A glacier on the Eastern Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the fastest recorded ice loss in modern history, according to a landmark study co-authored by Swansea University.

This study assessed industrial restructuring impacts on heavy metal pollution (Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb) and ecological risk in a Pearl River Delta urban waterway. Sediment concentrations followed Zn > Cr > Cu > Pb > Ni > As > Cd, all exceeding baselines, rising from 2008 to 2011 then declining through 2018, aligning with shifts to less polluting industries. Fractionation revealed Cr, Ni, and As as predominantly residual; Zn in reducible and residual; Cd acid-soluble; and Cu and Pb reducible, indicating greater human influence on Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb. Nickel dominated water ecological risk, while Cd led in sediments. Despite adjustments, anthropogenic ecological risks persist.

A new study has yielded clues about when dormant microscopic bacteria and fungi in soil "wake up" and colonize roots, which influences plant growth and health.

Halide perovskites is a recently emerged platform for the creation of efficient memristors. In turn, single-crystal inorganic perovskite would be new low-cost and flexible memory devices because of their excellent resistive switching (RS) properties, without risk of chemical and mechanical stress-generated degradation, compared with the operational instability of general thin-film perovskite memristors. Moreover, miniaturization of perovskite memristors would be useful for creating high-density memory devices.

Air pollution is a major environmental challenge of this century. In a recent Journal of Environmental Sciences review paper, scientists from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have highlighted potential technologies for direct purification of air pollutants in the environment, including photocatalysis and ambient non-photocatalytic approaches. They also propose the novel concept of an ‘Environmental Catalytic City.’