Science

🌍 How can humanity continue to develop without destroying the foundations of life on Earth? A major new study, co-authored by the PIK - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, charts a scientific path forward — and warns of the cost of inaction. Business-as-usual leads to ongoing deterioration in climate, biodiversity, freshwater, and nutrient cycles. But when ambitious climate policy is paired with systemic sustainability measures — like shifting to a low-meat diet, halving food waste, reforesting land, and managing water and nutrients efficiently — the damage can be halted, even reversed. By 2050, the planet can return to 2015-level conditions. By 2100, Earth systems could begin to recover significantly. 🧭 This study combines the planetary boundaries framework with integrated climate models to create a navigation system for decision-makers. At the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), we emphasize the power of climate services — turning science into actionable policy — to help countries and companies manage these risks, anticipate disruptions, and build long-term resilience. We need coordinated global action, driven by data and grounded in science. Because protecting our future means safeguarding the systems that sustain life. The tools are here. The science is clear. The time is now. https://lnkd.in/eVuR9yDu

I interviewed 20 sustainability managers 🎙️ That's their #1 pain point 🤕 ➡️ "Reporting is 1st. Impact is 2nd". Challenges that I can see with sustainability in companies: ❌ Competing frameworks confuse. ❌ Data collection becomes more important than actual impact ❌ Disconnect between reporting teams and operational teams ❌ Excessive time spent on documentation. ❌ Risk of greenwashing through selective reporting (I am sure you have your observations to add🙄) 5 secrets to turn this into the biggest opportunity for change: ✅ Use reporting to clarify sustainability vision 100%. ✅ Identify in-company 'spoilers' - and engage them! ✅ Change sustainability reporting from 'a burden' for all, to an 'invitation to do good' for each individual. ✅ Turn deadlines into celebration moments for internal change. ✅ Use data requirements as opportunities to understand the entire value chain (and opportunities for change). You know the pain ?🧐 📲 Ping me to re-write the script on your sustainability reporting ♻️ #circulareconomy #zerowaste #sustainability

8-Step Process for Setting Science-Based Targets 🌎 The eight-step method provides a clear pathway for organizations to align their sustainability efforts with planetary boundaries. Rooted in scientific principles, this framework enables companies to assess their environmental impact and establish targets that contribute to systemic change. The first step involves defining the sustainability objective by identifying the specific environmental challenges a company aims to address, such as climate change, freshwater conservation, or biodiversity protection. Next, relevant environmental systems connected to the organization’s goals are identified, acknowledging the interconnectedness of planetary processes and operational impacts. Understanding system dynamics follows, where companies analyze how their activities influence key ecological tipping points, ensuring that non-linear impacts are thoroughly assessed. Once system interactions are understood, boundaries and safe operating spaces are established. These boundaries are informed by scientific data and contextualized for specific geographical or sectoral factors, providing a clear framework for operational limits. Companies then map their operations and activities across the entire value chain, adopting either territorial or economic approaches to capture the full scope of their impact. Quantifying associated environmental flows, such as greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, and material consumption, is the next step. This data informs the assessment of impacts, linking flows to specific locations and contextual boundaries. Impact assessments determine how much of the safe operating space is occupied, enabling companies to prioritize interventions and mitigate high-risk activities. The final step allocates impacts within the defined operating space. This involves negotiation and collaboration among stakeholders to distribute responsibilities equitably. Companies can adopt sectoral benchmarks or zero-impact targets to guide their efforts, ensuring that collective actions remain within planetary limits. This framework emphasizes a systemic approach, combining scientific rigor and stakeholder collaboration to drive sustainable business transformation. Source: Metabolic #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange #climateaction

In Okinawa, Japan, the average life expectancy is 84 years. In India, it's 67 years. That’s 17 years of missed birthdays, moments, and memories. Why? The secret isn’t medicine or money. It’s small, daily habits that protect the body and mind over time. ▶︎ 1. They eat until 80% full It’s called ‘Hara Hachi Bu’. No overeating. No “clean your plate” pressure. It gives their metabolism less to process - and reduces inflammation over time. ▶︎ 2. Daily movement is built into life They follow the principle of ‘Karada O Ugokasu’ - “move your body naturally.” Instead of formal exercise, they walk to visit neighbors, and tend gardens every day. The goal isn’t intensity. It’s consistency through natural motion. ▶︎ 3. Plant-heavy, simple meals Okinawans follow the ‘Washoku tradition’ - a traditional Japanese eating style focused on balance, seasonality, and variety. Their plates are small. Their portions are modest. Even chopsticks help - slowing down eating and reducing bite sizes. ▶︎ 4. Strong community ties They have ‘Moai’ - tight-knit social groups that support each other for life. This community helps lower stress, strengthens immunity, and is linked to reduced risk of chronic disease and early death. ▶︎ 5. Purpose beyond work They call it Ikigai - a reason to get up each morning. Whether it’s mentoring younger generations, work, art, or caring for plants - they stay mentally and emotionally engaged well into their 90s. The result? Lower rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and depression - even in their 90s. Remember, none of this requires more money or more effort. Just small shifts in how we live each day. Hit repost 🔁 if this made you rethink your habits. Someone in your connections might need that nudge too. #health #wellness #longevity

Ever wake up just before your alarm? It might not be a coincidence… It turns out, our brains have a natural way of keeping track of time, an inborn “clock” mechanism, which is synchronised to light in our environment. It’s got the coolest name for such a tiny brain region: the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) - literally, the group of cells (nucleus) above (supra) the optic chiasm (crossing). The SCN is essentially your brain’s “master clock” because it is responsible for coordinating our circadian rhythms. Light-sensitive cells in your eyes send signals to the SCN, which regulates melatonin - a hormone that makes us sleepy - via the pineal gland. Our species evolved to be diurnal, being active in the day and sleeping at night. As a result, daylight inhibits melatonin release, making us more alert. At night, the lack of light promotes melatonin release, making us sleepy. This is why for better sleep hygiene, experts often recommend limiting exposure to electronic devices for at least an hour before bedtime. The light from electronic devices can shift your body clock and this gets aggravated by heightened anxiety associated with doom scrolling -- neither of which helps your sleep. Want to support your brain’s internal clock? A few simple habits can make a big difference: 👉 Get natural sunlight in the morning. This helps reset your body clock. 👉 Stick to a consistent sleep schedule, even on weekends. 👉 Limit screens at least an hour before bed. 👉 Keep your bedroom dark and cool to promote better sleep. BTW, in teenagers melatonin starts to be produced later at night, which is why many teenagers don’t feel sleepy until much later in the evening. It’s also the reason they struggle to get up in the morning. For teens, going to school early is a bit like forcing them into a different time zone during the week and only letting them reset on weekends. When your teenager sleeps in on the weekends, bear in mind they are dealing with a genuine biological change in their circadian rhythm during the teenage years. So when you wake right before your alarm, blame (or credit!) your suprachiasmatic nucleus for being such a good time keeper! Understanding our biology helps us work with our natural rhythms rather than against them. How do you optimize your daily schedule around your circadian patterns?

An influential stream of research finds that companies that emit more carbon have higher stock returns. This "carbon premium" has been interpreted as evidence that emitting companies suffer a higher cost of capital and thus markets are correctly pricing in carbon risk. However, the ESG literature typically interprets higher stock returns as outperformance due to mispricing. In a new paper with Yigit Atilgan, Özgür Demirtaş, and Doruk Gunaydin, we study earnings surprises to disentangle these explanations. We find that emitting companies enjoy positive earnings surprises, and the four earnings announcements per year explain 30-50% of the annual carbon premium. Consistent with prior results, our findings only hold for levels of and changes in emissions, but not emissions intensities or disclosed emissions only. Our results suggest that, where it exists, the carbon premium arises from an unpriced externality - emitting companies are able to "get away with" contributing to global warming. Markets are not fully pricing in carbon risk, highlighting the need for government action. https://lnkd.in/e9QnXars

This Stanford study examined how six major AI companies (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon) handle user data from chatbot conversations.  Here are the main privacy concerns. 👀 All six companies use chat data for training by default, though some allow opt-out 👀 Data retention is often indefinite, with personal information stored long-term 👀 Cross-platform data merging occurs at multi-product companies (Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon) 👀 Children's data is handled inconsistently, with most companies not adequately protecting minors 👀 Limited transparency in privacy policies, which are complex and hard to understand and often lack crucial details about actual practices Practical Takeaways for Acceptable Use Policy and Training for nonprofits in using generative AI: ✅ Assume anything you share will be used for training - sensitive information, uploaded files, health details, biometric data, etc. ✅ Opt out when possible - proactively disable data collection for training (Meta is the one where you cannot) ✅ Information cascades through ecosystems - your inputs can lead to inferences that affect ads, recommendations, and potentially insurance or other third parties ✅ Special concern for children's data - age verification and consent protections are inconsistent Some questions to consider in acceptable use policies and to incorporate in any training. ❓ What types of sensitive information might your nonprofit staff  share with generative AI?  ❓ Does your nonprofit currently specifically identify what is considered “sensitive information” (beyond PID) and should not be shared with GenerativeAI ? Is this incorporated into training? ❓ Are you working with children, people with health conditions, or others whose data could be particularly harmful if leaked or misused? ❓ What would be the consequences if sensitive information or strategic organizational data ended up being used to train AI models? How might this affect trust, compliance, or your mission? How is this communicated in training and policy? Across the board, the Stanford research points that developers’ privacy policies lack essential information about their practices. They recommend policymakers and developers address data privacy challenges posed by LLM-powered chatbots through comprehensive federal privacy regulation, affirmative opt-in for model training, and filtering personal information from chat inputs by default. “We need to promote innovation in privacy-preserving AI, so that user privacy isn’t an afterthought." How are you advocating for privacy-preserving AI? How are you educating your staff to navigate this challenge? https://lnkd.in/g3RmbEwD

A beautiful study: Cracking the Code of Immunotherapy Resistance: How Chromosome 9p Loss Shapes Tumor Immune Evasion and a new cancer vaccine Original publication https://lnkd.in/gee5GMUP https://lnkd.in/g5naXTZh Background • Immune-checkpoint therapy (ICT) has revolutionized cancer treatment, but many patients fail to respond due to immune-evasive (“cold”) tumors. • Identifying non-responders and resistance mechanisms is essential for precision oncology. Key Findings 1. Chromosome 9p Loss as a Driver of ICT Resistance • In head and neck cancers (especially HPV-associated), loss of one or both copies of chromosome 9p was found to be the strongest driver of immune evasion. • This discovery has since been confirmed across lung, mesothelioma, melanoma, and bladder cancers. • Loss of 9p correlates with profound suppression of CXCL9/10 chemokines, essential for recruiting activated T cells to the tumor microenvironment. 2. Type-I Interferon (IFN-I) Genes Identified as the Culprit • New study pinpoints loss of IFN-I genes (17 in total, located on 9p21.2–21.3) as the mechanism behind ICT resistance. • IFN-I deficiency creates an immune-desert state, depleting CXCL9/10-producing immune cells and reducing T-cell infiltration. • Among these, IFNε was highlighted as a key, previously underappreciated regulator. 3. Not by Chance: Evolutionary Selection • Analysis showed homozygous deletions of 9p occur more frequently than expected, suggesting strong selective pressure for loss of interferon genes as an immune evasion strategy. Clinical Implications • Diagnostic Impact: Findings have led to Medicare-covered ICT-predictive tests for 9p loss, helping identify likely non-responders. • Therapeutic Innovation: • Researchers developed a dendritic-cell (DC) vaccine to bypass CXCL9/10 depletion and reprogram the tumor microenvironment. • Preclinical mouse models show promise, though human trials are still needed. • Future Strategy: Incorporating IFN-I/CXCL9/10 pathways into treatment design may personalize ICT and improve outcomes in resistant cancers Diagram shows mechanism of CXCL9/10 dendritic cell vaccine. Figure Credit: Scott Lippman, Catherine Eng and UCSD.

20% of the world’s copper is mined using microbes. That’s over 4 million metric tons a year—enough copper to wire every building constructed globally in 2023. The process, now called bioleaching or biomining, predates modern science by millennia. During China’s Han Dynasty (~150 BCE), miners discovered that dipping iron tools into mineral-rich “gall springs” caused them to emerge sheathed in bright copper—as if transmuted. Locals believed it was alchemy. For centuries, regions from Cyprus to Spain used similar techniques to collect small amounts of copper—but it wasn’t until 2,000 years later that the process was fully understood and industrialized. In the early 1900s at Utah Copper’s Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, copper-rich waste streams flowed through the slums of the nearby town. Locals harvested copper by tossing iron cans into the runoff, then scraping off the copper chunks that formed. When Kennecott caught on, they fought for and won legal control over these waste streams—and began scaling the process. By the 1930s, engineered precipitation plants were processing millions of gallons of acidic leachate daily, using scrap iron to harvest copper. At the time, it was assumed the process was purely chemical—a byproduct of upstream mining. But in 1947, researchers Colmer and Hinkle uncovered the true driver: microbes. What was happening was a four step process: 1. 𝐴𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑢𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑜𝑜𝑥𝑖𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑠 produces sulfuric acid, maintaining a low-pH environment. 2. 𝐴𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑢𝑠 𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑥𝑖𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑠 converts ferrous iron (Fe²⁺) into ferric iron (Fe³⁺)—a powerful oxidizer. 3. That Fe³⁺ attacks copper sulfides (like chalcocite, a copper ore), releasing Cu²⁺ into solution. 4. When scrap iron (Fe⁰) is added, a redox reaction displaces copper, which plates onto the surface as elemental copper (Cu⁰). Today, Chile leads the world in copper mining—accounting for nearly 24% of global production in 2024, or roughly 5.3 million metric tons. With vast reserves of low‑grade chalcopyrite, Chile had both the incentive and the raw material to scale microbial recovery. BioSigma S.A. helped transform this long-overlooked process into precision science. BioSigma has screened and enhanced thermophilic extremophiles from around the world. Using synthetic biology and genomics, it engineers microbial systems that have increased copper recovery on difficult ores from under 50% to over 70%. In 2025, biomining has become a buzzword. Companies like Maverick Metals have raised $19 million to modernize the approach. Transition Biomining, 1849 Bio, Endolith, and alkaLi are engineering new methodologies to pull metals from intractable ores. But this isn’t a new phase of science. It’s the continuation of one of the oldest—and most scalable—biotechnologies on Earth. Microbes have been pulling metals from rock for millennia. We’re just finally learning to give them the credit.

🏨 Climate change: A growing concern for Europe's hotels? The 2024 edition of the European Accommodation Barometer finds that 41% of European hoteliers believe climate change will have a high or very high impact on their business within the next three years. This concern is particularly pronounced in Southern Europe, the low-lying Netherlands, and Nordic regions increasingly affected by extreme weather events like droughts and forest fires. Strengthening resilience in the face of a changing climate is increasingly becoming a priority for hoteliers. Driven by a desire to improve guest perceptions, achieve long-term cost savings, and attract sustainability-conscious travelers, a majority of European accommodations surveyed have declared their intention to invest in #sustainability initiatives over the next year. Notably, 45% of businesses plan to allocate around one-quarter of their investments to this priority, while about one-third of hoteliers stated they would invest little to nothing. Over two-thirds of European hoteliers cite long-term cost savings as their primary motivation, a critical factor given the steep rise in energy costs. Additionally, 62% aim to enhance guest perception and reputation, while 48% are motivated by the desire to obtain sustainability certifications. These factors highlight the multifaceted benefits of sustainability investments, extending beyond environmental impact to include financial and reputational gains. While some hoteliers remain skeptical, with 24% doubting the impact of #ClimateChange on their businesses, the overall trend indicates a growing recognition of the need for proactive measures. 🛎️ This post is a part of the #TitansOfTravel series – a result of a collaboration between Statista and Booking.com, where we explore 🇪🇺 Travel Industry and #EUcompetitiveness, reaffirming established conventions while challenging a few myths. The Titans of Travel eBook is free to download and you can find it here: https://lnkd.in/ekVDFu_C