All eyes were on Quaise Energy at the 2026 Geothermal Rising Conference, the flagship conference for the geothermal industry, in late September. The news related to Quaise included: the announcement of up to $25 million funding from the US Department of Energy, a talk on the company’s progress to date on what it believes will be the world’s first commercial superhot geothermal power plant, and major awards to two employees.

BUFFALO, NY — October 8, 2026 — A new commentary was published in Volume 18 of Aging on September 12, 2026, titled “Complexity, variability, and the behavioral layer of gerophysics: a commentary on Unfried et al. (2026).”

Food presentation plays an important role in a diner’s perception. Researchers in Japan found that diners perceived a sturgeon-filet dish as significantly healthier when its sauces were placed separately rather than drizzled across the plate. After tasting, participants gave slightly higher ratings for overall liking and intention to eat more with the minimal presentation. Although these findings remain exploratory, they highlight how thoughtful plating choices could help restaurants communicate a healthier impression to diners.

β-amino alcohols are important building blocks in many pharmaceuticals and biological molecules, but selectively producing their anti form over their syn form remains challenging. Now, researchers from Japan have developed a nickel catalyst that leverages several types of molecular interactions simultaneously to control an addition reaction, enabling highly selective synthesis of anti-β-amino alcohols. This type of cooperative catalyst design could pave the way for new methods to control chemical reactions and develop complex catalytic systems.

Precipitation plays an important role in glaciers and ice sheet behaviour. To establish the relationship between atmospheric climate variation, precipitation patterns and glacier and ice sheet behaviour beyond the observable past, a new MARUM-led study created a precipitation record for southern Greenland. The authors found that positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) phases over at least the last circa 5,000 years consistently resulted in cooler but wetter conditions over southern Greenland. This in turn likely influenced local glacier advance or retreat, as well as the mass of the glaciers themselves. Their findings are now published in Nature Communications.

The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through an S-shaped kink known as a ‘switchback’ in the solar wind’s magnetic field. By fingerprinting the elusive particles within the switchback, Solar Orbiter has traced its origin back to the Sun’s surface and revealed more about solar magnetism – the unruly instigator of dangerous solar storms.

A study published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts examines whether hydrophilic deep eutectic solvents (DESs) can provide a technically and economically viable alternative to conventional pre-hydrolysis Kraft pulping for dissolving pulp production. Using Aspen Plus process simulation together with techno-economic analysis, life-cycle assessment, sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis, the researchers evaluated five process configurations at an industrially relevant scale. The results indicate comparable pulp yields, while revealing that DES recovery and energy consumption remain major barriers to competitiveness. A pre-hydrolysis-assisted configuration achieved the lowest modeled minimum selling price of 1,330 yuan per air-dry metric ton. The analysis also shows that economic and environmental performance do not necessarily favor the same process configuration.

A perspective published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts examines the emerging role of silk fibroin (SF)/polylactic acid (PLA) composite scaffolds in bone and related tissue regeneration. The review brings together evidence on material chemistry, scaffold architecture, interfacial bonding, degradation, mechanotransduction, osteogenesis, angiogenesis and immunomodulation. Rather than treating fabrication methods or biological responses separately, the authors discuss how these factors interact to determine scaffold performance. The review also assesses evidence across in vitro, animal and translational studies, concluding that substantial work remains before SF/PLA scaffolds can move toward human clinical applications.