Category: Environment

Just as one too many cocktails can lead a person to make bad choices, a few drops of oil can cause coral reef fish to make poor decisions, according to a paper published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. A team of fisheries biologists led by Jacob Johansen and Andrew Esbaugh of The University of […]

  Packing tiny solar cells together, like micro-lenses in the compound eye of an insect, could pave the way to a new generation of advanced photovoltaics, say Stanford University scientists. In a new study, the Stanford team used the insect-inspired design to protect a fragile photovoltaic material called perovskite from deteriorating when exposed to heat, […]

Electric vehicles play a key role in China’s plan to improve air quality and reduce CO2 emissions but, with the majority of China’s electricity still coming from coal-fired power plants, many question just how effective this strategy will be. Now, researchers from Harvard University and Tsinghua University in Beijing found that private electric vehicles in […]

Scientists from TPU, Germany, and the United States have found a new way to functionalize a dielectric, otherwise known as ‘white graphene’, i.e. hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), without destroying it or changing its properties. Thanks to the new method, the researchers synthesized a ‘polymer nano carpet’ with strong covalent bond on the samples. Prof Raul […]

It’s a popular phrase used to describe people, things, and ideas that just don’t mix—“like oil and water.” Except it’s not entirely true. Oil and water can mix, and can be very difficult to completely separate when brought together. Think of environmental oil spills or wastewater treatment, and you quickly realize that separating out unwanted […]

  Fish stories about ‘the big one that got away’ may have to scale back in the years ahead. A new study predicts that fish will shrink in size by up to 30 percent as ocean temperatures continue to climb. Said William Cheung, co-author of the study out of the University of British Columbia: “Fish, […]