NASA's Aqua satellite provided infrared imagery of the latest tropical cyclone in the South China Sea.

Interplanetary space is hardly tranquil. High-energy charged particles from the Sun, as well as from beyond our solar system, constantly whizz by. These can damage satellites and endanger astronaut health — though, luckily for life on Earth, the planet is blanketed by a protective magnetic bubble created by its magnetic field. This bubble, called the magnetosphere, deflects most of the harmful high-energy particles.

New research, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, suggests that plant respiration is a larger source of carbon emissions than previously thought, and warns that, as the world warms, this may reduce the ability of Earth’s land surface to absorb emissions due to fossil fuel burning.

Leipzig. Forests fulfil numerous important functions, and do so particularly well if they are rich in different species of trees. This is the result of a new study. In addition, forest managers do not have to decide on the provision of solely one service – such as wood production or nature conservation – as a second study demonstrates: several services provided by forest ecosystems can be improved at the same time. Both studies were led by scientists from Leipzig University and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), and published in the prestigious journal Ecology Letters.

Humans may be adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by using groundwater faster than it is replenished, according to new research. This process, known as groundwater depletion, releases a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that has until now been overlooked by scientists in calculating carbon sources, according to the new study.

A genomic study of Puerto Rico's Africanized honey bees – which are more docile than other so-called “killer bees” – reveals that they retain most of the genetic traits of their African honey bee ancestors, but that a few regions of their DNA have become more like those of European honey bees. According to the researchers, these changes likely contributed to the bees' rapid evolution toward gentleness in Puerto Rico, a change that occurred within 30 years.

In 2016, news about the Zika virus in Brazil made the headlines in Europe for the first time. With approximately 65 million people affected, it is one of the largest epidemics in the last few years. The Olympics additionally fuelled fears that the virus could spread globally. When the first cases of newborns with microcephaly, i.e. malformations of the brain, were observed in connection to Zika, it became apparent that further research was called for. The DZIF responded to this global challenge and, under the leadership of Jan Felix Drexler, Charité – Universitätsklinikum Berlin, initiated a German alliance project with Brazilian scientists, which investigates the pathogenesis and epidemiology of Zika.

Some impacts of global warming – such as sea level rise and coastal flooding – are already locked in and unavoidable, according to a major research project. 

Two new studies from The University of Texas at Austin have significantly improved scientists’ ability to predict the strength and duration of droughts caused by La Niña – a recurrent cooling pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Their findings, which predict that the current La Niña is likely to stretch into a second year, could help scientists know years in advance how a particular La Niña event is expected to evolve.

Geologists have long debated how and when the Colorado River made its first connection to the ocean. In a new study, a team led by the UO’s Becky Dorsey has helped pull the river’s story together.

The river did not, as many thought, simply roar down out of the Colorado Plateau and pour into the Gulf of California.