When Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast in 2017, displaced residents flocked inland, trying to rebuild their lives in the disaster’s aftermath. Within decades, the same thing could happen at a much larger scale due to rising sea levels, says a new study led by USC Computer Science Assistant Professor Bistra Dilkina. The study,...
Using a 22-year dataset of plant-caterpillar-parasitoid interactions collected within a patch of protected Costa Rican lowland Caribbean forest, scientists report declines in caterpillar and parasitoid diversity and density that are paralleled by losses in an important ecosystem service: biocontrol of herbivores by parasitoids. The study by University of Nevada, Reno researchers, published in Scientific Reports this week,...
More than half of Earth’s rivers freeze over every year. These frozen rivers support important transportation networks for communities and industries located at high latitudes. Ice cover also regulates the amount of greenhouse gasses released from rivers into Earth’s atmosphere. A new study from researchers in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department...
Hunting wild animals has been practised by humans for millions of years; however, the extraction of wildlife for subsistence and commercialisation has become a major biodiversity threat in recent decades. Meanwhile, over-exploitation is reported to be the second most important driver of change and biodiversity loss globally. To assess the state of affairs, an international group of...
Cities in the “global south” – densely populated urban areas that are part of low-income countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America – should phase out pit latrines, septic tanks and other on-site methods of human waste management. Instead, cities should invest in sewage systems, according to a report from the World Resources Institute/Ross Center...
Tiny mealworms may hold part of the solution to our giant plastics problem. Not only are they able to consume various forms of plastic, as previous Stanford research has shown, they can eat Styrofoam containing a common toxic chemical additive and still be safely used as protein-rich feedstock for other animals, according to a new...
Ten years after the publication of their first plan for powering the world with wind, water, and solar, researchers offer an updated vision of the steps that 143 countries around the world can take to attain 100% clean, renewable energy by the year 2050. The new roadmaps, published December 20 in the journal One Earth,...
Inaccessible valleys and ravines lead from the North East Indian Meghalaya plateau to the wide plains of Bangladesh. In the monsoon months the mountain streams in the forests swell into torrential rivers. In order to cross these rivers, the indigenous Khasi and Jaintia peoples have long built their bridges out of the living aerial roots...
In the autumn of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria destroyed Puerto Rico causing thousands of deaths, illnesses and suffering, which brought about a situation of serious economic, political and public health crisis, and widespread death and destruction. However, neither the US nor the Puerto Rican government reacted adequately to such a grave situation. A scientific...
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Only 28 European Union nations & 7 others will reduce emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 China & India, top emitters, will reduce emissions intensity, but their emissions will increase U.S., second top emitter, has reversed key national policies to combat climate change Almost 70 percent of the pledges rely on funding from...
