Flooding in coastal communities is happening far more often than previously thought, according to a new study from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study also found major flaws with the widely used approach of using marine water level data to capture instances of flooding.

Laboratory could improve crop resilience In a discovery three decades in the making, scientists at Rutgers and Brookhaven National Laboratory have acquired detailed knowledge about the internal structures and mode of regulation for a specialized protein and are proceeding to develop tools that can capitalize on its ability to help plants combat a wide range of diseases.

The work, which exploits a natural process where plant cells die on purpose to help the host plant stay healthy, is expected to have wide applications in the agricultural sector, offering new ways to protect major food crops from a variety of devastating diseases, the scientists said. The study was published in Nature Communications.

Seoul National University College of Engineering has announced that a joint research team led by Professor Hyobin Yoo from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Young-Woo Son (Korea Institute for Advanced Study) and Professor Changwon Park (Ewha Womans University), has successfully developed a two-dimensional (2D) quantum material platform through the superposition of moiré lattices. The research was published online on May 14 in Nature, the most prestigious journal in science and technology, under the title “Unconventional domain tessellations in moiré-of-moiré lattices.” The study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea’s Young Researcher Program and SRC program, the POSCO Science Fellowship from the POSCO TJ Park Foundation, and the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. This study marks the first atomic-level identification of hierarchical structures and complex interlayer interactions resulting from the superposition of different moiré lattices in a trilayer graphene system. The work is expected to offer a promising new solid-state platform for the development of programmable quantum devices and next-generation electronic materials.

Eric Markvicka and graduate students Ethan Krings and Patrick McManigal recently unveiled their invention of a robotic actuator -- the "muscle" that converts energy into a robot's physical movement -- that has the ability to detect punctures or pressure, heal the injury and repair its damage-detecting "skin." The trio presented their findings earlier in May at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta. Their technology would mark an improvement for robotic system used in agriculture and manufacturing that are susceptible to puncture by thorns, twigs, plastic and glass and also could be used to prolong the life of wearable health monitoring devices and consumer electronics,  thus stemming the tide of toxins like lead and mercury entering waste streams and endangering the environment and human health. 

Rice University anthropologists Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer examine the societal consequences of global glacier loss in a commentary published today in Science.

Scientists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland have developed a powerful new tool for finding the next generation of materials needed for large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing.

The significant breakthrough means that, for the first time, researchers have found a way to determine once and for all whether a material can effectively be used in certain quantum computing microchips.

Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a paper featured on the cover of this week’s edition of the journal Science. The paper documents the earliest-known example of birds nesting in the polar regions.

A 10-story cold-formed steel-framed building will soon be put to the test on an earthquake simulator at the University of California San Diego to see how well it can withstand earthquakes. The UC San Diego shake table is the only outdoor facility of its kind in the world, and the only simulator capable of testing a building of this height.