Dried fruit is a tasty snack or sweet addition to recipes, but the water removal process often requires heat and energy. In a step toward more sustainable food preservation, researchers reporting in ACS Food Science & Technology have developed a method to dry food at room temperature by adjusting air pressure conditions and using food-safe calcium chloride. In a proof-of-concept, the system successfully dried mango and apple slices to commercial levels.

Rice researchers have demonstrated a form of quantum interference two order of magnitude greater than any previously reported.

Organic matter helps soil lock in moisture, but exact mechanism was previously unclear. Scientists studied the process by mixing minerals with three types of sugar. Carbohydrates strengthened binding energy of water by five times. Findings could lead to drought-resistant soils or explain how water might persist on other planets.

Rice University computer scientist Luay Nakhleh, who also serves as the dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, has received a $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build a powerful new software infrastructure that could significantly expand how scientists study evolution. The project, titled PhyNetPy, aims to bring the next generation of evolutionary modeling tools into the hands of researchers around the world by enabling the widespread use of phylogenetic networks — complex, nontreelike models of evolutionary history.

Scientists from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have reimagined the pollination process by developing a new system that uses gene editing to create flowers that can be easily pollinated by AI-controlled robots working round the clock.