Turbulence can be found everywhere, from stirring in a teacup to currents in the planetary atmosphere. Predicting such flows is difficult, especially when only incomplete information is available. Now, researchers from Japan and the UK have shown that, in two-dimensional turbulent flows, observing only large-scale motion is sufficient to reconstruct the full flow. Their findings contribute to a deeper understanding of fluid dynamics, with implications for data-driven weather forecasting.

A University of Utah geoscientist, teamed with paleomagnetists from Japan and France, extracted sediment cores off Newfoundland that revealed a geomagnetic pole reversal that dragged on for 70,000 years—far longer than previously known.

An MIT study suggests some early life forms may have evolved the ability to use oxygen hundreds of millions of years before the Great Oxidation Event, when oxygen became a permanent fixture in the atmosphere. The findings may represent some of the earliest evidence of aerobic respiration on Earth. 

Antigorite is the dominant serpentine mineral in serpentinite, a key target mineral for investigating the physical properties of tectonic plate boundaries in subduction zone regions. Now, researchers have found that antigorite deforms by a mechanism known as grain boundary sliding. Their study captures the characteristics of localized deformation occurring in earthquake source regions by examining microscopic deformation structures in natural rocks, thereby providing insights into “silent slip” processes progressing at depth.