Hot temperatures during development can alter the scales that create Morpho butterflies’ brilliant blue iridescence, leaving adults with duller colors.

A new formulation of CO₂ foams could help address one of the energy industry’s main challenges, specifically regarding the injection of CO₂ underground: controlling CO₂ mobility in reservoir porous media. This advancement has the potential to improve reservoir sweep, enhance oil recovery, and increase geological CO₂ retention. A recent study demonstrates that a polymer-reinforced CO₂ foam can multiply the flow resistance of CO₂, preventing it from moving inefficiently through the reservoir.

Study conducted at São Paulo State University shows that minimal use of reagent in biomass pretreatment elevates methane production, makes industrial operation cheaper and reduces environmental impact.

A study of 653 Ugandan common bean farmers finds that belonging to a digital market-linkage network significantly increases farmers' ability to act collectively, especially in group marketing, but this boost in "collective agency" is not shared equally between men and women. 

Across both networked and non-networked farmer groups, men consistently reported greater confidence in taking on leadership roles and higher rates of collective marketing than women; network membership did not close this gap and, on some measures, appeared to widen it. 

While network membership improved collective agency overall and was positively associated with women's agency, these gains were insufficient to eliminate underlying gender inequalities in leadership and participation. 

The researchers conclude that market-access programs alone cannot deliver gender equality in agriculture, a finding that lands directly in 2026, the UN-designated International Year of the Woman Farmer, which is calling for this kind of deliberate, gender-transformative action. 

A Brazilian study analyzed the fate of 1,116 species described over the past 35 years and proposes measures to prevent so-called “parachute science”.

Experimental and theoretical study shows that, under extreme magnetic fields, electrons in zirconium pentatelluride exhibit unconventional behavior indicating a topological origin rather than many-body interactions.

Fossil shark scales from Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts show that the two seas never held the same number of sharks, and that borrowing a conservation target from one ocean could be wrong by an order of magnitude.