Environmental Issues

A new study stresses the overlooked hazards that dumped pharmaceuticals found in wastewater pose to the world’s freshwater streams. So far, the impacts and consequences on water quality and aquatic life are unknown or under researched, and the authors hope their findings might warrant more work in this direction. Dr. Emma Rosi-Marshall, lead author of [...]

Overgrowth of invasive algae can have huge detrimental effects both on the environment and on human activities. This is quite clearly observed in lake Erie, where a study published by the National Academy of Sciences documents some serious problems. Farmers and the environment According to Anna Michalak, the study’s co-author and a researcher at the [...]

The misinformation going on in some fields of science is just staggering. For example, I woke up today to see my email, Facebook and even phone filled with messages about this new discovery that can use the CO2 in the atmosphere and transform it into biofuel. My first take on that was “Cool, a plant”. [...]

The Peruvian capital of Lima, along with its outskirts, is plagued by a vicious drought, which coupled with pollution and unsanitary water extraction methods, has made the water there stagnant, dirty and dangerous. Doing what they know best – fix problems – engineers at Peru’s University for Engineering and Technology have devised an resourceful system that [...]

What do you get when you cross a grizzly bear with a polar bear? Simple, a prizzly bear or golar bear, depending on the side you’re looking from. What about a narwhal with a beluga whale? A narluga! No, these aren’t childish word plays, nor elaborated photoshop attempts – these animals truly exist and come [...]

Up until the mind XIXth century most homes and buildings were made out of wood, a readily available and cheap material. However, like we all know wood is easily flammable and caused a myriad of issues, especially in urban environments. How many times were whole cities at risk of being whipped out by flames? Rome? [...]

An extremely worrisome climate model predicts, based on current global warming projections, that storm surges – the most damaging and dangerous part of a hurricane – are set to increase in frequency and magnitude by as much as ten times by the turn of the century due to climate change. The scientists involved in the [...]

It is indeed a war of manipulation and misdirection, but the main actors are not the ones you may think about first. As a new study concluded, some 3 out of every 4 climate change denial books have direct, easily verifiable connections to conservative organizations. A research conducted by Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State [...]

In what’s maybe the most comprehensive global temperature reconstruction study to date, scientists at Oregon State University and Harvard University found that the planet today is warmer than it has been during 70 to 80 percent of the time over the last 11,300 years. The authors note in their paper published in the journal Science that previous, [...]

A group of international researchers assessed 17 state-of-the-art climate model simulations and based on these have found that temperature seasonality shifts and green plants could move further north by as much as a whooping 20 degrees latitude by the turn of the century. So far, in the past 30 years alone, southern vegetation has moved [...]