Far above the weather we feel at the surface, enormous waves are constantly shaping the atmosphere. These waves, known as Rossby waves, help steer the jet stream and guide the pathways of cold surges, storms, heavy rainfall, and other high-impact weather events. When Rossby waves grow large enough, they can overturn and “break,” much like ocean waves. Scientists from Florida State University examined Rossby wave breaking in two major global models and find Rossby wave breaking errors are not random technical details, but systematic forecast drifts that vary by region and breaking type.

Paddy soils are a major opportunity for climate change mitigation, but not all organic amendments help soil store carbon in the same way. A new study published in Biochar shows that rice straw and straw-derived biochar take very different routes once they enter the soil, largely because they favor different microbial “life strategies.”

Plastic mulch films are widely used in agriculture to conserve water, regulate soil temperature, and improve crop production. Yet after repeated exposure to sunlight, weathering, and mechanical stress, these films can fragment into polyethylene microplastics, which persist in soils and surrounding waters for decades or even centuries.

A research team has developed a rapid microwave-assisted route to turn Ningdong coal into nitrogen/oxygen co-doped ultramicroporous activated carbon for efficient carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture.

A research team has shown that temperature can be used as a control switch in the catalytic pyrolysis of waste plastic mulch film, determining both the value of the resulting oil products and the durability of the catalyst.

A nanosensor measured nitric oxide from patient-derived stem cells. Autism patients produced ~6nM, intellectual disability patients ~11nM, and healthy individuals ~65nM, despite sharing the same genetic mutation. This differential production suggests nitric oxide levels can distinguish autism from other neurodevelopmental disorders with overlapping causes, offering a potential biomarker for more precise diagnosis.

Three-dimensional computer vision is becoming more prevalent in everyday lives as advances in technology and its accessibility to the general population increase. This type of tech is seen in autonomous driving vehicles, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and robotics, to name a few. However, historically, these types of technologies have been limited by their methods employed: LiDAR (light detection and ranging, a remote sensing tech used to measure distances) is limited by its cost and low-resolution to be as useful as it once was in the burgeoning field that is 3D computer vision. Researchers are looking towards something else: vision-based methods using depth foundation models.