Could the fungal apocalypse of The Last of Us have roots in reality?

A new UBC study shows that climate warming can potentially make bacterial and fungal infections deadlier for cold-blooded animals like corals, insects, and fish, raising questions about the broader risks warming temperatures pose to ecosystems and biodiversity—and potentially humans.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of the United Nations, has long been at the forefront of climate science, regularly producing state-of-the-science assessments and possible solution pathways for policymakers.  In a first-of-its-kind ethnographic study, researchers from Indiana University Bloomington and Princeton University provide insights into the human and scientific dynamics that shape global climate assessments and sea level rise projections in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).  

The more time you spend on social media, the likelier you are to have come across a viral post that seems too strange to be true. Brief scientific literacy interventions, especially those that focus on critical thinking skills, may help to undermine conspiracy beliefs and behaviors before the conspiracy theories have a chance to take root, according to a team led by Penn State researchers.

This Incident Brief by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) provides a rough estimate of the value of the threatened properties by Hurricane Helen based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the Sentinel-1 satellite of the European Space Agency. The analysis is focused on seven cities, which were reportedly hit hardest by Helene, namely Asheville, Black Mountain, and Chimney Rock in North Carolina, Greenville in South Carolina, Steinhatchee and Tampa in Florida, and Valdosta in Georgia.

We are increasingly confronted with the impacts of climate change, with failed harvests being only one example. Addressing these challenges requires multifaceted approaches, including making plants more resilient. An international research team led by researchers at VIB-UGent has unraveled how the opening and closing of stomata - tiny pores on leaves – is regulated in response to high temperatures and drought. These new insights, published in Nature Plants, pave the way for developing climate change-ready crops.