Climate Change

A new model explains that water evaporating from the Arctic Ocean due to a warming climate is transported south and can lead to increased snowfall in northern Eurasia in late autumn and early winter. This information will allow for more accurate predictions of severe weather events.

With the shift to electric cars a cumbersome process, improvements to exhaust gas purification in petrol or diesel cars are crucial in the fight to reduce emissions. A research group at Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Engineering has developed a Cerium-Zirconium-based oxide that boosts the purifying qualities of ceramics inside catalytic converters - a device attached to conventional cars that converts harmful gases to less-toxic pollutants.

Scientists in Singapore show that restoring natural water availability to the Mekong’s floodplains is possible

Osaka Metropolitan University scientists conducted a 7-year study on seedling recruitment and mortality in a national park in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. During the study period, an extremely strong El Niño event occurred, leading to a stronger and longer drought than normal. Seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTFs), which experience an annual dry season, are considered drought-tolerant. Nevertheless, the study found that seedling mortality increased in SDTFs when severe and prolonged drought occurred. The mortality rate was greater in evergreen forests at higher elevations that usually experience less severe drought than in deciduous forests at lower elevations where severe drought is more common. The study results advance the understanding of the effects of El Niño on seedling dynamics in SDTFs.

The Natural Disasters Expo will be held in Asia this year on the 7th & 8th December at the Singapore Expo, welcoming experts from around the globe to showcase the latest revolutionary solutions to natural disaster management and mitigation.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are scaling up production of a zombie fungus, the critical eye of female dogs, and enlightenment available on your smartphone.

Scientists have uncovered new details of how ice forming below the ocean surface in Antarctica provides cold dense water that sinks to the seabed in an important aspect of global water circulation.

The project will apply Indonesia’s Institut Teknologi Bandung's (ITB) specialized expertise in chemical reaction engineering to probe optimization of ammonia firing. Target set on achieving cleaner power generation in Indonesia, based on demonstration testing with H-25 gas turbine.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are what happens when the sun goes to sleep, creating a silk stronger than a spider, and a robot that can laugh with you.

Only satellites were watching when the world's fourth-largest proglacial lake suddenly drained in 2020. Hokkaido University researchers now uncovered the event and analysed the cause—the collapse of a sediment bump at the outlet of the lake.

Researchers analyzed how the specific components of peace and environmental sustainability — concepts known to be intrinsically related but often investigated separately — influence each other to better inform policy and decision-making.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are the effects of extreme weather becoming more likely due to climate change and leading to sinking cities, putting googly eyes on cars that help pedestrian safety, and how many ants there are on Earth.

Chaos theory improves understanding of Arctic narwhal behavior, with the aim of helping efforts to protect this vulnerable species.

Researchers found a new way to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by wrapping copper nanocubes with an organic layer, solving instability and selectivity problems with copper nanocubes in catalysis, and improving how this electrocatalyst converts CO2 into organic molecules.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are the best way to calm a crying baby, technology to sot sex in bovine semen, and a prosthesis for breast cancer patients made from an aquatic plant.

Researchers develop a new integrated framework that factors in the many variables relevant to accurate carbon emissions modeling in the transportation sector, allowing for policymakers to choose the best path to achieve carbon neutrality.

Research shows that natural catastrophes may trigger or exacerbate attacks of incapacitating migraine in disaster victims.

Scientists have quantified the glacier mass loss on the Kamchatka Peninsula; the accelerated loss in the region since the turn of the millennium is likely to increase in the short term.

Even a small temperature drop in the tropical climate of Singapore increases the risk of heart attack among people aged 65 and above, say researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore’s National Environment Agency and collaborators.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are the potential use of fish ear bones to tell us about the seawater temperature millions of years ago, how hotter nights can lead to an increase in global mortality, and how Japanese children’s walking development differs to other countries.

Three of the nuclear power plants that supplied Tokyo, Japan with its electricity have been shut down since 2003. To understand the long-term implications of this change to Tokyo’s power grid, researchers studied how CO2 emissions in the city differed since the power plant closures.

A professor emeritus at Tohoku University has unearthed evidence pointing to a strong relationship between the magnitude of mass extinctions and global temperature changes in geologic times. This interesting correlation reveals a more optimistic outlook on future extinction events.

Nonthermal plasma (NTP) is used to activate CO2 molecules for hydrogenation into alternative fuels at low temperatures, also enabling the conversion of renewable electricity to chemical energy. Researchers from Tokyo Tech combined experimental and computational methods to investigate the hydrogenation pathway of NTP-promoted CO2 on the surface of Pd2Ga/SiO2 catalysts. The mechanistic insights from their study can help improve the efficiency of catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 and allows the engineers to design new concept catalysts.

Methane emitted from cows is a significant source of greenhouse emissions. Now, a collaborative project has used biomarkers to tell us more about the metabolic and nutritional characteristics linked to enteric methane emissions in Japanese Black cattle.

An international team of scientists from India and Singapore has successfully developed a novel method to recycle waste cigarette filters for use in making the triboelectric nano generator, a clean energy generating device.

Scientists from Hokkaido University have reconstructed the climate of Hokkaido over the past 4400 years and have revealed that changes in the climate influenced changes in historic cultures during that time.

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have developed a model to explore carbon storage in mangrove forests.

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, find that the risk of human–elephant conflict in Thailand is likely to shift with climate change

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are babies that dole out punishments, signals that might come from extraterrestrial civilizations, and repelling mosquitos by chewing catnip.

Read 'Health in the climate emergency – a global perspective', the new global report of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP)