A microscopic enzyme could be the key to helping nitrogen fertilizers stick better to the soil and prevent run-off that causes harmful algal blooms, according to a new review article published by a Michigan State University research team.

During embryonic development, thousands of cells divide and move as one. Understanding the mechanisms that coordinate this collective behavior remains a significant challenge in biology and the physics of living systems. Researchers from UC San Diego have discovered that avian embryos control their size and shape using modular, independent physical mechanisms. This work may help develop strategies for engineering synthetic biomaterials.

Conventional string theory’s predictions are incompatible both with the observation of dark energy, which appears to be causing our universe’s expansion to speed up, and with viable theories of quantum gravity, instead predicting a vast ‘swampland’ of impossible universes. Now, a new analysis by FQxI physicist Eduardo Guendelman, of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel, shows that an exotic subset of string models–in which the tension of strings is generated dynamically–could provide an escape route out of the string theory swampland. The analysis was reported in The European Physical Journal C, in March.

This year marks the opening of the United Nations Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences, an international initiative focused on the rapid changes occurring in glaciers, snow cover, ice sheets, sea ice, and permafrost and their impacts on the planet. MBARI’s advanced technology will play a critical role in this effort, providing important data about the Arctic seafloor and the Southern Ocean. MBARI research is answering fundamental questions about polar environments and other components of the cryosphere. This information can help resource managers and policymakers make decisions about the future of this important ecosystem.

Inspired by a simple children's toy, a jumping popper toy, researchers have unlocked a key to designing more agile and predictable soft robots. Soft robots, made from flexible materials, hold immense promise for delicate tasks, but their complex movements have been difficult to predict and control, especially dynamic actions like jumping. Now, a team from Keio University and The University of Osaka has published a study in Advanced Robotics Research detailing the physics behind the jump of thin hemispherical shells, a fundamental building block for jumping soft robots.

Coral reefs are creeping away from the tropics in response to warming oceans, but the pace is too slow to beat the heat and escape impacts of climate change, according to a breakthrough study published June 6 in Science Advances. The study, authored by researchers at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) Marine Ecological Theory Lab, also offers a hopeful alternative: immediate actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can significantly improve the future outlook for coral reefs globally.