Longing to make it down to that elusive 7th continent? Now anyone can travel remotely while advancing science. With a grant from the National Science Foundation, NAU researchers are inviting citizen scientists to take part in a photography project that’ll help them identify the ways in which Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys region has changed over time.  

A new case study from researchers at the University of Tokyo demonstrates the potential of agrivoltaic systems—combining solar power generation with crop cultivation—to support both energy and food production on the same land. Installed over a rice paddy in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, the dual-axis sun-tracking photovoltaic system produced nearly 44,000 kWh of electricity annually while maintaining up to 85 percent of typical rice yields. The system met Japan’s standards for rice quality and achieved a competitive electricity cost of 27 yen/kWh over a projected 20-year lifespan. The results suggest agrivoltaics could play a key role in Japan’s renewable energy expansion without sacrificing agricultural productivity.

Digitized Pollen Database for Paleontology Research, Allergy Medicine and More

Researchers from South Dakota State University presented a high-tech system to help farmers optimize crop yields while lowering costs at the 2025 annual meeting of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. The system tracks and analyzes crop development through data collected by sensors, biosensors, the Internet of Things and AI.

A team led by Prof. GAO Caixia from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed two new genome editing technologies, known collectively as Programmable Chromosome Engineering (PCE) systems to achieves multiple types of precise DNA manipulations ranging from kilobase to megabase scale in higher organisms, especially plants.

The Europlanet Science Congress 2025 will be held jointly with the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Science (EPSC-DPS2025) from 7–12 September 2025 at Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, Finland. EPSC-DPS2025 covers the full spectrum of planetary research and technology across 74 scientific sessions, with topics including the latest results on Solar System, exoplanetary and interstellar bodies, current and upcoming missions, ground-based observations, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in planetary science, planetary defence, and the emergence of life in our Solar System and beyond. Around 1900 oral and poster presentations have been submitted and almost 2000 planetary scientists from Europe and around the world are expected to attend the conference.