articles

A lonely bird call breaks my concentration and I glance upward. Where glacier-topped mountains should be filling the horizon, instead my view is obscured by a strange orange haze. Even the bright sun has given up. It seems to float in the sky as a faint pink ball.

I am a field ecologist working east of the Denali mountain range in Alaska, but the postcard-worthy view of my sites today is obscured by smoke drifting across the border from wildfires burning throughout British Columbia. I have been studying boreal wildfires for years and have a strong understanding of the importance of fire to the boreal forest of Canada.

A research paper published today by Nature Astronomy sheds light on the so far unexplored nightside circulation at the upper cloud level of Venus. Researchers from the Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Cologne are part of an international research project which has now presented its preliminary findings. They discovered unexpected patterns of slow motion and abundant stationary waves in Venus’s nighttime sky. 

These hot summer days may prompt you to cut back on outdoor activity – just as cold weather during the winter can be a reason to sit on your sofa.

A research team at the University of Regina, led by Dr. Katya Herman, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, is looking into how the seasons affect physical activity.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured an image of Hurricane Hilary as it continued to strengthen. The National Hurricane Center expects Hilary to become a major hurricane on July 27.

MOTORISTS face rush-hour bans and pollution taxes in up to 17 towns and cities across the UK as the Government vows to clean up the ‘dirtiest roads’ in Britain.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove will pave the way for local authorities to slap yet more tax on drivers as part of his radical blueprint.

His plans reveal that air pollution needs to be addressed on 81 roads – 33 of which are outside London such as the A360 in Sheffield or A35 in Southampton.

Nitrogen dioxide emissions along each of them breach the legal limit.

Mr Gove will insist that councils first exhaust all other possible options to improve air quality, such as tackling chronic congestion.