Coastal wetlands are among the planet’s most effective natural carbon sinks, but their ability to store carbon is increasingly threatened by climate change and human activity. Now, a new field study suggests that adding biochar to these ecosystems could significantly boost their carbon storage capacity, with tidal forces playing a surprisingly beneficial role.

A long-term field study across major agricultural regions in China has revealed that biochar made from peanut shells can significantly improve soil fertility and enhance crop quality by reshaping soil microbial communities.

Professor Timo Betz at Göttingen University’s Faculty of Physics has been awarded Momentum funding by the Volkswagen Foundation for his project “From Cells to Smart Gels: Momentum in Motion”. The award is worth just under 950,000 Euros over 4 years with a possible extension of 2 years. It will enable the translation of biological processes to synthetic materials that mimic key behaviours of living cells. At last, researchers will be able to make use of our current understanding of life to copy key features, like self-organization and physical adaptation, which have developed through evolution over billions of years. The hope is to generate smart materials that can react and adapt to external stimuli just like living entities.

A Mississippi State physicist has achieved a significant scientific advancement, producing a direct laboratory measurement of a key nuclear reaction believed to occur during explosive bursts on neutron stars. These bursts forge heavier elements—the building blocks of planets and life on Earth.

FIU researchers are studying how great hammerhead sharks engage in a “thermal hustle,” maintaining peak hunting performance across a wide range of ocean temperatures.

In AIP Advances, researchers simulate different evacuation scenarios in case of a dual-engine fire in an Airbus A320. They compare three different cabin layouts with three different ratios of passengers over the age of 60 and three different distributions of those passengers, finding that the proportion and location of elderly passengers have the largest effect on evacuation time. The fastest option — with 30 elderly passengers evenly distributed throughout the cabin — still required 141 seconds for all passengers to reach the ground.