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Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 30-Oct-2026 22:16 ET (31-Oct-2026 02:16 GMT/UTC)

Biochar and smarter water table management could help cut greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Peatlands store vast amounts of carbon, but when they are drained for agriculture, they can become major sources of greenhouse gases. Restoring water levels can slow carbon dioxide emissions, yet overly wet peat can produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. This creates a difficult climate dilemma: how can peatlands be managed to protect soil carbon without triggering high methane release?

Journal: Biochar

Graphitized biochar turns paddy soil into a cleaner, more reactive environment

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Paddy soils are living chemical reactors. Under flooded and drained conditions, microbes, minerals, oxygen, and organic matter constantly exchange electrons, shaping how pollutants move, transform, or disappear. A new study published in Biochar reports that a specially engineered form of biochar can redirect these electron flows, helping paddy soils generate more hydroxyl radicals, one of nature’s most powerful oxidants, and break down the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole more efficiently.

Journal: Biochar

Biochar-coated catalyst turns wet microalgae into cleaner fuel-building chemicals

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Microalgae have long been viewed as a promising source of renewable fuel. They grow quickly, capture carbon dioxide efficiently, and do not compete with food crops for farmland. Yet turning algae into usable liquid fuels remains difficult because algae-derived bio-oil often contains high levels of oxygen and nitrogen compounds, which can lower fuel quality, reduce stability, and create pollution concerns during combustion.

Journal: Biochar

Illinois study: How cracks in dry soil impact moisture evaporation

College of ACES at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Soils that are exposed to prolonged drought often develop desiccation cracks, which impact soil properties and exacerbate moisture loss through evapotranspiration. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign examines the evolution of soil cracking and how cracks interact with storage and movement of water in the soil. The findings can help improve hydrological models essential for water management.

Journal: Soil and Tillage Research

SwRI-led Lucy mission reveals wobbling peanut asteroid

Southwest Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

SAN ANTONIO — June 18, 2026 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists studying the inner main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson have found that its rotation wobbles. Rather than rolling through space in a steady pattern, Donaldjohanson turns on two axes, rotating end-over-end once every 10.5 Earth days while wobbling around its horizontal axis then once every 26.5 days.

Journal: Science

Scientific computing must adapt in an AI world

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Reports and Proceedings

While the scientific computing community has long been a driver of computing innovation, that is no longer possible. Today, the community must embrace the new realities of an AI-dominated technology world, say Jack Dongarra and colleagues in this Policy Forum. It should integrate AI with simulation and – because energy has become a primary design constraint – it should focus on energy-efficient methods and systems. To make swift progress, the authors propose an initial “minimum viable” suite of workflow-shaped benchmarks. As part of these workflows, data and models are “intellectual gold,” say the authors; they “are investments in future scientific leverage.” Dongarra et al. propose a “moonshot” to build a new foundation that would benefit both scientific computing and AI.

Journal: Science

New membrane technology could transform hydrocarbon processing by slashing energy use

Queen Mary University of London
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers develop ultrathin polymer membranes that enable fast, selective separation of crude oil components, offering a scalable, low‑energy alternative to distillation.

Journal: Science

The suburban street design that’s been driving emissions since WWII

Yale University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A century-old planning paradigm still embedded in the physical fabric of suburbs nationwide is driving a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Journal: Nature Sustainability

UCLA-led research finds synchronized electron movement can trigger electrical signals more than 100-fold

University of California - Los Angeles
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team led by researchers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has shown that a small electric signal could trigger a response more than 100 times larger than what is typically observed in conventional electronic materials, potentially opening a path toward smaller, more energy-efficient devices. Published in Nature Electronics, their study revealed a new way to control electricity using a quantum-like collective state of matter known as a charge-density-wave, in which electrons move together in a synchronized pattern rather than independently.

Journal: Nature Electronics
Funder: Office of Naval Research