Spotting a concussion can be tricky. After a potential head injury, you can ask if the person feels dizzy or has a headache — but that relies on self-reporting, which isn’t always accurate.

What if there were a way to take the guesswork out of it?

That’s the problem Trent Guess, an associate professor at the University of Missouri College of Health Sciences, and Jacob Thomas, a Mizzou doctoral student, have set out to solve.

Water is one of the most familiar substances on Earth, yet its behavior under extreme confinement remains poorly understood. In a recent study, researchers from Japan revealed how water confined within nanopores can transition into a unique ‘premelting’ state, behaving partly like ice and partly like liquid water. Using static solid-state deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, the researchers identified hierarchical molecular structure and uncovered dynamic properties with potential applications in energy storage and materials science.

Diamonds from South Africa’s Voorspoed mine have revealed the first natural evidence of nickel-rich metallic alloys forming deep in Earth’s mantle, between 280–470 km. A new study reveals that these inclusions coexist with nickel-rich carbonates, capturing a rare snapshot of a “redox-freezing” reaction whereby oxidized melts infiltrate reduced mantle rock. The growing diamond trapped both reactants and products of a diamond-forming reaction. This finding not only confirms long-standing predictions about mantle redox conditions but also highlights how such processes may fuel diamond formation of volatile-rich magmas that erupt from hundreds of kilometers and bring the diamond to the surface.