A thin, soft and slippery layer of clay-rich mud embedded in rock below the seafloor intensified the 2011 Japan earthquake that produced a tsunami that claimed tens of thousands of lives and decimated coastal communities along with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 

 

The discovery was made by a global research team who, onboard the world’s most advanced drilling-equipped science vessel, Chikyu, sailed to the Japan Trench in late 2024 to investigate what caused the Tōhoku-oki fault to rupture and trigger the earthquake. 

The researchers drilled up to 7,906 metres below the sea surface, setting a Guinness World Record for the deepest scientific ocean drilling ever conducted. 

Babies and very young sauropods – the long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters that in adulthood were the largest animals to have ever walked on land – were a key food sustaining predators in the Late Jurassic, according to a new study led by a UCL (University College London) researcher.

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan recently examined how different kinds of pesticides and fertilizers affect mandarin oranges across Japan. Analysis showed that while reducing pesticides enhanced the diversity of microbes in the soil, it also led to an increase in fruit disease caused by leaf pathogens. The real-world data from commercial farms thus indicate a trade-off above ground with potential ecological benefits below ground. The study offers important insights for the advancement of sustainable agricultural technologies and future policy development.

A new study led by climatologists at the University at Albany has found that extreme heatwaves across the Caribbean are becoming significantly more frequent, longer and severe.

Wildfire causes most living things to flee or die, but some fungi thrive afterward, even feasting on charred remains. New University of California, Riverside research finds the secret to post-fire flourishing hidden in their genes.