Environment

  1. Earth

    When discussing flora and fauna, don’t forget ‘funga’

    Conservation efforts often overlook fungi. That can change by using “mycologically inclusive language,” researchers say.

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  2. Earth

    How thunderstorms can spawn damaging ‘downbursts’

    Powerful winds called downbursts are not the same as a tornado, but the damage they cause can be similar — and can hit with little warning.

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  3. Chemistry

    Chemists turned plastic waste into tiny bars of soap

    Researchers developed a process to turn plastic waste into surfactants, the key ingredients in dozens of products, including soap.

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  4. Climate

    Emperor penguins lost thousands of chicks to melting ice last year

    In 2022, groups of emperor penguins in western Antarctica lost almost all their chicks to receding sea ice, signaling the threat of climate change.

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  5. Climate

    Some leaves in tropical forests may be getting too hot for photosynthesis

    Climate change may be forcing some tropical leaves to stop photosynthesis and die. It’s still unclear what effect this will have on entire forests.

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  6. Chemistry

    Magnetic ‘rusty’ nanoparticles pull estrogen out of water

    Iron oxide particles adorned with “sticky” molecules trap estrogen in water, possibly limiting the hormone’s harmful effects on aquatic life.

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  7. Environment

    The most intense sunlight on Earth can be found in the Atacama Desert

    On the Chilean Altiplano plateau, every square meter of the ground receives, on average, more solar power than Mount Everest and occasionally almost as much as Venus.

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  8. Animals

    In a ‘perfect comeback,’ some birds use antibird spikes to build their nests

    The spikes were meant to keep birds away. But five corvid nests in Europe use the bird-deterrents as structural support and to ward off predators.

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  9. Climate

    Canada’s Crawford Lake could mark the beginning of the Anthropocene

    The mud of a Canadian lake holds an extremely precise record of humans’ influence on Earth. But the Anthropocene isn’t an official geologic epoch yet.

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  10. Ecosystems

    This seagrass is taking over the Chesapeake Bay. That’s good and bad news

    Higher water temperatures are wiping out eelgrass in the Chesapeake Bay and weedy widgeongrass is expanding. Here’s why that seagrass change matters.

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  11. Chemistry

    Tear-resistant rubbery materials could pave the way for tougher tires

    Adding easy-to-break molecular connectors surprisingly makes materials harder to tear and could one day reduce microplastic pollution from car tires.

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  12. Environment

    Dust from a shrinking Great Salt Lake may be accelerating Utah’s snowmelt

    About a quarter of the record-breaking, snow-melting dust on the Wasatch Mountains in 2022 may have come from exposed lakebed at Great Salt Lake.

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