articles

More than 70 years after the end of the Second World War, countless pieces of ammunition from this time are still lying – and corroding – in all oceans. Once the casings are damaged, the explosives can release toxic substances into the seawater. A new review study, published by scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of the Environment in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, points to considerable knowledge gaps regarding the spread and effects of these chemicals on marine ecosystems.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including eating a healthy diet, regular exercise and not smoking, could prolong life expectancy at age 50 by 14 years for women and just over 12 years for men, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.

It’s not easy to catch an Egyptian vulture.

Evan Buechley knows. He’s hunkered down near garbage dumps from Ethiopia to Armenia, waiting for the highly intelligent birds to trigger a harmless trap. But no matter how well he and other researchers hid the traps, he says, “somehow the birds could always sense that something was up.”

A new conductor material and a new electrode material could pave the way for inexpensive batteries and therefore the large-scale storage of renewable energies.

Cheap, flexible and sustainable plastic semiconductors will soon be a reality thanks to a breakthrough by chemists at the University of Waterloo. 

Professor Derek Schipper and his team at Waterloo have developed a way to make conjugated polymers, plastics that conduct electricity like metals, using a simple dehydration reaction the only byproduct of which is water.