As natural climate archives, the deposits found in caves can play an important role in our ability to understand—and predict—climate change. Every family has those stories that are passed down from generation to generation. Some of them have to do with history, others about a particular individual. But many of them have to do with…
Step forward district cooling, a method of cooling buildings where chilled water from a central facility passes through pipes to multiple buildings, allowing them to be cooled without needing their own energy-hungry air conditioning systems. This not only lowers the carbon footprint of each building but also provides a cheaper way to cool building interiors.…
Cutting-edge recycling technologies remove hazardous substances from plastic, helping inject industrial plastic waste into the circular economy. With Europe’s ambitious plastic recycling strategy and growing public awareness, a plastic pollution-free future seems more and more possible despite current obstacles. For example, the EU already recycles 32.5 per cent of its 29.1 million tonnes of plastic…
Life on Earth has evolved alongside predictable cycles of day and night. But this pattern has become increasingly blurred. Between 2012 and 2016, satellite measurements revealed that the global area polluted by artificial light grew by 2 per cent each year, intruding ever deeper into biodiversity hotspots like tropical forests. In this context, there is…
Rail transportation is core to Europe’s plans to become carbon neutral by 2050, but noisy trains are an obstacle that will need to be first overcome. ‘We have a lot of resistance from people (living) beside the tracks who are against all construction and upgrades of the lines,’ said Rudiger Garburg, senior consultant for noise…
Rage on social media platforms gets the most likes. Anger seems to be all the rage on social media these days. Angry thoughts have the tendency to spread the fastest on the social web. Is it any wonder then that Twitter has often been called the angriest place on the internet? A new Yale University…
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has announced a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion, using powerful lasers to produce 1.3 megajoules of energy—about 3 per cent of the energy contained in 1kg of crude oil. Nuclear fusion has long been thought of as the energy of the future—an “infinite” source of power that does not rely…
The material, known as biphenylene network, is highly conductive and may prove able to store more electrical energy than even graphene, the astonishing atomic-thickness carbon honeycomb material identified nearly 20 years ago. In May, scientists announced that they have been able to tailor the arrangement of carbon atoms into a mesh that, for the first…
A one-of-a-kind terawatt laser installed on Mount Säntis in the Swiss Alps will demonstrate how lasers can control and safely divert lightning. Almost 270 years since Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, lightning protection is still based on this same concept. Although we can’t deny the benefits of lightning rods, major drawbacks do remain. Installing…
The first-ever European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) call for proposals has been published by CINEA. The single-stage call focuses on establishing a pre-operational ‘incident alerting service’ in the CISE (Common Information Sharing Environment) for the EU maritime domain network, where information regarding incidents on board vessels or any type of maritime asset can be exchanged.…