Environment

Satellites have offered scientists a powerful new tool when it comes to tracking endangered wildlife, with the movements of animals able to be monitored with precision. A new technology promises to expand the possibilities in this area even further.

While pest insects can have a devastating effect on crops, pesticides can likewise cause a great deal of damage to the environment. That's where CropCoat comes in, as it's designed not to kill harmful insects, but to "hide" plants from them instead.

One of the problems with microplastics pollution is the fact that the plastic particles are very small, and thus difficult to trap or neutralize when widely dispersed in water. That's why a new technique is being developed to eliminate them at their source, where they're highly concentrated.

It's an unfortunate fact that many "cold chain" items such as food or medicine are shipped in single-use Styrofoam packaging, which is non-biodegradable and difficult to recycle. Such is not the case with a new material, however, which is made from discarded paper.

Back in 2014, we heard about a so-called "fish gun" or "salmon cannon" that safely shot spawning fish up over river-blocking obstacles such as dams. Its successor is now in use, offering a couple of key advantages over the original system.

Comprehensive climate data has shown that globally, 2020 was the warmest year on record, tied with 2016. Worryingly, 2020’s record came in spite of a La Niña event, which has a cooling effect, while 2016’s record came off the back of a warming El Niño.

Although cleaning up the humungous Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a daunting concept, removing trash from local waterways is much more feasible … and that's exactly what the Clearbot robot is designed to do.

Fungus already shows promise as a "green" form of leather and protective packaging. Thanks to new research, it has now also found use in an environmentally-friendly sound-absorbing material.

A new study has highlighted a key link in the chain of how plastic pollution travels, demonstrating how microplastics can be swept across the surface of the seas by winds that carry them upward into the atmosphere, and into remote parts of the ocean.

Dams pose a great obstacle to fish migrating up rivers, potentially keeping them from breeding, thus leading to a decline in wild stocks. Australian scientists are on the case, though, with a possible solution known as the "tube fishway."

An international team of researchers has made a discovery that could prove useful to the efforts to preserve the world's coral reefs, using the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool to identify a key gene that regulates their response to heat stress.

A new study has found the increasing frequency and severity of storms as a result of climate change to be a key factor in a novel skin disease seen in dolphins, by drastically altering the salinity of the waters the animals inhabit.