The cultivation of rice—the staple grain for more than 3.5 billion people around the world—comes with extremely high environmental, climate and economic costs. But this may be about to change, thanks to new research led by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and China’s Jiangnan University. They have shown that nanoscale applications of the element selenium can decrease the amount of fertilizer necessary for rice cultivation while sustaining yields, boosting nutrition, enhancing the soil’s microbial diversity and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. What’s more, in a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they demonstrate for the first time that such nanoscale applications work in real-world conditions.

In a bold step toward climate action, leading microbiology societies and organizations have unveiled their first joint global strategy to harness the power of microbial science in addressing the climate crisis. This landmark strategy has been published across 6 scientific journals, including FEMS Microbiology Ecology, mBio, Microbiology Australia, Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research, Sustainable Microbiology and The ISME Journal.

As climate change accelerates, the world is experiencing more frequent extreme weather events and rising temperatures. This is driving up the demand for cooling to make cities liveable, especially in fast-growing megacities with populations exceeding 10 million.

While cooling is essential, it also creates a challenge, as conventional cooling systems consume vast amounts of energy and contribute to carbon emissions, creating a vicious cycle that worsens global warming. To break this cycle, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Aalborg University and Aarhus University in Denmark have embarked on a new five-year research initiative, supported by US$9.4 million (DKK 60 million or S$12 million) in funding from the Grundfos Foundation. This is the foundation’s largest individual research grant to date and the first to include a university outside Denmark.

Titled Sustainable Water-based cooling in Megacities (SWiM), the three universities will develop intelligent and sustainable cooling systems that can reduce energy consumption in large cities by up to 30 per cent, lowering both costs and carbon emissions.

A new study, led by federal agencies in collaboration with the University of Colorado Denver, shows that the whitebark pine tree—an iconic, high-elevation tree that stretches from California’s Sierra Nevada through the Cascades and Rockies and into Canada—could lose as much as 80 percent of its habitat to climate change in the next 25 years.   The loss could have a cascade of effects, impacting wildlife and people. 

Andean glaciers advanced during an acute period of climate change at the end of the last Ice Age, new research has found.