For generations, farmers have used natural materials such as lime, gypsum and manure to improve their soil for growing crops. Now, a team of researchers led by the University of Missouri is giving new purpose to an established material — biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from leftover plant waste — and showing how it can address challenges facing today’s cotton growers. Even though biochar has been used in various forms of agriculture for thousands of years, this study focused on how it could help cotton farmers in the delta region of the United States, often called the Mississippi Delta.

A huge flood triggered by the rapid draining of a lake beneath the Greenland ice sheet occurred with such force that it fractured the ice above and burst out across its surface.

This phenomenon, observed for the first time in Greenland and detailed in research published today (Wednesday, July 30) in the journal Nature Geoscience, sheds new light on the destructive potential of meltwater stored beneath the ice sheet.

It reveals how, under extreme conditions, water flooding underneath the ice can force its way upwards through the ice and escape at the ice sheet surface.

A new study uses data from NASA’s PACE satellite to demonstrate a novel method for assessing global plant health. Led by UMBC’s Karl F. Huemmrich, the research leverages PACE’s Ocean Color Instrument to monitor plant responses, as indicated by reflectance from their leaves, to environmental changes like water availability and temperature. Validated against U.S. ground measurements, the technique accurately tracks plant productivity across diverse ecosystems without relying on weather data. The findings will enhance carbon sequestration tracking and early stress detection, offering a cost-effective way to monitor global ecosystems and support conservation and agriculture.

Following deforestation, tropical forests with healthy populations of seed-dispersing animals can absorb up to four times more carbon than similar forests with fewer seed-dispersing animals, according to an MIT study.