Science

Malaysian students have built a prototype that attempts to recover electricity from one of the most overlooked sources of wasted energy in a home, water flowing down the sink. Developed by three students at Universiti Malaya, WattsUp is an IoT-enabled micro-hydropower system designed specifically for the weak and intermittent flow produced by household wastewater. Rather…

When Hurricane Iris tore through southern Belize in 2001, it left more than a battered coastline behind. The storm severely damaged the region’s coral reefs, including those around Laughing Bird Caye. For marine biologist Lisa Carne, the destruction became the starting point for a restoration effort that has since helped put more than 100,000 corals…

Spider-tailed horned viper (Image Credit: Omid Mozaffari) The natural world is full of animals that use mimicry to survive, but few examples are as unusual as the spider-tailed horned viper. Native to Iran, this elusive snake has evolved a remarkable tail tip that resembles a spider, complete with a bulbous body and dangling, leg-like structures….

There is a vast amount of methane trapped beneath the seafloor, across the planet. If it were to be released, the results could be potentially catastrophic for all forms of life. This is why finding out how ecosystems respond to methane leaks is important to ocean scientists. Generally, these investigations take place on purpose in…

Donkeys are more than just packs of animals and load carriers; these herbivores have the capacity to contribute more to the environment than most humans. Over four decades ago, authorities in Israel released 28 wild donkeys into the Ramon Crater, an extremely arid area of Israel’s Negev Desert. The animals’ daily habits completely transformed the…

More than 100 years after a dam built beneath the historic Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad disrupted the natural flow of Buckhorn Creek, the waterway is running free again, and the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail now crosses it on a new 90-foot bridge. The Muskegon River Watershed Assembly (MRWA), which has led the restoration…

Fields once used for crops can become important wildlife habitat when restored to native prairie. Across Wisconsin, former farmland is being transformed with native grasses and wildflowers, creating a wider range of resources for pollinators. According to Restoring Lands, A Wisconsin Land Trust, bumblebee surveys have found greater diversity at restored sites, with some uncommon…

Concrete has a major environmental cost, while human waste creates another difficult waste-management challenge. Researchers have now brought the two problems together in an unusual laboratory experiment. A team converted treated faecal sludge into biochar and used the resulting material to replace part of the cement in concrete. The researchers tested mixtures containing 5%, 10%…

PC: Youth Service America At just 17, Vivian Liu has turned a childhood passion for origami into a worldwide movement built around one simple idea: making people feel remembered. Through Origami For Good, the teenager from Katy, Texas, has helped bring together thousands of young volunteers who fold recycled paper into cranes, flowers, animals and…

The red kite, once pushed close to extinction in Britain because of human persecution, has made one of the country’s most successful wildlife recoveries. After centuries of hunting and egg collecting reduced the UK population to fewer than 10 breeding pairs in remote Welsh valleys, a reintroduction programme launched in 1989 brought birds from Spain…