Research announcements from universities, hospitals and scientific institutions. Explore the stories, people and discoveries behind the headlines.
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Researchers tracked scarlet monkeyflower populations for over a decade through California's extreme 2012-2016 drought. Populations with the most climate-associated genetic variation evolved fastest and recovered - the first full documentation of evolutionary rescue in the wild.
Read the releaseGroundwater-fed wetlands in Brazil's Cerrado savanna store roughly 1,200 metric tons of carbon per hectare in their peaty soils - about six times the carbon density of Amazon rainforest biomass. Some of this carbon has been locked away for over 20,000 years.
Read the releaseThe Pew Charitable Trusts awarded fellowships to seven marine scientists in Australia, the US, Canada, Japan, and Thailand, funding work on genetic tracing of illegal fisheries, coral reef restoration, kelp forest mapping, and nanoplastic classification.
Read the releaseBetween 2006 and 2020, the gap between consecutive wildfire smoke events in California shrank by more than 60%, and communities with the least recovery time were disproportionately lower-income and racially diverse.
Read the releaseA third of Europeans neither support nor oppose climate policy by default. They decide based on each proposal's personal cost-benefit balance, and shifting even a fraction of them could raise majority-backed climate proposals from 4 out of 15 to 10 out of 15.
Read the releaseResearchers analyzing decades of biological monitoring data from Pennsylvania streams found that conventional oil and gas infrastructure was more strongly associated with declines in aquatic biodiversity than unconventional shale (fracking) development.
Read the releaseControlled experiments found that the ammonia-oxidizing archaeon Nitrosopumilus maritimus becomes more iron-efficient at higher temperatures, potentially maintaining its critical role in ocean nitrogen cycling even as deep waters warm.
Read the releaseA Rice University team used PFAS-laden activated carbon from firefighting foam to extract lithium fluoride from brine at 99% purity, recovering 82% of available lithium in minutes while using less water and energy than commercial methods.
Read the releaseBy adding a Nafion ionomer to cobalt phthalocyanine electrodes, researchers achieved 93% CO Faradaic efficiency at 300 mA/cm2 in bicarbonate electrolysis, demonstrating a closed-loop CO2 capture-and-conversion cycle from simulated flue gas.
Read the releaseSoaking pruned litchi branches in limewater before open burning boosts carbon retention from 52% to 86%, creating stable biochar that could sequester roughly 6,000 kg of carbon per hectare without requiring industrial equipment.
Read the releaseStudies of roughly 1,700 Swedish workers show that perceiving colleagues as preferring their phones over break-time conversation is associated with a poorer psychosocial work environment, even though one's own phone use shows no such link.
Read the releaseA new study projects that nearly 20% of Colombia's cocoa-growing areas will lose suitable climate conditions by 2050, with losses concentrated in northern lowlands. Wild cocoa genetics and shade-grown systems offer adaptation pathways.
Read the releaseOf 273 population-level antimicrobial resistance models reviewed, 89% considered only humans, zero integrated humans, animals, and plants, and none met established modelling transparency guidelines. An international team calls for IPCC-style coordination for AMR.
Read the releaseThe 22nd Carbon Research International Forum, held online March 11, features a keynote by soil scientist Nanthi Bolan of the University of Western Australia on whether organic carbon amendments can simultaneously boost soil health and sequester atmospheric carbon.
Read the releasePlastic mulch film heated with a walnut-shell biochar catalyst at 350 degrees Celsius yielded 69% olefins in the liquid product, though higher temperatures reduced catalyst-clogging tar. The study offers a dual recycling approach for agricultural plastic and biomass waste.
Read the releaseHeaters made from carbon nanotube fibers, including woven fabrics, consistently achieved higher specific power loadings than metal-alloy elements in flowing gas environments, a Rice University study reports, offering a new pathway for electrifying industrial heat.
Read the releaseResearchers found that a hornwort Rubisco variant carries a 100-amino-acid STAR extension that drives enzyme clustering into pyrenoid-like structures. When introduced into Arabidopsis, the extension triggered similar condensates in chloroplasts.
Read the releaseA large-scale modeling study using satellite data and deep learning projects that climate-driven forest disturbances in Europe, including wildfire and bark beetle outbreaks, will intensify under all climate scenarios through the 21st century.
Read the releaseCornell and UConn researchers found that chromosomal inversions in Atlantic silversides preserve beneficial gene combinations across a temperature gradient, functioning as powerful genetic switches that shape growth rate and vertebral count.
Read the releaseA new report to CMS COP15 finds that 49% of migratory species populations protected under the UN treaty are declining -- up 5 percentage points in just two years -- while 24% now face extinction risk.
Read the releaseTokyo University of Science researchers created irregularly shaped nano-sized microplastics from common plastics (PET, polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene), loaded them with fluorescent dye, and tracked their journey through mice in real time. The particles stayed in the gut and were excreted, with smaller particles lingering longest.
Read the releaseA collaboration between OIST and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has produced Antscan, a freely available database of over 2,000 high-resolution 3D ant models spanning 800 species. The workflow scanned specimens in days rather than years, offering a blueprint for digitizing biodiversity at scale.
Read the releaseESA's Mars Express and Trace Gas Orbiter captured the May 2024 solar superstorm's impact on Mars using orbiter-to-orbiter radio occultation. Electron densities in the upper atmosphere surged by up to 278% -- the highest ever recorded there -- while both spacecraft experienced computer glitches from the radiation.
Read the releaseIn a system deliberately designed to be slow, Cambridge researchers watched an electron cross a material boundary in just 18 femtoseconds -- driven not by electronic coupling but by coherent molecular vibrations acting as a catapult. The finding challenges core assumptions in organic solar cell design.
Read the releaseResearchers measured soil nitrous oxide emissions at distances from 50 to 500 meters downwind of a pig farm in central China. Higher ammonia deposition corresponded to higher N2O output, driven by nitrifying microbes. Within 500 meters, total emissions reached 69.7 kg of nitrogen per year.
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