The humble breadcrumb could hold the key to cutting out fossil fuels from one of the chemical industry’s most widely used reactions, according to a new study.

Scientists have found a one-pot microbial formula that uses waste bread to replace fossil fuel-derived hydrogen in hydrogenation – a chemical reaction used extensively to manufacture foods, pharmaceuticals, plastics and other everyday products.

How can we ensure smarter building solutions in the face of a rapidly changing climate? As Europe accelerates its transition toward a climate-neutral building stock, the need for accessible, reliable and up-to-date climate data has never been greater. The Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) has launched ClimateDataForBuildings, a new open platform providing energy and climate modelling data for more than 3,600 European locations.

Scientists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, in collaboration with teams from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Central Florida, Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses, National University of Singapore, CNR-IFN, as well as research centers in the Czech Republic (University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague) and Japan (National Institute for Materials Science), have observed a new microscopic mechanism enabling precise control of the magneto-optical properties of excitons in alloys of two-dimensional semiconductors. This discovery opens up tangible prospects for technological applications in devices exploiting valleytronics. The research findings were published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters.

How much will heat, flooding, drought and storms increase as a result of human-induced climate change? In a groundbreaking study, climate researcher Gottfried Kirchengast and his team at the University of Graz have developed a new method for computing the hazards from extreme events: it can compute all relevant hazard metrics for events such as heat waves, floods and droughts in any region worldwide with unprecedented information content. Using it for Europe, the researchers found that anthropogenic climate change has caused a tenfold increase in extreme heat in recent decades. The study, published in the journal Weather and Climate Extremes, also provides a basis for better quantifying the damage to people, ecosystems and infrastructure.

Gland, Switzerland, 23 February 2026 – The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and CGIAR celebrated the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation at a critical moment for global food and agricultural systems.

A new study by the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology’s (SMART) Mens, Manus & Machina (M3S) interdisciplinary research group, alongside collaborators from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and National University of Singapore (NUS), has identified a strong statistical association between global air connectivity and patterns of where multinational corporations (MNCs) invest and set up subsidiaries. This is the most comprehensive global study merging 7.5 million firm records with 30 years of international flight data across more than 800 cities in 142 countries.