Month: July 2026

  A new study published in the European Heart Journal has found that people who suffered heart attacks were significantly more likely to have microplastics and nanoplastics in the blood flowing through their coronary arteries, adding to growing evidence that plastic exposure may be linked to cardiovascular disease. Researchers analysed blood samples from 61 patients undergoing coronary examinations, including individuals receiving emergency treatment for heart attacks, patients with chronic coronary artery disease and people with normal coronary arteries. The study found that 84% of heart attack patients had detectable plastic particles in their coronary blood, compared with 40% of patients with chronic coronary disease and 32% of those with healthy arteries. Heart attack pat...

  The Ken River, one of central India’s last major free flowing rivers, has become the centre of a growing debate as work progresses on the Rs 44,605 crore Ken Betwa Link Project India’s first major river interlinking initiative. Stretching 427 kilometres from the Kaimur Hills in Madhya Pradesh to its confluence with the Yamuna in Uttar Pradesh, the river flows through the Panna Biosphere Reserve and supports a wide range of wildlife, including tigers, leopards, sloth bears, gharials, mugger crocodiles and more than 110 freshwater fish species. Scientific assessments by institutions including the Wildlife Institute of India and the National Centre for River Research have indicated that the proposed Daudhan Dam reservoir could submerge around 258 square kilometres of habitat w...

  New Delhi: Nearly 81% of sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emissions from coal fired power plants within a 300-kilometre radius of Delhi NCR originate from plants that are no longer required to install pollution control systems, according to a new analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). The findings come one year after the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change relaxed emission norms for most coal fired power plants, exempting 78% of India's coal plants from installing flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) systems, which can reduce SO₂ emissions by up to 95%. CREA analysed 12 coal-fired power plants comprising 37 generating units around Delhi-NCR. Based on publicly available data from 25 units, the study estimates that these plants will emit arou...

  New Delhi: Climate change is not only damaging Arctic infrastructure and accelerating greenhouse gas emissions but also erasing one of Earth's most valuable archives of ancient life, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. Researchers say Arctic permafrost preserves an extraordinary record of past ecosystems, containing ancient DNA, RNA, proteins and other biological material that has remained frozen for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. However, rising temperatures are causing these frozen records to degrade before they can be fully studied. The study conducted in Canada Yukon region, recovered DNA from Arctic ground squirrel droppings preserved in permafrost dating from about 14,000 to 700,000 years ago. The samples revealed the plants the ...

  New Delhi: Researchers have developed a chemical process that produces hydrogen from plastic waste with less than half the carbon dioxide emissions of conventional industrial hydrogen production, offering a potential alternative for tackling plastic pollution and reducing emissions from hydrogen manufacturing. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) was led by researchers from Ewha Womans University in South Korea. The process uses a sodium hydroxide pretreatment that allows plastics to release hydrogen at around 350°C, significantly lower than the temperatures above 700°C required by previous methods. The lower operating temperature reduces energy consumption while also cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The researchers reported...

  A new analysis assesses Nigeria progress in implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030), highlighting advances in disaster risk management while identifying major gaps in governance, preparedness, investment and risk assessment. The report notes that Nigeria remains highly vulnerable to disasters, particularly floods, which continue to affect communities across the country. The devastating 2022 floods, which impacted 34 states, claimed more than 600 lives, displaced 1.4 million people and caused an estimated N4.2 trillion in economic losses, underscored weaknesses in disaster preparedness and risk governance. According to the analysis Nigeria has improved hazard monitoring through seasonal forecasts, flood mapping and forecasting tools develope...

Climate scientists should communicate potential worst case climate change scenarios more clearly to improve public understanding and strengthen action against future risks. The article argues that while catastrophic outcomes such as major ice sheet collapse, extreme sea level rise, widespread flooding, food system failures and deadly heatwaves are not the most likely future, they remain scientifically plausible if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked. The author says these possibilities are often under communicated because scientists have traditionally focused on the most probable outcomes rather than low probability, high impact risks. Using the hypothetical example of London becoming permanently uninhabitable due to the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets...

  New Delhi: Tropical forests across Southeast Asia could face unprecedented heat stress within the next three decades as climate change and forest degradation weaken the natural cooling effect of forest canopies, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters. The research warns that rising temperatures beneath forest canopies could expose countless plants, animals and fungi to conditions beyond their thermal tolerance, threatening biodiversity across one of the world's richest ecological regions. Researchers combined temperature measurements from 46 forest sites across Southeast Asia with satellite observations and climate model projections. They found that peak daytime temperatures inside forests could rise by 1.4°C to 2.1°C by 2050, with some lowland r...

  New aircraft based research has found that methane emissions from the Amazon rainforest's wetlands are significantly higher than current climate models predict, raising concerns about the accuracy of global climate projections. The study, led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and published in Geophysical Research Letters, found that methane emissions in some parts of the Amazon are up to four times higher than existing estimates. Scientists said the findings highlight major gaps in understanding greenhouse gas emissions from tropical wetlands. Methane is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases and has seen a sharp rise in atmospheric concentration in recent decades. While wetlands are the world's largest natural source of methane, estimating emiss...

  The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that sand and dust storms continued to severely impact health, transportation agriculture and ecosystems in 2025, even though global average dust concentrations remained similar to the previous year. In its 2026 Airborne Dust Bulletin WMO highlighted major dust storm hotspots, reviewed advances in forecasting technologies and stressed the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite observations in improving early warning systems. According to the report, nearly 2 billion tonnes of dust enter the atmosphere every year, travelling across countries, continents and oceans. While dust storms are natural phenomena common in arid and semi arid regions such as the Sahara, Gobi and Arabian deserts, WMO said poor l...