Horizon Europe, the European Union's research initiative, announces €150 million funding for Battery 2030+, an initiative for developing advanced green battery technology. This signifies a renewed confidence in Battery 2030+ coordinated by Uppsala University, Sweden, with the goal to make Europe the world leader in the development and production of green batteries.
In the quest for fossil-free fuels for aircraft, a new study shows that isoprene could be part of a future solution. Isoprene can be produced by blue-green algae from sunlight, water and ordinary carbon dioxide. The productivity of the cyanobacteria increases if they are exposed to violet light or higher temperatures, and isoprene is ideally suited for photochemical processing into aviation fuels.
Rich elites with large swimming pools and well-maintained lawns are leaving poorer communities without basic access to water in cities across the world. New research, led by Uppsala University, published in Nature Sustainability has found social inequalities are driving urban water crises more than environmental factors, such as climate change or the growth of urban populations.
The sharp increase in heatwaves in southern Europe in recent years is not only due to the greenhouse effect. Climate change has made a particular type of atmospheric circulation pattern more common, and this has contributed to extreme weather and been the underlying cause of nine out of ten heat-related deaths. This is according to a new study by researchers from Uppsala University and CNRS.
The European robin’s closest relatives are found in tropical Africa. The European robin is therefore not closely related to the Japanese robin, despite their close similarity in appearance. This is confirmed by a new study of the Old World flycatcher family, to which these birds belong. The study comprises 92 per cent of the more than 300 species in this family.
Researchers from Uppsala University and elsewhere have been studying the effect of rising temperatures on the lifespan of pollinating fig wasps. The findings show that the wasps lived much shorter lives at high temperatures, which would make it difficult for them to travel the long distances between the trees they pollinate.
Sverker C Jagers, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Collective Action Research at the University of Gothenburg, will hold Uppsala University's fifth Zennström Visiting Professorship in Climate Change Leadership. The ten-year visiting professorship, through which a new professor is invited every year or every other year, is funded by an earlier donation to Uppsala Univ
Researchers from several universities have, by studying helical molecules in the body such as DNA, received clues as to how energy production in fuel cells can be made more efficient without admixture of carbon dioxide and heavy metals. The new research shows how the helical molecules, found naturally in all oxygen-dependent life, catalyses energy production in the cells.
Coral species exhibit different temperature tolerances. This is in part due to the composition of their microalgae symbionts. With a new method, researchers from Uppsala University were able to predict how individual microalgae might behave under future temperature stress and identify more tolerant coral symbionts. In combination with forthcoming single cell selection and growth experiments, the
Energy storage in lithium-sulfur batteries is potentially higher than in lithium-ion batteries but they are hampered by a short life. Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden have now identified the main bottlenecks in performance.
Swedish researchers from institutions including Uppsala University have spent four years gathering data from the areas affected by the major forest fire of 2014. In their study of how the ecosystem as a whole has been altered, they could see that water quality in watercourses quickly returned to normal, while forested areas continued to lose carbon for many years after the fire.
The effects of the endocrine disruptor linuron on frogs are not limited to those exposed, but are passed on to their offspring (reduced body weight and decreased fertility) and grand-offspring (increased body weight and a disrupted metabolism). This is demonstrated by a new study (Uppsala University and Stockholm University), published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
Hydrogen for energy use can be extracted in an environmentally friendly way from water and sunlight, using photocatalytic composite polymer nanoparticles developed by researchers at Uppsala University. In laboratory tests, these “polymer dots” showed promising performance and stability alike. The study has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
A warmer global climate can cause mutations to have more severe consequences for the health of organisms through their detrimental effect on protein function. This may have major repercussions on organisms’ ability to adapt to, and survive in, the altered habitats of the future. This is shown in a new Uppsala University research study.
In a new article a research group at Uppsala University show, using computer simulations, that ions do not always behave as expected. In their research on molten salts, they were able to see that, in some cases, the ions in the salt mixture they were studying affect one another so much that they may even move in the “wrong” direction – that is, towards an electrode with the same charge.
European eels spend most of their adult life in a range of fresh- and brackish waters, across Europe and Northern Africa. Using whole-genome analysis, a new study finds that all European eels belong to a single panmictic population, an extraordinary finding for a species living under such variable environmental conditions. The study is published in PNAS.
An international team of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Irish scientists has used whole genome sequencing to characterise 53 herring populations from the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. They have developed genetic markers that make it possible to better monitor herring populations and avoid overfishing. The study is published in the journal eLife.
Hydrogen gas and methanol for fuel cells or as raw materials for the chemicals industry, for example, could be produced more sustainably using sunlight, a new Uppsala University study shows. In this study, researchers have developed a new coating material for semiconductors that may create new opportunities to produce fuels in processes that combine direct sunlight with electricity.
The European research initiative BATTERY 2030+ is now getting going. The ambition is to make Europe a world-leader in the development and production of the batteries of the future. These batteries need to store more energy, have a longer life, and be safer and more environmentally friendly than today’s batteries in order to facilitate the transition to a more climate-neutral society.
In a new study, a research group at Uppsala University explain their outstanding success in harvesting “hot electron holes”. The results of their work can be used to improve solar cells, photochemical reactions and photosensors. The scientific article is published in Nature Materials.