Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Leipzig) have shown how natural ocean cycles and rainfall patterns prevent a synchronised, planet‑wide drought and global-scale agricultural collapse. Based on over 100 years of climate data, the study finds that though warming increases drought severity, synchronised droughts are rarer than expected, affecting only 1.8–6.5% of land at any time. By treating droughts as a connected global system, the research team has identified key “drought hubs” and early‑warning regions that can help stabilise food markets.

Orbitronics devices use an electron’s orbital angular momentum to store and process more information, much more efficiently. Typically, generating orbital currents requires magnetic metals that are heavy and expensive. For the first time ever, researchers prove that atomic vibrations can transfer orbital angular momentum directly to electrons in a non-magnetic material, quartz. The method will work on other chiral materials, such as tellurium, selenium and hybrid organic/inorganic perovskites, and is the most streamlined system yet for orbitronics research.

A lot has changed on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus since its founding in 1867, but a storied plot of land near the south quad has been preserved nearly intact for a century and a half. The Morrow Plots, famed in song and story, represent the oldest continuously running agricultural experiment in North America, and are the second oldest in the world. And this year, they turn 150.  

LEDs no wider than a human hair could soon take on work traditionally handled by lasers, from moving data inside server racks to powering next-generation displays. New research co-authored by UC Santa Barbara doctoral student Roark Chao points to a practical path forward.

New research from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) investigates harnessing the power of ferroptosis to spread cell death; reports how an MSK artificial intelligence (AI) model could help improve patient safety; and uses AI to reveal country-specific drivers of global cancer outcomes.