Chicago researchers, teachers, and curriculum leaders partnered to test if robots need fictional personalities to boost students’ social-emotional learning. Their results show that honest, factual robots can effectively supplement classroom instruction—challenging conventions and illuminating a new, ethical path for educational technology. The study was honored with the Best Paper Award at the prestigious 2026 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction.

Soil is often perceived simply as "dirt," but in reality, it is a dynamic, living system that acts as the Earth's natural sponge. Unfortunately, common agricultural practices—including deep plowing and the use of heavy machinery—can severely disrupt this natural system, according to a new study led by Dr. SHI Qibin from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with international partners.

Scientists have developed the first autoluminescent plants that visibly light up when their immune systems are activated, providing a powerful non-invasive tool for studying how plants respond to pests, pathogens and environmental stress. The work, led by teams at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences and a biotech startup Planta, is published in Nature Communications.

Wave-Former is a new system that can complete the shape of a hidden 3D object or reconstruct the scene of an entire interior room using reflected wireless signals.

Riparian buffers - the forest and vegetated areas next to rivers and streams - serve multiple functions in nature.  These buffers naturally filter agricultural runoff from adjacent croplands that would otherwise pollute streams and rivers, help with water temperature regulation, and provide essential habitat for wildlife.  In a new study published in Nature Communications, a team of researchers from Princeton University and the University of Tennessee conducted the first comprehensive and global evaluation of how effective these riparian buffers are for protecting biodiversity.