The desalination industry, a critical source of potable water in many arid regions, generated more than $13 billion last year and is expected to double within a decade. Most desalination plants today use a process called reverse osmosis (RO), which forces water through huge rolls of membranes, leaving the salt behind. One of the most expensive operational challenges for such plants is the fouling of these membranes by microorganisms.

Around the world, mothers speak differently to their children than they do to other adults — and Princeton researchers have found a new way to quantify that vocal shift.

The Joint Polar Satellite System-1, the first in a new series of highly advanced NOAA polar-orbiting satellites, is scheduled to lift off Nov. 10, at 1:47 a.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have created a continuous thermo-chemical process that produces useful biocrude from algae. The process takes just minutes and PNNL is working with a company which has licensed the technology to build a pilot plant using the technology.

NASA scientists are once again on the hunt for greenhouse gases in the sky.

Infrared imagery from NASA’s Aqua satellite showed powerful thunderstorms around the center of Tropical Storm Ophelia with a band of thunderstorms stretching to the southwest, giving the storm the appearance of a comma.

Aside from inflicting devastating natural disasters on often vulnerable communities, climate change can also spur outbreaks of infectious diseases like Zika , malaria and dengue fever, according to a new study by researchers at the University of  Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

It’s a touchy subject — literally. Samuel Andrew Hires, assistant professor of biological sciences, wants to know how the brain learns to understand what we’re touching. Understanding how this works could one day be a boon for people who have suffered a stroke or spinal cord injury.

In freshwater lakes, microbes regulate the flow of carbon and determine if the bodies of water serve as carbon sinks or carbon sources. Algae and cyanobacteria in particular can trap and use carbon, but their capacity to do so may be impacted by viruses. Viruses exist amidst all bacteria, usually in a 10-fold excess, and are made up of various sizes ranging from giant viruses, to much smaller viruses known as virophages (which live in giant viruses and use their machinery to replicate and spread.) 

While strong seasonal hurricanes have devastated many of the Caribbean and Bahamian islands this year, geologic studies on several of these islands illustrate that more extreme conditions existed in the past. A new analysis published in Marine Geology shows that the limestone islands of the Bahamas and Bermuda experienced climate changes that were even more extreme than historical events. In the interest of our future world, scientists must seek to understand the complexities of linked natural events and field observations that are revealed in the geologic record of past warmer climates.