Page 5 - Tim Newbold News Today

by Tim Newbold (The Guardian) The global approach to energy is changing rapidly. The urgency of the challenge that climate change presents has focused significant attention and resources on renewable energy solutions, as countries and companies seek to reduce emissions. One of the ways that an increasing number of countries have found to provide such mitigation, is the addition of a renewable energy resource like ethanol. When blended, fuel ethanol has a low-carbon content compared to tradit...

Here are some of the most interesting research papers to have appeared in top science journals last week.

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Nearly half of the food eaten in the UK is grown abroad. Take your morning tea or coffee. These are just two of the many crops grown in tropical and sub-tropical climates that depend on animal pollination and countless other services provided by wildlife before they can reach our kitchen tables. But how often do we consider biodiversity when enjoying them? You’ll probably be used to hearing that animal populations have declined by more than two-thirds since 1970 worldwide, and that around one...

For her PhD, Adrienne Etard is investigating how species traits influence their responses to climate and land use change. Her published research has uncovered how climate and land use change homogenise terrestrial biodiversity, and the consequences this has for ecosystem functioning and human wellbeing. As part of a research team supervised by Tim Newbold at UCL, Etard has researched the gaps that exist in trait data for terrestrial vertebrates and how biodiversity in tropical and Mediterranean...

No social distancing in borderless Amazonia January 12, 2021CNRS What would have happened if Covid-19 had appeared in the Amazon rainforest 1,000 years ago? For an archaeologist, this is a question worth considering. Indeed, like its counterparts in Africa and Asia, the humid jungle of Amazonia is a potential hotbed of unknown viruses that only need a chance to hatch before spreading around the globe. All ecosystems that have been transformed by human activity are susceptible to the development...