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With hundreds of millions of tonnes of plastic produced and used on a yearly basis, it's no surprise that people are looking for alternatives. Yet so-called 'sustainable plastics' are not a silver bullet, warn researchers Sara Gonella and Vincent de Gooyert from Radboud University. When looking at the full impact of these plastics, they are often not nearly as sustainable as they pretend to be, they argue.

The thaw of permafrost is not a global climate 'tipping point'. That is the conclusion of an international group of scientists, including earth scientist Moritz Langer. Rather, permafrost soils are thawing along with global warming. "There is no safe margin within which the Earth can warm up, as a tipping point suggests." Permafrost soils store large amounts of organic carbon in the form of dead plant material.

Climate change can accelerate due to feedback mechanisms: complex phenomena caused by climate change that in turn can further drive climate change. An example is the extra CO2 emissions from thawing permafrost. Research into the influence of feedback mechanisms in the long term has been ongoing, and modern climate change research is obviously happening as well, but the connection between the two has so far been underemphasized.

New findings from a spaceborne monitoring team of University of Houston, TU Delft and DLR indicates the collapse of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine may have been already ongoing before the war with Russia, with deformations in the dam pre-dating the actual collapse. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment this month.

A groundbreaking study by an international team of researchers has revealed seaweed forests to be significant contributors to oceanic carbon storage. Their research estimates that the world's seaweed forests transport 56 million tonnes of carbon (between 10 to 170 million tonnes) to deep ocean sinks each year.

Core changemakers wants to give used solar panels a second life. As the world steadily progresses towards a more sustainable future, recycling solar panels becomes increasingly relevant. However, in some cases, simply reusing old solar panels is better. CORE CHANGEMAKERS, once a student team at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and now evolving into a startup, is exploring the possibility of using old solar panels.

Water can be purified using mushroom substrate: the mixture of fungal filaments and horse manure that remains after harvesting mushrooms. The substrate effectively decreases concentrations of pesticides and drugs in contaminated water. Utrecht researchers Brigit van Brenk , Han Wösten , and colleagues demonstrate this in a paper in the scientific journal Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Renewed efforts are needed to reach international biodiversity goals, according to an international study involving scientists from Radboud University, published in Science. The study shows that climate change could be the main driver of biodiversity decline by the mid-21st century. The analysis was led by the German Center for Integrated Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and is the largest modeling study of its kind to date.

When you build a dam on a river, less sediment can get to the sea, which makes deltas more susceptible to floods. This idea's been believed for a long time, however new research from Utrecht University shows that the amount of sediment in deltas has actually increased since 2000. This is good news for preserving deltas - like the Netherlands - from sea level rise.

Theoretical physicists at Utrecht University, together with experimental physicists at Sogang University in South Korea, have succeeded in building an artificial synapse. This synapse works with water and salt and provides the first evidence that a system using the same medium as our brains can process complex information.

High waves startle mangroves for days during an experiment at the Delta wave flume in Delft. Researchers from Deltares and TU Delft keep increasing the force on the trees. They test how strong the mangrove trees are under extreme wave conditions and what contribution they make to water safety. Mangroves are a crucial factor in the protection of tropical coastal areas.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified timber harvesting areas in Gabon and Congo boast a greater abundance of larger mammals, such as leopards, gorillas, and elephants, than non-FSC forests. Utrecht University researcher Joeri Zwerts and colleagues conclude this based on 1.3 million camera trap images gathered in fourteen commercially exploited forests.

The recent discovery of the comammox bacterium might prove pivotal in a new and improved approach to wastewater purification that will be more efficient according to research carried out by Pieter Blom. Mr Blom will receive his PhD on the subject from Radboud University on 4 April. Water treatment facilities remove nitrogen, among other substances, from wastewater before releasing it back into the environment.

What effect does climate change have on Arctic permafrost? Earth scientist Niek Speetjens conducted research in Canada and discovered that the small river systems provide a lot of insight into the thaw of permafrost. Permafrost, permanently frozen soil, is thawing due to climate change. This has consequences for water and carbon transport through river systems that flow into the sea from areas with permafrost.

Scientists, including Paul Verschure at Radboud University, hypothesize that as-yet unrecognized inflammatory stress is spreading among people at unprecedented rates and affecting our cognitive ability to address climate change, war, and other critical issues. From anxiety about the state of the world to ongoing waves of Covid-19, the stresses we face can seem relentless and even overwhelming.

Across the globe, animal and plant species along with their habitats are disappearing. With this loss, we also lose the 'services' they provide, such as water filtration or crop pollination. An international research team, including Sjak Smulders from Tilburg University, has proposed a new calculation approach to capture these future 'benefits' of nature.

Tropical rainforests hold a wealth of biodiversity but are globally approaching a critical point. The drastic decline is happening faster than expected, concludes an international research team. The team includes biologist Hans ter Steege, affiliated with Utrecht University and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

Researchers from Utrecht University have successfully simulated the collapse of the large-scale ocean circulation in the Atlantic Ocean using a complex climate model, revealing severe global climate repercussions with Europe bearing the brunt. They published their findings in the scientific journal Science Advances today.

Beyond 2°C of global warming, the risk of one climate tipping element triggering other tipping elements in the Earth's climate system strongly increases. Furthermore, most of these interactions are destabilising. This is the result of a new study by an international team of scientists, led by Anna von der Heydt from Utrecht University and Nico Wunderling from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

In a study conducted at the University of Twente, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Open University of Israel, researchers have developed a novel approach to address the environmental challenges posed by perchlorate salts, which have been identified as persistent pollutants with potential impacts on human health.