Multi-year La Niña events—so-called "double-dip" or even "triple-dip" La Niñas—are becoming more common. But why do these events persist for multiple years in the first place?
New research from UNSW Business School finds that selling a home at auction carries more financial risk than most sellers realize. The auction is one of the most visible rituals in Australian property. Bidders gather onsite, the auctioneer works the crowd, and the hammer falls—or it doesn't.
Heat waves are a growing global threat to human health, well-being and livelihoods. Across 12 major European cities during the summer of 2025, a 10-day period of extreme heat led to 2,300 deaths—1,500 of them were attributed to climate change amplifying temperatures by 1°C–4°C. Heat waves were responsible for nearly half a million global deaths every year from 2000 to 2019.
Microglia, the immune cells that protect the brain, are thought to maintain a healthy brain environment by removing unwanted substances through dynamic remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton, the cell's internal framework. It has been known that microglia express Hv1/VSOP, a channel protein that transports protons, but it was believed to function at the cell membrane surface, regulating pH in its vicinity.
The U.S. ethanol industry experienced its first major "boom" in the early 2000s, thanks to changes in U.S. energy policies—particularly biofuel mandates—along with the surging crude oil prices and the phaseout of a fuel additive, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE). In response, corn prices rose by as much as 31% and, according to a new study from South Dakota State University's Ness School of Management and Economics, farmland values in ethanol-producing states increased by as much as 44%.
The successive heat waves that sweep across southern Spain in summer have harmful effects on the entire community that lives there, from humans to the microbes that inhabit the soil. Both share an impressive resilience that has enabled them to survive and adapt, each in its own way, to successive episodes of extreme temperatures. But that adaptability has its limits.
A new study published in the journal People and Nature reveals a significant gap in public awareness regarding one of the world's most widespread invasive species: the freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii. Despite being present on six continents and well-documented by scientists in Europe, this unnoticed (cryptic meaning "under the radar") invader remains largely unknown to the public, a factor that researchers say may be hindering the development of early warning systems and effective environmental policy.
