Scientists repeatedly sampled microbes from six sites up to 1.5 kilometers deep across four years inside a former goldmine. Microbial ecosystems appear to be structured around shared functions rather than shared species. Each ecosystem was organized around two broad groups of microbes: a stable group and a responsive group. Ecosystems were very different among sites but largely stable through time. Study could have implications for underground engineering projects, including carbon storage.

An international research team led by a researcher at the University of Bern has modeled 1,000 years of earthquake history along the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults in Southern California. The result: stresses in the crust are higher today than at any time in the last millennium – and a critical fault junction near Los Angeles could decide how big the next major earthquake will be.

Rice is a staple food for more than half of the world’s population, but in some mining-impacted regions, paddy soils can contain elevated levels of arsenic and antimony. These toxic metalloids can move from soil into rice plants, raising concerns for food safety and human health. A new study published in Biochar reports a promising strategy: a magnetic silicon-enriched biochar gel that can immobilize both arsenic and antimony in contaminated paddy soil and reduce their accumulation in rice grains.

New research from Virginia Tech is poised to upend how scientists think about the structure of these tiny airborne droplets and what that means for predictions around air quality, pollution spread, and climate models.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have identified a previously unknown protein that may help explain how plants managed to colonize land more than 400 million years ago. The protein was studied in moss, and the new findings contribute to our understanding of plant evolution and life on Earth.

Biochar is often described as a climate-smart soil amendment because it can improve soil quality while storing carbon for long periods. But once biochar is added to soil, it does not stay unchanged. Rain, drying, minerals, oxygen, and microorganisms gradually alter its surface, chemistry, and environmental functions. For saline soils, where salt stress already limits crop production across many agricultural regions, scientists have had limited information about how biochar changes over time.