In the 1970s, when public interest in the oceans and what lives in them was picking up speed, Dr Mary Elizabeth Livingston graduated with degrees in Zoology and Oceanography before taking up a PhD position in New Zealand to study flatfish. Opportunities for careers in marine science expanded, but for women, gaining access remained difficult. Livingston, however, persisted and now looks back on a career spanning more than four decades. She is the author of a new Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability article in which she chronicles the highs and lows of her career, changes in the field, and what has remained the same.

Forest soil stores water, carbon and nutrients for trees and also provides a habitat for living organisms. When managing forests, it is particularly important to work in a way that protects the soil and to correctly assess soil moisture for that purpose. A new study by the University of Göttingen in collaboration with the Czech Mendel University shows that previous methods of moisture measurement are inadequate. Satellite data can help to better understand the soil moisture dynamics of forest soils. This research has implications for best practice in forest management. The findings will help people adapt to a changing climate and to refine and inform prediction models. The results were published in the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies.

While scientists have long studied currents of large eddies, the smaller ones — called submesoscale eddies — are notoriously difficult to detect. These currents, which range from several kilometers to 100 kilometers wide, have been the “missing pieces” of the ocean’s puzzle — until now. Using data from the new Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite, a Texas A&M researcher and his collaborators at JPL, CNES and Caltech finally got a clear view of these hard-to-see currents, and they are a lot stronger than anyone thought.