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Categories: Engineering: Graphene, Geoscience: Severe Weather

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Graphene-based olfactory sensors that can detect odor molecules based on the design of peptide sequences were recently demonstrated. The findings indicated that graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs) functionalized with designable peptides can be used to develop electronic devices that mimic olfactory receptors and emulate the sense of smell by selectively detecting odor molecules.

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Las Vegas, with its rapid urbanization and desert landscape, is highly vulnerable to flooding. For this reason, flood managers have built an extensive system of drainage ditches and detention basins to protect the public. Now, a new study shows how intentional engineering and urban development are interacting with climate change to alter the timing and intensity of flood risk.

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Researchers have devised a better way to measure how fast sediment flows in rivers -- information that can help scientists and planners better prepare for flooding and weather-related events, understand salmon activity and even restore rivers.

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Tropical forests are crucial for sucking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But they're also subject to intense storms that can cause 'windthrow' -- the uprooting or breaking of trees. A new study finds that more extreme thunderstorms from climate change will likely cause a greater number of large windthrow events in the Amazon, which could impact the rainforest's ability to serve as a carbon sink.

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Disturbances to Earth's magnetic field can lead birds astray -- a phenomenon scientists call 'vagrancy' -- even in perfect weather, and especially during fall migration. While other factors such as weather likely play bigger roles in causing vagrancy, researchers found a strong correlation between birds that were captured far outside of their expected range and the geomagnetic disturbances that occurred during both fall and spring migrations.

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Earth's average surface temperature in 2022 tied with 2015 as the fifth warmest on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Continuing the planet's long-term warming trend, global temperatures in 2022 were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.89 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA's baseline period (1951-1980), scientists report.

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Combining satellite technology with machine learning may allow scientists to better track and prepare for climate-induced natural hazards, according to new research.

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Vital winter ice road infrastructure may be cracking and sinking under the load of an unseasonably warm start to the new year across Europe and North America. New research warns that ice roads, essential for moving people, food, medicine and fuel in remote northern communities, as well as heavy machinery used by industry, may become unsustainable as the climate warms. This poses significant issues this century.

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The most well-known forms of carbon include graphite and diamond, but there are other more exotic nanoscale allotropes of carbon as well. These include graphene and fullerenes, which are sp2 hybridized carbon with zero (flat-shaped) or positive (sphere-shaped) curvatures. Researchers now report the discovery of a new form of carbon formed by heating fullerenes with lithium nitride.

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A material state known as super-lubricity, where friction between two contacting surfaces nearly vanishes, is a phenomenon that materials researchers have studied for years due to the potential for reducing the energy cost and wear and tear on devices, two major drawbacks of friction. However, there are times when friction is needed within the same device, and the ability to turn super-lubricity on and off would be a boon for multiple practical engineering applications.

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Despite recent, torrential rains, most of Southern California remains in a drought. Accordingly, many residents plant trees prized for drought tolerance, but a new study shows that these trees lose this tolerance once they're watered.

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Wheat containing exotic DNA from wild relatives benefits from up to 50 per cent higher yields in hot weather compared with elite lines lacking these genes.

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The severity of marine heatwaves (MHWs) that are increasingly impacting ocean ecosystems, including vulnerable coral reefs, has primarily been assessed using remotely sensed sea-surface temperatures (SSTs), without information relevant to heating across ecosystem depths. Here, using a rare combination of SST, high-resolution in-situ temperatures, and sea level anomalies observed over 15 years near Moorea, French Polynesia, we document subsurface MHWs that have been paradoxical in comparison to SST metrics and associated with unexpected coral bleaching across depths. Variations in the depth range and severity of MHWs was driven by mesoscale (10s to 100s of km) eddies that altered sea levels and thermocline depths and decreased (2007, 2017 and 2019) or increased (2012, 2015, 2016) internal-wave cooling.

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Researchers examine the role of spring heatwaves on the melting rates of mountain snowpacks across the West. They found that in April 2021, record-breaking snowmelt rates occurred at 24% of all mountain snowpack monitoring sites in the region, further compounding the impacts of extended drought conditions.

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Tropical cyclone researchers report a warming climate could increase the number of tropical cyclones and their intensity in the North Atlantic, potentially creating more and stronger hurricanes. In a second research paper, researchers examine a possible explanation for the relatively constant number of tropical cyclones around the globe every year.

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Researchers now have a much better understanding of how climate change can impact and cause sea water temperatures on one side of the Indian Ocean to be so much warmer or cooler than the temperatures on the other -- a phenomenon that can lead to sometimes deadly weather-related events like megadroughts in East Africa and severe flooding in Indonesia.

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Global warming is expected to lead to an accumulation of particularly intense hurricanes in the United States. This may substantially increase the economic losses caused by these storms. Better insurance could effectively mitigate the climate change-induced increase in economic losses. This is shown in a new study examining the effectiveness of climate risk insurance in the US.

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A new study has found that individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to experience disaster-related home loss, and they are also more likely to develop functional limitations following the disaster. 

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A team has developed a new method for making nano-membranes of 'smart' materials, which will allow scientists to harness their unique properties for use in devices such as sensors and flexible electronics.

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A team of engineers and neuroscientists has demonstrated for the first time that human brain organoids implanted in mice have established functional connectivity to the animals' cortex and responded to external sensory stimuli. The implanted organoids reacted to visual stimuli in the same way as surrounding tissues, an observation that researchers were able to make in real time over several months thanks to an innovative experimental setup that combines transparent graphene microelectrode arrays and two-photon imaging.