The University of Rhode Island’s Camilo Villouta has been awarded a USDA grant to study hydroponic spinach cultivation in controlled-environment agriculture. Indoor vertical farms have become prominent due to their ability to maximize space usage and maintain precise control over environmental variables. This is Villouta’s first time receiving an award from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and his first award of this size.

Several contaminants, including traces of ink, originating in the preparation of subsamples, have been identified in Martian meteorites by the EHU’s research group. The finding highlights the importance of stricter protocols to prevent misinterpretations of the composition of these rocks and to ensure the reliability of future studies and Mars sample-return missions.

Curious how 6G will power unmanned operations in remote spots like mining sites or disaster zones? A new Engineering study designs 6G space-air-ground integrated networks around the SC³ loop, a reflex arc-like structure, ditching traditional link-focused 5G designs. It tests a task-oriented framework that cuts control costs and tackles key 6G network challenges for autonomous systems.

A research paper by scientists from Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a hybrid frequency–phase–space encoding method, integrated with high-density electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, to develop high-speed BCI systems.

The new research paper, published on Mar. 26 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, developed a groundbreaking visual brain-computer interface (BCI) that sets a new benchmark for noninvasive BCI communication speed.

6G’s space-ground integrated networks need reliable simulation tools for LEO satellite mega-constellations. A new study in Engineering unveils UltraStar, a high-fidelity simulator that models dynamic satellite topologies, real communication conditions and boosts efficiency via parallel computing. It’s validated across network layers and paves the way for 6G space-ground network development.

Researchers at Northumbria University have been awarded £4m to unlock the secrets of Earth's radiation belts and why they behave so unpredictably – information which is crucial for protecting satellites and forecasting space weather. 

Kavli IPMU's Shigeki Matsumoto and Jie Sheng have shown torsion-balance experiments — precision instruments originally built to test the equivalence principle — could double as detectors for very light dark matter.

New theoretical models, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, connect, for the first time, the magnetism at the surface of long-dead stellar remnants (white dwarfs) with recent evidence of magnetism at the cores of their dying progenitors (red giants). The team, led by astrophysicists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), argues that these magnetic fields might originate early in the stars’ lives, and survive their entire evolution, emerging as ‘fossil fields’ at the surfaces of older remnants.  A better understanding of these processes can also help to better understand our own Sun’s future.

A mysterious layer of particles that occupies the lower regions of Venus’s atmosphere has long puzzled astronomers. However, a research team has finally solved the mystery of the “lower haze,” discovering that the haze comes from cosmic dust left by shooting stars that constantly rain down on Venus.