At the University of Missouri, research moves with purpose. Across campus, faculty, staff and students are digging into the kinds of challenges that shape daily life — from public health and education to agriculture, technology and community well‑being. Their work advances what we know and creates practical solutions that help people in Missouri and beyond. Each new finding adds momentum to a long-standing tradition of curiosity, collaboration and service that defines our mission. In recognition of those contributions, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has named three Mizzou researchers 2025 AAAS Fellows.

Rivers do not just move water; they act as nature's hard drives, saving a permanent record of what happens on the surface. When toxic chemicals settle into the mud at the riverbed, they create a chronological diary of human activity. Recently, a detailed investigation published in Carbon Research has opened up one of these geological diaries in Mongolia’s Orkhon River Basin, revealing exactly how economic booms and traffic jams translate into chemical fallout.

The detective work was spearheaded by corresponding author Jing Chen from Beijing Normal University. Drawing on the analytical power of the State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control and the Center for Atmospheric Environmental Studies, Chen's team extracted sediment cores to trace the history of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)—a notoriously stubborn class of toxic pollutants created by burning fuel and organic matter.

A new strategy for the efficient conversion of hemicellulose to furfural through a microwave-coupled multi-stage tandem process was proposed by the research team led by Academician Jiang Jianchun from the Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products, Chinese Academy of Forestry.

Phosphorus is an absolute necessity for growing crops, yet a massive portion of it remains locked away in the dirt, completely inaccessible to plant roots. Keeping enough "labile"—or readily available—phosphorus in agricultural fields is a constant headache for the farming industry. Now, a fresh look at the soil microbiome reveals that the key to freeing up this trapped nutrient relies heavily on the type of carbon we add to the earth, whether that is treated animal waste or, surprisingly, synthetic plastic pollution.

Featured in the journal Carbon Research, this detailed ecological assessment maps the underground mechanisms that drive nutrient cycling. The research was jointly led by corresponding authors Huifang Xie and Bingyu Wang from the Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, housed within the School of Environmental and Biological Engineering at Nanjing University of Science and Technology.

The team wanted to understand how two very different types of human-introduced carbon affect the soil's ability to feed plants. They compared manure-derived hydrochar (HC)—a common, nutrient-rich soil amendment—against TPU microplastics (MPs), an increasingly ubiquitous environmental contaminant.

New research provides insights into the severe 2022 outbreak of Fusarium head blight in Ethiopia and identifies emerging fungal pathogens that could have broader implications for global wheat production.