July 2020 – Horizon Magazine Blog

Space dust fossils are providing a new window onto Earth’s past

July 29, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

Fossil meteorites from the mid-Ordovician period, around 460 million years ago, indicate that Earth may have been hit by debris from an asteroid collision at that time. Image credit - Birger Schmitz

by Caleb Davies To be a meteorite hunter means to search for the unutterably rare. On any given patch of land the size of Wales, an average of two olive-sized space rocks will fall in a year. Scientists and collectors are forced to go to extreme lengths to find them, searching in deserts and Antarctica where … Read more

Size matters in air pollution – but it’s not enough

July 27, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

Air pollution standards currently focus on the mass concentration of particles smaller than 10 micrometres in diameter (PM10) or smaller than 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5). Image credit - Panek/Wikimedia, licenced under CC BY-SA 4.0

by Rex Merrifield Current regulations on air pollution mainly focus on the mass of particles of a particular size range in a sample, and this has been used as a marker for their threat to human health. But these air quality standards do not address the medical implications of the very smallest particles – nor other … Read more

Understanding why trees are dying may be key to locking up carbon

July 24, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

Rising tree mortality could be affecting existing and new forests' ability to store carbon. Image credit - Daniele Castagneri

by Gareth Willmer Rising tree deaths may be reducing the ability of many forests worldwide to lock up carbon by pulling in greenhouse gases from the air. To properly grasp what this means for carbon budgets, scientists need to solve the puzzle of why trees are dying – and how they respond to change. ‘There are … Read more

Lab grown and do-it-yourself: two emerging routes to an artificial pancreas

July 23, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

One placenta yields enough material to grow 25 pancreases which could be a cheaper and easier form of transplant to help people with Type 1 diabetes. Image credit - E. Berishvili

by Steve Gillman A ‘bio-artificial’ pancreas grown in a lab with the aid of placental stem cells, and a DIY insulin-monitoring and release system are being developed to give people with insulin-dependent diabetes an alternative to waiting for a pancreas transplant. The human body has cells within the pancreas that regulate the level of sugar in … Read more

‘Four times more toxic’: How wildfire smoke ages over time

July 22, 2020 by Richard Gray

Smoke from wildfires can rise many kilometres into the stratosphere and cause air pollution in areas far away from where the flames actually were. Image credit - Pixabay/Saiho, licenced under Pixabay licence

Enormous plumes of smoke thrown into the atmosphere by uncontrolled wildfires may be affecting the health of people living hundreds of miles away. Every year, thousands of fires engulf forests, grasslands and moors across Europe. In 2018, more than 204,861 hectares of land were left burnt in Europe and other countries around the Mediterranean, while the previous … Read more

Dairy waste is being turned into bioplastics and plant food

July 22, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

Dairies generate a substantial amount of organic waste, including wastewater and whey, which are now being used to create products like bioplastics. Image credit - Keith Weller/USDA/Wikimedia, public domain

Sarah Wild Dairies in Europe are major economic drivers in rural areas, but they produce significant waste from cleaning and processing. Wastewater and milk residue, which are typically disposed of, are now being turned into new products such as phosphate-rich fertiliser and bioplastics. The EU produced 172.2 million tonnes of raw milk in 2018 and demand for milk is … Read more