researchers from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS), together with their collaborators, have recently proposed a new parameter, “potential oxygen fugacity,” to directly compare the fO2 characteristics of melts formed at different depths. Current research on the fO2 of the mantle primarily focuses…

For a long time, scientists assumed that jellyfish were a dead-end food source for predatory fish. However, a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute together with the Thünen Institute has now discovered that fish in Greenland waters do indeed feed on jellyfish. In two of the analyzed species, they even made up the majority of the food, as the researchers describe in a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The results suggest that the role of jellyfish…

The liquid-based solution uses a solvent to trap the plastic particles, leaving clean water behind. University of Missouri scientists are battling against an emerging enemy of human health: nanoplastics. Much smaller in size than the diameter of an average human hair, nanoplastics are invisible to the naked eye. Linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in people, nanoplastics continue to build up, largely unnoticed, in the world’s bodies of water. The challenge remains to develop a cost-effective solution to get rid…

Large-scale project investigates the release of additives in water. Plastic waste in rivers and oceans is constantly releasing chemicals into the water. Until now, it was unknown how large these quantities are and which substances are released particularly strongly. In the large-scale P-LEACH project, experts from four research institutes of the Helmholtz Association have now analyzed the composition and concentrations of many different substances. The main focus was on the question of how sun’s UV radiation increases the release of…

Sylt-based researchers release comprehensive study on the effects of climate change since the founding of the Wadden Sea Station 100 years ago. Climate change can produce a range of effects on flat sedimentary coasts. Researchers from the Wadden Sea Station on Sylt have just released a multidisciplinary overview of the far-reaching climate-based changes in the Wadden Sea, a listed World Heritage Site. The review paper in celebration of the station’s centennial was published in the journal Marine Biodiversity. It covers…

Seismologists measure tremors up to 5000 km away. It was a monster wave that hit a fjord on Greenland’s east coast on 16 September 2023: In certain places, the traces of the flooding reached 200 metres high. Researchers led by Angela Carrillo Ponce from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) have now evaluated the seismic signals from earthquake measuring stations worldwide and discovered another unusual event: Triggered by the megatsunami, a standing wave sloshed back and forth in the…

… could reveal secrets of planet’s history. International team begin to unravel mantle’s role in life on Earth, volcanism and global cycles. Scientists have recovered the first long section of rocks that originated in the Earth’s mantle, the layer below the crust and the planet’s largest component. The rocks will help unravel the mantle’s role in the origins of life on Earth, the volcanic activity generated when it melts, and how it drives the global cycles of important elements such…

Organofluorine compounds — sometimes called ‘forever chemicals’ — are increasingly turning up in our drinking water, oceans and even human blood, posing a potential threat to the environment and human health. Now, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a way to fingerprint them, which could help authorities trace them to their source when they end up in aquifers, waterways or soil. The technique involves passing samples through a strong magnetic field then reading the burst of…

Recycling of Incineration Bottom Ash. Today, copper ore extraction is economically viable from a minimum content of 0.3 percent. Waste incineration produces ash with a fine fraction containing an average of 0.3 to 0.5 percent copper. However, its extraction is only worthwhile if the remaining mineral fraction can be utilized further. The University of Duisburg-Essen and partners from the waste incineration, processing, and cement industries developed a corresponding process in the EMSARZEM project. A practical test in an industrial format…

Understanding the relationship between the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the earth beneath is key to predicting future climate change impacts, finds McGill-led study. A McGill-led study suggests that Earth’s natural forces could substantially reduce Antarctica’s impact on rising sea levels, but only if carbon emissions are swiftly reduced in the coming decades. By the same token, if emissions continue on the current trajectory, Antarctic ice loss could lead to more future sea level rise than previously thought. The finding is…

… uses minimal ingredients and steps. A new 3D printing method developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego is so simple that it uses a polymer ink and salt water solution to create solid structures. The work, published in Nature Communications, has the potential to make materials manufacturing more sustainable and environmentally friendly. The process uses a liquid polymer solution known as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), or PNIPAM for short. When this PNIPAM ink is extruded through a needle into…