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Ecology
Q&A: Grasslands in more diverse landscapes can suffer less from drought
During the heat wave of 2018, meadows and pastures also suffered from drought. Are grasslands in diverse landscapes more resilient to yield losses than those in monotonous regions? Researchers at the University of Bonn, led by Marco Ferro and Dr. Jan Börner from the Institute for Food and Resource Economics (ILR), investigated the influence of landscape diversity on the drought tolerance of grasslands as part of Collaborative Research Center 1502 DETECT. The work is published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
Environment
Why winter cold spells are getting milder
The Beast from the East ravaged much of the U.K. and Europe in February and March 2018, bringing severe storms, snow showers and bitter winds. But as the climate changes, rising average temperatures will affect the severity of extremely cold weather like this.
Environment
Mapping wildfire risk across the US, day by day
Wildfires can spread fastest when they tear through areas of dry vegetation. In contrast, vegetation that contains a lot of moisture can slow a wildfire's advance and give firefighting crews precious time to contain the blaze.
Ecology
Biodiversity in production forests: Both costs and benefits shape the financial picture
Forests provide timber as well as many other ecosystem services. An important question is how measures to conserve biodiversity affect the profitability of forest operations focused on wood production. Researchers from Wageningen University & Research and the University of Freiburg reviewed studies worldwide that compared forest management with biodiversity conservation measures against business-as-usual management without those measures. The work is published in the journal Current Forestry Reports.
Education
Patriot parking predictions putting students in the proper spot
College students are already under stress from classes, tests and presentations. So when something as "easy" as finding a parking spot is anything but, it can cause a bad start to an already challenging day.
Planetary Sciences
US-India satellite captures time-lapse video of volcanic eruption
Like tendrils on a vine, lava spreads out from the northern crater of Krasheninnikov, a volcano pair on the Pacific coast of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. On July 30, 2025, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the nearby ocean, apparently jolting one of the two volcanoes awake. A few days later, for the first time in nearly five centuries, Krasheninnikov started erupting. Since then, the northern volcano has been spilling a steady, eastward-flowing field of molten rock and debris, and the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission has been tracking the changes in the landscape.
Analytical Chemistry
Changing counterions gives molecular materials new electronic behaviors
Orthogonally arranged π-electronic systems that combine electron-donating and electron-accepting units display distinctive electronic and photophysical behavior. Fine-tuning their electronic structure offers a way to control photoinduced electron transfer. Building on this idea, complexing boron with 1,3-diketones and 9-oxidophenalenone may produce electron-deficient cationic π-electronic systems.
Social Sciences
What is not perceived as abuse in youth sports may be part of sexual violence
Sexual violence against minors in sports is a reality that goes largely unnoticed, despite data suggesting it is not an isolated phenomenon. According to a report by the GIKAFIT research group at EHU in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, 20% of participants had experienced behavior of a sexual nature from their coaches, including kissing on the lips, expressions of sexual interest and direct proposals for sexual relations.
Archaeology
Materials analysis sheds light on minting mystery of 1834 British sixpence
A severely deformed 1834 British silver sixpence preserves physical evidence most consistent with an unusual minting anomaly, according to an IA STUDIO study published in npj Heritage Science. The coin was individually marked £8 in a mixed coin album at a flea market in Greater Manchester. The album was later acquired as a bulk lot, rather than the sixpence being purchased separately for £8.
Education
Researchers expand touchpoints to enhance literacy promotion
Literacy promotion programs, combined with community-based support programs, can affect literacy development in Latino children from birth to 18 months of age, Rutgers researchers have found.
Environment
LA fire smoke triggered surge in airborne toxins: How long did they stay?
A new study from UCLA provides insights into how the January 2025 Eaton fire affected air quality downwind, showing how levels of toxic airborne contaminants spiked and then dissipated as the burning died down. The research is published in the journal ACS ES&T Air.
Environment
Hurricane Helene deposited nearly one-fifth of annual microplastics at one North Carolina site
Rainfall from Hurricane Helene produced a short-term spike in microplastics at three sites in western North Carolina, with microplastic deposition three to 22 times higher than before the storm.
Astrobiology
Coolest lava world yet with signs of an atmosphere offers clues to early Earth
In the search for extraterrestrial life, it makes sense to first look for rocky planets with an atmosphere, like Earth. Without an atmosphere, a planet can't have surface water. But of the more than 6,300 exoplanets cataloged thus far, the vast majority are not rocky, and only a handful of the rocky worlds appear to have an atmosphere.
Political science
New research examines CIA failures, Saudi links and missed opportunities before September 11 attacks
A new study from the University of Bath sheds light on critical U.S. intelligence failures ahead of the 9/11 attacks, including evidence that changes how the CIA's repeated failure to share information with the FBI about two hijackers should be understood.
Plants & Animals
Ningaloo Reef corals reveal early fall spawning window for two key species
Curtin University scientists have uncovered an important missing piece in the puzzle of how some coral reefs can recover from climate events, providing information that could help guide future conservation and restoration efforts.
Archaeology
The medieval world had its own 'deepfakes'—church officials cited a fake imperial decree for centuries
With deepfakes on the rise, forgery and deception are often viewed as distinctly modern problems—a new era of misinformation made possible by artificial intelligence. One of the first alarming cases occurred at the start of the war in Ukraine, when a doctored video appeared to show President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling his soldiers to lay down their weapons.
Earth Sciences
Coastal flooding occurs at predictable times, research reveals
Coastal flooding may seem unpredictable, a natural disaster that occurs randomly. But UCF researcher Ivan Haigh has found that recurrent coastal floods occur at highly predictable times.
Earth Sciences
More than 60 years of beach survey data reveal the extent of shoreline erosion
The University of Rhode Island has made one of the world's longest-running beach survey efforts available online through Rhode Island Beach Dynamics Over Decades, a new public website.
Earth Sciences
Scientists map the changing sounds of the Arctic to strengthen global monitoring
As Arctic sea ice retreats, new shipping routes, expanding resource development and growing geopolitical competition are transforming one of the world's least-monitored regions. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have established one of the first long-term acoustic baselines for the Arctic's underwater soundscape. This work strengthens the detection and interpretation of earthquakes, underwater and nearshore detonations, ship traffic and other events of national security interest.
Materials Science
Hydrogen crosses, water stays: Palladium membrane enables ammonia synthesis using water
A South Korean research team has developed an environmentally friendly ammonia synthesis process that reduces carbon emissions using a membrane that selectively transports hydrogen.
General Physics
Higher-dimensional black holes hide an exact symmetry in their ringing, and string-inspired gravity breaks it
Strike a bell, and it rings with a pitch and a fading that tell you about the bell: its size, its shape, the metal it is made of. Black holes ring too. When two merge, the newborn black hole shivers and sheds gravitational waves in a brief, dying chord, and since 2015, gravitational-wave detectors have been listening. The notes of that chord, which physicists call quasinormal modes, depend only on the black hole's mass and spin and on the law of gravity itself. Change the law, and the chord changes.
Environment
Could warmer waters bring heavier coastal rain? Insights from Cyclone Shaheen simulations
A modeling study involving researchers from Sultan Qaboos University found that sea surface temperature and Oman's terrain influenced simulations of Tropical Cyclone Shaheen through different mechanisms, affecting its intensity, track and rainfall distribution. The researchers chose Tropical Cyclone Shaheen, which directly affected northern Oman in October 2021, as a case study to examine how changes in environmental and surface conditions influence regional weather model simulations.
Environment
Just transformative conservation requires challenging existing structures and strengthening local agency
In her doctoral dissertation, M.Sc.Admin. Liisa Varumo examines the environmental justice of market-based and place-based conservation approaches and how these approaches can contribute to just sustainability transformations in biodiversity conservation.
Biochemistry
3D-printed scaffolds help turn waste methane into useful chemical using less power than liquid reactors
When landfills and wastewater treatment plants create methane as a byproduct, much of it is simply burned and its value is lost. But the gas is an energy-rich resource that could be recycled as a fuel, chemical feedstock or bioproduct. Capturing and converting waste methane offers an opportunity to recover energy and create useful products from an otherwise wasted gas stream.
Cell & Microbiology
New findings explain how cells assemble machinery to repair damaged DNA
A cell's ability to repair its damaged DNA is one of the most fundamental processes in biology, helping protect us from diseases like cancer. Over the years, researchers have unraveled many of the mechanisms cells use to repair DNA, ultimately leading to precision cancer treatments.
Political science
Prison admissions rose 3% in district attorney election years during 'tough on crime' era
New research from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law suggests that public sentiment associated with "tough on crime" politics may be tied to increases in the number of people admitted to state prisons during election years.
Cell & Microbiology
AI-guided mutations help viruses infect bacteria up to 1 million times more effectively
Biochemists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are using AI to tackle one of modern medicine's most pressing challenges: the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Using data collected in their lab, biochemistry professor Vatsan Raman and his team built an AI model to identify new possibilities for fighting bacteria with one of their natural enemies. Their findings, published in the journal Cell Systems, could help accelerate the development of alternatives to traditional antibiotic drugs.
Political science
New post office policy could lead to the rejection of tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in November
A new post office policy that might sound like a technicality—one truck per day to rural post offices instead of two—could result in the rejection of tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in November, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.
Molecular & Computational biology
First known case of Marfan syndrome discovered in feline siblings
Researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Baker Institute of Animal Health have published the first molecular characterization of Marfan syndrome in domestic cats in a paper in the Sept. 19 issue of Scientific Reports.
Plants & Animals
Shared blueprint in aphid proteins helps AI predict their structures
Tiny insects called aphids inject hundreds of mysterious proteins into plants, hijacking the plants' own genomes to build galls: structures made of plant tissue but constructed to the insects' specifications to house and feed their offspring.