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 suggests.

With coral reefs in crisis due to climate change, scientists have engineered a bio-ink that could help promote coral larvae settlement and restore these underwater ecosystems before it’s too late. In a paper publishing May 14 in the Cell Press journal Trends in Biotechnology, researchers demonstrate that the ink could boost coral settlement by more than 20 times, which they hope could contribute to rebuilding coral reefs around the world. 

The increasing frequency of once-in-a-decade agricultural and ecological drought has underscored the urgency of studying hydrological changes. A research team from the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-informatics of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has collaborated with international experts to analyse the estimated changes in land water storage over the past 40 years by utilising space geodetic observation technology and global hydrological change data. This innovative method has revealed a rapid depletion in global soil moisture, resulting in a significant amount of water flowing into the oceans, leading to a rise in sea levels. The research provides new insights into the driving factors behind the alarming reduction in terrestrial water storage and rise in sea levels. The findings have been published in the international journal Science.

When researchers looked at zebrafish that they had specially bred over 7 generations to tolerate higher maximum water temperatures, they found that the fish were also more tolerant to colder temperatures. The fish also didn't seem to have made a difference in terms of evolutionary trade-offs. 

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 new University of Adelaide research.

Hidden beneath the Antarctic ice lies a system of lakes and watercourses. An research team, including ETH researchers, has for the first time directly observed the subglacial streams of West Antarctica. Their study shows how individual flood events influence the melting of the ice.