The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) launch a peer-reviewed report based on a 4-day virtual workshop on addressing the biodiversity and climate crises together involving 50 jointly-selected international experts.
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IMAGE: Between 1990 and 2015 alone, up to 100 million tons of trash are believed to have entered the oceans. view more
Credit: Photo: Brian Yurasits via Unsplash
Plastic bottles drifting in the sea; bags in the stomachs of turtles; Covid-19 masks dancing in the surf: few images are as unpleasant to look at as those that show the contamination of our oceans. And few environmental issues are as urgent and as present in the public awareness. Most people have an emotional connection to the sea. They think of ocean pollution as an attack on a place they long for, said Nikoleta Bellou, marine scientist at Hereon s Institute of Coastal System - Analysis and Modeling. Between 1990 and 2015 alone, an estimated 100 million metric tons of mostly plastic waste entered the oceans. For that instance the study fits to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, which started this year to emphasize a sustainable use of the seas.
Some four months ago, a devastating flood ravaged the Chamoli district in the Indian Himalayas, killing over 200 people. The flood was caused by a massive landslide, which also involved a glacier. Researchers at the University of Zurich, the WSL and ETH Zurich have now analyzed the causes, scope and impact of the disaster as part of an international collaboration.
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IMAGE: Fluorescent innocuous organic substances used as testing techniques to simulate the trajectory followed by a pollutant. view more
Credit: University of Malaga
Led by Professor Andreas Hartmann, from the University of Freiburg (Germany), the researchers analyzed the presence of several pollutants in water from many karst aquifers of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, relating fast infiltration processes to an increased concentration of these substances. The findings of this research are published in the scientific journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
This way, they warn that during rainfall events -when aquifers recharge, especially during autumn rainfall- the concentration of pollutants and pathogenic microorganisms can significantly exceed the safe levels, causing serious consequences for human consumption.
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IMAGE: Senior staff scientist Musahid Ahmed (left) and postdoctoral researcher Wenchao Lu near the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Berkeley Lab on May 21, 2021. They used a special technique, which. view more
Credit: Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab
For nearly half a century, astrophysicists and organic chemists have been on the hunt for the origins of C
6H
6, the benzene ring - an elegant, hexagonal molecule comprised of 6 carbon and 6 hydrogen atoms.
Astrophysicists say that the benzene ring could be the fundamental building block of polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs, the most basic materials formed from the explosion of dying, carbon-rich stars. That swirling mass of matter would eventually give shape to the earliest forms of carbon - precursors to molecules some scientists say are connected to the synthesis of the earliest forms of life on Earth.