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.

Democratic countries tend to be rated “greener”, or more environmentally friendly, compared to other countries—but this may be because they more often outsource the environmental impacts of their consumption to other nations, according to a study published May 14, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Thomas Bernauer and Ella Henninger from ETH Zurich, Switzerland and Tobias Böhmelt from the University of Essex.

When researchers from The University of Texas at Austin went searching for microplastics in sediments pulled from the bottom of Matagorda Bay and its surrounding inlets, they didn’t find much. Most of their samples contained only tens to hundreds of microplastic particles for each kilogram of sediment. This is hundreds to thousands of times less than other bayside environments around the world.

Traditional methods of assessing damage after a disaster can take weeks or even months, delaying emergency response, insurance claims and long-term rebuilding efforts. New research from Texas A&M University might change that. Led by Dr. Maria Koliou, associate professor and Zachry Career Development Professor II in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M, researchers have developed a new method that combines remote sensing, deep learning and restoration models to speed up building damage assessments and predict recovery times after a tornado. Once post-event images are available, the model can produce damage assessments and recovery forecasts in less than an hour.