Much of the world’s lithium occurs in salty waters with fundamentally different chemistry than other naturally saline waters like the ocean, according to study published in Science Advances by researchers from the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment. The finding has implications for lithium mining technologies and wastewater assessment and management.

Freshwater under the Ocean – in the 1960's scientists were quite surprised when they looked at their data: it clearly showed that there was fresh or freshened water under the ocean floor. How did it get there? How long has it been there? Scientists have been trying to find answers to these questions since their intriguing discovery. The findings will be relevant for the hydrogeology of the New England Shelf and for multiple similar settings elsewhere around the world. Starting in May, an international team of scientists has embarked on an expedition to take a closer look at, and take samples, of this freshened water stored beneath the ocean floor. Prof Karen Johannesson of University of Massachusetts Boston and Prof Brandon Dugan of Colorado School of Mines are the Co-Chief Scientists of this international expedition. Samples will be collected using the Liftboat Robert, which departed from the port of Bridgeport on May 19.

Links and knots are exotic topological structures that have garnered significant interest across multiple branches of natural sciences. Recently, scientists in China proposed a novel concept of incoherent links and knots – stable topological configurations persisting in fluctuating speckled light fields. Unlike phase or polarization links/knots in coherent light, incoherent links/knots originate from correlation properties of incoherent light fields. This work opens a new avenue for applications ranging from statistically engineered light manipulation to turbulence-resistant optical encryption systems.