It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, June 20, 2025
How likely are extreme hot weather episodes in today’s UK climate?
In a study published in Weather, researchers estimated the current chances and characteristics of extreme hot episodes in the UK, and how they have changed over the last 6 decades.
The team found that temperatures several degrees above those recorded during the UK’s heatwave in July 2022 are plausible in today’s climate, with a simulated maximum of over 45°C (113°F). The likelihood of 40°C (104°F) is now over 20 times more likely than it was in the 1960s. Moreover, the chance of 40°C will likely continue to rise as the climate warms. The investigators estimate that there is approximately a 50% chance of again exceeding 40°C in the next 12 years.
Through multiple storylines of how temperatures could evolve through the summer season, they also found that prolonged heatwaves of over a month above 28°C (82°F) are possible in southeast England today. These storylines are valuable for modeling and stress testing.
“Our findings highlight the need to prepare and plan for the impacts of rising temperatures now, so we can better protect public health, infrastructure, and the environment from the growing threat of extreme heat,” said corresponding author Gillian Kay, PhD, of the Met Office Hadley Centre.
Additional Information NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.
About the Journal Weather publishes articles written for a broad audience, including those having a professional and a general interest in the weather, as well as those working in related fields such as climate science, oceanography, hydrometeorology and other related atmospheric and environmental sciences. Articles covering recent weather and climate events are particularly welcome.
About Wiley Wiley is one of the world’s largest publishers and a trusted leader in research and learning. Our industry-leading content, services, platforms, and knowledge networks are tailored to meet the evolving needs of our customers and partners, including researchers, students, instructors, professionals, institutions, and corporations. We empower knowledge-seekers to transform today’s biggest obstacles into tomorrow’s brightest opportunities. For more than two centuries, Wiley has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Scientists and engineers at UNSW Sydney, who previously developed a method for making green ammonia, have now turned to artificial intelligence and machine learning to make the process even more efficient.
Ammonia, a nitrogen-rich substance found in fertiliser, is often credited with saving much of the world from famine in the 20th century. But its benefit to humankind has come at a cost, with one of the largest carbon footprints of all industrial processes. To produce it, industrial plants need temperatures of more than 400°C and extremely high pressures – more than 200 times normal atmospheric pressure. Such energy-intensive requirements have made ammonia production a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 2% worldwide.
Dr Ali Jalili, with UNSW’s School of Chemistry, says while the original proof-of-concept demonstrated that ammonia could be created entirely from renewable energy, at low temperatures and without emitting carbon, there was still room for improvement. For example, could it be produced more efficiently, using lower energy, less wasted energy and producing more ammonia?
To answer these questions, the team needed to find the right catalyst – a substance that speeds up the chemical reaction without being consumed by it. As they explained in the paper published today in the journal Small, the team began by coming up with a shortlist of promising catalyst candidates.
“We selected 13 metals that past research said had the qualities we wanted – for example, this metal is good at absorbing Nitrogen, this one is good at absorbing hydrogen and so on,” Dr Jalili says.
“But the best catalyst would need a combination of these metals, and if you do the maths, that turns out to be more than 8000 different combinations.”
Enter artificial intelligence
The researchers fed a machine learning system information about how each metal behaves and trained it to spot the best combinations. That way, instead of having to run more than 8000 experiments in the lab, they only had to run 28.
“AI drastically reduced discovery time and resources, replacing thousands of trial-and-error experiments,” says Dr Jalili.
“Having a shortlist of 28 different combinations of metals meant we saved a huge amount of time in lab work compared to if we’d had to test all 8000 of them, which was simply not possible.”
The winning combo was a mix of iron, bismuth, nickel, tin and zinc. While the researchers were expecting some improvement in the process of producing green ammonia, this new five-metal catalyst exceeded even their most optimistic expectations.
“We achieved a sevenfold improvement in the ammonia production rate and at the same time it was close to 100% efficient, meaning almost all of the electrical energy we needed to make the reaction happen was used to make ammonia — very little was wasted.”
Known as Faradaic efficiency, high efficiency scores mean the process is more sustainable, cost-effective, and scalable, which is crucial for making green ammonia a viable alternative to fossil-fuel-based methods. Dr Jalili says his team was able to make ammonia this way at an ambient 25°C, less than 10% of the temperature required to make ammonia the conventional way via the Haber-Bosch method.
“This low-temperature, high-efficiency approach makes green ammonia production viable and scalable. We believe it can compete directly with electrified Haber–Bosch and even fossil-based routes, creating a realistic pathway for truly green ammonia.”
Farming out production
Looking ahead, Dr Jalili and his research team hope the new improvement in green ammonia production can lead to real-world impact. The goal is that one day soon, farmers will be able to produce ammonia for fertilisers onsite, at low cost and low energy, eliminating the need for delivery via transport routes – further reducing the carbon footprint of ammonia production.
In fact, localised ammonia production has already begun, although it’s still in trial phase. Farmers can buy or lease ammonia modules which are compact, factory-built systems the size of a shipping container. Each module combines the AI-optimised catalyst, plasma generator and electrolyser into a single plug-and-play package.
“For a century, ammonia production was based on massive, centralised factories that cut costs by operating at enormous scales, but those projects take years to build, require billions of dollars in capital, and cannot adapt quickly as energy markets change,” Dr Jalili says.
“Our approach breaks away from the era of centralised, giga-scale plants and opens the door for smaller, decentralised units that require much lower upfront investments.”
Hydrogen energy storage
Another benefit of low-cost, low energy ammonia production is the role it can play in the world’s move towards a hydrogen economy. Liquid ammonia stores more hydrogen energy than liquid hydrogen, which means it’s a better contender for renewable energy storage and transportation.
“This same system doubles as a carbon-free hydrogen carrier, creating new economic opportunities that align with the global shift to a clean hydrogen economy,” Dr Jalili says.
Building on their farm-scale proof of nitrogen fertiliser production, Dr Jalili’s team is now deploying their AI-discovered catalyst in distributed ammonia modules to cut costs, sharpen green ammonia’s competitiveness, and accelerate its uptake in the global market.
Hydrogen is considered a clean energy carrier of the future, but it remains difficult to produce it sustainably. Natural enzymes known as hydrogenases are highly efficient, hydrogen-producing biocatalysts, but they are not yet being used industrially. With 600 amino acids, they are very large and complex, and often extremely sensitive to oxygen. They also require highly energetic electrons that should also be sustainably produced.
[FeFe]-hydrogenases use an iron-containing molecule to produce hydrogen. This cofactor functions similarly to a platinum catalyst and can be chemically synthesized. However, as an isolated molecule it is inert and requires the protein environment to achieve maximum effectiveness.
Simplifying the biocatalyst
The researchers from Ruhr University Bochum wanted to simplify the highly complex hydrogenase biocatalyst to facilitate its integration into industrial processes. In some microalgae, hydrogenases are supplied with electrons provided by photosynthesis. The small protein ferredoxin, which also contains iron, transfers the electrons. Ferredoxin itself receives the electrons directly from the photosynthetic electron transport chain.
“We asked the biologically somewhat crazy question of whether we can’t just find a shortcut and let ferredoxin produce hydrogen,” explains Vera Engelbrecht, one of the two lead authors of the study. To her great surprise, the researchers were able to identify ferredoxins that could produce hydrogen in combination with the hydrogenase cofactor. “However, we had to circumvent the biological synthesis pathways,” explains Yiting She, the other lead author. “Only specific ferredoxins could collaborate with the cofactor. It was a difficult but exciting journey to discover this.”
Successful interaction between protein and catalyst
The biohybrid’s high activity surprised the researchers. “We know that the interaction between protein and cofactor in natural [FeFe]-hydrogenases is finely tuned,” explains Professor Thomas Happe, who supervised the project. In cooperation with partners from the University of Potsdam, the new ferredoxin hydrogenase was therefore characterized spectroscopically and with quantum-mechanical calculations. “It seems that the ferredoxin protein provides a chemically favorable environment for the hydrogenase catalyst,” concludes Happe. In order to achieve this, the natural cofactor of the ferredoxin must be replaced with the hydrogenase cofactor via complex synthesis pathways. “Despite of this, the new protein can still receive electrons from photosynthesis components,” says Yiting She. This is thus an important feasibility study for a small, artificial metalloenzyme that imitates natural, light-powered hydrogenases but with fewer components and smaller scaffolds.
Plant cell wall components such as cellulose are abundant sources of carbohydrates that are widely used in biofuels and bioproducts; however, extraction of these components from plant biomass is relatively difficult due to their complexity. In research in FEBS Open Bio, investigators have found that a combination of fungal enzymes can efficiently degrade plant biomass to allow for extraction.
The enzymes are called cellobiose dehydrogenase (CDH) and lytic polysaccharide monooxygenase (LPMO). LPMO and CDH operate together to enhance the degradation of plant biomass as CDH can support the activity of LPMOs by activating certain cellular reactions. Recently, a new CDH enzyme was characterized from Fusarium solani, a highly adaptable fungus that can infect numerous crops.
"We found that this particular CDH enzyme worked especially well with LMPO for producing carbohydrates from plants, making it a promising candidate for biotechnology approaches to use non-edible plant biomass of diverse origin and complexity,” said corresponding author Roland Ludwig, PhD, of BOKU University, in Austria.
Additional Information NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.
About the Journal FEBS Open Bio is an open access journal for the rapid publication of research articles across the molecular and cellular life sciences. The journal’s rigorous peer review process focusses on the technical and ethical quality of papers, rather than subjective judgements of significance.
About Wiley Wiley is one of the world’s largest publishers and a trusted leader in research and learning. Our industry-leading content, services, platforms, and knowledge networks are tailored to meet the evolving needs of our customers and partners, including researchers, students, instructors, professionals, institutions, and corporations. We empower knowledge-seekers to transform today’s biggest obstacles into tomorrow’s brightest opportunities. For more than two centuries, Wiley has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Research led by scientists from the Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB) of the CSIC and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) has managed to film how a few days-old embryos defend themselves from a potential infection by bacteria. The work is published this week in the journal Cell Host and Microbe.
Specifically, they have been able to see how zebrafish embryos use cells present on their surface, known as epithelial cells, to ingest and destroy bacteria through a process called phagocytosis, similar to that carried out by white blood cells. Crucially, scientists could observe that this ability to eliminate bacteria is also present in human embryos.
Using state-of-the-art microscopy techniques, the research shows how cells capture Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria through small protrusions of their membrane, in which the protein Actin is involved."Our research shows that, at the beginning of development – before implantation in the uterus and before the formation of organs – embryos already have a defense system that allows them to eliminate bacterial infections," says Esteban Hoijman, researcher at IBMB-CSIC and IDIBELL, leader of the research.
This process, scientist explain, works as a phagocytosis mechanism, activates immunity genes in these cells, effectively eliminates bacteria and contributes to the correct embryonic development in case of infection.
"This system could represent the origin of immunity. The study reveals the first interaction between the newly forming organism and its biological microenvironment," adds Hoijman, who heads the Embryonic Cell Bioimaging laboratory.
Besides the CSIC and the IDIBELL, the research has involved scientists from CRG Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the University of Barcelona (UB), the Dexeus University Hospital and ICREA.
Preventing malformations and improving reproductive therapies
At the beginning of development, embryos are exposed to multiple changes in their environment which can pose a threat, since embryos have not yet developed the immune system to protect them.
In the uterus, infections have a high incidence and are associated with infertility. However, it has remained a mystery until now how an embryo reacts when it encounters a bacterium. This work reveals that immune capacities of an embryo begin long before the existence of white blood cells, and "could help us, in the future, to improve fertility, prevent embryonic malformations and develop new reproductive therapies," explains Esteban Hoijman.
In this sense, the finding also highlights the important need to know in more detail the population of bacteria that can colonize the uterus, differentiating the invaders (and possible pathogens) from potential resident bacteria that could have beneficial effects on reproductive physiology.
Vance Holliday jumped at the invitation to go do geology at New Mexico's White Sands. The landscape, just west of Alamogordo, looks surreal – endless, rolling dunes of fine beige gypsum, left behind by ancient seas. It's one of the most unique geologic features in the world.
But a national park protects much of the area's natural resources, and the U.S. Army uses an adjacent swath as a missile range, making research at White Sands impossible much of the time. So it was an easy call for Holliday, a University of Arizona archaeologist and geologist, to accept an invitation in 2012 to do research in the park. While he was there, he asked, skeptically, if he could look at a site on the missile range.
"Well, next thing I know, there we were on the missile range," he said.
Holliday and a graduate student spent several days examining geologic layers in trenches, dug by previous researchers, to piece together a timeline for the area. They had no idea that, about 100 yards away, were footprints, preserved in ancient clay and buried under gypsum, that would help spark a wholly new theory about when humans arrived in the Americas.
Researchers from Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom and the U.S. National Park Service excavated those footprints in 2019 and published their paper in 2021. Holliday did not participate in the excavation but became a co-author after some of his 2012 data helped date the footprints.
The tracks showed human activity in the area occurred between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago – a timeline that would upend anthropologists' understanding of when cultures developed in North America. It would make the prints about 10,000 years older than remains found 90 years ago at a site near Clovis, New Mexico, which gave its name to an artifact assemblage long understood by archaeologists to represent the earliest known culture in North America. Critics have spent the last four years questioning the 2021 findings, largely arguing that the ancient seeds and pollen in the soil used to date the footprints were unreliable markers.
Now, Holliday leads a new study that supports the 2021 findings – this time relying on ancient mud to radiocarbon date the footprints, not seeds and pollen, and an independent lab to make the analysis. The paper was published today in the journal Science Advances.
Specifically, the new paper finds that the mud is between 20,700 and 22,400 years old – which correlates with the original finding that the footprints are between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. The new study now marks the third type of material – mud in addition to seeds and pollen – used to date the footprints, and by three different labs. Two separate research groups now have a total of 55 consistent radiocarbon dates.
"It's a remarkably consistent record," said Holliday, a professor emeritus in the School of Anthropology and Department of Geosciences who has studied the "peopling of the Americas" for nearly 50 years, focusing largely on the Great Plains and the Southwest.
"You get to the point where it's really hard to explain all this away," he added. "As I say in the paper, it would be serendipity in the extreme to have all these dates giving you a consistent picture that's in error."
Millennia ago, White Sands was a series of lakes that eventually dried up. Wind erosion piled the gypsum into the dunes that define the area today. The footprints were excavated in the beds of a stream that flowed into one such ancient lake.
"The wind erosion destroyed part of the story, so that part is just gone," Holliday said. "The rest is buried under the world's biggest pile of gypsum sand."
For the latest study, Holliday and Jason Windingstad, a doctoral candidate in environmental science, returned to White Sands in 2022 and 2023 and dug a new series of trenches for a closer look at the geology of the lake beds. Windingstad had worked at White Sands as a consulting geoarchaeologist for other research teams when he agreed to join Holliday's study.
"It's a strange feeling when you go out there and look at the footprints and see them in person," Windingstad said. "You realize that it basically contradicts everything that you've been taught about the peopling of North America."
Holliday acknowledges that the new study doesn't address a question he's heard from critics since 2021: Why are there no signs of artifacts or settlements left behind by those who made the footprints?
It's a fair question, Holliday and Windingstad said, and Holliday still does not have a peer-reviewed answer. Some of the footprints uncovered for the 2021 study were part of trackways that would have taken just a few seconds to walk, Holliday estimates. It's perfectly reasonable, he said, to assume that hunter-gatherers would be careful not to leave behind any resources in such a short time frame.
"These people live by their artifacts, and they were far away from where they can get replacement material. They're not just randomly dropping artifacts," he said. "It's not logical to me that you're going to see a debris field."
Even though he was confident in the 2021 findings to begin with, Holliday said, he's glad to have more data to support them.
"I really had no doubt from the outset because the dating we had was already consistent," Holliday said. "We have direct data from the field – and a lot of it now."
Ancient DNA reveals new clues about the incredible journey of dogs in the Americas
University of Oxford
New study shows dogs journeyed south not with the first hunter-gatherers, but with mobile farming communities who were transforming the landscape
Some modern Chihuahuas still carry DNA from their pre-contact Mesoamerican ancestors over 1500 years ago
A major new study has traced the incredible journey of humankind’s best friend across the Americas, showing how dogs slowly spread southward alongside early farming societies - mirroring the rhythms of human migration, agriculture and cultural change.
The study reveals that all pre-contact dogs in Central and South America descended from a single maternal lineage that diverged from North American dogs after humans first arrived on the continent.
Rather than dispersing rapidly, dogs followed a slower path - what scientists call ‘isolation by distance’ - gradually adapting to new environments as they moved with people through the Americas between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago, in step with the spread of maize cultivation by early farming communities.
While the arrival of Europeans introduced new dog lineages that largely replaced indigenous ones, the team found that some modern Chihuahuas still carry maternal DNA from their pre-contact Mesoamerican ancestors. These rare genetic echoes highlight an enduring legacy of the first American dogs, and the deep roots of this iconic breed.
‘This study reinforces the important role of early agrarian societies in the spread of dogs worldwide. In the Americas, we show that their spread was slow enough to allow the dogs to structure genetically between north, central and south America. It is rather uncommon for domestic animals and it opens new research avenues on the relationship that existed between dogs and these early agrarian societies,’ said Dr Manin.
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Journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
