NEWS RELEASES

A project led by University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture researchers will help reduce the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer by designing corn plants that better use nitrogen already in the soil.

Scott Lenaghan, associate professor of food science, and Neal Stewart, professor of plant sciences, secured $2.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Their project, “SyN-Fix: Synthetic Biology to Improve Nitrogen Cycling in the Maize Rhizosphere,” is one of nine awarded to develop technologies that reduce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use in corn and sorghum farming, which are key crops for U.S. ethanol production.

Wetlands are the world's largest natural source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In a new study from The University of Texas at Austin, researchers have newly identified 160 million small wetlands across the globe and found that they have a substantial collective impact, accounting for 24% of the world’s total non-forested wetland emissions of methane.

In a study published in Science, researchers used silver nanoparticles to assemble a theorized, but never-before observed crystal metallic structure.

PPPL’s Quantum Diamond Laboratory is using plasma to grow lab-made diamonds that are studded with atomic-scale defects, which serve as the building blocks of ultrasensitive quantum sensors.

Supported by a $1 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy, Worcester PoIytechnic Institute (WPI) researchers are developing a new lithium-ion battery upcycling process designed to convert battery waste into higher-performance materials for next-generation electric vehicles. The project aims to simplify the recycling of mixed battery waste streams while lowering costs, reducing energy use, and helping recover critical materials needed for U.S. battery manufacturing.

Megalibrary platform rapidly discovers promising new materials. Platform marks a shift from trial-and-error materials discovery toward intentional design. Team used the system to identify a new piezoelectric material and then deliberately engineered it to operate at a target temperature. Megalibraries outperform emerging ‘self-driving labs’ in terms of speed and throughput to create and screen vast numbers of materials samples simultaneously.

For decades, physicists have approached spin glass like blind men to an elephant. In a seven-year-long study, researchers have now monitored the evolution of spin organization in a well-ordered antiferromagnetic crystal as chemical disorder is gradually introduced, raising the bar for studying exotic magnetism and offering an experimentally verified definition of spin glass, which previously represented a foundational disconnect between theoretical physics and materials science.