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Environment

Climate-smart spuds can take the heat

A team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has engineered potato to be more resilient to global warming, showing 30% increases in tuber mass under heatwave conditions. This adaptation may provide greater food security for families dependent on potatoes, as these are often the same areas where the changing climate has already affected multiple crop seasons.

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Will agricultural weeds finally claim the upper hand in a changing climate?

A few years back, a group of weed scientists showed that soil-applied herbicides are less effective against agricultural weeds in the context of our changing climate.

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Study: Invasive silver carp reduce movement in Chicago-area water

Invasive silver carp have been spreading throughout the Mississippi River Basin since their introduction a half-century ago. Yet, try as they might, the fish have not advanced beyond a particular stretch of the Illinois River north of Kankakee.

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Will tropical biodiversity run dry under climate change? Two visions for the future

Changing precipitation patterns in the Neotropics, one of Earth’s most biodiverse regions, could threaten two-thirds of the area’s bird species by the year 2100 if climate change goes unchecked, according to new research led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and

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Study combines woodchips and biochar to clean water of pharmaceuticals, nutrients

What happens to ibuprofen after it eases your throbbing headache? Like many pharmaceuticals, it can remain in an active form when our bodies flush it out. That’s a problem, because although wastewater treatment plants are good at reducing nutrient pollutants in water, they aren’t designed to remove pharmaceuticals and personal care products.

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How swamps on the silver screen reflect how we feel about wetlands

Maybe you’ve seen the meme. Classic film characters up to their necks in muck, with text reading, “As a kid, I thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem in my life.” Quicksand was an uncannily common plot point in the 70s and 80s, but murky wetland depictions in film haven’t gone away. 

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Climate-smart grazing: U. of I. study shows how weather mitigates nitrogen runoff

Livestock production is an important component of U.S. agriculture, with global demand for meat and dairy expected to double in the coming decades. This increase will lead to intensified grazing on U.S. grasslands, potentially exacerbating water quality degradation from livestock waste runoff into waterways.

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