EARTH.COM - Nanoparticles – microscopic specks released by cars, factories, forest fires, and volcanoes – float through every ecosystem on Earth. Scientists are also designing these particles to precisely deliver fertilizers to crop roots, target pests with pesticides, or serve as tiny sensors that detect plant stress. But new research, led by the University of...
LIVE SCIENCE - Dairy farms produce huge amounts of potent greenhouse gases. But now, scientists say these farms can slash their methane emissions by covering cow-poop ponds with a giant tarp. Scientists recorded an 80% reduction in the methane emissions of a dairy farm in California after its owners installed a "digester" — a system...
DISCOVER MAGAZINE - Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, capable of trapping more than 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Indeed, it is thought that between 20 and 30 percent of global warming since 1750 can be pinned on methane emissions alone, and agriculture is one of the...
EARTH.COM - A year-long experiment on a Central Valley dairy farm has confirmed that sealing manure lagoons under gas-tight tarps can trap roughly 80 percent of the methane they would otherwise release. By capturing the gas and sending it to fuel markets, the system turns a potent climate threat into a usable resource. Led by...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is over 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide when trapping heat over a 20-year period. It accelerates global warming much faster than CO2. In California, dairy farms are among the largest sources of methane, especially through how they handle manure. A new study from the...
THE WASHINGTON POST - Completely reforesting Earth might help cool the planet more than expected but still not enough to offset the warming that has occurred since industrial times, a recent analysis finds. The scientists modeled what might happen if humans reached the planet’s reforestation potential, adding about 4.6 million square miles of trees and...
EARTH.COM - Replanting the world’s forests could significantly reduce global warming, particularly in tropical regions, according to a new modeling study. But even if every tree lost since the 19th century were replaced, the cooling impact would still fall short of reversing the full effects of human-caused climate change. Emissions cuts, the authors stress, remain...
THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE - Project Apis m. reported massive colony loss in early 2025, estimating around 1.6 million colonies lost in a report from April — a large number considering the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) estimated the total number of United States colonies is 2.7 million. While there have been continuous losses of 30...
EARTH.COM - Kelp forests, once a towering and life-filled part of many temperate coastlines, are vanishing fast. In their place, low-growing mats of turf algae are taking over. This shift isn’t just cosmetic. It’s causing steep losses in biodiversity, disrupting how energy and nutrients flow through reefs, and changing the chemistry of coastal waters in...
EARTH.COM - Scientists once dismissed a 1958 hypothesis about vitamin B1, or thiamine, as unlikely. The idea was that this vitamin, vital for basic metabolic functions, might turn into a very reactive intermediate during certain biochemical processes. Now, researchers have shown that the hunch was correct. Prof. Vincent Lavallo from the University of California, Riverside...
CHEMISTRY WORLD - A new ‘super-shielded’ carbene is stable in liquid water solutions. The US team that made the carbene claims that it ‘unambiguously confirms’ that it is possible to generate carbenes in an aqueous environment – validating a hypothesis put forward almost 70 years ago by the famed organic chemist Ronald Breslow. In the...
MARTHA STEWART - Whether you are baking, cooking, or mixing up a cocktail, knowing how to juice a lemon properly can make a big difference. The humble yellow fruit might not seem complicated, but factors like temperature, storage, variety, and even the way you cut it can all impact how much juice you get. We're...
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES - The National Academy of Sciences announced today the election of 120 members and 30 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Those elected today bring the total number of active members to 2,662 and the total number of international members to 556. International members...
SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY - Researchers from several University of California campuses have collaborated to create a report on dust in California, a characteristic that defines the desert climate zone that encompasses most of the state. The regions where dust storms occur encompass an area greater than 55,000 square miles and are home to nearly...
By Robert Monroe | Scripps Institution of Oceanography |
SCIENCEALERT - You often need a lot of patience to be a scientist, and that's certainly been the case for researchers who have now found solid evidence for a hypothesis around vitamin B1 (or thiamine) that was first put forward almost 70 years ago. In 1958, Columbia University chemist Ronald Breslow proposed that vitamin B1...
LIVE SCIENCE - The trendiest planet in the universe right now is K2-18b, a potentially habitable world swirling around a small, red star in the constellation Leo. Located 124 light-years from Earth, the mysterious planet will never host human visitors — but a recent glimpse with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) hints that alien...
THE INDEPENDENT UK - It’s one of humanity’s oldest questions. Are we alone? Is there life elsewhere in our galaxy or the universe? Scientists last week made a stunning announcement that they had found the “strongest evidence yet” of life beyond our solar system. A team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope said...
THE COOL DOWN - Urban development in California is threatening a new manzanita species — a plant species already considered highly vulnerable since its discovery in the area. What's happening? The Dana Reserve project, a housing development in Nipomo, is a 288-acre community with 1,370 residential units on land where a new manzanita species was...
FORBES - Preliminary budget cuts proposed by the Trump Administration would slash a huge swath out of NASA's Venus science funding. And it would spell the end of the space agency’s much anticipated $500 million DAVINCI mission, an orbiter and atmospheric probe, which had been due for launch to our sister planet in 2030. The...
CNN - A team of astronomers have detected what they call the most promising signs to date of a possible biosignature, or signs of past or present life linked to biological activity, on an exoplanet named K2-18b. But the study authors, and other experts, remain cautious and have not declared a definitive discovery of life...