Gravity waves form in the atmosphere as a result of destabilizing processes, for example at weather fronts, during storms or when air masses stroke over mountain ranges. They can occasionally be seen in the sky as bands of cloud. For weather forecast and climate models, however, they are mostly “invisible” due to their short wavelength. The effects of gravity waves can only be taken into consideration by including additional special components in the models. The “MS-GWaves” research unit funded by the German Research Foundation and led by Goethe University Frankfurt has meanwhile further developed such parameterizations and will test them in the second funding period.

Researchers at the University of Regina have recently launched a new climate change tool designed to help project future climate changes.

The tool, called the Canada Climate Change Data Portal (CCCDP), was developed by researchers in the University of Regina’s Institute for Energy Environment and Sustainable Communities (IEESC).

The world’s first widespread human testing of a flu vaccine which researchers hope will protect more over 65-year-olds against influenza has begun in the NHS.

Auroras are lightshows that typically occur at high latitudes such as the Arctic and Antarctic; however, they expand equatorward under severe magnetic storms. Past observations of such unusual auroras can therefore allow us to determine the frequency and severity of magnetic storms. The more information that can be gathered about historic intense magnetic storms, the greater the opportunity to mitigate disruption of power grids in a future event.

No one can travel inside the earth to study what happens there. So scientists must do their best to replicate real-world conditions inside the lab.

Imagine you’re a member of the Cephalotes goniodontus species, an arboreal ant with a Darth Vader-like head that has inspired humans to call you “turtle ants.” You’re moving along a branch of the tangled tree canopy in Jalisco, Mexico, following a scent trail left by other ants from your colony, but you hit an abrupt end where the branch is broken. How do you know where to go?

A new study carried out by the University of Oxford has used flat worms to look at the role of migrating stem cells in cancer.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is helping identify potential celestial targets for the James Webb Space Telescope through a series of preparatory science observations to be completed before Webb is ready to make observations of its own.

Using data captured by ALMA in Chile and from the ROSINA instrument on ESA’s Rosetta mission, a team of astronomers has found faint traces of the chemical compound Freon-40 (CH3Cl), also known as methyl chloride and chloromethane, around both the infant star system IRAS 16293-2422 [1], about 400 light-years away, and the famous comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) in our own Solar System. The new ALMA observation is the first detection ever of a stable organohalogen in interstellar space [2].

The significant scale of human impact on our planet has changed the course of Earth history, an international team of scientists led by our School of Geography, Geology and the Environment has suggested.