climate change

Stanford University researchers have discovered that small bursts of electricity — which they call microlightning, created by oppositely charged water droplets interacting in the early Earth, likely created the first organic compounds that later led to life. For decades, one of the leading hypotheses for the origin of life has been the Miller-Urey hypothesis. In […]

One of the largest studies ever conducted on biodiversity loss worldwide has revealed that humans are having a severely detrimental impact on global wildlife. The number of species is declining, as well as the composition of populations. “Biological diversity is under threat. More and more plant and animal species are disappearing worldwide, and humans are […]

As our planet has experienced increased warming over the last several decades due to greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, glaciers around the world have been shrinking. An international team of scientists has found that global heating has, over the past two decades, melted enough of Greenland’s glacial ice that 1,006.6 more […]

Honeybee deaths in the United States have surged to record highs, with commercial beekeepers reporting having lost an average of 62 percent of their colonies over the winter, according to an ongoing survey by nonprofit Project Apis m. Data for the survey was collected from 702 respondents who are responsible for roughly 1.84 million colonies […]

Freshwater ecosystems need adequate levels of oxygen to maintain healthy biological communities and sustain life. But the increasing intensity and frequency of short-term heat waves, along with long-term climate warming, are significantly reducing the levels of dissolved oxygen (DO) on the surface of lakes across the globe, according to a new study. The researchers quantified […]

In the not-too-distant past, the American Southwest was a place that fed the imagination of non-residents. The sun, the desert, expansive canyons and gorgeous vistas have drawn visitors and retirees for decades. The Southwest is generally defined as Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Nevada, California and Texas, and the attraction is predictable – warm […]

With global average temperatures expected to continue to rise in the coming decades, scientists have projected that warming will significantly harm global agriculture as it weakens crop yields and disrupts food production. Now, new research finds that warming will disrupt many of Earth’s major crops and harm global crop diversity. The study, conducted by researchers […]

Researchers have determined multiple ways that harvested fog could help meet water demand in arid cities, particularly those within the driest area on Earth, the Atacama Desert. From providing drinking water to irrigating landscapes to supporting hydroponic gardening, the new research shows promise in fog-harvesting technology. In the study published in Frontiers in Environmental Science, […]