Sulfur-doped NiFe layered double hydroxides (S-NiFe-LDH) were synthesized via an in-situ hydrothermal approach. The resulting catalyst delivered outstanding urea oxidation reaction (UOR) activity, stemming from an optimized electronic structure and the evolution of active sites from Fe³⁺/Ni²⁺ to high-valence Ni³⁺. Sulfur incorporation markedly lowers the thermodynamic barrier, synergistically boosting reaction kinetics and enabling energy-efficient hydrogen generation. Sulfur-doped NiFe layered double hydroxides (S-NiFe-LDH) were synthesized via an in-situ hydrothermal approach. The resulting catalyst delivered outstanding urea oxidation reaction (UOR) activity, stemming from an optimized electronic structure and the evolution of active sites from Fe³⁺/Ni²⁺ to high-valence Ni³⁺. Sulfur incorporation markedly lowers the thermodynamic barrier, synergistically boosting reaction kinetics and enabling energy-efficient hydrogen generation.

A global meta-analysis shows that carbon farming, through legume cover crops or vermicompost, enhances agroecosystem multifunctionality. Soil biota abundance was strongly linked to multifunctionality and showed more frequent win–win relationships with other functions than species richness. Across agroecosystems, abundance was primarily associated with local soil properties and climate factors. The study identified site-specific management strategies that align carbon inputs with local environmental conditions in global croplands to enhance multifunctionality.

Researchers at the College of Design and Engineering at the National University of Singapore have developed a safer, more affordable all-solid-state sodium-ion battery, a promising alternative for large-scale energy storage. Led by Associate Professor Palani Balaya, the team incorporated a simple, low-cost additive called graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) into a solid polymer electrolyte, a breakthrough published in Advanced Functional Materials. This GCN additive simultaneously solves two major problems: it enhances the movement of sodium ions for better performance and provides the mechanical strength to block dendrite growth, a common failure mechanism that causes short circuits. The resulting battery demonstrated remarkable stability over thousands of hours, retained 95% of its capacity after 500 cycles, and proved its safety in real-world tests, paving a scalable path toward the commercial deployment of sodium-ion batteries for grid storage and beyond.

Researchers developed DGMoE, a mixture-of-experts framework that better handles individual differences in EEG signals and improves emotion recognition across unseen users. Tested on three public datasets, it achieved state-of-the-art accuracies of 79.5%, 59.1%, and 57.9%, showing a more practical path toward robust affective brain-computer interfaces.

This study investigates how 6:2 chlorinated polyfluorinated ether sulfonic acid (6:2 Cl-PFESA)—a widely used alternative to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—exacerbates antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) proliferation during anaerobic digestion. The research demonstrates that PFESA exposure significantly increases both intracellular and extracellular ARGs, particularly tetracycline and sulfonamide resistance genes, through multiple mechanisms including enhanced mobile genetic element proliferation, extracellular polymeric substance restructuring that immobilizes DNA, oxidative stress-induced membrane damage, and selective enrichment of resistant microbial taxa. These findings reveal that emerging PFAS alternatives pose overlooked ecological and health risks by amplifying antimicrobial resistance spread in wastewater treatment systems, highlighting the need to incorporate resistance indicators into environmental risk assessment frameworks for persistent contaminants.

The article reframes dams as basin governance platforms through three interconnected pathways: engineering safety as the baseline, addressing sedimentation and structural risks; system operations as the core, shifting from single-purpose management to multiobjective coordination across safety, ecology, and public benefits; and digital-intelligent governance as the frontier, institutionalizing transparent and anticipatory decision-making. Drawing on China's experience with approximately 95,000 reservoirs, the authors demonstrate how this platform model can enhance resilience, ecological integrity, and public accountability. The framework offers transferable principles for global hydraulic infrastructure governance, contingent upon enabling institutional, financial, and data conditions.

A novel EMS-induced barley male-sterile mutant (N13401) was identified and characterized, and it shows defective pollen starch accumulation. The male sterility gene msg_N13401 was fine-mapped to a 576.9 kb region on chromosome 2H using a wild-cultivated barley cross to overcome the low polymorphism of cultivated barley.

Researchers from Tohoku University have developed a new kind of filter that overcomes a long-standing challenge,  creating a special material that makes separating CO2 from other gases both fast and highly accurate.