A new study led by Iowa State University ecologists found the base rate of organic carbon decomposition in soil across the U.S. can vary by as much as tenfold, in part due to geochemical and microbial factors often underrepresented in current Earth system models.  

By sampling and analyzing sewage in and around Burlington, NC, researchers traced "forever chemicals" to a local textile manufacturing plant, whose emissions had remained hidden for years because the facility was releasing solid nanoparticle PFAS “precursors” that degrade into the chemicals that current tests are designed to detect. The findings provide both a warning and playbook for others worried about the worldwide spread of these forever chemicals.

AIP and the National Society of Black Physicists give the Joseph A. Johnson Award to early-career scientists who demonstrate scientific ingenuity and passion for mentorship and service, and this year they congratulate Stacyann Nelson as the winner of the 2025 Award and Christian Aganze as an Honorable Mention. They are honoring Nelson for the study of gluon dynamics in gold nuclei and for instilling confidence in her students to aspire to become leaders in physics research and Aganze for his dark matter research and community outreach.

The riddle of rising extreme heat days in Europe: Remote “triggers” and local “amplifiers”

MIT astronomers used the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer to identify key features in the innermost region of a white dwarf system called an intermediate polar. This extremely energetic environment has been inaccessible to most telescopes until now.