Desert News

June 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Can These Endangered Lizards Beat the Heat? Scientists Test Bold Relocation Plan

June 26, 2025 — South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted ...

Hidden Carbon Giants: Satellite Data Reveals a 40-Year Arctic Peatland Surge

June 20, 2025 — Arctic peatlands are expanding with rising temperatures, storing more carbon at least for now. But future warming could reverse this benefit, releasing massive ...

Scientists Reveal the Hidden Trigger Behind Massive Floods

June 15, 2025 — Atmospheric rivers, while vital for replenishing water on the U.S. West Coast, are also the leading cause of floods though storm size alone doesn t dictate their danger. A groundbreaking study analyzing over 43,000 storms across four decades found ...

New MIT Study Reveals How Biofilms Help Stop Microplastic Build-Up

June 13, 2025 — Where do microplastics really go after entering the environment? MIT researchers discovered that sticky biofilms naturally produced by bacteria play a surprising role in preventing microplastics from accumulating in riverbeds. Instead of trapping ...

Nitrogen Loss on Sandy Shores: The Big Impact of Tiny Anoxic Pockets

June 2, 2025 — Some microbes living on sand grains use up all the oxygen around them. Their neighbors, left without oxygen, make the best of it: They use nitrate in the surrounding water for denitrification -- a process hardly possible when oxygen is present. This ...

Research Shows How Solar Arrays Can Aid Grasslands During Drought

June 2, 2025 — New research shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado's grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and -- particularly during dry years -- increase plant growth by about 20% or more compared to open ...

Even Birds Can't Outfly Climate Change

May 29, 2025 — As rising global temperatures alter ecosystems worldwide, animal species usually have two choices: adapt to changing local conditions or flee to a cooler clime. Ecologists have long assumed that the world's bird species were best equipped to respond ...

Engineers Discover a New Class of Materials That Passively Harvest Water from Air

May 24, 2025 — A serendipitous observation has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can pull water from the air, collect it in pores and release it onto surfaces without the ...

First-of-Its-Kind Global Study Shows Grasslands Can Withstand Climate Extremes With a Boost of Nutrients

May 19, 2025 — Fertilizer might be stronger than we thought. A new international study found that fertilizer can help plants survive short-term periods of extreme drought, findings which could have implications for ...

Amazon Could Survive Long-Term Drought but at a High Cost

May 16, 2025 — The Amazon rainforest may be able to survive long-term drought caused by climate change, but adjusting to a drier, warmer world would exact a heavy toll, a study ...

Europe's Forest Plants Thrive Best in Light-Rich, Semi-Open Woodlands -- Kept Open by Large Herbivores

May 16, 2025 — Before Homo sapiens arrived, Europe's forests were not dense and dark but shaped by open and light-rich woodland landscapes. Researchers have analyzed 917 native forest plant species in Central and ...

Study Uncovers Mystery of How Mini Sand Dunes Form

May 16, 2025 — A new study has uncovered the mystery of how mini sand dunes form on beaches and in ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:28pm EDT

Coastal Squeeze Is Bad for Biodiversity, and for Us, Experts Say

May 24, 2025 — Worldwide, coastal areas are squeezed between a rising sea level on one end and human structures on the other. The distance between a sandy coastline and the first human structures averages less than ...

Sharp Depletion in Soil Moisture Drives Land Water to Flow Into Oceans, Contributing to Sea Level Rise

May 14, 2025 — The increasing frequency of once-in-a-decade agricultural and ecological drought has underscored the urgency of studying hydrological changes. A ...

Climate Change Is Turning Coastal Lagoons Into 'Salty Soup'

May 14, 2025 — The impacts of human activity and climate change are coalescing to make coastal lagoons saltier, changing the microbial life they support and the function they play in their ecosystems, according to ...

Microbial 'Phosphorus Gatekeeping' Found at Center of Study Exploring 700,000 Years of Iconic Coastline

May 13, 2025 — A team of researchers investigated a sequence of coastal dunes of different ages (from 0-700,000 years old) in Cooloola National Park near Rainbow ...

Flood Risk Increasing in Pacific Northwest

May 4, 2025 — A powerful earthquake, combined with rising sea levels, could significantly increase flood risks in the Pacific Northwest, impacting thousands of residents and properties in northern California, ...

Rainfall Triggers Extreme Humid Heat in Tropics and Subtropics

Apr. 29, 2025 — Scientists believe they have found a way to improve warning systems for vulnerable communities threatened by humid heatwaves, which are on the rise due to climate change and can be damaging and even ...

Invasive Weed Threatens Southern California's Deserts

Apr. 25, 2025 — Once thought resistant to invasion, California's deserts are losing native plants to aggressive weedy species like Saharan mustard. New research shows its spread is disrupting biodiversity and ...

Major Dust-Up for Water in the Colorado River

Apr. 22, 2025 — Dust-on-snow is a major threat to water in the Colorado River, yet no snowmelt forecasts integrate dust-accelerated melt. Using pioneering remote sensing techniques, new research is the first to ...

Colombia's Peatlands Could Be a Crucial Tool to Fight Climate Change: But First We Have to Find Them

Apr. 15, 2025 — Researchers conducted three years of extensive fieldwork to develop the first data-driven map of both newly documented and predicted peatlands across ...

New Projections Reveal More Extreme Erosion on O'ahu's Shores

Apr. 13, 2025 — O'ahu's sandy beaches are at risk. New research has determined that 81% of O'ahu's coastline could experience erosion by 2100, with 40% of this loss happening by 2030. Importantly, these forecasts of ...

Nanoplastics in Soil: How Soil Type and pH Influence Mobility

Apr. 9, 2025 — Nanoplastics are an increasing threat to the ecosystem; however, their mobility in the soil is still underexplored. Against this backdrop, researchers investigated the adsorption and aggregation ...

8 Million Years of 'Green Arabia'

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new study reveals the modern arid desert between Africa and Saudi Arabia was once regularly lush and green with rivers and lakes over a period of 8 million years, allowing for the occupation and ...

The Lush Past of the World's Largest Desert

Apr. 7, 2025 — The vast desert of the Arabian Peninsula was not always an arid landscape. A recent study reveals that this region was once home to a vast lake and river system. These favorable conditions fostered ...

New Carbon-Negative Material Could Make Concrete and Cement More Sustainable

Mar. 19, 2025 — Researchers injected CO2 gas into seawater while applying an electrical current. The process transformed dissolved ions, minerals in seawater into clusters of solid particles. The clusters hold over ...

Unknown Microorganisms Used Marble and Limestone as a Habitat

Mar. 19, 2025 — In the desert areas of Namibia, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, research work has revealed unusual structures that are probably due to the activity of an unknown microbiological life form. Unusually small ...

Coastal Guardians Pioneer a New Way to Protect the Florida Keys' Shorelines

Mar. 18, 2025 — Nature-based solutions like restoring mangroves, and hybrid solutions, protect vulnerable shorelines. However, they need careful planning to be effective. A new GIS-based tool, combined with varied ...

Global Warming Can Lead to Inflammation in Human Airways, New Research Shows

Mar. 17, 2025 — In a recent, cross-institutional study partially funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers report that healthy human airways are at higher risk for dehydration and inflammation when ...

Delhi Air Pollution Worse Than Expected as Water Vapor Skews Figures

Mar. 12, 2025 — New Delhi's air pollution is more severe than previously estimated with particles absorbing atmospheric water vapor leading to particulate matter levels across the city being underestimated by ...

Packets of Freeze-Dried Bacteria Grow Biocement on Demand

Mar. 5, 2025 — Cement manufacturing and repair could be significantly improved by using biocement-producing bacteria, but growing the microbes at construction sites remains a challenge. Now, researchers report a ...

Bite-Size Clue May Help Rediscover the Missing Desert Rat-Kangaroo

Feb. 25, 2025 — An intriguing native Australian rat-kangaroo, thought to be probably extinct, may still be running around in the inhospitable remote Sturt Stony Desert -- and researchers have discovered new details ...

The Rising Tide of Sand Mining: A Growing Threat to Marine Life

Feb. 21, 2025 — Scientists outline the urgency to better identify the significant damage sand extraction across the world heaps upon marine ...

UK Peatland Fires Are Supercharging Carbon Emissions as Climate Change Causes Hotter, Drier Summers

Feb. 21, 2025 — Experts say a focus on re-wetting our parched peat would significantly dampen down the UK's fire-driven carbon emissions and help mitigate against climate ...

Coastal Erosion Threatens Ancient City, and Many Others

Feb. 20, 2025 — Research on the vanishing coastlines of Alexandria, Egypt, offers nature-based solutions for protecting coastal cities globally, including those in ...

New Process Gets Common Rocks to Trap Carbon Rapidly, Cheaply

Feb. 19, 2025 — Scientists have discovered how to turn common minerals into materials that spontaneously remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In the lab, the materials pull CO2 from the air thousands ...

New Environmentally-Friendly Mortar Reduces Heat Loss

Feb. 19, 2025 — A mortar made from recycled plastic and silica aerogel which improves insulation and reduces plastic waste has been ...

Scientist Discovers 16 New Grasshopper Species, Champions Desert Biodiversity

Feb. 7, 2025 — A scientist has discovered a hopping treasure trove -- 16 new species of grasshoppers living in the thorny scrubs of U.S. and Mexican ...

New Twist in Mystery of Dinosaurs' Origin

Jan. 23, 2025 — The remains of the earliest dinosaurs may lie undiscovered in the Amazon and other equatorial regions of South America and Africa, suggests a new ...

Wildlife Camera Surveys Reveal the Conservation Importance of Habitat Transition Zones

Jan. 22, 2025 — Globally, tropical rain forests are among the most species-rich habitats and are therefore often prioritized in conservation efforts. A team of scientists now show that the diversity of ...

Early Humans Adapted to Harsh Conditions More Than a Million Years Ago

Jan. 16, 2025 — A long-standing question about when archaic members of the genus Homo adapted to harsh environments such as deserts and rainforests has been answered in a new research ...

Dung Data: Manure Can Help to Improve Global Maps of Herbivore Distribution

Jan. 16, 2025 — Detailed livestock models are important for land-use planning, disaster relief and food ...