New Atlas

Science Audio available

Sensors transform bridge into living laboratory

Paul Ridden June 7, 2019

The Memorial Bridge doesn't just allow folks to cross over the Piscataqua River, it also serves as a living laboratory. Now home to a host of sensors, it provides data on the day-to-day life and health of the bridge itself, as well as monitoring the surrounding environment.

Data sensors installed on the Memorial Bridge in New Hampshire provide researchers, engineers and the public ...

Environment Audio available

Startling study finds US fertilizer industry emits 100 times more methane than estimated

Rich Haridy June 6, 2019

A new study has independently measured methane emissions from a number of ammonia fertilizer plants. The startling results suggest methane emissions are 100 times higher than industry estimates, and three times higher than the EPA’s estimate for all industry methane emissions in the United States.

Research suggests the fertilizer industry's methane emissions is three times higher than the EPA assumed was ...

Robotics Audio available

Sloth-inspired robot saves power by taking things slow

Ben Coxworth May 30, 2019

Because sloths move very slowly – if at all – they burn relatively few calories, thus requiring little food. Scientists have now applied that principle to a sluggish but energy-efficient robot, known appropriately enough as the SlothBot. One of its primary uses could be environmental monitoring.

Science Audio available

Supernovae-induced lightning may have encouraged humanity's ancestors to walk upright

Anthony Wood May 28, 2019

A bombardment of cosmic rays from ancient supernovae may have triggered a series of events that encouraged early human ancestors to walk upright, according to a new study. The cosmic explosion could have helped trigger a shift in Earth’s environment that forced humanity’s fore bearers to adapt.

Cosmic rays thrown out by dying stars may have made lightning strikes more common on ancient ...

Environment Audio available

Quarter of West Antarctic glacier ice unstable, says 25-year satellite study

Michael Irving May 16, 2019

A new study has examined 25 years of satellite data to get a sense of the extent of ice loss across Antarctica. According to the findings, warming waters have destabilized as much as a quarter of the glacier ice in West Antarctica.

Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is one of the places hardest hit by ice loss

Environment Audio available

Forests that live fast and die young may help speed up climate change

Michael Irving May 15, 2019

New research led by the University of Cambridge has found that forests may not be as useful a carbon sink as we thought. The team found that a warming climate makes trees grow faster and die younger, releasing their captured carbon back into the air sooner.

Researchers examined samples taken from trees in the Spanish Pyrenees and found that faster-growing trees tend ...

Energy

Notorious Three Mile Island nuclear power station to shut down

David Szondy May 10, 2019

The Three Mile Island nuclear power station in Pennsylvania is scheduled to close in September according its owner, Exelon Generation. The site of the worst nuclear disaster in US history, the still functioning TMI-1 reactor will be deactivated on September 30, 2019.

Three Mile Island was the site of the worst nuclear accident in US history

Environment

Radioactive carbon from nuclear bomb tests finds its way to deepest ocean trenches

David Szondy May 8, 2019

A new study led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou indicates that radioactive carbon-14 produced by above-ground nuclear weapons tests in the mid-20th century has been found in the muscle tissues of crustaceans in the deepest parts of the ocean.

Carbon-14 from above ground nuclear testing in the 20th century has been found in the deepest ...

Science Audio available

New desalination method could get industry – and the environment – out of a very salty pickle

Matt Kennedy May 7, 2019

"Hypersaline brine" is industrial waste-water with salt levels that exceed even that of seawater. It’s a big, expensive, destructive problem which a team of engineers at Columbia University in New York City hope to solve with their solvent-based method of desalination.

The researchers believe that the temperature swing solvent extraction desalination method could be transformational for the ...

Environment Audio available

Fancy some grubs in your grub? You might if you can't see them

Matt Kennedy May 2, 2019

Researchers in Australia are looking into maggot sausages as meat alternative. This is seen as a first step in conditioning Westerners to accept insects and grubs as normal, everyday food sources.

Australian researchers have begun looking into insect-based pre-prepared food – such as sausages – as a ...