• The green Sahara

    Edward Armstrong     |      January 8, 2024

    Eccentricities in Earth’s orbit help explain why the Sahara desert has waxed and waned over the course of millions of years.

  • An eye on Australia’s ‘seafood basket’

    Open Forum     |      December 11, 2023

    A biologically rich region that provides much of the country’s seafood will be the first site in Australia to test the effectiveness of CSIRO’s AquaWatch technology.

  • Why biodiversity matters

    Open Forum     |      November 28, 2023

    A year on from the COP15 summit of the Convention on Biological Diversity, a new book by UQ ecologist Nigel Dudley builds a case for “Why Biodiversity Matters” and why we should care if species go extinct.

  • Farming carbon

    Rachel Standish     |      November 24, 2023

    Farmers have cleared much of Australia’s natural vegetation over the last two hundred years, and while carbon credits have been exploited for private gain rather than public good, replanting schemes can help restore our land and atmosphere to a more sustainable balance.

  • Amphibian apocalypse

    Open Forum     |      October 29, 2023

    Forty percent of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction according to a global study published in the scientific journal Nature.

  • A new tool to tackle seafood fraud

    Lilly Matson     |      October 22, 2023

    A new handheld scanner uses nuclear methods and mathematical models to determine the origin and production of seafood.

  • Farming the sea

    Open Forum     |      October 20, 2023

    Floating sea farms could help feed the world in the future, according to a new study by University of South Australia researchers.

  • By gum

    Gregory Moore     |      October 12, 2023

    As climate change intensifies, city planners are looking for resilient street trees able to provide cooling shade in a hotter climate such as the Spotted Gum.

  • More food with fewer emissions

    Alan Stevenson     |      October 4, 2023

    Agriculture generates about a quarter of the world’s total greenhouse emissions but new research shows it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, agriculture could become not carbon neutral, but carbon negative in a couple of decades.

  • Rethinking rice

    Alan Stevenson     |      September 26, 2023

    Rice is a staple crop feeding much of the world’s population, but new cultivation methods which require less water, preserve the soil and reduce carbon emissions will be required in a hotter, drier world transformed by climate change.

  • The negatives of ‘nature positive’

    Martine Maron     |      September 26, 2023

    The “nature positive” slogan adopted by companies and developers all too often greenwashes their activities without affecting their profits or business models, with dubious paper offsets no recompense for the environmental damage they cause.

  • Greening the desert

    Open Forum     |      September 25, 2023

    Growing plants that have adapted to desert life could help naturally capture and store carbon, according to a perspective piece by international researchers.