Climate science, earth systems and environmental research.
In a West Texas field study, alfalfa irrigated with treated oil-and-gas wastewater grew similarly to alfalfa irrigated with groundwater. The water met most irrigation standards, but elevated strontium and the need to track long-term effects remain concerns.
Prescribed burns made the Brazilian Cerrado shrub Macairea radula flower earlier and for longer, but reduced its fruiting period and fruit abundance. The findings suggest that fire management should consider effects on reproduction beyond flowering.
Isotopes preserved in children’s teeth from a prehistoric Chinese site point to several weaning patterns and different life histories. People in more lavish burials had diets richer in high-protein C3 foods, while others mainly ate C4 foods, suggesting that diet and childhood treatment varied with emerging social differences.
A forensic operation after the 2015 Mediterranean migrant shipwreck recovered 528 bodies and about 30,000 commingled remains. Ten years later, 33 victims had been identified and another 40 were being confirmed, showing how detailed records and international cooperation can support identification after a mass disaster.
An open Zenodo working note tracks water use linked to 10 AI data-centre sites and provides code to reproduce its calculations. It finds that closed-loop cooling shifts roughly 92% to 95% of the modelled water footprint to the electricity grid, rather than removing it.
Measurements in Missoula, Montana, found that aged wildfire smoke contained substantially more fine particles, carbon monoxide and chemical pollutants than a widely used atmospheric model predicted. The researchers estimated that an annually recurring 2020-style fire season would raise excess lifetime cancer risk to about 100 in 1 million, while the model understated that risk by about 40 percent.
Two native Amazonian stingless bee species carried microplastics in both urban and rural areas, with most particles attached to their outer bodies. The finding suggests these bees could help monitor pollution, while also raising questions about whether they transport plastic particles into natural areas.
Europe’s forests lost an estimated 6.5 ± 0.8 petagrams of aboveground biomass between 1985 and 2023, with annual losses accelerating after 2018. Harvests caused most of the total loss, while rising natural disturbances in biomass-rich temperate forests helped drive the recent increase.
Iron-rich regions at the boundary between Earth’s core and mantle may store heavy iron isotopes and carry them upward in rising mantle plumes. The proposed deep source could help explain why ocean-island basalts have heavier and more variable iron isotope compositions than mid-ocean ridge basalts.
Ghana’s Keta Lagoon remains ecologically functional, but researchers found signs of nutrient enrichment, organic matter loading and habitat alteration. Water, sediment and bottom-dwelling animal communities varied across the lagoon, with more tolerant species dominant where nutrient and turbidity levels were higher.
Bangladesh’s nighttime heat stress has risen faster than its daytime extremes over the past 40 years, with the strongest warming in the early morning. Major cities including Dhaka and Rajshahi are experiencing more days of very strong heat stress, raising concerns about health, work and urban resilience.
Seismic sensors detected hidden larval activity from the destructive longhorn beetle Cerambyx dux in Israeli sweet cherry orchards. Activity peaked in late summer, while infestations formed expanding clusters around already infested trees.
Researchers built a geospatial framework to assess agrivoltaic solar farms across the Iberian Peninsula. The approach screens constraints, matches crops to local agroclimatic conditions, and compares simplified energy estimates for different solar layouts. It is tested in three case studies in Portugal and Spain, including a qualitative check against an existing pilot.
Satellite images often average bare-soil data over long periods, but the colors can change even under similar conditions. Using seven years of Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 reflectance data from more than 27,000 European sites, researchers found that changes in solar angle interacting with rough bare soil explain most of the temporal variation, while surface moisture contributes less.
A study using passive air samplers found that outdoor air across five East African countries shares a broadly similar set of bacteria. Fungal communities varied more by country, and nearby sites did not always match closely.
