Rice researchers University engineered a new version of a well-known multiferroic that exhibits orders of magnitude higher performance at room temperature than its parent material.

A new study in Current Biology suggests that restoration of a rainforest tree on tropical atolls depends upon the right soil fungi being present. The tree species, Pisonia grandis, is the backbone of life on and around atolls: everything from seabirds to the surrounding coral reefs depend on these trees. Research from Palmyra Atoll, the most remote island on Earth, suggests that these extraordinary island ecosystems are dependent upon a specific mycorrhizal fungi that supplies resources to these Pisonia trees.