University of Tennessee, Knoxville professor and Goodrich Chair of Excellence in Civil Engineering Frank Loeffler and his coauthors published new research on the environmental impacts of “forever chemicals” in Nature Microbiology last week.

Quantum mechanics tells us that a particle can never be perfectly still. But how precisely can it be oriented? A research team at the University of Vienna, together with colleagues at TU Wien and Ulm University, has now cooled the rotational motion of a levitated silica nanorotor all the way to its quantum ground state - in two orientational degrees of freedom. Reporting in Nature Physics, they show how optical cooling confines the nanoparticle's orientation to within the bounds of quantum zero-point fluctuations, the unavoidable orientational uncertainty imposed by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Such quantum-limited alignment is an important milestone towards rotational matter-wave interferometry and ultra-sensitive quantum torque sensing.

Scientists have found a new way to detect subtle chemical signatures in seawater—revealing previously invisible details about the ocean’s chemistry from data continuously collected by thousands of autonomous robotic floats drifting across the seas.

A new review gives a comprehensive overview of natural photosynthesis; the principles and history of artificial photosynthesis research; and carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage technologies. 

Soil salinization is a growing global threat that reduces crop yields and limits sustainable agriculture, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. A new study shows that carefully designed biochar amendments can significantly improve plant growth and soil health in these challenging environments by reshaping both plant metabolism and soil microbial communities.

A new study reveals that biochar, a carbon-rich material increasingly used in agriculture, can significantly influence how soils respond to warming when releasing nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. The findings highlight that biochar does not act uniformly across environments, but instead produces sharply different outcomes depending on soil type and conditions.

A new long-term field study reveals that biochar, a carbon-rich material derived from biomass, can significantly enhance soil carbon storage by stimulating microbial processes. However, the benefits are not uniform throughout the soil profile, highlighting the importance of looking deeper beneath the surface.