Stanford University researchers have discovered that small bursts of electricity — which they call microlightning, created by oppositely charged water droplets interacting in the early Earth, likely created the first organic compounds that later led to life.

For decades, one of the leading hypotheses for the origin of life has been the Miller-Urey hypothesis. In 1952, renowned chemist Harold Urey observed that most planets in the solar system were dominated by nitrogen and methane, and posited that early Earth’s atmosphere likely did as well.

However, as Richard Zare, the study’s senior author and head of Stanford University’s Zare lab where the experiment was conducted, told EcoWatch, life needs carbon-nitrogen bonds to form essential molecules like DNA and RNA, and these bonds would have been completely absent from the early Earth. 

Urey, later that same year, along with Stanley Miller, carried out an experiment to test whether Earth could have created these bonds. They used an apparatus with a glass bulb to simulate Earth’s atmosphere, composed of nitrogen, methane and other gases. Then, using a spark plug, they simulated lightning in the atmosphere, and successfully created carbon-nitrogen-bonded organic molecules in the apparatus, thought to be precursors to life.

While the results were groundbreaking, they were not without objections, Zare told EcoWatch. “One of them is that lightning is intermittent and unpredictable,” he said. “And I believe that’s true. And if lightning makes compounds in the atmosphere, the atmosphere is a big thing. They never get concentrated… we need to concentrate these building blocks because we’re making small building blocks.”

But what if Earth didn’t need large lightning strikes at all to create these compounds? That’s the question Zare et al. set out to answer. The study’s lead author, Yifan Meng, carried out the experiment, similar to the Miller-Urey experiment, but on a much smaller scale, still using gases present on early Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago, but using microlightning created by water droplets rather than big sparks. 

“We have repeated what Miller and Urey did before, but they did it with big lightning, in a bulb. We’ve done it with water droplets,” Zare said. “And so we propose that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of molecules that constitute the building blocks of life.”

The researchers suspended a large droplet of water in air using sound waves. When the sound wave generator was turned off, the levitated water droplet fell and struck a plastic sheet below, causing the water droplet to split into smaller droplets, creating a splash of droplets that interacted with one another, creating sparks of microlightning. 

When that microlightning was created in the presence of gases present on early Earth, the electrical discharge interacted with gas and successfully created organic compounds with carbon-nitrogen bonds.

Zare said these interactions are happening constantly in our world, creating microlightning and organic compounds, but are much less consequential than the first time this microlightning created organic molecules billions of years ago.

He added that he wants to continue researching how water droplets interact, and hopes that they can one day be used to clean up our atmosphere. 

“I actually am very interested in possibly removing pollutants in our atmosphere with water droplets,” Zare said, “such as can we bubble air through water and remove things like carbon dioxide and methane and turn them into something else? I’m interested in all this. So you ask, what is the future? Many, many futures here.”

Micron-sized water droplets could also provide a sustainable way to create ammonia, which is important for fertilizer and combating global hunger. Zare said that we may be able to scale up the gas-droplet experiment, which creates ammonia as a byproduct, and in doing so, we could replace the Haber-Bosch process of creating ammonia, which is harmful to the environment. 

“The Haber-Bosch process takes nitrogen and hydrogen and and combines it to make NH3. That’s ammonia. And where does the hydrogen come from? They get it from natural gas, from methane, by treating it with steam, with hot water vapor under high pressure, high temperature. And the result is the natural gas turns [in part] into CO2,” Zare said. 

“And so, believe it or not, 2% or so of the CO2 that you and I now breathe comes from the Haber-Bosch process in the atmosphere. That’s how big this has been. If you could clean up the Haber-Bosch process, you would really make a difference in terms of climate change as we understand it.”

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One of the largest studies ever conducted on biodiversity loss worldwide has revealed that humans are having a severely detrimental impact on global wildlife.

The number of species is declining, as well as the composition of populations.

“Biological diversity is under threat. More and more plant and animal species are disappearing worldwide, and humans are responsible. Until now, however, there has been no synthesis of the extent of human intervention in nature and whether the effects can be found everywhere in the world and in all groups of organisms,” a press release from University of Zurich (UZH) said. “This is because most of the studies conducted to date have only looked at individual aspects. They either examined changes in species diversity over time or were limited to a single location or to specific human impacts.”

To fill in the gaps, a team of scientists from UZH and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) collected data from roughly 2,100 studies comparing biodiversity at nearly 50,000 sites that had been impacted by humans with an equal number of reference locations that remained unaffected.

The studies covered freshwater, marine and terrestrial habitats worldwide, with all groups of organisms — microbes, fungi, plants, invertebrates, birds, fish and mammals — represented.

“It is one of the largest syntheses of the human impacts on biodiversity ever conducted worldwide,” said Florian Altermatt, a UZH professor of aquatic ecology and head of an Eawag research group, in the press release.

The findings, “The global human impact on biodiversity,” were published in the journal Nature and leave no doubt as to the devastation humans are imposing on global biodiversity.

“We analyzed the effects of the five main human impacts on biodiversity: habitat changes, direct exploitation such as hunting or fishing, climate change, pollution and invasive species,” said lead author François Keck, a postdoctoral researcher at Eawag, in the press release. “Our findings show that all five factors have a strong impact on biodiversity worldwide, in all groups of organisms and in all ecosystems.”

Pollution is one of the five most important drivers of biodiversity loss globally – especially when untreated wastewater pollutes natural waters. Florian Altermatt

The average number of species at affected sites was nearly one-fifth lower than at those that were unaffected. Vertebrates such as amphibians, reptiles and mammals were found that have experienced especially dramatic species loss across all biogeographic regions. These populations have a tendency to be significantly smaller than those of invertebrates, which makes them more vulnerable to extinction.

“Biodiversity change poses a critical threat to human societies from local to global scales, highlighting the urgent need for understanding the complex relationship between human pressures and their effects on ecosystems,” the authors wrote in the findings. “Human pressures, broadly classified in five main types — land-use change, resource exploitation, pollution, climate change and invasive species — can enhance or reduce species diversity locally. Crucially, by impacting biodiversity at local scales, effects of human pressures can similarly impact biodiversity patterns among communities at broader spatial scales.”

In addition to population numbers, species composition is another key aspect of biodiversity. Keck said human pressure is causing a decline in species numbers, as well as a shift in the composition of their communities.

“In high mountain regions, for example, specialized plants are at risk of being displaced by species from lower altitudes as the climate warms. In some circumstances, the number of species at a particular site may remain the same; nevertheless, biodiversity and its ecosystem functions will be affected if, for example, a plant species disappears that has particularly good root systems to protect the soil from erosion,” the press release said.

The largest shifts in the composition of species communities are among microbes and fungi.

“This could be because these organisms have short life cycles and high dispersion rates and therefore respond more quickly,” Keck explained.

The study found that habitat changes and environmental pollution had an exceptionally negative impact on species numbers and composition.

Altermatt said that wasn’t surprising, as habitat changes can often be drastic, as when humans raze a meadow or cut down a forest. Pollution, whether it is accidental, as with an oil spill, or deliberate, as in the spraying of pesticides, introduces destructive substances into habitats that weaken or destroy their organisms.

A third aspect of biodiversity investigated by the team was homogeneity — the similarity of species communities at different sites.

“For example, large-scale, intensive agriculture tends to make landscapes more homogeneous, and the species communities they contain more similar. The effects were mixed, with some studies showing a very strong tendency towards homogenization, and others showing a tendency for species communities to become more diverse, especially at the local level,” the press release said.

The researchers expressed doubt in the latter being a positive sign. They speculated that an uptick in dissimilarities could be a temporary result in severely impacted habitats.

“The human influence that we find is sometimes so strong that there are even signs that could indicate a complete collapse of the species communities,” Altermatt said.

The authors said the findings can serve as benchmarks for conservation efforts and biodiversity research going forward.

“Our findings provide clear indications of which human influences are having the greatest impact on biodiversity,” Keck said. “This also shows what goals need to be set if these trends are to be reversed.”

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As our planet has experienced increased warming over the last several decades due to greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, glaciers around the world have been shrinking.

An international team of scientists has found that global heating has, over the past two decades, melted enough of Greenland’s glacial ice that 1,006.6 more miles of coastline have become exposed.

“Accelerated climate warming has caused the majority of marine-terminating glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere to retreat substantially during the twenty-first century,” the authors of the findings wrote in a paper published in Nature Climate Change.

The researchers described how they tracked the receding glaciers by comparing Northern Hemisphere satellite imagery from 2000 to 2020. They used the images to track the exposure of Greenland’s coastline as ice flows heading toward the sea became smaller, reported Phys.org.

“We identified a total of 2,466 ± 0.8 km (123 km a−1) of new coastline with most (66%) of the total length occurring in Greenland,” the scientists wrote in the findings.

The research team was also able to measure individual glaciers along Greenland’s exposed coast. One example was the melting of Zachariae Isstrom, which led to approximately 50 miles of coastline being exposed — two times the amount of any other Northern Hemisphere glacier.

The melting glaciers revealed 35 islands that had been obscured by ice until recently, 29 of which are part of Greenland.

“As marine-terminating glaciers retreat they reveal new coasts that often consist of unconsolidated glacial landforms, such as moraines, eskers, crevasse squeeze ridges or glaciofluvial deposits and deltas, as well as glacially polished bedrock. In some cases, the newly exposed coastline is in the form of rocky islands,” the scientists wrote. “The paraglacial coast exposed from beneath glacial ice differs from much of the Arctic coast as it is not initially affected by permafrost, which needs 2 years or more to aggrade after deglaciation. This lack of permafrost and associated ice cementation means that sediment can be easily eroded, transported and deposited, creating an Arctic system that is geomorphologically uniquely dynamic.”

Spatial distribution and examples of new and lost coastlines in the Arctic from 2000 to 2020. Nature Climate Change (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02282-5

The scientists noted that 13 of the newly exposed islands have not yet been recorded on a map, meaning they have not been claimed by any nation. The discovery could lead to “jockeying” by countries set on accessing potential natural resources the islands could contain.

The retreat of the glaciers poses a risk to local communities in the coastal zone. Regions surrounding marine-terminating glaciers are more susceptible to tsunamis triggered by landslides, the researchers said.

“These young paraglacial coastlines are highly dynamic, exhibiting high sediment fluxes and rapidly evolving landforms. Retreating glaciers and associated newly exposed coastline can have important impacts on local ecosystems and Arctic communities,” the scientists wrote. “Calving fronts of tidewater glaciers, where small tsunamis frequently form are often visited by tourists for their beauty and abundant wildlife.”

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The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) has launched a system that will notify communities before certain pesticides are applied to farms.

The system, called SprayDays California, will send out a warning before the application of restricted material pesticides on farms. There will be alerts available 48 hours in advance of applying soil fumigants and 24 hours in advance for other restricted material pesticides.

Restricted material pesticides are those with the strictest use requirements in the state, and growers will need to submit a notice electronically if they plan on using these specific pesticides on their farms. Growers can search the full list of restricted material pesticides on the DPR website.

“Managing pests — such as insects, rodents and weeds — is vital for protecting public health, the environment, the stability of our food supply and maintenance of our infrastructure,” DPR Director Karen Morrison said in a statement. “SprayDays California was developed through extensive public engagement to improve access to information and enhance understanding of California’s strong pesticide regulatory framework. This system is a significant step forward for DPR in fostering awareness and transparency.”

The notification system offers three ways to check for upcoming pesticide applications. Residents can use the SprayDays map anonymously to see areas where spraying is going to happen. The notification system doesn’t provide the exact location of spraying but an area within 1 square mile.

Residents can also input their address on the SprayDays website to find any planned restricted material pesticide use near that address. Or, residents can add their address and email or phone number to receive notifications any time spraying is planned near that address.

Each notification includes information about the pesticides being used and educational resources on pesticide regulations and health and safety information. Every notification will remain on the map for four days after the start date of the application to give growers flexibility to adjust spraying times in case of poor weather or other delays.

As The Fresno Bee reported, California uses more pesticides than any other state in the U.S., including 130 pesticides that do not have use approval in the European Union. As such, organizers have been working for years requesting that officials create a warning system for pesticide use to better protect children, farm workers and communities at large from potential health risks related to some of these restricted pesticides.

“Farmworker communities have demanded a ‘heads up’ in order to take measures to reduce the risk of exposure to our loved ones,” Angel Garcia, co-director of Californians for Pesticide Reform, said in a statement. “We need far better protections from the state, but this is a giant step forward toward transparency about toxic pesticide use.”

Critics still hope for more development within the SprayDays notification system, noting that only showing the spraying within 1 square mile is limiting. This could make it harder to know which direction the spraying is happening, as noted by Irene Gomez, member of the Coalition Advocating for Pesticide Safety – Ventura County.

“When my community in Nyeland Acres had the pilot notification project, our biggest issue was that you couldn’t find out exactly where the pesticides would be applied – which farm? That’s still a problem with Spray Days. You can only know pesticides are being applied within a square mile, but not whether it’s coming from behind your house, across the street, or even a mile away,” Gomez said.

SprayDays will undergo annual public comments and reviews by the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee and the California Department of Food & Agriculture to continue to improve and update the system.

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Global temperatures caused the world’s energy demand to rise at a faster-than-average pace in 2024, with increased renewables and natural gas supplying most of the additional energy needs, according to the Global Energy Review 2025 from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Following years of declines, energy consumption in advanced economies went up again, driving increased demand for renewables, gas, nuclear and coal, a press release from IEA said.

“There are many uncertainties in the world today and different narratives about energy – but this new data-driven IEA report puts some clear facts on the table about what is happening globally,” said Fatih Birol, IEA’s executive director. “What is certain is that electricity use is growing rapidly, pulling overall energy demand along with it to such an extent that it is enough to reverse years of declining energy consumption in advanced economies. The result is that demand for all major fuels and energy technologies increased in 2024, with renewables covering the largest share of the growth, followed by natural gas. And the strong expansion of solar, wind, nuclear power and EVs is increasingly loosening the links between economic growth and emissions.”

The report was based on the most recently available data, and covers energy demand, supply, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and the use of new energy technologies.

Last year, the world’s demand for energy rose by 2.2 percent, which was lower than the 3.2 percent growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP), but faster than the average yearly increase in demand of 1.3 percent from 2013 to 2023.

More than 80 percent of the jump in energy needs worldwide came from emerging and developing economies, except for China, where the rise in consumption was less than three percent.

Advanced economies’ energy demand grew by nearly one percent overall.

The power sector led global energy demand growth last year, with electricity consumption surging by almost 1,100 terawatt-hours — 4.3 percent — or nearly twice the annual average during the last decade.

The steep increase was driven by extreme heat worldwide, which ramped up demand for cooling, as well as by industry consumption; the growth of artificial intelligence and data centers; and the electrification of transportation.

“Record temperatures contributed significantly to the annual 0.8% rise in global CO2 emissions to 37.8 billion tonnes. But the deployment of solar PV, wind, nuclear, electric cars and heat pumps since 2019 now prevents 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2 annually, the equivalent of 7% of global emissions,” the press release said.

Installed renewable power capacity rose to roughly 700 gigawatts in 2024, a new yearly record for the 22nd year in a row. Additions of nuclear power capacity climbed to their fifth highest level over the last three decades. These led to renewables and nuclear power providing 80 percent of the growth of global electricity generation, and, for the first time, 40 percent of the world’s total energy generation. Natural gas generation also increased.

“Nearly all of the rise in electricity demand was met by low-emissions sources, led by the record-breaking expansion of solar PV capacity, with further growth in other renewables and nuclear power. Gas demand also picked up substantially, while oil and coal consumption increased more slowly than in 2023,” the report said.

Oil demand saw slower growth, with a 0.8 percent rise last year. Oil made up less than 30 percent of total global energy demand for the first time, 50 years after peaking at 46 percent.

EV sales went up by more than 25 percent, accounting for a fifth of cars sold around the world.

“This contributed considerably to the decline in oil demand for road transport, which offset a significant proportion of the rise in oil consumption for aviation and petrochemicals,” the press release said.

Coal demand increased by one percent last year, half the rate of the year before. The IEA said intense heat waves in India and China caused more demand for cooling, which contributed over 90 percent of the total increase in the world’s coal consumption for the year.

“[I]f global weather patterns in 2023 had repeated in 2024, around half of the increase in global emissions would have been avoided. At the same time, the continued rapid adoption of clean energy technologies is limiting emissions growth, according to new analysis – avoiding 2.6 billion tonnes of additional CO2 emissions per year,” the report said.

Carbon emissions from advanced economies dropped by 1.1 percent to roughly 12 billion tons in 2024 — a level not seen in 50 years. This occurred even though the nations’ cumulative GDP is now three times as large.

As mentioned above, most of last year’s emissions growth was from developing and emerging economies besides China. However, China’s emissions growth slowed in 2024, while its per-capita emissions are currently almost twice the global average and 16 percent higher than those of advanced economies. 

“From slowing global oil demand growth and rising deployment of electric cars to the rapidly expanding role of electricity and the increasing decoupling of emissions from economic growth, many of the key trends the IEA has identified ahead of the curve are showing up clearly in the data for 2024,” Birol said.

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