Tiny ocean organisms living in oxygen-poor waters turn nutrients into nitrous oxide—a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide—via complex chemical pathways.

Penn’s Xin Sun and collaborators identified the how and why behind these chemical reactions, showing that microbial competition, not just chemistry, determines how much N₂O is produced.

Their findings pave the way for more reliable climate models, making global greenhouse gas estimates more effective, predictable, and easier to understand in response to natural and man-made climate change.

Researchers have developed a new class of nontoxic, biodegradable solid lubricants that can be used to facilitate seed dispersal using modern farming equipment, with the goal of replacing existing lubricants that pose human and environmental toxicity concerns.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a compact light source that generates dozens of high-power wavelengths, paving the way for a new generation of data center hardware and portable sensing technologies.

A new study from researchers at MBARI and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science—with an interdisciplinary team of collaborators from the Hakai Institute, Xiamen University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Southern Denmark, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada—has revealed the impacts of marine heatwaves on the foundation of the ocean food web. Pairing data from robotic floats deployed as part of the Global Ocean Biogeochemical Array with eDNA samples from ship-based plankton surveys, the team found that marine heatwaves can reshape ocean food webs, which in turn can slow the transport of carbon to the deep sea and hamper the ocean’s ability to buffer against climate change.

University of Utah engineers’ stripped-down version of glycoproteins in polar-region fish is simple enough to be manufactured at scale, but powerful enough to inhibit formation of ice crystals at sub-zero temperatures without toxicity of chemical antifreeze. Researchers successfully tested the synthesized polypeptide at temperatures relevant for storing frozen foods, as well as much colder temperatures used when transporting medicines.