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Categories: Biology: Marine, Geoscience: Environmental Issues

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New research focuses on optimizing a promising technology called pyrolysis, which can chemically recycle waste plastics into more valuable chemicals.

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Scientists have found that competition between strains of beneficial bacteria in the soil degrades the service that the bacteria provide to their hosts.

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Chemists have demonstrated that water remediation can be powered in part -- and perhaps even exclusively -- by renewable energy sources.

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Can biosurfactants increase microbiological oil degradation in North Sea seawater? An international research team has been exploring this question and the results have revealed the potential for a more effective and environmentally friendly oil spill response.

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A team of chemists have developed an entirely new method for generating critically important fluorochemicals that bypasses the hazardous product hydrogen fluoride (HF) gas. The findings could achieve an immense impact in improving the safety and carbon footprint of a growing global industry.

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In Africa, climate change impacts are experienced as extreme events like drought and floods. It has now been possible to predict and monitor these climatic events, providing early warning of their impacts on agriculture to support humanitarian and resilience programming in the most food insecure countries of the world.

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A large portion of Greenland was an ice-free tundra landscape -- perhaps covered by trees and roaming woolly mammoths -- in the recent geologic past (about 416,000 years ago), a new study shows. The results help overturn a previous view that much of the Greenland ice sheet persisted for most of the last two and a half million years. Instead, moderate warming, from 424,000 to 374,000 years ago, led to dramatic melting. At that time, the melting of Greenland caused at least five feet of sea level rise, despite atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide being far lower than today (280 vs. 420 ppm). This indicates that the ice sheet on Greenland may be more sensitive to human-caused climate change than previously understood -- and will be vulnerable to irreversible, rapid melting in coming centuries.

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For years, unrecycled plastic bottles have been dumped in landfills. Now, thanks to new research, those bottles may have a second life in that landfill -- stabilizing its earth walls.

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Plastic waste is a problem on our beaches. Hence, it is largely removed in a coordinated manner within a few weeks. However, it can litter other coasts of the world for many months to years due to unregulated waste disposal. Often the garbage on the beach is simply burned and a special form of plastic waste is created: so-called plastiglomerate. This 'rock' is made up of natural components, such as coral fragments, held together by the melted and reconsolidated plastic. A new study has now demonstrated, using field samples from Indonesia, that such rocks pose an increased environmental risk to coastal ecosystems such as seagrass beds, mangroves or coral reefs. The melted plastic decomposes more quickly into microplastics and is also contaminated with organic pollutants.

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Flexible spheres of the biomolecule chitosan, made from shrimp waste, can be used for catalysts that generate hydrogen gas from borohydride salts. A research team now shows how the spheres can 'breathe out' hydrogen bubbles without breaking. This is an important step towards practical and safe hydrogen storage and release units.

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A team researchers has discovered molecular crystals capable of capturing iodine -- one of the most common radioactive fission products -- and other pollutants. The versatile crystals could be used for nuclear waste management and other energy-related applications and move the world closer to a net-zero future.

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Researchers have created a bioengineered yeast that can grow efficiently on a wide range of sugars from agricultural waste biomass, closing a carbon cycle for the biosynthesis of fuels, pharmaceuticals and plastics.

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Early experiments have revealed significant benefits to a dry battery manufacturing process. This eliminates the use of toxic solvents while showing promise for delivering a battery that is durable, less weighed down by inactive elements and able to maintain high energy storage capacity after use. Such improvements could boost wider EV adoption, helping to reduce carbon emissions and achieve U.S. climate goals.

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Fertilizer restrictions along Florida's 156-mile-long Indian River Lagoon were intended to reduce nutrient inputs from urban and agricultural land uses. The hope was that water quality would improve by reducing the nitrogen load. While these restrictions were well-intended, a study finds fertilizer use is not the root cause of the lagoon's environmental issues. It's sewage. For decades, fertilizer use was implicated for about 71 percent of the lagoon's environmental impairments. In fact, current estimates show 79 percent of nitrogen loading is from septic systems; 21 percent is from residential fertilizer use.

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A new study compiles the scope of the problem of the global dispersal of harmful microorganisms through the upper layers of the atmosphere.

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Scientists once assumed that flooding and mudslides after wildfires were linked to the waxy coating that builds up on charred soil, preventing water absorption. Researchers found that water flow came from absorbed water in both burnt and unburnt areas, suggesting that water was, in fact, being absorbed into burnt ground. The discovery provides valuable insights into where and when potential flooding and mudslides may occur and how landscapes recover after a wildfire.

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Tucked into the hillsides of Italy, Portugal, and Spain, some of the world's most famous -- and most difficult to maintain -- vineyards are heralded for their unique flavor profiles and centuries of tradition. But as extreme weather and changing socioeconomic conditions make this so-called 'heroic viticulture' even more challenging, scientists worry these grapes and their cultural histories are at risk. Researchers argue that farmers and scientists must work together to protect some of the world's most celebrated wines.

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Scientists have shown it's possible to grow fungi in thin sheets that could be used for fire-retardant cladding or even a new kind of fungal fashion.

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A groundbreaking study reveals the critical yet severely understudied factor of salinity changes in ocean and coastlines caused by climate change.

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Researchers report that an insect's ability to find food and a mate is reduced when their antennae are contaminated by particulate matter from industry, transport, bushfires, and other sources of air pollution.