ScienceDaily: Earth & Climate News

The value of UK agriculture could be boosted by millions of pounds a year if thousands of honeybee hives were deployed on solar parks across the country, a new study reveals. However, scientists caution that the benefits of managing solar parks for wild pollinators over honeybees should be prioritized where appropriate and should be assessed on a site by site basis.

How much will solar power really cost in China in the coming decades, including the challenges its inherent variability poses to the grid? Researchers have found that solar energy could provide 43.2% of China's electricity demands in 2060 at less than two-and-a-half U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour.

Marsh plants can play a major role in mitigating coastal damage as sea levels rise and storm surges increase. A new study provides greater detail about how these protective benefits work under real-world conditions shaped by waves and currents.

Researchers have found that the benefits of migration have been eroded by the effects of climate change and human pressure.

Plants need water to grow. So if there's water, shouldn't there be more plants? New research shows it's a lot more complicated than that.

A study suggests our brains are not optimized to calculate the shortest possible route when navigating on foot. Instead, pedestrians use vector-based navigation, choosing 'pointiest' paths that point most directly toward their destination, even if the routes are longer.

Worldwide, lake temperatures are rising and seasonal ice cover is shorter and thiner. This effects lake ecosystems, drinking water supply and fishing. International research now shows that these global changes in lake temperature and ice cover are not due to natural climate variability. They can only be explained by massive greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution. To demonstrate this, the team has developed multiple computer simulations with models of lakes on a global scale, on which they ran a series of climate models. The researchers found clear similarities between the observed changes in lakes and model simulations of lakes in a climate influenced by greenhouse gas emissions. Besides measuring the historical impact of climate change, the team also analyzed various future climate scenarios.

The variety of humble algae that cover the surface of ponds and seas could hold the key to boosting the efficiency of artificial photosynthesis, allowing scientists to produce more energy and lower waste in the process. A study showed how encasing algae protein in liquid droplets can dramatically enhance the algae's light-harvesting and energy-conversion properties by up to three times. This energy is produced as the algae undergoes photosynthesis, which is the process used by plants, algae and certain bacteria to harness energy from sunlight and turn it into chemical energy. When light hits the droplet, light waves travel around the curved edges of the droplet. Light is effectively trapped within the droplet for a longer period of time, giving more opportunity for photosynthesis to take place, hence generating more energy.

While the onion, garlic, scallion, shallot and chives have been on our plates for centuries, becoming staple foods around the world, their group, the genus Allium, seems to be a long way from running out of surprises. Recently, a group of researchers from India described a new onion species from the western Himalaya region, long known to the locals as 'jambu' and 'phran.'

Scientists have gained new insights into the diet, population density and social interactions of a group of Brazilian jaguars.

Researchers have published maps indicating how the auroral zone has moved over the last three millennia.