Palaeontologists have used an Ice Age fossil found 120 years ago in an underground cave to reveal extinct giant echidnas roamed south-eastern Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch, filling a major knowledge gap in the continent's prehistoric fauna.

Yanhua Xie is helping address global fresh water challenges by creating groundbreaking models and datasets of agricultural irrigation, as part of an international team simulating Earth’s water system.

Few studies have investigated coastal marine plankton and aggregate abundance and diversity with high frequency over a long time period. Here, a group of researchers deployed a cabled marine Oshima Coastal Environmental data Acquisition Network System (OCEANS) observatory in 20 m of water off the coast of Oshima Island in Japan to establish plankton diversity and plankton and aggregate abundance as a function of ocean turbulence during two 4-month periods spanning 2014 to 2016.

A recent study published in National Science Review has revealed that atmospheric oxidation capacity at northern midlatitude regions is approaching a turning point, challenging prior assessments of hydroxyl radical (OH) increases or stability. Over the past 50–60 years, OH levels have remained near peak values. Future sustained reductions in nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions will lead to a decline in surface OH concentrations across the northern midlatitude regions, implying an increase in the atmospheric lifetime of pollutants and methane. This poses new challenges for regional air pollution control and climate change mitigation.