Environment

Although we've seen many materials designed for removing oil spills from water, many of them are single-use, ultimately ending up in landfills. Now, however, scientists have created an oil-absorbing sponge that can be used over and over again.

A new study has determined that Earth’s forests are transforming in response to a combination of human actions and natural processes such as wildfires, causing them to lose their oldest trees and grow shorter.

Wild buffalo and cattle in Australia cause all sorts of damage to the environment by destroying vegetation, eroding soil and spreading weeds, but a major new wildlife tagging venture could greatly reduce their impact.

The efforts of researchers to trace plastic waste continues to turn up evidence of its detrimental effects on the natural world, with the latest example a study detailing the first evidence of river-borne plastic waste traveling up the food chain.

The lockdown orders implemented around the globe to control the spread of the novel coronavirus have led to a dramatic dip in some airborne pollutants, and a new study has revealed that carbon dioxide emissions have followed a similar trend.

A new study looking at nearly four decades of data has shown that in almost every part of the world where hurricanes form, their strongest winds are getting even stronger, with global warming thought to be a key contributing factor.

While we may think of car exhaust as being a major source of air pollution, automobile tires also hugely contribute to microplastics pollution. A new vehicle-mounted device could help, by gathering the rubber particles that those tires shed.

A new study has revealed the dangers plastic pollution poses to blue mussels, with researchers finding they may ingest three times as much plastic when clumped together in the reef structures commonly seen in nature.

Among the potential solutions to coral bleaching and death is the idea of developing new types of coral that are more resistant to heat, and researchers in Australia are reporting new success in this area using a technique called directed evolution.

The wheels we humans have set in motion concerning carbon dioxide emissions and climate change are going to take some stopping, and the latest data from Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory are another clear indicator of this.

A fuller picture is beginning to emerge of how the coronavirus shutdowns are clearing the air in major epicenters of the outbreak, with some measures of air pollution dropping by as much as 60 percent in parts of northern China.

Found in crustacean shells, chitin is a useful natural polymer. Now, scientists have developed a fruit waste-based fermentation process for getting it out of those shells – and the technique results in better-quality chitin, to boot.