With the increasingly urgent demand for non-toxic, high-specific-impulse propellants in space propulsion systems, ammonium dinitramide (ADN)-based liquid propellants have attracted extensive attention as a new-generation green alternative to hydrazine-based fuels. However, existing ADN-based thrusters all adopt the catalytic ignition technology route, which suffers from inherent drawbacks: the catalyst cannot withstand temperatures exceeding 1500 K, long preheating times are required prior to startup (in the Prisma mission, in-flight preheating lasted 600–720 s with a single-event energy consumption of 25 kJ), and insufficient preheating may lead to "hard start" or even explosion—these issues severely constrain the rapid response capability and operational safety of the thrusters. Although active ignition methods such as resistive ignition and laser ignition have been validated at the single-droplet level, how to achieve catalyst-free electric ignition at the thruster system level and systematically evaluate its combustion characteristics remains a critical engineering problem urgently to be addressed in the field of green space propulsion.

Continuous glucose monitors generate an extraordinary amount of information about how the body regulates glucose throughout the day. As CGM becomes an increasingly important data stream in metabolic research, scientists face a growing challenge: how to turn that immense volume of information into meaningful and comparable insights.

Researchers at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center are part of a team helping to address that challenge through the development of GVC-Calc, a new platform designed to make large-scale analysis of continuous glucose monitoring, or CGM, data more transparent, reproducible and accessible.

A study of Scots pine plantations across Mediterranean Spain, temperate Romania and Northeast China found that climate constraints on growth vary by region. Soil moisture was the main limitation in dry Spanish sites, while temperature played a larger role in Romania and Northeast China. Spanish plantations showed sharper drought-related growth declines but stronger average recovery, although many did not recover within four years. The findings support region-specific forest management and improved models incorporating long-term drought, regional climate dynamics and local adaptation.

Eighteen early-career scientists have been named Finalists for the 2026 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, competing for three unrestricted $250,000 Laureate prizes

Since 2007, the Awards have invested more than $20 million in over 500 scientists worldwide

The investment has led to the founding of more than 50 companies, five of which are publicly traded and collectively valued at over $40 billion

A new study in Forest Ecosystems tracked a 300-year temperate forest succession and found that particulate organic carbon (POC) declined at all depths, while mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) increased by 55% in surface soils but declined deeper down. These patterns were linked to shifts in microbial life-history strategies: surface MAOC accumulation associated with extracellular processing, while deeper carbon dynamics tied to microbial growth and declining necromass under resource scarcity. The findings suggest that forest age alone cannot predict carbon storage, soil depth and microbial mechanisms matter.

A study in Forest Ecosystems shows that aquaculture wastewater may weaken carbon stabilization and alter nitrogen regulation in mangrove soils. In China’s Maowei Sea, heavily affected soils contained much less dissolved organic carbon and substantially less organic carbon associated with crystalline iron minerals. Nutrient enrichment appeared to stimulate microbial carbon consumption and more reducing soil conditions, weakening iron-organic carbon coupling. At the same time, nitrogen cycling shifted toward greater ammonium retention and recycling rather than permanent removal. These changes could reduce the capacity of mangrove soils to preserve carbon over the long term and remove excess nitrogen, highlighting the importance of managing aquaculture discharge and monitoring carbon–iron-microbial interactions.