Even in protected areas, birds are disappearing from America’s prairies, and unpredictable weather isn’t helping. That’s the takeaway from a new analysis of 16 years of bird survey data at 40 tallgrass prairie sites in western Minnesota. The sites were all protected areas — a mix of state parks, wildlife management areas, and private conservation easements. The results suggest that grassland birds are disappearing even from supposed strongholds.

Researchers at Princeton engineering have created a semiconductor with unique properties: it is just a few molecules thick and can repeatedly change its properties in response to light. This is a step toward building more energy-efficient sensors, optoelectronic devices and computing technologies.

The Land Institute and HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology have assembled the first chromosome-scale, haplotype-phased genomes for Silphium integrifolium (rosinweed, silflower) and Silphium perfoliatum (cup plant, silphie). The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. This landmark research promises to expand and accelerate the development of more climate-resilient, sustainable perennial crops for food, fiber, forage, and medicines.