Researchers found that wildfire smoke and rain, through relatively infrequent, can deliver disproportionally large amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to ecosystems. Analyzing satellite smoke observations and national network rainfall data from 250 sites across 16 climate regions in 2014, 2020 and 2022, the study found a striking increase in smoke-rain days in 2022 compared with 2014, with regional hotspots shifted from year to year. The findings show wildfire emissions can be an important source of material deposited into ecosystems, but not necessarily in a way that benefits growth or productivity.

Even in protected areas, birds are disappearing from America’s prairies, and unpredictable weather isn’t helping. That’s the takeaway from a new analysis of 16 years of bird survey data at 40 tallgrass prairie sites in western Minnesota. The sites were all protected areas — a mix of state parks, wildlife management areas, and private conservation easements. The results suggest that grassland birds are disappearing even from supposed strongholds.

Researchers at Princeton engineering have created a semiconductor with unique properties: it is just a few molecules thick and can repeatedly change its properties in response to light. This is a step toward building more energy-efficient sensors, optoelectronic devices and computing technologies.