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Microplastics can go right through wastewater treatment plants, and researchers have engineered bacteria commonly found in there to break down this pollution before it can persist in the environment. Researchers from the University of Waterloo added DNA to several species of bacteria found in wastewater, allowing them to biodegrade polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a common plastic found in carpet, clothing and containers for food and beverages.

In the largest research effort to date, anthropologists at Université de Montréal succeed in sequencing the genomes of 162 lemurs from 50 species across the island of Madagascar - and solve an evolut Lemurs - those small, big-eyed primates that live in the trees of Madagascar off the southeast coast of Africa - are a mystery of evolution.

Researchers showed how records from missionaries and early explorers in 19th century Tanzania could be used to mitigate a legacy of scientific neglect An international team led by McGill researchers has devised a way to improve the accuracy of climate change models for the Global South by integrating historical records kept by missionaries and other visitors.

HFC-125 is a greenhouse gas becoming a major contributor to global warming, and in the first study to use satellites to measure its concentration in the atmosphere, researchers found it has increased exponentially in the past 20 years. The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment, a research group at the University of Waterloo, and under contract with the Canadian Space Agency, is the first to measure from space the atmospheric concentration of HFC-125, a hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) commonly found in fire extinguishers and commercial cooling systems.

Wildfires have turned the Far North into a carbon emitter, putting the region's permafrost at risk, according to an alarming new report co-authored by UdeM researcher Oliver Sonnentag. Increasingly frequent and severe wildfires have become a yearly concern for many Arctic communities, and a chapter of a new U.S. report involving one Canadian university - Université de Montréal - suggests that they are also having a significant impact on carbon emissions in the region.

Visiting USask research team and Biogeoscience Institute educators deepen our understanding of water movement and flooding impacts in Sibbald Valley The beaver is a well-known symbol associated with Canada.

By decoding the DNA of the beaked hazelnut ( Corylus cornuta ), a native plant that thrives in British Columbia, a team of multidisciplinary scientists is providing new insight into how ancestral Indigenous peoples stewarded plants across the province. Led by Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, an assistant professor in Simon Fraser University's (SFU) Department of Indigenous Studies, the innovative study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), a major scientific journal.

A new study shows that artificial ponds created to restore peatlands exploited by humans achieve a balance similar to that of natural ponds, but it takes time. Ponds created to restore bogs degraded by peat extraction take over 17 years to develop ecosystems similar to natural ponds. That is the finding of a study by master's students Émilie Jolin and Mahmud Hassan and doctoral candidate Julien Arsenault, supervised by Julie Talbot of the Department of Geography at Université de Montréal and Line Rochefort at Université Laval.

Remarkable encounter during 2022 Niagara fireball event leads to discovery of tiniest asteroid known In an international study led by Western University and Lowell Observatory , scientists describe a pioneering, integrative approach for studying near-Earth asteroids based largely on a November 2022 fireball event that dropped meteorites in the Niagara region.

Temporary sound installations can be a low-cost way of dealing with noise pollution in areas of high urban density, McGill researchers have found. Dubbed the "new second hand smoke," noise pollution can have consequences ranging from simple annoyance to such serious health problems as hearing loss and high blood pressure and can exacerbate various mental health conditions.

Findings indicate PCBs, DDT continue to pose threats decades after they were banned, even as decline in contamination levels overall testifies to bans' positive impact, researcher said. Killer whales off Canada's Atlantic coast continue to be contaminated with dangerously high levels of toxic chemicals that put them at elevated risk of severe immune-system and reproductive problems, a recent McGill-led study has found.

What is the "most Canadian" animal' Spoiler: it's not the beaver, or the moose. Published today in the journal The Canadian Field-Naturalist , the study from a team of Simon Fraser researchers ranks, for the first time ever, species of terrestrial vertebrates in Canada by their level of Canadian evolutionary distinctness: the amount of time animals have evolved independently from other Canadian species.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have reimagined the construction of modular homes with the development and testing of an innovative new design that allows the structures to be more easily relocated, reassembled and reconfigured in either urban or remote areas. The design of the Structural Timber and Applied Research Team (START), located in Waterloo's Faculty of Engineering, uses cross-laminated timber (CLT) and a wall-to-floor connection with few bolts needed in each connection.

University of Waterloo researchers have developed an innovative double-skin building façade that contains microalgae and uses machine learning to generate energy. Operating a building is often costly given the price of heating and energy usage, accounting for 37 per cent of global CO2 emissions.

Led by a team at UdeM's IREx, scientists explore the exoplanet GJ 9827 d'and find a significant amount of water vapor in its atmosphere. A Canadian-led international study has revealed new insights into the atmosphere of GJ 9827 d - an exoplanet orbiting the star GJ 9827 in the constellation Pisces, about 98 light-years from Earth - using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Rain, freezing rain or snow? Study uses new data to identify factors that will help meteorologists A recent study at McGill University provides new insights into how winter storms develop in the St. Lawrence River Valley, findings that could potentially improve the accuracy of winter weather forecasts in the region.

Science Waterloo team is first to find an invasive plant in Canada. Hydrilla verticillate (hydrilla), one of North America's most invasive species , was found for the first time in Canada. Dr. Rebecca Rooney, a biology professor , and members of her Waterloo Wetland Laboratory were surveying a secluded section of the Hillman Marsh Conservation Area in Leamington, Ontario , when they found unexpected species.

Nestled in the Uinta Mountains of northern Utah, a series of pristine lakes are facing a new threat - humans. Geography professor and chair Katrina Moser led a team of researchers in the region this summer to better understand how human activity, like agriculture and warming temperatures because of climate change, is leading to dramatic changes in a water system far from populous areas.

McGill researchers have harnessed the power of sunlight to transform two of the most harmful greenhouse gases into valuable chemicals. The discovery could help combat climate change and provide a more sustainable way to produce certain industrial products. "Imagine a world where the exhaust from your car or emissions from a factory could be transformed, with the help of sunlight, into clean fuel for vehicles, the building blocks for everyday plastics, and energy stored in batteries," said co-first author Hui Su, a Postdoctoral Fellow in McGill's Department of Chemistry.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have designed an energy-efficient device that produces drinking water from seawater using an evaporation process driven largely by the sun. Desalination is critical for many coastal and island nations to provide access to fresh water, given water scarcity concerns due to rapid population growth and increasing global water consumption.