Tag: Science

A research team has found that a common spider kills its prey with poison but does not inject it into them—instead, it covers them with a web of silk and then covers the silk with regurgitated toxins. In their study published in the journal BMC Biology, the group collected several spider samples to study under a microscope in their lab and observed as the spiders killed prey.

A South Florida zoo's oldest resident celebrated his 135th birthday and his first Father's Day on Sunday.

When winter comes to Antarctica, seals and Adélie penguins leave the freezing shores and head for the edge of the forming sea ice. But emperor penguins stay put.

In recent months, the viability of France's nuclear arsenal has been making headlines with talk of a French "nuclear umbrella" that might shield its allies on the European continent. In the face of the Russia-Ukraine war, and Russian President Vladimir Putin's statements regarding the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons in that conflict, the question of how to best defend Europe has taken on an urgency not seen since the height of the Cold War.

Methods to enhance the ocean's uptake of carbon dioxide (CO₂) are being explored to help tackle the climate crisis. However, some of these approaches could significantly exacerbate ocean deoxygenation. Their potential impact on marine oxygen must therefore be systematically considered when assessing their suitability.

This week, the state of Florida reached a "startling milestone" in the effort to eradicate invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades. Archaeologists found the 6,000-year-old remains of a teen girl with cranial modification. And a study of the moons of Uranus provides more confirmation that the planet is just really weird.

Misidentified bones that languished in the drawers of a Mongolian institute for 50 years belong to a new species of tyrannosaur that rewrites the family history of the mighty T-Rex, scientists said Wednesday.

Predictions of imminent AI-driven mass unemployment are likely overblown, but employers will seek workers with different skills as the technology matures, a top executive at global recruiter ManpowerGroup told AFP at Paris's Vivatech trade fair.

Satellite data used by archaeologists to find traces of ancient ruins hidden under dense forest canopies can also be used to improve the speed and accuracy to measure how much carbon is retained and released in forests.

A global oceans summit wrapped up Friday with world leaders taking major steps toward marine protection and vowing a showdown when nations meet to negotiate rules for deep-sea mining next month.

The Conversation audio team celebrates success at the Publisher Podcast Awards.

Surprising discoveries from marine science – a BBC collaboration with The Conversation.

Professor Paul Whiteley, University of Essex, is the winner of the 2024 Sir Paul Curran award, which we recognised at a reception celebrating our authors’ work.

We’re celebrating 80 years of the Moomins with a special film screening and a panel discussion.

How a three-year investigation into chemical pollution began.

Health, infrastructure and AI are among the key themes being tackled.

Environmental journalism is thriving and newsroom culture is changing - here’s how.

Congratulations to Brian Thornton, winner of The Conversation Prize for writers.

Adelle Hulsmeier’s project uses student films to help police tackle complex crimes.

Six weeks of research-backed analysis, expert advice and challenges delivered straight to your inbox.

New research shows that unplanted agricultural lands are behind most of the state’s anthropogenic dust events.

Orbital mechanics and environmental factors limiting the ability of Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions to collect data in space and time affect city-level monitoring, reporting, and verification goals. 

On 11 June, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposal to repeal federal limits on power plant carbon emissions, including a Biden-era rule requiring power plants to control 90% of their carbon pollution and a 2015 standard limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Fossils discovered at an early Miocene site in Kenya include a new type of early ape and offer clues about the environment inhabited by human ancestors.

On 17 May 2025, a failure occurred in a mine waste facility at the Tawau gold mine in Malaysia. Images suggest that this might have been an overtopping event in a contaminated water storage pond. On 17 May 2025, there was a failure of a mine waste storage facility at Bukit Mantri in Malaysia. The […]

Climate.gov, NOAA’s portal to the work of their Climate Program Office, will likely soon shut down as most of the staff charged with maintaining it were fired on 31 May.

Using in-situ observational data, scientists reveal that Kuroshio intrusions through the Luzon Strait increase small phytoplankton in the South China Sea.

Decoding how sand grains move and accumulate on Earth can also help scientists understand dune formation on Mars.

Later this year I’ll leave the University of Hull to take up the role of Vice-Chancellor and President at Nottingham Trent University. Nottingham Trent University has about 40,000 students and staff spanning five university sites. It is the fifth largest university in terms of enrolled students in the UK. In recent years it has enjoyed […]

The USGS has published a preliminary report on landslides triggered across western North Carolina, northern South Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and parts of southern Virginia by Hurricane Helene in September 2024. Over 2,000 failures were triggered by up to c.700 mm of rainfall in a 72 hour period. Between 26 and 28 September 2024, the remnants […]

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, June 8, 2025 thru Sat, June 14, 2025. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Science and Research (8 articles) Stefan Rahmstorf - Atlantic ocean circulation: a dangerous tipping point for European climate? IFIMAC on Youtube, Stefan Rahmstorf, May 27, 2025. Ocean mud locks up much of the planet’s carbon – we’re digging deep to map these ancient stores Deep down at the bot

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Was 1934 the hottest year in the global record? 1934 was a particularly hot year in the contiguous United States, but not globally exceptional. Worldwide, 1934 was a relatively cooler year and does not stand out in the global record. The myth began when NASA corrected 6 years of erroneous U.S. temperature data in 2007, shifting 1934 ahead in the U.S. dataset du

Open access notables A Rapid Deterioration of the Transmissive Atmospheric Radiative Regime in the Western Arctic, Bertossa & L’Ecuyer, Geophysical Research Letters: The tendency for the atmosphere to reside in one of two radiative states (“transmissive” or “opaque”) is unique to the high latitudes. This phenomenon makes the Arctic climate particularly sensitive to change if the conditions that support one of these states vanish. This study examines 25 years of in-situ data from the North Slope of Alaska to investigate how these two states have changed over time. While November once had nearly equal occurrences of both states, the transmissive state has almost comple

This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). To stop global warming, carbon emissions need to be cut to net zero as quickly as possible. And while some countries have been cutting back on fossil fuels, some major polluters - like China - have seen their emissions continue to increase. But thanks to the epic rise in clean energy solutions, it's just possible that that's starting to shift, and China's path to a low carbon future might be about to change for ever... Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The Trump administration has taken an ostrich-like approach to climate change.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is required to publish a report about the country’s sources of climate-changing pollution each year by April 15. This year, that didn’t happen. But the completed report was recently made public as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Environmental Defense Fund. This latest U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report provides granular detail on U.S. emissions in 2023. It’s unclear why the administration withheld this report, which had been completed, and thus its suppression offered no budgetary benefit.

A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, June 1, 2025 thru Sat, June 7, 2025. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Policy and Politics (5 articles) Inside EPA`s backdoor bid to stop regulating climate pollution Fossil-fueled power plants don't significantly contribute to climate change? Welcome to the new US EPA. E&E News, Jean Chemnick, May 30, 2025. Scientists long ago envisioned the end of climate cooperation

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are CO2 measurements reliable? Measurements of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are consistent, reliable, and globally verified across multiple independent systems. NOAA collects data from over 60 sites, including Mauna Loa, which has hosted the longest continuous CO2 record, tracking an annual increase in CO2 from 0.94 ppm in 1959 to 3.33 ppm i

Open access notables Land-based sensors reveal high frequency of coastal flooding, Hino et al., Communications Earth & Environment: Coastal flooding is occurring more frequently due to global sea-level rise, among other factors. However, current understanding of coastal flood frequency and sea-level rise impacts is predominantly based on tide gauges, which do not measure water levels on land. Here, we present data from a novel network of land-based flood sensors in the state of North Carolina, USA. We demonstrate that tide-gauge data are poor indicators of flooding: floods occur 26–128 days annually, an order of magnitude greater than what regional ti

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington. Dana will do a Livestream with Yale Climate Connections on the subject today, Wednesday 6/4 at 5–6pm ET as well. Tune in here. House Republicans worked to eliminate clean energy tax credits in a massive tax bill that they passed in a 215-214 vote early in the morning on Thursday, May 22, 2025. The new bill, named the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” would sunset individual and business incentives created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, such as tax credits for electric vehicle purchases.  A large swath of the public supports such incentives. In 

This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Because hurricanes are one of the big-ticket weather disasters that humanity has to face, climate misinformers spend a lot of effort muddying the waters on whether climate change is making hurricanes more damaging. With the official start to the hurricane season in the North Atlantic coming up (June 1), I figured it was time to explain why we can be so confident that hurricanes are indeed more destructive today due to climate change. Note: from here on out, I’ll refer to hurricanes as tropical cyclones (abbreviated TCs), which is a more general term for this type of storm. 1. Tropical cyclones are becoming more destructive: sea level We have 100% confidence that sea level is rising because humans are heating the planet. An