The fight for survival in the forest is fierce: light, water and nutrients are all limited. This is particularly true in “mast years” – times when trees and shrubs produce an unusually large crop of fruits, nuts, or seeds. Then the race for growth is really on. But can differences in height between trees in their first year of life make a difference to their future, even if these differences are just one or two centimetres? Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now shown that beech seedlings which are slightly taller than their immediate neighbours at the end of their first year of life have a higher chance of survival two decades later. The results were published in the Journal of Ecology.

Waterlogged paddy fields are widely distributed in rainy and low-lying areas of southern China, accounting for 15%–20% of the local rice planting area. The strongly reducing environment formed by long-term flooding not only reduces rice yields by 30%–50% compared with normal paddy fields, but also makes waterlogged soils a core source of agricultural methane emissions, creating a real contradiction with the green and low-carbon development of agriculture and the advancement of carbon neutrality strategies. Oxygen deficiency and the accumulation of ferrous ions and organic acids in waterlogged soils both poison crop roots and immobilize key nutrients such as phosphorus and potassium, becoming a prominent problem constraining the coordinated development of food security and farmland ecology.

Living bacteria can bond sand and other loose grains together into a solid material by forming calcium carbonate, the mineral that makes up limestone

The process is seen as a promising, less energy-intensive alternative to cement. Previously, it has primarily been used to stabilise soils, moulded tiles, and in research. 

An ETH Zurich researcher has now shown that bacteria and digital manufacturing can also be used to build free-form architectural elements.

Mark Windham, University of Tennessee professor emeritus, was awarded the Gold Honor Medal by the American Rose Society, the highest honor the society can bestow.

A University of Tennessee professor of soil science is among the nine newest Fellows of the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA). Jie Zhuang, a professor in the Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science within the UT Institute of Agriculture, will formally receive the honor November 3, during CANVAS 2026, an international meeting of multiple scientific communities involved in crop, agronomic, environmental and soil science research. 

Colorado State University researchers have developed an air quality monitoring device that can be paired with systems that track wildlife location and physiological data to learn how smoke impacts wildlife health and behavior.