Researchers have unveiled a surprising new way that soil microbes can use sunlight energy — even after the lights go out. A team from Kunming University of Science and Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst has developed a “bio-photovoltage soil-microbe battery” that can capture, store, and release solar energy to power the breakdown of antibiotic pollutants in the dark.

A team of scientists has found that biochar made from an aggressive invasive plant can protect rice from two modern pollutants that threaten global food security: nanoplastics and cadmium. The study, published in Biochar, reveals how biochar biofilters derived from Mikania micrantha, an invasive vine spreading across Asia, can reduce the combined toxicity of these contaminants by regulating plant metabolism and strengthening rice’s natural defense systems.

The U.S. has traditionally been an agricultural powerhouse with a healthy trade surplus. But global dynamics are changing due to a confluence of political and economic factors. U.S. agricultural imports now exceed exports, and the trade deficit is projected to worsen in the coming years. In a new study, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Texas Tech University discuss recent developments affecting the U.S. trade in row crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton.

Fueled by a $2.7 million award from the National Institutes of Health, an interdisciplinary research team is developing non-invasive imaging technology that will help clinicians overcome current challenges of obtaining high-resolution images from deep inside tissue.

Renowned data scientist Paul Boutros, PhD, MBA, has been named the new director of the National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. He is the first computational biologist to oversee an NCI-designated cancer center, a network of 73 basic, clinical and comprehensive centers created as part of the National Cancer Act of 1971.

In lieu of animal experiments, researchers from the University of Rochester are using state-of-the-art microchips with human tissue to better understand how the brain operates under healthy conditions and is damaged through neurodegenerative diseases or conditions like sepsis.