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Categories: Engineering: Nanotechnology, Geoscience: Environmental Issues

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Long-term measurements in the urban area of Innsbruck, Austria, show that the fraction of ozone near the surface tends to be overestimated in atmospheric models. Consequently, a fundamental assumption for air quality forecasting has to be reinterpreted for urban areas. Direct nitrogen dioxide emissions are also likely overestimated.

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A new modelling study shows that the Seychelles and other islands in the western Indian Ocean are not responsible for most of the plastic waste that accumulates on their beaches. Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka were found to be the main sources of land-based plastic debris. The Seychelles also accumulate significant amounts of plastic debris of marine origin from fisheries and shipping lanes. • The results highlight the urgent need for a legally-binding Global Plastics Treaty and greater enforcement of regional policies to reduce plastic waste.

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A temperature reconstruction from ice cores of the past 1,000 years reveals that today's warming in central-north Greenland is surprisingly pronounced. The most recent decade surveyed in a study, the years 2001 to 2011, was the warmest in the past 1,000 years, and the region is now 1.5 °C warmer than during the 20th century, as researchers report. Using a set of ice cores unprecedented in length and quality, they reconstructed past temperatures in central-north Greenland and melting rates of the ice sheet.

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Engineers fabricated 2D materials that could lead to next-generation transistors and electronic films.

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Antarctica is a tough place to work, for obvious reasons -- it's bitterly cold, remote, and wild. However, it's one of the best places in the world to hunt for meteorites. That's partly because Antarctica is a desert, and its dry climate limits the degree of weathering the meteorites experience. On top of the dry conditions, the landscape is ideal for meteorite hunting: the black space rocks stand out clearly against snowy fields.

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Flooding in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin is creating ideal breeding conditions for many native species that have evolved to take advantage of temporary flood conditions. Scientists have now developed virtual models of the Murray River to reveal a crucial link between natural flooding and the extinction risk of endangered southern bell frogs (Litoria raniformis; also known as growling grass frogs). Southern bell frogs are one of Australia's 100 Priority Threatened Species. This endangered frog breeds during spring and summer when water levels increase in their wetlands. However, the natural flooding patterns in Australia's largest river system have been negatively impacted by expansive river regulation that in some years, sees up to 60% of river water extracted for human use.

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With only a small percentage of plastics recycled, determining the best way to recycle and reuse these materials may enable higher adoption of plastics recycling and reduce plastic waste pollution. Researchers examined the benefits and trade-offs of current and emerging technologies for recycling certain types of plastics to determine the most appropriate options.

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A study shows that global atmospheric dust -- microscopic airborne particles from desert dust storms -- has a slight overall cooling effect on the planet that has hidden the full amount of warming caused by greenhouse gases. Climate change could accelerate slightly if dust levels stop climbing.

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Physicists have once again gained a deeper understanding of the mechanism behind superconductors. This brings researchers one step closer to their goal of developing the foundations for a theory for superconductors that would allow current to flow without resistance and without energy loss. The researchers found that in superconducting copper-oxygen bonds, called cuprates, there must be a very specific charge distribution between the copper and the oxygen, even under pressure.

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Despite only about 25% of car travel happening after dark, almost half of fatal accidents occur at night. As our vehicles become more advanced and even autonomous, the ways of detecting and avoiding these collisions must evolve too. Current systems are often complicated, resource-intensive or work poorly in the dark. But now, researchers have designed a simple, power-saving collision detector inspired by the way insects avoid bumping into one another.

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Reducing the number of stomata that rice have makes them more tolerant to salt water, according to researchers.

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A new study shows that smoke particles from human-lit fires are responsible for over 80% of smoke-related deaths each year. The study shows that smoke pollution is on the rise, reducing air quality, and leading to increased illness and premature deaths.

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Scientists have successfully demonstrated that autonomous methods can discover new materials. The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technique led to the discovery of three new nanostructures, including a first-of-its-kind nanoscale 'ladder.'

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Using artificial intelligence, engineers have simplified and reinforced models that accurately calculate the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) -- the soot, dust and exhaust emitted by trucks and cars that get into human lungs -- contained in urban air pollution.

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Understanding how dust grains form in interstellar gas could offer significant insights to astronomers and help materials scientists develop useful nanoparticles.

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Vital winter ice road infrastructure may be cracking and sinking under the load of an unseasonably warm start to the new year across Europe and North America. New research warns that ice roads, essential for moving people, food, medicine and fuel in remote northern communities, as well as heavy machinery used by industry, may become unsustainable as the climate warms. This poses significant issues this century.

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Translating electrochemical performance of large format batteries to microscale power sources has been a long-standing technological challenge, limiting the ability of batteries to power microdevices, microrobots and implantable medical devices. Researchers have created a high-voltage microbattery (> 9 V), with high-energy and -power density, unparalleled by any existing battery design.

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Researchers combine a polymer coating with silicon dioxide nanostructures to create a coating to prevent fogging and unwanted reflections. The technique solves a common problem for sensors such as lidar used in autonomous cars.

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Electric vehicles, powered by macroscopic electric motors, are increasingly prevalent on our streets and highways. Now a multidisciplinary team has made an electric motor you can't see with the naked eye: an electric motor on the molecular scale. This early work -- a motor that can convert electrical energy into unidirectional motion at the molecular level -- has implications for materials science and particularly medicine, where the electric molecular motor could team up with biomolecular motors in the human body.

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A team of chemical engineering researchers studied the mechanisms of drying the nanocrystals and proposed nanotechnology to render the nanocrystals highly redispersible in aqueous mediums, while retaining their full functionality, to make them easier to store and transport.