Environment

The sodium chloride that's commonly used to de-ice highways is harmful to the environment, plus it corrodes both road materials and vehicles' metal bodies. There may soon be a kinder, gentler alternative, though – made from discarded grape skins.

The British Ecological Society has unveiled the winners of its Capturing Ecology photography competition. The photographs, all either taken by ecologists or students, were taken all over the world, and capture both the beauty and frailty of the natural world.

An international team of researchers suggests that a wide variety of marine species could be used for monitoring the world's oceans. Using electronic tags, exploiting their natural behavior could fill gaps in our knowledge of the seas.

The bananas that we buy in stores grow off of a central trunk-like structure, known as the pseudostem. And while that part of the plant is typically discarded during harvesting, it may soon find use in a plastic that biodegrades and is recyclable.

Underwater loudspeakers could be used to revitalized devastated corals, by blasting the sounds of healthy reefs to make them more attractive to young fish. Earth’s ocean reefs are currently under major threat from human-led climate change.

Take a walk along the canal in Amsterdam’s Westerdok district, and you may see an unsightly mess of waste gathered at the edge of the canal. What you’re seeing is the work of a new bubble barrier, designed to stop plastic waste flowing out to sea.

Many of us frequently use Google Maps' Street View feature, to see what things look like at a given location. Well, Australian scientists are developing sort of an audio equivalent, that will let users hear various eco-regions throughout the country.

According to Queen's University Belfast, EU breweries dispose of about 3.4 million tons of spent grain every year. That could be about to change, though, as scientists at the university have created a method of converting that waste into charcoal.

Although chemicals, foods and other odorous substances are often sold in recyclable plastic containers, sometimes the smells absorbed by the plastic make it unsuitable for recycling. A new process, however, is claimed to get the stink out.

In a move that could help feed the world's ever-growing population, researchers at MIT have developed a silk covering that is treated with nitrogen-fixing bacteria to allow seeds to grow in high-salinity soils not currently suitable for crops.

A new UN report, the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, says that in 2018, the globally-averaged concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere was 407.8 parts per million (ppm), a new record high that hasn’t been seen in millions of years.

Recent severe bleaching events to strike the Great Barrier Reef have led to widespread death of the corals making up world’s largest living structure, but scientists are coming up with increasingly inventive ways to repair the damage.