News
January 24, 2025
Scientists have warned that Africa is breaking apart faster than previously thought. A 35-mile-long fissure in Ethiopia’s desert emerged in 2005 but has since been widening at a rate of half an inch per year. Researchers previously believed the split would take tens of millions of years, but Ken Macdonald, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that it would likely happen within one to five million years.
The separation would also create a new ocean and continent on Earth.
January 23, 2025
The coal industry in Russia and around the world will come out of the crisis no earlier than 2027, and only if production is reduced and, as a result, the supply of energy (cheap) coal is reduced. Kommersant writes about this with reference to the NEFT Research review.
January 22, 2025
Germany may need to keep its fleet of mothballed coal-fired stations available for longer than expected as a drive to build new gas plants is severely behind schedule, grid operator Amprion GmbH warned.
After Europe’s biggest economy shut its last nuclear plant in 2023, its power generation margin has shrunk. The coal plants are there to help keep the lights on if needed and can be started up on short notice.
January 22, 2025
Oil spills worsen soil fertility in Siberia. Russian scientists have assessed the impact of oil pollution on the soil in the middle taiga of Western Siberia. The presence of petroleum products reduces the soil's ability to retain water and nutrients and leads to serious changes in soil pH. Podzolic soils are particularly affected by oil pollution. Deterioration of soil quality can lead to nutrient imbalances and adverse effects on plant growth.
January 17, 2025
Moon added to list of threatened cultural sites for first time. Potential looting and commercial trips pose risk to artefacts left by lunar landings, says World Monuments Fund.
The moon has been placed on a list of threatened heritage sites, owing to fears of potential looting and destruction caused by planned commercial trips.
January 14, 2025
A system for detecting earthquake precursors has been developed. The computing platform will help predict seismic events in a few weeks. Scientists at the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences have developed a computing platform for assessing earthquake precursors based on geoelectric monitoring data.
January 13, 2025
Earth breaches 1.5 °C climate limit for the first time: what does it mean? The threshold has been exceeded for only one year so far, but humanity is nearing the end of what many thought was a ‘safe zone’ as climate change worsens. It’s official: Earth’s average temperature climbed to more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in 2024.
January 12, 2025
Melting Antarctic ice sheets may be causing larger volcanic eruptions. Melting ice sheets are often considered synonymous with climate change in the media, with evocative images of lone polar bears floating on ever-shrinking rafts of ice. While impacts such as sea level rise and salinity changes are commonly reported, one lesser-known consequence is the effect on volcanoes.