Thousands of animal species threatened by climate change, novel analysis finds

Oregon State University

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Hawai'ian green sea turtle.

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CORVALLIS, Ore. – A novel analysis suggests more than 3,500 animal species are threatened by climate change and also sheds light on huge gaps in fully understanding the risk to the animal kingdom.

The study was published today in BioScience.

“We’re at the start of an existential crisis for the Earth’s wild animals,” said Oregon State University’s William Ripple, who led the study. “Up till now, the primary cause of biodiversity loss has been the twin threats of overexploitation and habitat alteration, but as climate change intensifies, we expect it to become a third major threat to the Earth’s animals.”

Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in the OSU College of Forestry, and collaborators in the U.S. and Mexico used publicly available biodiversity datasets to examine animal data for 70,814 species from 35 existing classes. They categorized the species by class and climate change risks as assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The researchers found that at least one-quarter of the species in six different classes are threatened by climate change; these classes include arachnids and chilopodans (centipedes) as well as anthozoans and hydrozoans (marine invertebrates related to jellyfish and corals). Smaller percentages of other classes’ species are also directly at risk from a warming climate.

“We are particularly concerned about invertebrate animals in the ocean, which absorbs most of the heat from climate change,” Ripple said. “Those animals are increasingly vulnerable because of their limited ability to move and promptly evade adverse conditions.”

Sudden impacts on animal communities can take the form of mass mortality from extreme events like heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods.

“The cascading effects of more and more mass mortality events will likely affect carbon cycle feedbacks and nutrient cycling,” Ripple said. “Those effects also likely will have an impact on species interactions such as predation, competition, pollination and parasitism, which are vital for ecosystem function.”

The 90% reduction in mollusk populations along Israel’s coastline because of escalating water temperatures shows how susceptible invertebrates are, he said. Other examples include the deaths of billions of intertidal invertebrates during the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome, and the catastrophic die-off of corals across 29% of the Great Barrier Reef following a severe 2016 marine heat wave.

Mass mortalities have not been limited to invertebrates, Ripple notes. In 2015 and 2016, about 4 million common murres off the west coast of North America starved to death via an altered food web caused by an extreme marine heat wave.

The same heat wave caused a 71% decline in Pacific cod because of an increase in metabolic demand and a reduced prey base, and marine heat waves have likely played a role in the deaths of approximately 7,000 humpback whales in the North Pacific.

Further cause for concern, the authors note, is the comparatively small amount of information that’s been gathered regarding climate change risk to wildlife. Most wildlife classes (66 of 101) have not yet had any species assessed by the IUCN, and the 70,814 species that have been assessed represent 5.5% of all described wildlife species alive today.

“Our analysis is meant to be a preliminary effort toward assessing climate risk to wildlife species,” Ripple said. “Understanding the risk is crucial for making informed policy decisions. We need a global database on mass mortality events due to climate change for animal species in all ecosystems, and an acceleration in assessing currently ignored species.”

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, he notes, has a bias toward vertebrates, which make up less than 6% of the Earth’s named animal species.

“There is also a need for more frequent climate risk assessments of all species and better consideration of adaptive capacity,” Ripple said. “We need the integration of biodiversity and climate change policy planning on a global scale.”

Roger Worthington, an attorney in Bend, Oregon, provided partial funding for this study, which also included Christopher Wolf and Jillian Gregg of Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Associates and Erik Torres-Romero of the Biotechnology Engineering-Polytechnic University of Puebla in Puebla, Mexico.

Australian corals

Credit

Justin Smith

Journal

BioScience

DOI

10.1093/biosci/biaf059 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Climate c hange t hreats to Earth’s w ild a nimals

Article Publication Date

20-May-2025

Climate change emerges as third major threat to global wildlife, scientists warn

American Institute of Biological Sciences

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New research published in BioScience reveals that climate change is rapidly emerging as a third major threat to Earth's wild animals, joining habitat alteration and overexploitation in what scientists call a shift from "twin to triple threats."

The research team, led by William J. Ripple of Oregon State University, analyzed data for 70,814 animal species from 35 classes, using two publicly available biodiversity datasets to assess climate change vulnerability among the world's wild animal populations.

Their findings indicate that 5.1% of all assessed animal species are threatened by climate change, with six animal classes having at least 25% of assessed species at risk. The researchers note that these figures likely underestimate the true scale of the crisis.

"We are entering an existential crisis for the world's wild animals," say the authors. "Although some species might benefit, increases in global temperature can lead to a variety of impacts on wild animals, including changes in their physiology, behavior, life cycle, distribution, and interactions among species."

In the Special Report, the authors document numerous recent population collapses linked to climate change, including the disappearance of over 10 billion snow crabs in the Bering Sea since 2018, 7000 heatwave-related humpback whale deaths in the North Pacific, and the unprecedented mortality of 4 million common murres off the west coast of North America in 2015-2016.

The assessment revealed stark disparities in research attention among animal groups. While 72.6% of vertebrate species have been assessed for conservation status through the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List process, only 1.6% of invertebrates have received similar attention, despite constituting the vast majority of animal biodiversity.

The authors emphasized the urgency of climate action: "We may be approaching tipping points regarding the impact of climate change on Earth's animals. We anticipate future extinction risks and mass mortalities due to climate change not only to rise but also greatly accelerate with each fraction of a degree increase in global temperatures."

The researchers recommend establishing a global database to track climate-related mass mortality events, accelerating assessments of vulnerable but understudied species (particularly invertebrates), and integrating biodiversity and climate change policy planning at the global scale. The American Institute of Biological Sciences, which publishes BioScience, has facilitated the development of national level databases for the study of biological diversity over the last many decades.

"Rapid and effective climate mitigation is crucial now more than ever for saving the world's biodiversity," the authors conclude.

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Journal

BioScience

DOI

10.1093/biosci/biaf059 

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Climate change threats to Earth’s wild animals

Article Publication Date

20-May-2025

 

Rising temperatures lead to unexpectedly rapid carbon release from soils

MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen

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Dr. Vera Meyer and Dr. Enno Schefuß discuss the isolation of organic compounds at the preparative gas chromatograph. Photo: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; V. Diekamp

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Credit: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; V. Diekamp

Globally, soils store more than twice as much carbon as the atmosphere. Therefore, carbon uptake and release by soils constitutes a strong regulator of atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). In the context of the ongoing anthropogenic climate change it is thus important to better understand the sensitivity of soil carbon, which is directly related to the release of CO2 from soils, under a changing climate, such as rising temperatures and/or variations in the hydrological cycle.

Studies have already highlighted the importance of permafrost regions, where rising temperatures lead to the release of carbon from previously frozen soils. However, large amounts of organic carbon are also stored in soils in subtropical and tropical regions. In these regions, it was previously unclear what the main factor for a change in the carbon turnover rate was. "Microbes that break down organic matter are generally more active under warm and humid conditions, so the carbon content in tropical soils responds very quickly to climatic changes. Some studies report a main influence of changing hydroclimatic conditions, while in others temperature plays the main role," explains first author Dr. Vera Meyer from MARUM.

Deposits provide a glimpse into the past

To shed more light on these large-scale processes, Meyer and her colleagues chose a rather unconventional approach. Instead of studying soils, they analyzed the age of land-derived organic matter that was transported from soils from the Nile to the Mediterranean and deposited near the river mouth. The Nile transports material from a huge catchment area in the subtropical to tropical regions of north-east Africa to the eastern Mediterranean. The samples for the study come from a coastal marine sediment core in which the age evidence of many thousands of years has been deposited. Such sediment cores therefore allow a much longer look back into times in the Earth's history when the climate was significantly different from today and changed considerably. "The age of the organic material delivered by the Nile essentially depends on two factors: how long it was in the soils, and how long it took to be transported in the river. The advantage of our approach is that long time scales can be investigated, in this case the last 18,000 years since the last ice age," says Dr. Enno Schefuß, also from MARUM.

The results surprised the researchers and showed something unexpected: the ages of the land carbon changed only slightly with changes in precipitation and the associated changes in runoff, but reacted strongly to changes in temperature. In addition, the change in ages due to the temperature increase after the last ice age was significantly greater than expected. This means that the post-glacial warming drastically accelerated the decomposition of organic matter by microorganisms in soils and caused a much stronger outgassing of CO2 from (sub-)tropical soils than predicted by carbon cycle models. Co-author Dr. Peter Köhler from AWI Bremerhaven says: “The fact that the models underestimate carbon release from soils so strongly shows us that we need to revise the sensitivity of soil carbon in our models.”

However, this effect not only contributed to the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration at the end of the last ice age, but also has far-reaching consequences for the future: the carbon turnover in soils will accelerate with further global warming and could further increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration via a previously underestimated feedback.

The study was funded as part of the Cluster of Excellence “Ocean Floor – Earth's Uncharted Interface”. The cluster is based at MARUM at the University of Bremen. The aim of these comprehensive investigations is to decipher the fate of carbon from various sources in the marine environment.

Contact:

Dr. Vera D. Meyer
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen
Email: vmeyer@marum-alumni.de

Dr. Enno Schefuß
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen
Phone: 0421 – 21865526
Email: eschefuss@marum.de

Prof. Gesine Mollenhauer
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven
Email: Gesine.Mollenhauer@awi.de

Dr. Peter Köhler
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven
Email: Peter.Koehler@awi.de

 

MARUM produces fundamental scientific knowledge about the role of the ocean and the ocean floor in the total Earth system. The dynamics of the ocean and the ocean floor significantly impact the entire Earth system through the interaction of geological, physical, biological and chemical processes. These influence both the climate and the global carbon cycle, and create unique biological systems. MARUM is committed to fundamental and unbiased research in the interests of society and the marine environment, and in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. It publishes its quality-assured scientific data and makes it publicly available. MARUM informs the public about new discoveries in the marine environment and provides practical knowledge through its dialogue with society. MARUM cooperates with commercial and industrial partners in accordance with its goal of protecting the marine environment.

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-59013-9 

Article Title

Dominant Control of Temperature on (sub-)tropical soil carbon turnover

Article Publication Date

15-May-2025

Dire sea level rise likely even in a 1.5C world: study


By AFP
May 20, 2025


The Greenland ice sheet holds enough frozen water to lift global oceans by five metres. - Copyright AFP/File Aamir QURESHI

Marlowe HOOD

Rising seas will severely test humanity’s resilience in the second half of the 21st century and beyond, even if nations defy the odds and cap global warming at the ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius target, researchers said Tuesday.

The pace at which global oceans are rising has doubled in three decades, and on current trends will double again by 2100 to about one centimetre per year, they reported in a study.

“Limiting global warming to 1.5C would be a major achievement” and avoid many dire climate impacts, lead author Chris Stokes, a professor at Durham University in England, told AFP.

“But even if this target is met,” he added, “sea level rise is likely to accelerate to rates that are very difficult to adapt to.”

Absent protective measures such as sea walls, an additional 20 centimetres (7.8 inches) of sea level rise — the width of a letter-size sheet of paper — by 2050 would cause some $1 trillion in flood damage annually in the world’s 136 largest coastal cities, earlier research has shown.

Some 230 million people live on land within one metre (3.2 feet) of sea level, and more than a billion reside within 10 metres.

Sea level rise is driven in roughly equal measure by the disintegration of ice sheets and mountain glaciers, as well as the expansion of warming oceans, which absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat due to climate change.

Averaged across 20 years, Earth’s surface temperature is currently 1.2C above pre-industrial levels, already enough to lift the ocean watermark by several metres over the coming centuries, Stokes and colleagues noted in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The world is on track to see temperatures rise 2.7C above that benchmark by the end of the century.



– Tipping points –



In a review of scientific literature since the last major climate assessment by the UN-mandated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Stokes and his team focused on the growing contribution of ice sheets to rising seas.

In 2021, the IPCC projected “likely” sea level rise of 40 to 80 centimetres by 2100, depending on how how quickly humanity draws down greenhouse gas emissions, but left ice sheets out of their calculations due to uncertainty.

The picture has become alarmingly more clear since then.

“We are probably heading for the higher numbers within that range, possibly higher,” said Stokes.

The scientist and his team looked at three baskets of evidence, starting with what has been observed and measured to date.

Satellite data has revealed that ice sheets with enough frozen water to lift oceans some 65 metres are far more sensitive to climate change than previously suspected.

The amount of ice melting or breaking off into the ocean from Greenland and West Antarctica, now averaging about 400 billion tonnes a year, has quadrupled over the last three decades, eclipsing runoff from mountain glaciers.

Estimates of how much global warming it would take to push dwindling ice sheets past a point of no return, known as tipping points, have also shifted.

“We used to think that Greenland wouldn’t do anything until the world warmed 3C,” said Stokes. “Now the consensus for tipping points for Greenland and West Antarctica is about 1.5C.”

The 2015 Paris climate treaty calls for capping global warming at “well below” 2C, and 1.5C if possible.

The scientists also looked at fresh evidence from the three most recent periods in Earth’s history with comparable temperatures and atmospheric levels of CO2, the main driver of global warming.

About 125,000 years ago during the previous “interglacial” between ice ages, sea levels were two to nine metres higher than today despite a slightly lower average global temperature and significantly less CO2 in the air — 287 parts per million, compared to 424 ppm today.

A slightly warmer period 400,000 ago with CO2 concentrations at about 286 ppm saw oceans 6-to-13 metres higher.

And if we go back to the last moment in Earth’s history with CO2 levels like today, some three million years ago, sea levels were 10-to-20 metres higher.

Finally, scientists reviewed recent projections of how ice sheets will behave in the future.

“If you want to slow sea level rise from ice sheets, you clearly have to cool back from present-day temperatures,” Stokes told AFP.

“To slow sea level rise from ice sheets to a manageable level requires a long-term temperature goal that is close to +1C, or possibly lower.”

1.5°C Paris Climate Agreement target too high for polar ice sheets and sea level rise

Durham University

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Scientists overlooking the edge of Mawson Glacier, East Antarctica.

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Efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C under the Paris Climate Agreement may not go far enough to save the world’s ice sheets, according to a new study.

Research led by Durham University, UK, suggests the target should instead be closer to 1°C to avoid significant losses from the polar ice sheets and prevent a further acceleration in sea level rise.

The team reviewed a wealth of evidence to examine the effect that the 1.5°C target would have on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which together store enough ice to raise global sea levels by almost 65 metres.

The mass of ice lost from these ice sheets has quadrupled since the 1990s and they are currently losing around 370 billion tonnes of ice per year, with current warming levels of around 1.2°C above pre-industrial temperatures according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

The authors argue that further warming to 1.5°C would likely generate several metres of sea level rise over the coming centuries as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt in response to both warming air and ocean temperatures.

This would make it very difficult and far more expensive to adapt to rising sea levels, causing extensive loss and damage to coastal and island populations and leading to widespread displacement of hundreds of millions of people.

Policymakers and governments need to be more aware of the effects a 1.5°C rise in temperatures could have on ice sheets and sea levels, the researchers say.

Currently, around 230 million people live within one metre of sea level and melting ice represents an existential threat to those communities, including several low-lying nations.

Avoiding this scenario would require a global average temperature cooler than that of today, which the researchers hypothesise is probably closer to 1°C above pre-industrial levels or possibly even lower.

However, the researchers add that further work is urgently needed to more precisely determine a “safe” temperature target to avoid rapid sea level rise from melting ice sheets.

The research team also included experts from the universities of Bristol, UK, and Wisconsin-Madison and Massachusetts Amherst, both USA.

The research is published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.

Lead author Professor Chris Stokes, in the Department of Geography, Durham University, UK, said: “There is a growing body of evidence that 1.5 °C is too high for the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. We’ve known for a long time that some sea level rise is inevitable over the next few decades to centuries, but recent observations of ice sheet loss are alarming, even under current climate conditions.

“Limiting warming to 1.5°C would be a major achievement and this should absolutely be our focus. However, even if this target is met or only temporarily exceeded, people need to be aware that sea level rise is likely to accelerate to rates that are very difficult to adapt to – rates of one centimetre per year are not out of the question within the lifetime of our young people.

“We are not necessarily saying that all is lost at 1.5°C, but we are saying that every fraction of a degree really matters for the ice sheets - and the sooner we can halt the warming the better, because this makes it far easier to return to safer levels further down the line”

Professor Stokes added: “Put another way, and perhaps it is a reason for hope, we only have to go back to the early 1990s to find a time when the ice sheets looked far healthier.

“Global temperatures were around 1°C above pre-industrial back then and carbon dioxide concentrations were 350 parts per million, which others have suggested is a much safer limit for planet Earth. Carbon dioxide concentrations are currently around 424 parts per million and continue to increase.”

The research team combined evidence from past warm periods that were similar or slightly warmer than present, and measurements of how much ice is being lost under the present level of warming, together with projections of how much ice would be lost at different warming levels over the next few centuries.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, evidence from past warm periods shows that higher sea levels are increasingly likely the higher the warming and the longer it lasts.

Professor Andrea Dutton of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, a co-author of the study, said: “Evidence recovered from past warm periods suggests that several meters of sea level rise – or more – can be expected when global mean temperature reaches 1.5 °C or higher. Furthermore, this evidence also suggests that the longer those warm temperatures are sustained, the greater the impact on ice melt and resulting sea-level rise.”

Fellow study co-author Jonathan Bamber, Professor of Glaciology and Earth Observation at the University of Bristol, UK, has been measuring changes in ice sheets for several decades. Professor Bamber said: “Recent satellite-based observations of ice sheet mass loss have been a huge wake-up call for the whole scientific and policy community working on sea level rise and its impacts. The models have just not shown the kind of responses that we have witnessed in the observations over the last three decades.”

Fellow co-author, Professor Rob DeConto, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, specialises in computer simulations of Antarctica that reveal how the ice sheet might change under different warming levels.

Professor DeConto said: “It is important to stress that these accelerating changes in the ice sheets and their contributions to sea level should be considered permanent on multi-generational timescales.

“Even if the Earth returns to its preindustrial temperature, it will still take hundreds to perhaps thousands of years for the ice sheets to recover. If too much ice is lost, parts of these ice sheets may not recover until the Earth enters the next ice age. In other words, land lost to sea level rise from melting ice sheets will be lost for a very, very long time. That’s why it is so critical to limit warming in the first place.”

Commenting on the research, Ambassador Carlos Fuller, long-time climate negotiator for Belize agreed that policymakers and governments need to be more aware of the effects of a 1.5°C temperature increase.

Belize long ago moved its capital inland; but its largest city will be inundated at just 1 meter of sea-level rise.

Ambassador Fuller said: "Findings such as these only sharpen the need to remain within the 1.5°C Paris Agreement limit, or as close as possible, so we can return to lower temperatures and protect our coastal cities." 

The research was funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council.

ENDS

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Journal

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-025-02299-w 

Method of Research

Systematic review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Warming of +1.5 °C is too high for polar ice sheets

Article Publication Date

20-May-2025

chudley_store_crevasses_5 [VIDEO] | 

Deep crevasses form in fast-flowing ice at Store Glacier, an outlet glacier of the west Greenland Ice Sheet.

Credit

Dr Tom Chudley, Durham University

Iceberg towers calved from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Credit

Nerilie Abram

Looking across bedrock to the terminus of Vanderford Glacier, Wilkes Land, East Antarctica. 

Credit

Richard Jones

Professor Chris Stokes, Durham University, lead author of the study which says that efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C under the Paris Climate Agreement may not go far enough to save the world’s ice sheet

Credit

Durham University

 

Mask users can now breathe easy on two counts

Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

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Researchers at The University of Tokyo develop a filter that effectively captures small particles without restricting air flow

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Credit: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan—The COVID-19 pandemic increased public awareness of the importance of mask use for personal protection. However, when the mesh size of mask fabrics is small enough to capture viruses, which are usually around one hundred nanometers in size, the fabric typically also restricts air flow, resulting in user discomfort. But now, researchers from Japan have found a way to avoid this.

In a study published this month in Materials Advances, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have overcome this bottleneck and developed a filter capable of capturing nanoparticles such as viruses without greatly restricting air flow. They managed this feat through careful design of the pore structure in the filter.

The filter is constructed from nanosheets consisting of an ordered mesh composed of porphyrins, which are flat, ring-shaped molecules with a central hole. The tiny holes in the porphyrin molecules are suitably sized to allow the easy passage of the small gas molecules in air while blocking the movement of larger particles, such as viruses. The nanosheets are then supported on a fabric modified with nanofibers containing pores of several hundred nanometers to form the filter.

“The porphyrin-based nanosheets are constructed through interfacial reactions that are driven by the movement of reactants caused by the gradient of surface tension at the air–solvent interface, known as the Marangoni effect,” says senior author Kazuyuki Ishii. “The nanosheets are then compressed and coated on nanofiber-modified fabric using a stamp method.”

The team tested their filter using the standard procedure used to test N95 face masks. The results of the particle filtration tests revealed that the filter effectively trapped particles that were as small as viruses. The filter achieved a particle filtration efficiency of 96%, which exceeds the requirement of 95% for an N95 face mask.

“Our porphyrin-based filter collected nanoparticles with a diameter as small as one hundred　nanometers,” explains senior author Kazuyuki Ishii. “Importantly, the filter also showed minimal decrease of differential pressure in gas flow measurements. This indicates that the filter is capable of trapping particles as small as viruses, while barely restricting air flow.”

The team’s approach involving coating porous nanosheets on nanofibers is promising to provide materials capable of effectively filtering small particles like viruses while maintaining air flow to ensure both user comfort and protection.

###

The article “Hybridization of Nanofiber-modified Fabrics with Porphyrin-based Nanosheets for Nanoparticle Capture” was published in Materials Advances at DOI:10.1039/D5MA00058K.

About Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

The Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo-IIS) is one of the largest university-attached research institutes in Japan. UTokyo-IIS is comprised of over 120 research laboratories—each headed by a faculty member—and has over 1,200 members (approximately 400 staff and 800 students) actively engaged in education and research. Its activities cover almost all areas of engineering. Since its foundation in 1949, UTokyo-IIS has worked to bridge the huge gaps that exist between academic disciplines and real-world applications.
 

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Journal

Materials Advances

DOI

10.1039/D5MA00058K 

Article Title

Hybridization of Nanofiber-modified Fabrics with Porphyrin-based Nanosheets for Nanoparticle Capture

Article Publication Date

20-May-2025

SPACE WAR

Trump unveils plans, names project leader for Golden Dome missile defence shield

President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled a design for the $175 billion Golden Dome missile defence shield and named a Space Force general to head the ambitious programme that will put US weapons in space for the first time.

Issued on: 20/05/2025 -
By: FRANCE 24

US President Donald Trump makes an announcement about the Golden Dome missile defense shield in the Oval Office of the White House on May 20, 2025. 

© Jim Watson, AP

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday the concept he wants for his future Golden Dome missile defence programme — a multilayered $175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he expected the system to be “fully operational before the end of my term," which ends in 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”

At a White House press conference, Trump announced that US Space Force General Michael Guetlein would be the lead programme manager for what the president said would be a $175 billion project, an effort widely viewed as the keystone to Trump's military planning.

Golden Dome will "protect our homeland," Trump said from the Oval Office and added that Canada had said it wanted to be part of it.

First ordered by Trump in January, Golden Dome aims to create a network of satellites to detect, track and potentially intercept incoming missiles. The shield could deploy hundreds of satellites for missile detection and tracking.

At a cost of $175 billion, it will take years to implement, as the controversial programme faces both political scrutiny and funding uncertainty.

Democratic lawmakers have voiced concern about the procurement process and the involvement of Trump ally Elon Musk's SpaceX, which has emerged as a frontrunner alongside Palantir and Anduril to build key components of the system.

The Golden Dome idea was inspired by Israel's land-based Iron Dome defence shield that protects it from missiles and rockets. Trump's Golden Dome is much more extensive and includes a massive array of surveillance satellites and a separate fleet of attacking satellites that would shoot down offensive missiles soon after lift-off.

Tuesday's announcement kicks off the Pentagon's effort to test and ultimately buy the missiles, systems, sensors and satellites that will make up the Golden Dome.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and Reuters)

Video of two orcas in algae-infested pool in France sparks concern for their welfare

A video shot by drone earlier this month and published online of two orcas swimming in inadequate facilities sparked a wave of concern for the cetaceans. The marine park on the French Riviera has been struggling to find a new home for the whales after closing to the public in January.


Issued on: 17/05/2025 -
By: FRANCE 24

Happier days: Marineland in 2013. © Jean-Christophe Magnenet, AFP


A video posted online of two orcas circling in an algae-infested pool in southern France has brought a fresh wave of worldwide concern for cetaceans Wikie, 24, and her 11-year-old calf Keijo.

France has been struggling to find a new home for mother and son after their owner, a marine park on the French Riviera, closed down over a law banning shows featuring marine mammals.

Founded in the city of Antibes in 1970, Marineland closed to the public in January following a drop in attendance and the 2021 law.

In February, the park's management submitted a request to urgently transfer the two orcas -- also known as killer whales -- and 12 dolphins to two parks in Spain, but the move was blocked by Spanish authorities saying the facilities were adapted for them.

Watch more 'Little hope' of saving beluga whale stranded in France's Seine river

"The situation at Marineland Antibes is an emergency," said Canada-based NGO TideBreakers in a social media post after publishing the video.

"Leaving them in a shut-down facility, confined to a crumbling, decrepit tank, is simply not an option," it said.

Should the two orcas fall ill, they "will likely be euthanised or succumb to the deteriorating environment".

France has passed a law banning marine mammal shows. 

© Valery Hache, AFP

The video, shot by drone early this month, shows the two orcas and dolphins in tanks the edges of which are green with algae, amid installations previously used for other marine animals in brackish water.

Contacted by AFP, the park management said that the orca and dolphin pools remained well-maintained and that about 50 employees were still working for the animals' wellbeing.

The algae visible in the images were a normal phenomenon, it said, explaining that algae spores present in the filtered seawater that fills the pools developed each spring as the water warms up.

They were not harmful to the animals and were regularly removed by brushing, management said.
'Alternative solutions'

This explanation was backed up by Mike Riddell, who managed the park for 26 years before being dismissed in an ownership change in 2006.

AFP pictures taken in May 2020 during a press visit showed similar fine algae covering the edges of the the pool.

But the TideBreakers footage prompted strong reactions which, according to the park's management, even included death threats against staff.

Officials said they share the NGO's concerns, but the park's attempts to find an emergency solution together with the staff of France's environment minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher have come to nothing.

Contacted by AFP, ministry officials said authorities were "ensuring that the animals continue to be housed under good conditions, pending their future destination", and that the park was seeking "alternative solutions" moving forward.

Following the Spanish ban decision, Marineland had hoped to transfer the orcas to a park in Japan. But the move was blocked by the French government, which demanded a transfer to a European park with higher welfare standards.

But a solution involving the only such facility, in Tenerife, Spain, was vetoed last month by the Spanish government which said the facilities there "did not meet the requirements", according to French officials.

NGOs including One Voice and Sea Shepherd have requested permission to send specialists to Marineland to check on the orcas.

Born in captivity, the two mammals are unable to survive alone.

The longer term, the French ministry and NGOs agree, should see the establishment of a marine sanctuary where orcas and dolphins could be cared for in semi-wild conditions.

Such a solution would cost two to three million euros ($2.2-3.3 million) per year, according to Riddell.

It is estimated that Wikie and Keijo still have decades to live, under adequate conditions.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)