The Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts has released the most comprehensive bibliometric analysis to date of hydrothermal pretreatment—an eco-friendly technique that uses only hot compressed water or steam to fracture the stubborn lignocellulose wall and release fermentable sugars, biogas precursors and carbon-rich hydrochar. Mining 22 years of global data, the study places China at the helm (36.5 % of output), identifies “enzymatic hydrolysis”, “bioethanol” and “hydrothermal carbonization” as the dominant knowledge clusters, and forecasts the next wave of innovation will marry microwave chemistry, anaerobic microbiomes and graphitic biochar for truly circular biorefineries.

Rice researchers and collaborators have developed a way to generate and control radio wave patterns that can identify a signal’s direction about ten times better than existing approaches, paving the way for next-generation wireless systems.

An international study involving INRAE and coordinated by China Agriculture University has shown that the practice of crop rotation outperforms continuous monoculture in terms of yield, nutritional quality and farm revenues. The results, based on more than 3600 field observations from 738 experimental trials across six continents, have now been published in Nature Communications.

In a new paper in Nature Communications, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Asst. Prof. Tian Zhong raised the quantum coherence times of individual erbium atoms from 0.1 milliseconds to longer than 10 milliseconds. This would theoretically allow quantum computers to connect through fiber cable at up to 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles), smashing the previous limit of a few kilometers and bringing a quantum internet closer than ever before. The team achieved this breakthrough by building rare-earth doped crystals atom by atom using a technique called molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) rather than the traditional Czochralski method.

Will it be possible in future to prepare proofs developed in cutting-edge mathematical research with a reasonable amount of human effort so that they can be verified by computers in real time? Prof. Dr. Christoph Thiele and Prof. Dr. Floris van Doorn from the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM), a Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn, want to help make this possible. The two researchers submitted a joint application for a coveted Synergy Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Following the award of the grant, the European Union will now provide total funding of 6.4 million euros to the “Harmonic Analysis with Lean Formalization” (HALF) project over the next six years. Lean is a relatively new programming language that is increasingly establishing itself as the standard for mathematical formalization.