Environment

July 2019 has been found to be the hottest month ever recorded, which won’t surprise anybody who sweated through the heat wave this summer. This continues a long-running upwards trend, with the first six months of the year tied for second hottest and sea ice at an all-time low at both poles.

A new electronic tag has been attached to four tiger sharks in the Caribbean in a test of a new satellite-connected fish tracking system. Described by co-developer ESA as cheaper and more animal friendly, the new tags will help to monitor the sharks' migration patterns for years.

A team of engineers in Germany has created a tiny jellyfish-inspired robot, which can not only swim, but transport objects, mix fluids and even bury itself. It's hoped the five millimeter tetherless "jellyfishbot" could help us understand the survivability of baby jellyfish in changing environments.

The hole in the ozone layer may be on the mend, but its environmental impacts are ongoing. A new review study has examined the effects that the extra UV radiation is having on the environment, such as shifting climate zones, changing ocean temperatures and making some species more vulnerable.

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.

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.​

​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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.