In the dense forests of northwestern Pennsylvania, hundreds of thousands of retired oil and gas wells — some dating back to the mid-1800s, long before modern construction standards — dot the landscape, according to geochemists in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences who recently led a study in the region. Left uncapped and exposed to air and erosion, they break down, leaching harmful chemicals into the atmosphere and, the researchers reported, into the groundwater.

Rice researchers and collaborators have developed a way to generate and control radio wave patterns that can identify a signal’s direction about ten times better than existing approaches, paving the way for next-generation wireless systems.

Iain Cheeseman and colleagues reveal the underappreciated role of single genes producing multiple proteins in atypical presentations of rare disease, and present case studies of affected patients through a collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital. The findings help to identify genetic mutations that may contribute to rare diseases.

In California’s Death Valley, where summer temperatures regularly soar above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, life seems almost impossible. Yet among the cracked earth and blinding sunlight, one native plant not only survives — it thrives. That plant, Tidestromia oblongifolia, has helped Michigan State University scientists uncover how life can flourish in extreme heat, revealing a potential blueprint for engineering crops that can adapt to our changing climate. In a new paper published in Current Biology, Research Foundation Professor Seung Yon “Sue” Rhee and Research Specialist Karine Prado report that T. oblongifolia grows faster in Death Valley’s summer conditions by rapidly adjusting its photosynthetic system to withstand the heat. 

MIT physicists observed key evidence of unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene. The findings could lead to the development of higher-temperature superconductors.

For decades, scientists have generally thought that rivers emit more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, than they take in. But a new analysis of every river network in the contiguous United States — including underrepresented rivers in deserts and shrublands — challenges this assumption, uncovering hints that many Western waterways may be soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The findings were published in Science and led by Taylor Maavara, an aquatic biogeochemist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.