EurekAlert! News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics - News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics

Chemistry & Physics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 28-Oct-2025 14:11 ET (28-Oct-2025 18:11 GMT/UTC)

Persistent “forever chemicals” threaten agriculture and food safety, new study warns

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals,” are silently infiltrating farms and food supplies, posing growing risks to human and environmental health, according to a new perspective article published in New Contaminants.

Switching it up: the secret survival strategy to life as revealed by mathematics

Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have applied stochastic optimal control theory to biological systems, studying how these systems behave. By using concepts and tools from information theory, they successfully converted the nonlinear optimization problem into a reasonably solvable form. The optimal control strategies for problems such as biodiversity and epidemics are found to exhibit “mode-switching” phenomena, where sharply transitioning from weak to strong control provides the most effective solution.

Journal: PRX Life

New biochar strategy tackles toxic cadmium in rice paddies while locking away carbon

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Rice paddies feed billions of people worldwide but face two major challenges: heavy metal contamination and greenhouse gas emissions. Now, researchers have developed a new type of biochar that can address both problems at once—immobilizing toxic cadmium in soil while helping trap carbon, a critical step in slowing climate change.

Journal: Biochar

Pulp mill waste becomes green solution to remove toxic dyes

University of Arkansas
Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Arkansas researchers found a new, environmentally friendly method to clean wastewater of toxic and carcinogenic dyes commonly used in the garment industry.

Journal: Journal of Polymers and the Environment

New adaptive optics to support gravitational-wave discoveries

University of California - Riverside
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Gravitational-wave detection technology is poised to make a big leap forward thanks to an instrumentation advance led by physicist Jonathan Richardson of the University of California, Riverside. A paper detailing the invention, published in the journal Optica, reports the successful development and testing of FROSTI, a full-scale prototype for controlling laser wavefronts at extreme power levels inside the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.

Journal: Optica
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Electrically tunable metasurface unlocks real-time THz holography

SPIE--International Society for Optics and Photonics
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The terahertz (THz) band offers exciting opportunities for telecommunications, encryption, and imaging, but practical devices remain limited by slow or inefficient metasurfaces. In a recent study, researchers from China developed a novel electrically tunable metasurface that integrates vanadium dioxide in a ladder-like design. Their design enables rapid, low-power modulation of THz waves, demonstrated through real-time holography and secure optical encryption with strong durability and stability.

Journal: Advanced Photonics

Innovative hydrogel for soilless farming, tackling drought and pollution

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia - IIT
Peer-Reviewed Publication

It is a fully biodegradable and eco-friendly system for hydroponic agriculture, made of hydrogel and capable of supporting plant growth with minimal water; in the future, it will be able to monitor plant health in real time. This innovation is the result of joint research between the Faculty of Engineering at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (UniBz) and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Insititute of Technology) in Genoa. The invention offers a zero-waste, low-environmental-impact solution for agriculture, a sector increasingly threatened by climate change, drought, pollution, biodiversity loss, and soil degradation.

Journal: ACS Agricultural Science & Technology

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