Prof. Dr. Nima Shokri earned his PhD in 2009 upon the recommendation of the School of Architecture, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Following his doctoral studies, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).
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Rivers & OceansPlanting trees in the sea could act as a huge carbon sink and save millions of dollars in storm damage every year. What is stopping us from doing it?The world is being held hostage by its reliance on oil. How can we break free from the fossil fuel?Startling archaeological finds, the Gulf Stream signals possible collapse, our sun's mass migration, the world's smallest QR code, and have we hit peak oil?China has planted so many trees around the Taklamakan Desert that it's turned this 'biological void' into a carbon sinkThe biggest trees in the Peruvian Amazon store the most carbon — and they also face the greatest threat from humans'The warming trend nearly doubled after 2014': The rate of global warming has accelerated more in the past decade than ever beforeEnormous freshwater reservoir discovered off the East Coast may be 20,000 years old and big enough to supply NYC for 800 years18 of Earth's biggest river deltas — including the Nile and Amazon — are sinking faster than global sea levels are rising A series of cargo ships said past the coast city of Fujairah, in the Strait of Hormuz, on February 25, 2026.Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsSign up for the latest discoveries, groundbreaking research and fascinating breakthroughs that impact you and the wider world direct to your inbox.Feed your curiosity with an exclusive mystery every week, solved with science and delivered direct to your inbox before it's seen anywhere else.Sign up to our free science & technology newsletter for your weekly fix of fascinating articles, quick quizzes, amazing images, and moreSign up to our monthly entertainment newsletter to keep up with all our coverage of the latest sci-fi and space movies, tv shows, games and books.Discover this week's must-see night sky events, moon phases, and stunning astrophotos. Sign up for our skywatching newsletter and explore the universe with us!Tehran is moving to restrict — or effectively close — the strait of Hormuz to shipping, as part of the latest escalation in the war involving Iran.That concern is justified. But it captures only part of the story. A sustained disruption of traffic through Hormuz would not simply constitute an energy crisis. It would also represent aHumans are being replaced by machines in the food supply chain — and it's leading to truckloads of waste Enough fresh water is lost from continents each year to meet the needs of 280 million people. Here's how we can combat that.Fritz Haber and Carl Boschof globally traded urea passes through the strait of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf sits at the center of this system for two structural reasons. First, it offers access to some of the world's cheapest natural gas, essential for Second, over decades, vast capital investments have built ammonia and urea capacity in countries within the region, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This is aimed at the export market. A significant share of globally traded nitrogen fertilizer — and the liquefied natural gas that powers fertilizer plants elsewhere —. A closure of the strait would threaten not only oil and gas exports but also the physical flow of nitrogen-based fertilizers and what is needed to make them.Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors The immediate effect would be delays to shipments of ammonia, urea and LNG. They could be stopped completely or become prohibitively expensive through higher freight and insurance costs. But the deeper impact would unfold in the months ahead at farms around the world. In the northern hemisphere, fertilizer purchases accelerate before planting seasons. A delay of weeks can be disruptive; a disruption of months can make a huge difference. If shipments fail to arrive onface difficult choices such as how to pay sharply higher prices, reduce application rates, or alter crop mixes. Because of how, even modest reductions in nitrogen use can produce disproportionately large declines in yield. That could translate into millions of tons of lost crops. The consequences would ripple through global supply chains into feed markets, livestock production,Microbes in Iceland are hoarding nitrogen, and that's mucking up the nutrient cycleUnited States , one of the world’s largest fertilizer producers, imports meaningful volumes of ammonia and urea to help meet regional demand and reduce prices. In sub-Saharan Africa, use of fertilizer. If energy shipments through Hormuz are disrupted, sulphur output falls alongside fuel exports. So, the shock would not only reduce fertilizer shipments but also restrict ways to produce them elsewhere.tightly coupled to energy markets because it is manufactured continuously from natural gas. A disruption in gas supply or ammonia trade immediately constrains global nitrogen availability. Estimates suggest that without synthetic nitrogen, the world could feed onlyChanging where fertilizer is produced cannot happen overnight. Financing and constructing new ammonia plants takes years. A double-digit contraction in exports from a key region cannot be swiftly offset. In the interim, prices would rise, trade flows would re-route and planting decisions would be made under uncertainty. Food price inflation, historically correlated with Central banks, focused primarily on fuel-driven inflation, could underestimate the contribution of fertilizer scarcity to prices overall. Crucially, fertilizer shocks do not register with the same immediacy as oil shocks. Petrol prices change overnight. Crop yields reveal themselves months later. Yet the latter may prove more destabilizing.If the 20th century taught policymakers to fear oil embargoes, the 21st should teach them to fear a fertilizer shock. Energy markets can absorb shocks through reserves and substitution. But the global food system has far thinner buffers. A prolonged disruption at Hormuz would not simply reprice crude; it would test the resilience of the industrial nitrogen cycle on which modern civilization depends. Oil powers cars. Nitrogen powers crops. If the strait of Hormuz closes, the most consequential price may not be Brent crude but the cost of feeding the world. Prof. Dr. Nima Shokri earned his PhD in 2009 upon the recommendation of the School of Architecture, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Following his doctoral studies, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich . Subsequently, he held academic positions as an Assistant Professor at Boston University in the United States , as a Lecturer , and as a Senior Lecturer at The University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.Enough fresh water is lost from continents each year to meet the needs of 280 million people. Here's how we can combat that.The world is being held hostage by its reliance on oil. How can we break free from the fossil fuel?18 of Earth's biggest river deltas — including the Nile and Amazon — are sinking faster than global sea levels are rising'We got evidence of boars, deer, bears, aurochs': Ancient DNA reveals sunken realm Doggerland had habitable forests during the last ice ageViruses, Infections & DiseaseThe appendix evolved at least 32 times across 361 species, so it's 'unlikely to be a useless evolutionary accident,' research finds'We got evidence of boars, deer, bears, aurochs': Ancient DNA reveals sunken realm Doggerland had habitable forests during the last ice age
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