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The agreement in Paris is not a cure for the world’s environmental problems, but it’s definitely more than a band-aid. It provides a framework on which to build future global and national efforts, but one word came close to ruining everything. Visibly exhausted, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius cracked a smile – probably the first […]
After two weeks of marathon negotiations, hundreds of presentations and dozens of press conferences, 195 countries unanimously approved an acord that will ultimately eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels, limiting global warming to 2ºC, with an incremental goal of 1.5ºC. For better or for worse, it’s the first global climate accord after two decades of […]
With only hours remaining on the COP21 negotiations, there’s a good chance the draft we got to see yesterday will be final – with some small tweaks perhaps. Opinions have been mixed, but mostly negative about this particular draft; sure, it’s important that we get a final draft on which all parties agree, but it’s […]
If we want to tackle climate change, we have to fight it from all sides; one of the things I liked about the COP21 climate summit was that people from all around the world came to present their ideas for fighting climate change locally, with tailored solutions. The UN recently highlighted the projects in the Change […]
If we want to limit our emissions to an acceptable limit, then all aspects of human society have to come together – environmental, social, economic, and not least, technology. With this in mind, six projects were presented at COP21, highlighted as this year’s UN Momentum for Change ICT solutions winners. These are the winning projects: Fairphone […]
After hundreds of hours of negotiations and discourse, it seems that the parties involved are finally settled and can agree to a new draft for a binding climate agreement. But with one day left to go, is that enough – can we call it a success? The pact is a top-bottom approach; it’s an international agreement […]
The future is now - researchers at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland have developed a camera that can see around corners and track movements in real time.
A very ambitious initiative could make Africa the cleanest continent – Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) an African-led plan to add 10,000 MW of additional renewable energy on the continent by 2020, has received over $10 billion in funding from international sources at COP21. The mega-scale initiative wants to develop all sectors of African renewable energy by […]
Agriculture is a difficult topic to tackle – on one hand, it has to keep up with the growing demand from a growing population, but on the other hand, agriculture accounts for a big part of our greenhouse gas emissions, and there is a need to limit emissions as much as possible. Land usage has […]
The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) is probably celebrating right now, as their Akatsuki orbiter reached Venus on December 7. The first time JAXA tried to do this in 2010, they failed because the engine malfunctioned, and the shuttle didn’t enter the Venusian orbit. Aimlessly wandering into space without its main engines, the spacecraft appeared doomed […]
With only three days left from the Paris Climate Summit, the time for populist talks has passed, and we're expecting concrete solutions.
Despite it being studied for many decades, there are still many things we don’t understand about the Stonehenge. Scientists have now identified the original quarries where the bluestones were mined: 225 km away in Wales, and 500 years before the Stonehenge was built! This could indicate that perhaps a proto-version of the Neolithic monument could […]
Competition between tech giants is more fierce than ever, and Google is out for blood - literally.
A ship missing for over 300 years has been rediscovered, according to Colombian authorities – a boat with an estimated $17 billion in loot. San José was a 60-gun, 3-masted galleon of the Spanish Navy. It was launched in 1698, and was sunk in the battle off the coast of Cartagena in 1708, during a […]
In what reads like the headline for a modern mystery novel, a researcher has found a hidden portrait under the Mona Lisa - or so he claims.
An unprecedented image created by UK and US researchers shows how a submerged human is “seen” by dolphins through echolocation. Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals, including dolphins. Basically, they emit sounds around them and then listen to the returning echo to locate and identify different […]
An undercover investigation exposed how fossil fuel companies pay off academics to publish research sowing doubt about climate change and promote corporate interests.
While the climate talks in Paris are carrying on in full force, it’s important to keep in mind that most of climate change isn’t actually affecting the ones causing it. The polar regions, the south Pacific and small islands are the ones suffering the most. The governments of Nunavut (Canada) and Greenland (Denmark) and the Inuit […]
“I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change” – this is how a post on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Facebook page opened up yesterday, one day before his talk at the COP21 climate summit. Fighting for climate We don’t have the time to debate and convince everyone, as every day, as 19,000 people die from […]
The climate talks in Paris have so far been surprisingly consistent and on track – right now, we’ve learned that the first draft for a global climate agreement is out! This unprecedented meeting has just yielded its first concrete results, and while there are still many brackets which mean that many things are still debatable, […]
82 artists joined hands to create 600 artworks - modified ads placed around Pars to protest greenwashing done by the corporations involved in the climate summit.
The Wendelstein 7-X will start firing up helium plasma in December and hydrogen plasma in January 2016, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics announced. That may not seem like much, but it’s quite exciting when you think that machines like this one could revolutionize energy production. The 425 tonne installation took 1.1 million construction hours spread over […]
While most of the world is trying to reach a climate agreement that would help preserve our planet’s climate for future generations, some of the US presidential candidates just don’t get it – or don’t want to get it. Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus (97% of climate scientists), despite obvious effects and forecasts, and despite […]
Warning alert: this will be extremely annoying for Republicans, Democrats, women, men, children… and pretty much anyone with common sense. While the whole world is trying to settle its differences and finally reach a climate agreement for the future of the planet, Donald Trump is being… Donald Trump. What is Obama thinking? A video posted […]
Climate change and agriculture are so interrelated that you basically can't talk about addressing climate change without bringing agriculture into the mix. At COP21, the climate summit in Paris, governments, NGOs and private entities joined hands to announce several initiatives focusing on some of the most pressing issues in agriculture: soils in agriculture, the livestock sector, food losses and waste, and sustainable production methods and resilience of farmers.
According to a NY Times/CBS poll two out of three Americans support the signing of a global climate pact, but only one in five agrees to increasing taxes on electricity
The Climate Summit in Paris (COP21) has started out in full force, bringing along a wave of optimism but also skeptic frowns. ZME Science is attending the summit and we’ll keep you posted with the daily events as they unfold and as we witness them – this is an event that has the potential to […]
A possible game changer – 120 country alliance spearheaded by India and supported by France has been announced, with the purpose of promoting solar energy in developing countries. Many developing countries enjoy sun-rich areas, but they lack the technology and financial capabilities to make full use of that potential. With that in mind, India’s prime […]
Four European countries, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, have announced a new $500 million initiative to fight climate change, especially in developing countries. The entire initiative is supported by the World Bank. “We want to help developing countries find a credible pathway toward low carbon development,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “This initiative is […]
The eyes of the world are set on Paris, as the COP21 climate summit started today with the ambitious goal of achieving a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world. But while this dance sometimes paces close to the impossible, there are also reasons to be optimistic: world leaders […]
I’m happy to say that one of the most absurd events in modern science has finally concluded, and with a normal result. The Italian seismologists tried with manslaughter for not carrying a good enough risk analysis have been cleared – most of them, at least. The L’Aquila earthquake struck in central Italy on 6 April […]
More and more people are greening their homes, and that’s definitely a good thing – whether it’s renewable energy or green walls, it can not only save you a lot of money and reduce your carbon footprint, but also increase your home’s appeal and make it more cozy. The latest trend that’s picking up steam […]
This dolphin just created a bubble ring (also called toroidal bubble) and started playing with it (I like how he eats it at the end). Surprisingly, many cetaceans such as beluga whales, dolphins and humpback whales, blow bubble rings, but only dolphins engage in such complex play behavior with it. They either puff a rapid burst […]
Poverty in India has dropped stunningly from 21% in 2012 to 12.4%, according to the World Bank.
Earlier this month, researchers started noticing that a mysterious purple goo was taking over Norway's coast.
A team from ZME Science will attend the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference – COP21. Here’s the official page of the event, the Wikipedia page, and the official Twitter (in French). What does this mean? We’ll be attending as many sessions as possible, to give you the latest updates on this potentially historic event. We’ll […]
The smallest member of the Raspberry Pi might actually be its largest: at the absurd price of £4 ($5 in the United States), it’s a full scale computer, and it could revolutionize electronic appliances. Wait, what’s a Raspberry Pi? The Raspberry Pi is a series of credit card–sized single-board computers developed in the United Kingdom by […]
If you've been following the news lately (especially science news), the odds are you may have come across images of this California road, deformed to the point where some sections of it are basically vertical.
Hydrophobic coating is without a doubt one of the most coolest inventions in recent years, but it's sometimes hard to imagine just how it can be useful.
It basically looks like a weapon: the fossil of a worm-like animal from the Cambrian period has been presented by scientists, and it’s as armored as it gets. The Cambrian was definitely one of the strangest geological and biological stages in Earth’s history; it’s not only that it was 500 million years ago, but the […]
In a new study published in Nature, researchers have demonstrated a technique that allows the mapping of organs at microscopic scales.
Today, the world seems split into two different parts: some people devouring dramatically large pieces of turkey, and the other ones that simply don’t care about Thanksgiving. But no matter what category you fall into, it’s a good time of the year to enjoy some good food. With this in mind, I thought I’d share […]
Astronomers describe that the present-day tilt of the Moon is likely a result of collision-free encounters of the early Moon with small planetary bodies.
While many people are probably consulting Google these days with searches for “easy turkey dinner” or “last minute side dishes”, it’s pretty safe to say there’s no shortage of websites offering answers to those queries. But there is a shortage of recipes thousands of years old. The Yale Babylonian Collection now allowed us to take dinner as humans did […]
The Climate Summit in Paris may or may not create a binding agreement for countries to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, but either way, the real work will begin after the talks. “When the meetings in Paris are done, the real business of decarbonization must begin,” write climate-policy experts David Victor and James Leape in […]
The ‘Most Used Words’ app has picked up steam more and more on our Facebook feeds, but as it’s often the case, this rings some major privacy alerts. So far, more than 17 million people have used the app to find out what they say most – but the recent uproar has begun when people […]
Philipp Pattberg, a professor of transnational environmental governance and policy at VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands, focuses on the study of global environmental politics, with a focus on climate change governance and biodiversity. Here, he gives a talk about more than 20 years of international climate change diplomacy, from the successful negotiation of the 1992 United Nations […]
The Danish capital of Copenhagen is known for its bike friendly culture but this time they’re taking it to the next level. Work is set to start on the new bike lane which will join two skyscrapers, 213 feet in the air (65 meters). The design was the winner of a competition to reinvigorate the […]
In many the vast steppes of Mongolia, some things have remained unchanged for centuries. But some things have changed, and big time: according to a new report, almost 3 out of 4 Mongolian nomads are now using solar power. Even if your lifestyle is pretty much Medieval, you can still benefit from advanced technology – that’s […]
While wind and solar are offering more energy than ever to global grids, there is still much work to be done if we want to properly integrate them; one question that always arise is that of energy storage. Sure, you can harvest a lot of sun during the day, but you need to store it for later usage, and that's quite a problem. Now, a Canadian start-up believe they may have found a solution for that, and it's just crazy enough to work: underwater balloons.
