The concept of sustainability has long been incorporated into our collective vocabulary. The word is used in many contexts, including in the PR industry. If we are going to find a way out of the climate and environmental crisis, maybe it should be replaced?
Robot technology is flourishing in multiple sectors of society, including the retail, health care, industry and education sectors. However, are the perspectives of minority groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community, considered in robot and AI development?
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential components of healthy diets for both humans and fish. The dramatic increase in fish farming worldwide has boosted the demand for omega-3 fatty acids so much that today’s supply can’t meet demand. Reducing waste and finding new sources can help.
A group of polar bear researchers wants you to do more than worry about the fate of these beautiful animals. They’ve calculated how much summer sea ice is melted per metric tonne of CO2 emissions. Then you can decide if the flight you’re planning to take is worth destroying polar bear habitat.
Nearly 40 million people were living with HIV in 2017, the UN says, with just over half taking antiretroviral therapy. These drugs have cut AIDS-related deaths by more than half since the 2004 peak, but the disease cannot be cured. A new mechanism uncovered by a Norwegian research group could improve the chances of developing one.
Several high-profile studies report that ocean acidification will affect coral reef fish behaviour enough to jeopardize their survival. One research team looked more deeply at this assertion — and found it is simply not true.
Humankind will need to harness carbon capture and storage technologies to help keep global warming to 2 degrees C or less. New research shows that there’s plenty of room to store captured CO2 — in offshore geologic rock formations.
Researchers wanted to involve local people living around Kenya and Tanzania’s Serengeti-Mara parks in developing a sustainable future for them and the parks. They developed a board game to get people talking to the researchers — and to each other. That game has now won an international award.
As reindeer go, the animals living on Svalbard might not be Santa’s first choice. They’re a smaller subspecies of their common mainland relatives, and to save energy they basically never run. But because they were nearly exterminated from Svalbard around 1900 — and were then protected in 1925 — the animals provide unique insights into how conservation can help species thrive.
You may feel like you can’t do anything to stop climate change. But climate activists who joined in grassroots movements managed to cut their carbon footprints and were still happier than their non-activist peers, new research shows.
Hydrogen as an energy carrier can help us move away from fossil fuels, but only if it is created efficiently. One way to improve efficiency is to use waste heat that’s left over from other industrial processes.
Cholesterol crystals form from “bad” cholesterol and are found in plaques that line blood vessels. When these plaques rupture, they can cause heart attacks or strokes. New research suggests that cholesterol crystals in plaques can actually trigger strokes and heart attacks.
Materials scientists who work with nano-sized components have developed ways of working with their vanishingly small materials. But what if you could get your components to assemble themselves into different structures without actually handling them at all?
Nature has long been an inspiration for materials engineers and designers — just think of Velcro, the ubiquitous stick-to-itself tape that was created by a Swiss engineer after he picked burs out of his dog’s coat. Now a team of NTNU researchers has looked in more detail at how tiny conical structures on a lotus leaf or insect’s wing repel water and help keep it clean.
By now it’s well established that microplastics are a problem in the environment, even in the remotest parts of the planet. But where do different microplastics come from and how they get there, especially in the Arctic?
Can weightlessness stop cancer from growing? One of the nine research projects that has been given the go-ahead for the new China Space Station scheduled for 2022 is designed to answer this exact question.
The Arctic’s once impenetrable ice cap is melting away, with profound consequences for everything from ocean circulation patterns to fish numbers and diversity. The Nansen Legacy Project, including NTNU biologists, chemists and engineers, is working to better understand what these changes mean for the Barents Sea and the Arctic Basin
Climate change is the big wild card when it comes to the survival of many Arctic species. A new study shows that climate change will be both good and bad for Svalbard barnacle geese populations — although the balance may tip depending upon the severity of future temperature increases and how other species react.
Combatting global warming will require major changes in land use, a new climate change report says. One important change could be decreasing the amount of land used to produce livestock — which means that people would have to eat less meat.
The American whistleblower Edward Snowden paints a frightening vision of the world we live in, where abuses of power extend far beyond the reaches of law and affect us all.
Ecologist Daniel H. Janzen has spent virtually all of his half-century career trying to catalogue and understand the creatures in a patch of dry tropical forest in northwestern Costa Rica. Little did he realize his efforts would evolve into building a sea-to-summit conservation area — and a drive to inventory all million species in the country in partnership with the Costa Rican government.
We’ve changed our name to Norwegian SciTech News — so readers know immediately what they will find here.
The most successful winter Olympian ever opened nearly two decades of training logs to researchers to shed light on how she achieved her goals. Now researchers have looked at two methods she used for her high-intensity training sessions to see how they compare.
The arctic archipelago of Svalbard is already experiencing dramatic effects from climate change. A new study shows how these changes can force wild reindeer to graze on seaweed, a strategy that increases their likelihood of survival— and is recorded in their poop.
It’s springtime in much of the northern hemisphere, although spring snowstorms are still possible. When that happens, salt trucks and ploughs help make roads safe. But road salt can be bad for the environment, and can rust cars, bicycles and other metal. New research shows that salt use can be safely — and substantially — cut in certain circumstances.
Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme winter rain events in the Arctic. These kinds of winter storms on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago can cause a thick cap of ice to cover the forage that reindeer eat. You’d think that more frequent rain-on-snow events would spell the end for these arctic animals — but you’d be wrong.
For the first time ever, researchers have been able to peek deep into the mantle of the Earth under an ultraslow mid-ocean ridge, where they have been able to observe mantle melting and growth of the Earth’s crust.
Phytoplankton form the base of the marine food chain but are notoriously difficult for scientists to account for — a little like trying to identify and count motes of dust in the air. A truly independent underwater vehicle shows it can do the job.
Sierra Leone has few doctors and even fewer surgeons to serve its seven million people. Since 2011, a non-profit group called CapaCare has been training community health officers to perform basic lifesaving surgeries. A new study shows the programme is working well when it comes to the most common surgery in the country — Caesarean sections.
Twenty-five years ago, African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) disappeared from Serengeti National Park. A firestorm of debate followed when one researcher claimed that handling by scientists was the cause. New research refutes that claim and offers another explanation.
Climate change in the Arctic means more winter rain, and consequently more rain falling on snow. The result can be a buildup of ice under the snow, which can wreak havoc with arctic ecosystems.
Norwegian breweries have been producing commercial Christmas beer over the last several centuries. Today’s variety of craft-brewed Christmas beers are among the most important for Norwegian breweries, says NTNU beer enthusiast Anders Christensen.
