Month: March 2026
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Mycology manages mattress mountain…
Every day, over 50,000 mattresses are discarded in the US, contributing significantly to landfill waste as they take up to 120 years to decompose. Innovative research explores use of fungi to convert mattress materials into sustainable insulation, highlighting potential benefits for recycling and environmental sustainability in the mattress industry.
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Hedging your climate change bets (or, betting your climate-change hedge..?)
The “Superbloom at Carrizo Plain National Monument, 2017” highlights the transient beauty of desert blooms. However, a re-vegetation initiative in the Taklamakan Desert has shown promise as a long-term solution to combat desertification and mitigate climate change by creating a carbon sink. The project emphasises careful management due to potential…
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Wood Age technology unearthed in southern Greece
The discovery at Marathousa 1 in Greece by Annemieke Milks et al. reveals evidence of the earliest known use of wooden handheld tools by hominins, dated to 430,000 years ago. Researchers analysed two distinct wooden artefacts suggesting functions like digging and possibly processing animal carcasses. The findings highlight the ingenuity…
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Getting to the bottom of elite coffees
Kopi luwak is a speciality coffee with a unique flacvour, made from ‘beans’ ingested and excreted by the Asian palm civet. Research by Mitra et al. (2025) suggests significant chemical differences between civet and traditional coffee, largely influenced by microbial fermentation in the civet’s gut. Understanding these differences could lead…
Plant Cuttings 